buchanan-fics - Tumblr blog

buchanan-fics · 1 year

Text

Unlikely Pairing

Pairing: Eddie Munson x f!Popular!Reader (reader is a cheerleader)

Story Summary: You had always been intimidated by Eddie but when you got paired together for an assigment you noticed how he made you feel things your boyfriend never did.

Chapter Summary: Your deadline is tomorrow and Eddie hasn’t done his part yet. You gather up the courage to ask him over to your house to work on it.

Word Count: 6.1k

Part: 1/? (probably 3)

Warnings: some light swearing, mentions of sex

A/N: Is this fandom still alive because I only recently watched season 4 haha, anyway this is my first time writing for Eddie, I hope I kind of managed to write him in character. I loved the idea of Eddie and Chrissy in episode 1, that’s why I chose this character trope for the reader. Part 1 starts slow but I hope you can struggle through it, I do think there are some cute moments in it. (If the way the assignment works doesn’t seem to make any sense, it’s probably because it doesn’t)

You slammed your locker close with a big sigh and turned to your friends in defeat. Your assignment for History class was due tomorrow and you were doomed.

“Help me,” you whined.

“Just go tell Ms. Miller!” Jesse, one of your friends, said for the 100th time. “Hey, if Munson doesn’t want to put in any effort, he doesn’t deserve a good grade. But that doesn’t mean you should fail too.”

You knew she was right and your other friend, Mags, clearly agreed too by how adamantly she was nodding her head at Jesse’s statement. But still, it felt wrong to snitch.

“There’s gotta be another way.”

About a month ago, you had gotten an assignment for History class to write and do a presentation about a famous event in history. It was an assignment in pairs and because the teachers were disappointed that not all Senior students knew each other, your History teacher Ms. Miller had decided to make the pairs herself. Of course, you had been paired with Eddie Munson, a complete deadweight when it came to schoolwork. You didn’t want to brag but you always had good grades, not because you were naturally intelligent but because you worked your ass off. Good grades meant you got to stay in the Cheerleading team, it meant a higher chance of getting into a good college and getting a scholarship for said college. You weren’t the only Senior student that didn’t know Eddie. Almost no one in your class really knew him, they avoided him and he avoided them, so really anyone could’ve ended up being paired with him, but it was you. It was you because you were a good student, and apparently that deserved punishment.

When you had first gotten the assignment, the teacher had let you work on it for a bit during her class. It was your first time ever speaking to him, and you were nervous the entire time. You knew he was… eccentric. He had long, curly hair, tattoos, he played guitar in a metal band, was the leader of a club called “Hellfire”, and he was a drug dealer. On top of that, he was very vocal about his dislike for sports and social constructs like popularity, and he loved to challenge other groups. And you just happened to be a popular cheerleader so you were probably pretty high on his shit list. So in short, he scared you. But it wasn’t just that. He made you nervous because he fascinated you, you admired his uniqueness and his bravery for not hiding it. So even though he had never once said anything mean to you - or anything at all really - you were scared you’d get called out by him now that you two were forced to interact. You would’ve rather stayed invisible to him.

He had spent the entire class with his arms crossed over his chest, his body slacked down on his chair and his foot tapping the ground rhythmically while looking bored out of his mind. You tried to bounce ideas off of him but he barely reacted or made eye contact. He was genuinely disinterested in this assignment, or working with you, or probably both. You called his name a few times and asked him for his opinion, but he just gave an unenthusiastic response of approval and when the bell rang, he was gone before you could even ask about dividing tasks. You hadn’t talked to each other since that day and you had worked on the assignment all by yourself, but it was a lot of work and you didn’t want him taking credit for something he had not contributed to. How was he even supposed to help with the presentation tomorrow if he didn’t know any of the things you had written about?

“There really is no other way, Y/N,” Mags said with an apologetic look on her face. “You either rat him out - as he deserves by the by - or you finish it all on your own tonight and let him take half the credit despite doing nothing.”

Tonight… You only had tonight left and though you were stressed beyond reason, something in you managed to turn that statement around: You still had tonight. There was still time.

There were two options, just like Mags had told you, but actually, there were three. And the most logical one of those had not been listed yet: you could just talk to him about it.

You had thought about it before but because just thinking about approaching him made your heart race like never before, you hadn’t dared to act on it. Today was different, you were already so stressed out about the assignment, you couldn’t feel any more nervous talking to him, so today was the day. You were gonna be brave because your assignment was on the line and honestly, failing your presentation was ten times more scary than facing Eddie.

It was noon. You knew he was in the cafeteria and you knew exactly where his table was. You could just walk over and make him do his part tonight. Well, you weren’t sure you could be that strict. Who knows, maybe he’d laugh in your face if you tried and you’d be made a fool out of in front of the whole school.

You had to shake your head to make that thought go away. You wanted to believe he wasn’t like that, that he wasn’t cruel. You had seen him recruit lonely kids into his group, but then again, they were outsiders. You were a stereotypical popular girl, with a stereotypical boyfriend who was part of the school’s basketball team that Eddie hated. Eddie had no reason to be kind to you… But you really wanted to believe he would be.

So you pushed away your doubts and fear, took a deep breath and pushed yourself away from your locker. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“What?” Mags called out surprised.

“You’re gonna talk to the freak? You’ve lost your mind,” Jesse added.

You shook your head at them. “He’s not a freak because-”

“-because our interests don’t align, yeah we know, you say it all the goddamn time! He’s a shit partner to you, Y/N, allow us to insult him.”

You rolled your eyes but you weren’t annoyed, actually you thought it was cute how much they were sticking up for you.

“I’ll be back soon,” you reassured them with a chuckle and tightly grabbed the straps of your backpack as you made your way over to the cafeteria. Your heart was racing in your chest but you tried to ignore it. Everything would be fine. You were a strong and confident woman, you could do this! Filled with determination, you opened the door to the cafeteria and - Oh great, he was standing on top of his table, taunting the basketball team.

For a while you stood frozen. What were you supposed to do? You couldn’t just wait around, you could feel the surge of confidence you had faked slipping away already. No, you weren’t gonna let that happen. If you backed out now, you’d be working all night getting this assignment done. So you walked over to his table, your steps big and powerful. Anyone who looked at you could tell: you were a woman on a mission.

You reached his table and more specifically the head of the table where he usually sat, but he was still standing on top of it, on the opposite side where the basketball team stood in front of him and scowled.

“Eddie!” You called out, ignoring the weird looks both the other students at Eddie’s table as well as the basketball team were throwing you.

Eddie turned around to you, a grin spread across his face when he saw it was you calling out to him and he came your way, jumping down right in front of you.

“Y/L/N, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

You weren’t surprised - though still disappointed - that he clearly did not remember tomorrow’s deadline, otherwise he would’ve known why you were there. Without saying anything you opened your backpack and looked for the part of the assignment you had already done, all the while shooting a reassuring glance at your boyfriend who looked at you strangely from the other side of the table.

Once you got the papers, you pushed them against Eddie’s chest, unsure whether the nerves in your stomach jumped because you were nervous or if it was something else. When the boy just gave you a confused look in return, you finally opened your mouth: “Clearly you’ve already forgotten, but we are partners for a little project you haven’t done shit for yet.”

“Oh right, yeah that thing,” he said totally uninterested but then he cocked his head at you and a sly smirk made its way on his face. “And here I thought you were just longing to be in my lovely company.” He took a hold of the papers so you could finally pull your hand away from his body.

“Whether your company is lovely or not will depend on how hard you work on this thing tonight. Come over at 6.”

You turned to walk away, but Eddie grabbed your arm. Instantly, your heartbeat picked up in pace and you felt your body grow hot. What the hell was happening? “Hold on, I can’t tonight and besides why would I come over to your place to do my part?”

You turned back to him causing him to let you go, and you crossed your arms over your chest, trying to look confident and unwavering.

“Because I don’t trust you to do it if I’m not there to keep an eye on things.”

“Well that just broke my heart,” he said all seriously but there was something about his tone that convinced you he was just messing around, so you decided to ignore it.

“Tonight, 6PM, my house.”

“Yeah, no, I still can’t tonight.”

“Why not?” You asked annoyed. You needed him available tonight, there was no more time left.

“Tonight’s the end of our campaign,” he shrugged.

“Campaign?”

“DnD.”

“You’re joking.” He wasn’t and you already knew that, but no other words came to mind. You were simply baffled.

“Look, it’s no big deal, we’ll just work on the damn thing tomorrow.”

“No, we won’t. It’s due tomorrow! Both the assignment and the presentation, which, by the way, we don’t have yet. So, tonight!”

He looked at you in contemplation, clearly trying to find a way to still play his game tonight while also not pissing you off. You already knew such a combination wasn’t possible so you pulled your eyebrows up at him in defiance. You were proud of yourself for standing your ground and having the guts to talk to him in a rather dominant way. It helped that your arguing didn’t feel hostile and that he was relatively nice to you which set you at ease.

Eddie shook his head and ran his hands through his hair while turning to his friends at the table and then back at you with a pleading stare. You just gave him a more stern look in return and in response he walked closer to you again and held his hands out in front of him as if he was just about to explain something amazing.

“Okay, so how long is this gonna take? Like 2 hours, 3 hours tops, right? So, we’ll finish the campaign first-”

“2 hours for the written part of the assignment, sure, that seems fair. But we still have to make our presentation.”

“Yeah, so 3 hours tops, as I said.”

“You think making a good presentation will only take 1 hour? Think 4 minimum!”

“4 hours?!” Eddie exclaimed. “That’s insanity.”

Maybe to most people, but you were terrified of doing presentations, so everything had to be perfect, everything had to be rehearsed about 50 times! You refused to make a fool out of yourself in front of your classmates because you were underprepared.

“Just postpone the damn game!”

The entire table started to protest loudly. “Postpone?!” “That’s insane!” “You can’t just postpo-”

“Guys,” Eddie quickly said, which instantly made them shut up. Then he directed himself to you again. “Listen, we’ll start the campaign at 3 PM stat, then we’ll be done around… 8 and-”

“8?!” One of the younger ones, the one with the curly hair, called out. “You think we can finish this in 5 hours?! That’s never happened before! Maybe by 10PM, but like midnight might be more accurate-”

Unbelievable. You kept your eyes on Eddie, he was still facing you but his gaze was focused ahead and slightly up. You knew he was annoyed by his tongue that was pressing against the inside of his cheek.

“So that was your grand plan, Eddie?” You asked, annoyed yourself. “To just not show up and tell me the game took longer than expected and you lost track of time. Was that it? Genius!”

At that last sarcastic statement he made eye contact with you again. Soon, he smiled at you, a fake smile with his lips pressed tightly together, he was so clearly irritated. You thought it was adorable somehow but you were also getting a bit scared that you were crossing a line. He clearly didn’t want to postpone the game and you were pushing. Still, you couldn’t give in. Your grades were on the line and they were more important than the opinion of a boy you never talk to.

So you inhaled sharply and took a step forward. Your arms which were still crossed over your chest were now so close to him that they almost touched his body.

“Let me make this very clear for you,” you said lowly, almost threateningly. You really hoped you didn’t sound too smug or hostile. “If we fail this assignment, we fail Ms. Miller’s class. Neither of us can afford that, you arguably even less than I do if you finally want to graduate. So, you will show up, no later than 6 PM, at my house, and we’ll take as long as we need to make something decent for tomorrow’s deadline. And if you think I’ll work all night to make something good anyway if you don’t show up, you’re wrong. I’ll be too busy hunting you down. I know where you live, Munson.”

You walked out of the cafeteria feeling good about yourself. Well actually, you were worried you had been too harsh or that he wasn’t going to care and play his damn game anyway, but you were proud of yourself. He really wasn’t as scary as you thought he was. More goofy and very dramatic, but also incredibly handso-

“Y/N, wait up!”

You turned around surprised at the voice that was suddenly so close behind you. You had been dreaming away about Eddie’s beautiful hair and his adorable, big doe eyes, you hadn’t even noticed your own boyfriend calling after you. You felt yourself grow ashamed. You were thinking about some other guy while you were in a relationship. You shook your head and told yourself it was nothing. It was just because you had been brave in front of a guy who scared you. You were allowed to think about that… right?

“Oh, sorry Oli, I didn’t hear you.”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised, seemed like you were blocking out all the haters with that power walk in and out of the cafeteria,” he chuckled and hugged you quickly before giving you a kiss. “Why were you talking to that Munson freak, though?”

You sighed. “He’s not a freak-”

“Oh my god, no, don’t start. Normally, I try to indulge you in your weird ‘protect the freaks’-campaign, but he was literally standing on top of the table shouting insults at everyone before you entered. That guy’s a menace.”

You couldn’t help but smile at hearing about Eddie’s antics. Him spitting in the face of social conformity was something you admired so much about him. You wanted to be like that too. To not care what other people thought, to just be yourself, but you couldn’t and that’s why it was also the thing about Eddie that intimidated you so much.

“Are you smiling at that? Seriously? He insulted us!” Oli whined and it made you giggle.

“I just think you basketball lot can be a bit too smug. Someone needs to take you down a peg.”

“Oh, is that what you think?” Oli asked with raised eyebrows and an amused smile on his face.

“Yeah, that's what I think,” you smiled back, challenging him.

Oli gently pushed you against a nearby locker and got closer to you. “Are you sure? You can still take it back, you know.”

“No, I think I’m goo-”

He interrupted you by kissing you. You giggled into the kiss but ended it short thereafter. Though your boyfriend was handsome and sweet (to you), you didn’t particularly like kissing him. You knew it wasn’t his fault, it was yours, and you had therefore never told him, but you just didn’t feel anything when he kissed you.

The two of you had started your relationship last year, when you were both 17 years old. It wasn’t his first relationship but it was yours, so when he dropped you off home after seeing a movie and leaned in to give you your first kiss, you were excited. Your friends had always talked about the butterflies in their stomach, the explosions like fireworks going off. But when Oli kissed you, there was nothing. Nothing but his lips on yours, flesh on flesh and it was actually… kind of gross. The addition of tongue was the absolute worst so you always tried to cut your make-out sessions short as soon as possible. It was more difficult when he was trying to build up to sex, but you always managed to quickly push him into directing his kisses elsewhere on your body. Strangely enough, sex was much more enjoyable. When Oli touched your body in safe places, like your waist or your arms, you felt nothing - therefore the instant spark you felt when Eddie had innocently touched your arm a few moments before confused you immensely - but when he moved his hands and lips to more intimate areas your body responded for you. So you came to the conclusion that you just didn’t like kisses and that you weren’t easily aroused. But now you were questioning that conclusion, because of Eddie, because of the sparks and the heat you felt. He had just touched your arm, goddamnit, it couldn’t get more safe for work than that, so why was your body responding so weirdly to it?

“Uh, Y/N?” Oli snapping his fingers in front of your face got you out of your trance.

“What?” You asked confused.

Oli frowned at you. “Did you sleep well? You were spacing out.”

“Oh sorry, did you say something?”

“I asked why you were talking to him.”

“Who?”

“Jesus, are you growing a fever or something?” he asked half-concerned, half-jokingly as he placed a hand on your forehead. “Eddie the Freak Munson! That’s who!”

Even just hearing his name had your stomach in twists. What was happening? You shook your head trying to shake all confusing thoughts out of your head. You didn’t want to think about it, you couldn’t handle this right now.

“Uh, the assignment. The assignment for History class tomorrow. That’s uh, that’s why I talked to him.”

Oli sighed. “Oh come on, Y/N. Just rat him out.”

“No, I talked to him and he’s gonna do his part.”

“You know that the deadline is tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, I know, Oli, thanks for reminding me. He’s gonna work on it tonight.”

“And you believe him? Y/N, babe, please. I know you have a lot of patience and a kind heart, but he’s not gonna do shit and even if he does, it’ll stink.”

“No, it won’t because I’ll keep an eye on things. He’s coming over to work on it.” You pushed yourself away from the locker and started walking towards your next class.

“What?” Oli quickly caught up to you and grabbed your arm to stop you. And there it was… nothing. You gently pulled your arm out of his grasp, a wave of disappointment coming over you even though it had always been like this. “No, no, no. That is a terrible idea! That is a horrible, terrible idea!”

“It’s actually my best option.”

“No, your best option is to work hard tonight and do it all yourself and then tell Ms. Miller that Munson didn’t do shit. You’ll get the good grades you deserve, and he’ll fail the class just like he deserves.”

“I’m giving him one last chance. If he doesn’t show up tonight, I’ll do what you say. But I’m gonna assume he’ll be there.”

Oli looked like he wanted to protest but instead he nodded his head reluctantly. “What time?”

“What?”

“What time? I’ll come too.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Oh come on, Y/N! It’s bad enough that another guy is gonna be in your room but that freak?!”

“Stop!” you said, growing angry. “It’s for school! If you can’t even trust me on-”

“I trust you. Y/N, baby, I trust you, I do. It’s him I don’t trust. He’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” you scoffed.

You weren’t sure why you dismissed Oli’s statement so quickly, you had been scared to approach Eddie just minutes before, so surely you agreed with Oli to a certain degree.

“Y/N, don’t be naïve. He’s a drug dealer and he lives in a trailer. That screams trouble.”

You couldn’t argue with him there, so you decided to ignore it.

“If you come, you two will be at each other’s throats the whole evening. I’ll call you while he’s working on his individual part, okay?”

Oli bit his lip for a few seconds before he reluctantly nodded. “I’m not entirely happy with that but fine. Call me once he’s gone too so I can sleep peacefully.”

You saluted him and he shook his head at you in disbelief, but a smile was still spread on his face.

“What?”

“You’re a dork,” he chuckled and pulled you in to place a kiss on your sleep. As much as you didn’t care for physical contact with the guy, you liked those sweet, small gestures of affection. It was cute if nothing else. “Come on, I’ll walk you to class.”

~~~

It was 5:58 PM when you opened the front door for Eddie. He was wearing the same outfit he wore to school today: his white Hellfire t-shirt with black sleeves, a denim jacket on top and some black pants. You had changed into something a bit nicer and more comfortable. You were glad you had stopped yourself from unceremoniously throwing your closet upside down looking for the perfect outfit as if this was a date. You had a boyfriend for fuck sake! And this was a study session! Pure relief filled your body knowing how narrowly you had avoided such shame! Just imagine that you had opened the door in your sexiest outfit only to then do homework the entire evening. What would he have thought of you? You shook your head. It didn’t matter. You did not make a fool out of yourself, you were fine.

“I’m here, I came. I stuck to my promise, that I didn’t actually make,” Eddie greeted you with a fake smile and a voice that seemed to wander off more the longer his sentence continued.

That just made you feel so much more pathetic. While you were wasting time thinking what outfit he’d like more, he was contemplating whether he’d show up at all. You suppose you should consider yourself lucky, but still, that stung. At the same time, it woke you up. Tonight and tomorrow were probably the only times you two would still interact with each other. You just had to survive these two days and you could go back to your boyfriend and pretend everything was good. Wait, pretend?

You shook the thought away and opened the door up wider for him.

“And I’m so proud of you. Come on in.”

Eddie stepped inside your home, instantly taking in the place but not showing you through his facial expression or body language what he thought.

“Nice house,” he finally commented. “So, where’s the place to be tonight?”

“My room, upstairs. Can I take your jacket?”

Eddie turned to you, eyebrows raised in surprise before a grin appeared on his face. He looked you up and down for a second and you felt your face heat up in embarrassment.

“Look at you, so formal,” he teased. God, if only the floor could swallow you whole now. He lightly hit your upper arm then jumped up the first step of the stairs. “I’m good, let's go get this over with.”

Though you berated yourself for it, you couldn’t stop your heart from dropping down to your stomach in disappointment while he climbed the stairs. He really didn’t want to be here with you. He just simply didn’t like you, not even a little bit. Of course he didn’t, it all came back down to why he intimidated you so much: he detested and defied social conformity, while you went along with it like a good pup. To him you were just part of a system that was all wrong.

“Hey, are you coming? Because I don’t know which door I’m supposed to open.”

You pushed away any negative emotions and followed him up the stairs.

“It’s the one on your left,” you said and quickly slipped past him to open the door, gesturing for him to enter.

“Where are your parents?” he asked while he stepped inside your room and took in the decor. Once again you could not tell what he was thinking, but seeing as your room was pretty girly - even you cringed at it sometimes - you couldn’t imagine he was having any positive thoughts about it.

“They’re working late.”

Eddie nodded and finally directed his attention from your room to you. “So, what’s the plan?”

“The plan is for you to sit over there,” you said while you pointed at your desk, “and do your part. Once you’re finished we can start with the presentation.”

“Uhu.” Eddie raised his eyebrows at you and a small, playful smile played around his lips. “And you’re just gonna watch me like I’m in detention or something?”

You turned away from him to hide your own smile and sat down on your bed. “Exactly.”

“And what did I do to deserve this, Y/L/N?”

“It’s for being a shitty partner.”

“That’s fair,” he said and walked over to your desk. “But don’t worry and just let me handle it from here on out.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more worried hearing you say that.”

Eddie put a hand over his heart and gave you a shocked expression. “You don’t trust me, Y/N?”

“Trust is earned, so stop stalling.”

“Alright,” he said while raising his eyebrows at you as if to say ‘damn girl, didn’t know you were such a hardass’. Then he took off his jacket, hung it on your chair and sat down.

You sat back on your bed until you were comfortably surrounded by your pillows and picked up the book from your nightstand. But you couldn’t concentrate, your gaze kept wandering off to the boy sitting at your desk.

A pen was gripped between his fingers, writing away on the papers. Though you couldn’t see them up close from where you were sitting, you still thought his hands were beautiful, and though you weren’t used to seeing rings on a guy’s fingers, you thought they looked great on him. Your eyes followed down his arms which you noticed you had never seen before. He was always wearing his jacket on top, now without it and his sleeve rolled up to just above his elbow, you finally saw what he had been hiding and you liked what you saw.

You could’ve slapped yourself over the head! Liked what you saw?? Those were just his arms! My god, you were going insane. It didn’t help that you were painfully aware of how intimate this situation was: you two were alone in your room and there was no one around the house. It was just you and him and the thought made your stomach twist in knots. This scenario only ever happened with Oli. You remembered all those nights you two were talking in bed, or cuddling, making out, or taking things even further. But a sneaky part of your brain was wondering how it would be like to do those things with the metalhead sitting at your desk instead. Would you feel it again? The electricity you felt at noon when he had touched your arm? What if his body was fully pressed against you? You could only imagine how overwhelming that would be, and yet you craved it. You wanted to get up, walk over to him and wrap your arms around his waist from behind. The thought alone caused a heatwave to go through your body and you were sure you were blushing. But you couldn’t stop fantasizing. You wanted to bury your face in his hair even if it ended up stinking of cigarettes and intertwine your fingers with his. It was all relatively innocent, but somehow your body was reacting like never before. Was this what it felt like to have feelings for someone?

“Y/N?!” a loud voice startled you awake from your daydream.

You looked up surprised at Eddie who looked like he had been calling your name a few times already. He pointed at the phone on your nightstand, the ringing slowly reaching your ears.

Before picking up, you brushed your hair out of your face trying to recompose yourself.

“Hello?”

“Y/N? Oh thank god, you’re okay,” Oli’s voice came through.

You froze and guilt crept up your heart. You snuck a quick glance at Eddie who was already facing away from you again and averted your gaze to the duvet on your bed. If there was one word to describe how you felt, it was all around ‘awful’. You were absolutely disgusted with yourself, dreaming away about some guy while you were in a relationship. Even though it was just in your head, you felt unfaithful to him and now you had to talk to him. You dreaded it. He would notice something was up and either he would think Eddie did something or that he had done something wrong, while in reality it was all you.

“Oh, hey Oli, what do you want?”

‘Yeah, real smooth, Y/N’, you thought sarcastically.

“What do I want? You serious? You promised to call, why didn’t you? I’m sick worried about you here.”

You bit your lip. Well, that didn’t make you feel better at all. So your boyfriend was at home, waiting by his phone for you to call him while you were actively deleting him from your relationship inside your head.

“We’ve just been busy,” you said while toying with your blanket. You sounded way too nervous, you had to calm down before he thought something was up.

Oli was quiet for a second. “Alright… Are you okay? Is he… behaving?”

“Yes, Oli, everything is fine. You don’t need to worry. We’re just gonna work on this assignment.”

“Hey, is something up? Because you sound like you want to hang up but you said we’d talk while he gets his part done. I assume he’s doing that?”

“Yeah, I know, it just… it feels rude to be on the phone with you while he’s here, you know.”

“Who cares?”

“I do! Look, everything’s fine here. I’ll call you when he’s gone home, okay? Don’t worry about me.”

Oli went silent again. “Right, sorry for wasting your time,” he finally grumbled.

“Oli,” you sighed but he just hung up. With another heavy sigh you put the phone down again and this time tried to not look at Eddie. You didn’t know whether he was facing you or not, but he had heard all of that and you were embarrassed arguing with your boyfriend in front of other people.

“Well, he sounds lovely,” Eddie remarked sarcastically.

You crossed your arms over your chest and sniffed, your head hung low as you tried to keep in the tears. You couldn’t answer him, so it was awkwardly silent for a moment.

Suddenly your mattress shifted and you looked up in surprise to see Eddie had joined you on your bed. He was facing you, sitting half cross-legged, with one foot still on the ground. “Are you okay?” he asked, all sarcasm or teasing absent from his voice now. He looked genuinely concerned and it warmed your heart as much as it broke it.

“I’m fine,” you said unconvincingly.

Eddie looked at you for a few more seconds before he directed his gaze to his surroundings. “You know… My room used to look just like this.”

You raised your eyebrows at him and he mimicked you. “Pink?”

“What? No. Clean. I meant clean. You know before I… moved in,” he chuckled and smiled at his own joke though he quickly tried to hide it. “But wait, are you saying pink wouldn’t fit me?”

It was your turn to chuckle at how genuinely shocked he sounded. “No.”

“Really??” Eddie stood up and moved to the middle of your bedroom, then spun around. “You’re saying I don’t blend in with the decor?”

“Eddie,” you said and gave him a look, like a parent silently telling their child that they had done enough goofing around.

“Okay, fine,” he said with raised hands and joined you back on your bed. This time he kept both his feet on the ground and laid back, resting on his elbows. “But seriously, how do you keep it so clean? There’s nothing on your floor, no empty beer bottles, no pizza trays, not even laundry!”

“Well, I had to clean to welcome Hawkin’s most famous rockstar here,” you smiled at him.

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he chuckled. “You know my band?”

“Yeah, seen you play once, you were good.”

Eddie looked at you in honest shock and rolled to his side, one of his elbows still pressing against the mattress and his hand supporting his head. “You, Y/N, one of Hawkins High's most popular and beloved students, came to watch my metal band perform?”

You chuckled. “No, it was that time you played for the talent show in school.”

How did you even remember that? How long had you been secretly crushing on this man?

“Oh… yeah that makes more sense actually. Too bad, for a second I thought I had found my biggest fan.”

“I liked it though, when you played for school,” you reassured him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Eddie tried to hide a smile again and you wished he’d stop doing that. “You should come watch me sometime, we play every week.”

“Maybe I will.”

For a while you two just looked at each other in silence. You felt an excited kind of tension creep in between you two. You knew you had to cut through it, you couldn’t do anything with him while you were with Oli and you also didn’t know how much he’d even want it. And yet you let it build, so you were lucky when Eddie broke it by inhaling deeply and sitting up. “Just so you know, I wouldn’t have cleaned if you had come to my house, which you somehow know the location of?” He looked at you with a teasing smirk. “Do I have a stalker?”

“Eddie-”

“Are you stalking me, Y/N?”

“No!” You said clearly but couldn’t help chuckle at how widely he was smiling at you.

“Alright,” he said slowly. “But if I hear a noise outside of my bedroom late at night, I’m calling the police on you.”

“Stop it!” You laughed and leaned forward to slap his arm.

“I’m done by the way,” he smiled and nudged his head towards the desk. “In case you want to berate my hard work.”

“I would never,” you said offended, but then got out of bed anyway. “But I am just gonna check it out to be sure.”

“Wow, the trust you have in me is touching!”

“Trust is earned, Eddie! Let’s see if you have.”

The short answer to that question was no.

#stranger things #eddie munson #eddie x reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you #eddie x y/n #eddie x you #eddie munson fanfic #eddie fanfic

2 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 1 year

Note

Hopefully its not me.. I sometimes unlike the fics Ive read and like them again so its easier to reach on my liked posts thingy but I dont do it daily and on the same stuff again and again! But just in case its me, Im sorry 🥺💗

I completely understand doing that and I have nothing against it, but this person does it multiple times a day, almost every day, so it becomes a bit annoying. But don’t worry, you don’t seem to fit that description ;)

0 notes

buchanan-fics · 1 year

Note

Something has been wrong with Tumblr for a while maybe Tumblr is sending you the notifications again and again? Like.. the notifications that you've gotten before? It happened to me tbh

Hmm yeah that could be it! Thank you!

0 notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Text

Someone has been liking, disliking and reliking (not sure if these are words tbh) one of my post, almost daily for months now.

Is this normal? Because I am getting so annoyed with getting the notification every day (sometimes more than once a day) and I’m not sure if that’s justified or not. I don’t want to message them yet in case I am the one being unreasonable here.

So if someone could let me know that’d be great!

1 note · View note

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Note

I really love your Encounters series! I'm always searching for stories where Bucky AND the Winter Soldier "love"/"like" the reader so your series is a blessing!

Thank you!! ❤️

I love those kind of stories as well! If you have any recommendations, please share them with me haha

#nice message

7 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Note

Heyy! I love your writing so much, especially Encounters. I know you're probably very busy but I was wondering if you are going to continue it. I hope you do I'm so invested to know what happens! No pressure but I would be so excited to read qnything else you add to that story!

Hey! Thank you so much for your feedback! It means a lot to me that you like my writing.

I know it’s taking me way too long to update Encounters. I also wish I would’ve been able to upload a new part right now. To be completely honest, the biggest problem is that I myself am unsure which direction to take the story. I only had a prompt in mind when I started writing 😅

I haven’t worked on the story in while. I had exams until two weeks ago and right now I’m doing volunteering work in Africa. I’ll reread the entire story when I get home and then hopefully I’ll have the inspiration to keep writing! Unfortunately that’s all I can say for sure right now, but I definitely haven’t given up on the story yet!

12 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Text

Thank you!! That’s so kind of you 🥹

The Shield

Summary: Bucky disappeared the night the new Captain America got announced. Five days later he comes back to you to soothe some old uncertainties that have reappeared.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Warning(s): Horrible summary, fluffy angst, sad!Bucky, wrote this during a writer’s block so…

A/N: “If he was wrong about you then he was wrong about me,” is literally the only good thing (”good” as in: we learn something about how Bucky thinks) that came out of those therapy sessions in FATWS, and I just had to write something with it…

It was a quiet Tuesday evening, around 9 PM. The sun had gone down a few hours ago, the lights from the streetlamps outside barely lit up your apartment, but you hadn’t yet bothered to turn on your own lights because you were cozily tugged under a blanket on your couch with a calming, hot cup of tea and your laptop on your lap. You had the brightness turned all the way down so it didn’t blind you as you were catching up on some of your work. Because the last few days had been pure chaos, you had fallen behind with some projects, and were now working late to try and minimize the damage.

The doorbell rang. You instinctively looked down at the right corner of your laptop screen to check the time and frowned. It was past 9:30 PM, why would anybody be at your door this late? The doorbell rang again. You slowly got out from underneath your blanket and shivered immediately when the cold air hit your body. You turned on the light in your living room/kitchen and shuffled to the front door on your socks. Your apartment was a pretty decent place, but the one thing it did miss was a peephole. You had no idea who was at your door, and your friends would usually ask first if they could come over. Only Bucky would come unannounced, but you didn’t want to hope. You opened the door just a little bit, ready to slam it close if it was a stranger, but instead your request got fulfilled as your eyes landed on your boyfriend: the reason for your lack of concentration these past days.

Keep reading

438 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Text

Thank you so much!! I wholeheartedly agree with your opinion on the therapist and the therapy sessions in the series!

The Shield

Summary: Bucky disappeared the night the new Captain America got announced. Five days later he comes back to you to soothe some old uncertainties that have reappeared.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Warning(s): Horrible summary, fluffy angst, sad!Bucky, wrote this during a writer’s block so…

Keep reading

438 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Text

The Shield

Summary: Bucky disappeared the night the new Captain America got announced. Five days later he comes back to you to soothe some old uncertainties that have reappeared.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Warning(s): Horrible summary, fluffy angst, sad!Bucky, wrote this during a writer’s block so...

“Bucky?” you asked stunned and opened the door up wide.

A few days ago - five days to be exact - he had suddenly disappeared. It was only at the end of that first day that you had found out the news that there was a new Captain America. You never turned on the TV so you had missed the broadcast. To be fair, the only reason you even had a TV was because Bucky had one and he brought it with him from his apartment one day because he spent most of his time at your place anyway.

You had immediately called him after hearing the news but you had been connected to his voicemail. You sent him a few messages, called him a few times, all on the same evening. After that you had just left him alone. Sometimes he needed some space, sometimes he got into his own head too much and needed time to get back out of there. You always helped when he asked, but most of the time he wanted to handle it on his own, and you respected that. It took longer on his own, sure, but every time he succeeded a bit was progress and you were immensely proud of him. But still, five days was a long time, and for the last few days your level of concentration had dropped considerably.

Bucky looked at you, but avoided eye contact. He looked a bit timid, ashamed. His posture was stiff, he looked uncomfortable, and his hands were shoved deep inside his pockets. He was always like this after having disappeared. He had a key to your apartment, but he’d always ring the bell instead of using his key at moments like this. He was asking for permission to enter. He was asking whether you hadn’t given up on him during his absence. You never once got angry with him for it, never once complained, yet he always assumed you’d suddenly be tired of his behavior.

“You’re back,” you sighed in relief and moved in to hug him. The second you had your arms around his shoulders, he relaxed and leaned into you. A relieved sigh fell from his lips as he buried his face against your neck and pulled you flat against him by your waist. You scratched his neck lovingly and slowly worked up to his scalp while rubbing the thumb of your other hand gently over his right shoulder. You quickly felt him go completely limp in your arms.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, the sound muffled as it vibrated against your skin. Tingles went through your entire body as his face was pressed right against the sensitive area of your neck.

“It’s okay,” you reassured him with nothing but adoration and relief in your voice. “I knew you’d come back eventually.”

You stayed like that for a while longer, just taking in each other’s presence. You had missed him more than you had realized during the past days. Concern had been the main emotion coursing through your body, only now that you had him safely back in your arms did you realize how you had longed to hear his voice and how much you ached for his touch.

Bucky started to pull away when you heard a door creak open from somewhere upstairs. Right, you two were still standing in the hallway of your apartment building. The little warmth inside your apartment had in the meantime probably slipped out. Still, instead of letting him step back from your body, you took his face in your hands and looked him intensely in the eyes. He looked back. You had trouble recalling the last time his eyes looked this sad.

“Are you okay?” you asked, voice so low you might as well have whispered.

“The shield, Y/N,” he said, matching your volume. His voice cracked.

“Oh, honey, I know.” You leaned in and kissed him sweetly while your thumbs trailed along his jawline, carefully brushing over his stubble. You only let the kiss last for a few seconds, but you felt both of you trying to linger, trying to savor the moment, then you pulled back, grabbed his hand and led him inside.

Once the front door fell in its lock and you turned back to Bucky, you noticed his stance was uncomfortable again. He looked awkward standing in your kitchen, as if he didn’t belong there. You frowned ever so slightly and trailed a hand up his metal arm that was covered by the sleeve of his blue henley as you stepped around him to come face to face with him.

“Are you hungry?” you asked after which your hands subconsciously went to his dog tags and started fidgeting with it. “I don’t have a lot in the fridge at the moment but I could order takeout while you take a shower if you want me to.”

Bucky took a hold of your hands and removed them from his body while he shook his head. You looked up at him in surprise. It had been forever since he last rejected your touch and the suddenness of it hurt you more than you let show. It felt like he had ripped away your heart instead of your hands.

The news must’ve really hit him, you reminded yourself so it wouldn’t get to you, but you realized as he sighed heavily and looked down again in shame that that was not it.

“Bucky?” you asked softly after fruitlessly waiting for him to explain himself. Your voice betrayed how hurt you were.

Bucky looked up at you for a second, but immediately averted his gaze again upon seeing whatever expression was visible on your face. A frown appeared on his face. “I’m sorry, I…”

You saw him almost take a step towards you, before he changed his mind and shook his head. That made you believe whatever he was feeling was not because of you and that he did want to be closer to you but that something was holding him back. So, you tried to push aside the fear of being rejected again and held out your arms to him. “Come here.”

Bucky looked up again and saw your inviting posture. It took a few seconds of clear internal debate before he gave him and nuzzled his nose against your neck. You let out a relieved breath when his arms wrapped around your form and pulled you tightly against him.

“Bucky, baby, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t deserve you,” he muttered against your skin.

Your heart sank. God, you hated it when he got insecure like this. You thought he was the strongest, most resilient person to have ever lived, and to you he deserved the world and so much more, so you hated that he couldn’t see that himself.

“Where’s this coming from?” you asked as you started to gently drag your nails through his hair.

It was silent for a moment, then you heard him sigh. “It’s just… you’re a good person, and I…” he didn’t finish that sentence, and you could only guess what was going through his mind. He had a large arsenal of insults ready to throw at himself at all times, but which one was he focused on this time?

You moved your hands to cup his cheeks and lifted his head up so you could look at him. He didn’t resist, but his eyes feverishly tried to avoid yours.

“You what?”

He shook his head, but you couldn’t let this go now.

“Talk to me, please.”

Bucky must’ve heard the concern laced in your voice. He took a hold of your hands and he dragged them away from his face and down, but kept a firm grip on them. “You saw the news?”

You nodded slowly, unsure where he planned to go with this, but you gave him time to think and formulate his thoughts into coherent sentences.

“Steve trusted Sam with that shield, and Sam just gave it up, causing it to end up in Walker’s hands. Walker doesn’t deserve the shield, Y/N… so maybe Sam shouldn’t have been trusted with the shield, maybe Steve was wrong about him. And if he was wrong about him then he was wrong about me.” Though his voice was soft, it was strained with emotions he refused to let out.

Your heart broke. You hadn’t expected that, hadn’t expected his self-worth to be completely based off of someone else’s judgment, but it made sense. Steve had been the first to believe in Bucky, he had done everything to help him. Bucky had struggled with low self-esteem, with doubt ever since he had broken free from HYDRA’s grasp, but the one constant had always been Steve’s faith in him. You had never even thought this situation could have impacted that because the thought process from ‘the government gave Steve’s shield to someone new’ to ‘Steve doesn’t believe in me’, isn’t very logical, but even that made sense. He was constantly questioning himself, questioning the judgment other people lay upon him - including yours. Bringing himself down had become such a habit that he was subconsciously looking for signs to misinterpret. His own self-hatred sometimes just ignored all logic while he jumped to incorrect conclusions. It was always hard to find out if he didn’t straight up tell you because there was just so much loathing and questioning going on inside his head at all times. The thing is, most of the time he didn’t let you in, he didn’t confide in you. So it still pained you whenever he did and you realized just how much he despised himself.

“Whatever, forget it,” he said after the silence lasted a few seconds too long to still be comfortable. There he went again, ignoring his own feelings so he could act like everything was alright.

You didn’t want to ‘forget it’. He told you something personal, he trusted you enough to tell you something that clearly made him uncomfortable, so you didn’t want to brush it off. But you also didn’t know how to react to it. You could tell him how wrong he was but would it matter? Would he listen? Would he get anything out of it? Was it even fair to tell him that what he was feeling was wrong?

“Bucky-” you sighed, unsure what to say, but you squeezed his hands and tried again. “Explain that to me, please. Where’s the connection?”

“What do you-”, Bucky started in pure disbelief, but then he stopped and took a breath to calm himself down, though you could tell by the look in his eyes that he was still irritated. “In case you haven’t noticed, Y/N, Sam is a good person. Steve believed in him because he’s a really good person. But he also believed in me for some reason. And that was my only hope, you know. If Steve believed in someone as good as Sam, and he believed in me too, then maybe part of me-” he shrugged and licked his lips in annoyance, clearly even he had trouble keeping the logic going. “Maybe Steve saw that a part of me was…”

“Worth saving?”

“Yeah.”

“So was he right or wrong?” you asked, challenging him.

Bucky looked at you with a frown, clearly expecting you to tell him Steve was right. That’s what you always did, after all. You always told Bucky how positively you thought of him, but you had started to realize it was futile: he didn’t believe you anyway.

“I don’t know,” Bucky eventually answered, and you knew by how defeated he sounded that he was being honest with you.

“You wanna know what I think?”

Bucky pulled up his eyebrows. “I think I already know,” he said, confirming again that you had smothered him with positivity he didn’t care for. He didn’t listen when you said good things about him. Your words had probably just become background noise to him by now. You were gonna change that.

“I think you’re the one who decides - through your own actions - whether or not you are a good person. All I can say is that since we’ve met, you have done nothing but make amends for things you had no control over. So, I know you don’t believe me when I say you’re a good person, but I’ve seen you do nothing but your absolute best. And to me that matters most: the things you do now, the person you are now.”

For the first time, it seemed he was actually listening to you. Not just to humor you, because you could see he was taking in your words.

“It’s… It’s not that simple, Y/N,” he said however. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t disappointed. And you wanted to protest, fall back into your old pattern of telling him that it was actually really simple: he was a wonderful person and also a dumbass for not being able to see that. But luckily he leaned in and kissed you before you could make that mistake.

“Thank you, though. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Bucky placed a kiss on your forehead and then pulled you close against his chest.

“I love you,” you mumbled as you closed your eyes and nuzzled against him. His scent worked like magic as your muscles relaxed instantly when it reached your nose.

“I know,” Bucky sighed and kissed your hair. “I can’t wrap my head around it, but I know you do, and I love you too.”

You stayed like that for a while, satisfied to have him back with you where he belonged.

#Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes one shot #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky #bucky fanfic #bucky x reader #Bucky angst #bucky fluff #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x y/n

438 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Note

Are there going to be more parts of encounters or is the fan fics done??

The story is definitely not finished yet! But I have been struggling with an overload of school projects and I’m also having a writer’s block. So sorry it’s taking so long! I regularly come back to the story only to end up staring at it for an extended period of time…

14 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Note

Hey, can you please add me to the taglist of Encounter? I love that series and I have been trying to drop a comment but somehow it never goes across. Can you please add me?

Hey! I checked and you are on the tag list, at least I’m pretty sure it’s you, but you are probably sending me this because you’re not getting notifications, so now I’m confused.

Could you check the tag list for your username?

3 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Text

Thank you!! I’m so glad you like it!

Encounter 4

Series Summary: When Bucky starts to relapse into the Winter Soldier, he breaks up with you to keep you safe. But the Winter Soldier keeps coming back to you.

Chapter Summary: Bucky enters an empty HYDRA base in a desperate attempt to face his trauma, and the Winter Soldier confesses his newfound feelings for you.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader; Winter Soldier!Bucky Barnes x reader

F, A, S? Angst, fluff

Word Count: 8.8k

Warning(s): Angst; mistakes (I normally proofread like 3 times and I was only able to do so once so I’ll proofread it again later)

Weeks passed since that night you spent together, and the Soldier stayed dormant. Bucky was sharing a bed with you ever since and you weren’t sure whether it was exhilarating to have him back with you or just plain awkward. Sure, the first thing you two had done after he decided to stay was have sex, but then he had apologized and you two hadn’t talked about it yet, nor had you put a label on what you were now. You didn’t dare ask either because you had a hunch he’d reject you. He was acting distant. There were no hugs or kisses, no long conversations about nothing, only practical ones about the Soldier. The only affection he showed you were late-night cuddles in bed when he was sleeping and unaware of what he was doing.

Bucky was relieved you didn’t ask because he had no intention of taking you back. He loved you and he wanted you back, he just didn’t want it as long as you weren’t completely safe around him because he didn’t want to risk breaking things off again if the situation was to get worse. But that also meant that living with you and sleeping in the same bed was absolute torture to him. Every time he got close to you, he got overwhelmed with feelings that were all directed towards you and were all so intense that he had a hard time ignoring them. So, he tried to keep his distance while still staying with you, and only really talked to you when he absolutely had to. But even though weeks had passed, you two had made no progress on coming up with a plan to stop the Soldier. Bucky still adamantly refused both options you had come up with last time because one was dangerous to you and the other he had no idea how to even start with, so he pressed you for a third option. There had to be another way. He kept telling you that, but he was as lost as you were.

And then a seemingly excellent opportunity presented itself in front of him: Steve came around one afternoon while you were at work and told him they had found the HYDRA lab where Bucky had spent most of his time when he was in America. They had cleared the place out, but there was a lot of unfamiliar equipment and weapons lying around and maybe Bucky could identify some of them. Option number one: face his trauma. He immediately told Steve he was in, but that he needed a minute to call you to let you know as he had no idea how late it’d be until he could get back to you, and he didn’t want to risk you thinking he had left you again.

Keep reading

410 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Text

Thank you!! It is indeed a very difficult situation ☹️

Encounter 4

Series Summary: When Bucky starts to relapse into the Winter Soldier, he breaks up with you to keep you safe. But the Winter Soldier keeps coming back to you.

Chapter Summary: Bucky enters an empty HYDRA base in a desperate attempt to face his trauma, and the Winter Soldier confesses his newfound feelings for you.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader; Winter Soldier!Bucky Barnes x reader

F, A, S? Angst, fluff

Word Count: 8.8k

Warning(s): Angst; mistakes (I normally proofread like 3 times and I was only able to do so once so I’ll proofread it again later)

Keep reading

410 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Text

That is so sweet!! Thank you so much!! ❤️🤭 I am also in love with both Bucky and the Soldier haha so I understand!

I’m sorry your exam didn’t go so well, and of course, I’ll tag you! ☺️

Encounter 4

Series Summary: When Bucky starts to relapse into the Winter Soldier, he breaks up with you to keep you safe. But the Winter Soldier keeps coming back to you.

Chapter Summary: Bucky enters an empty HYDRA base in a desperate attempt to face his trauma, and the Winter Soldier confesses his newfound feelings for you.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader; Winter Soldier!Bucky Barnes x reader

F, A, S? Angst, fluff

Word Count: 8.8k

Warning(s): Angst; mistakes (I normally proofread like 3 times and I was only able to do so once so I’ll proofread it again later)

Keep reading

410 notes · View notes

buchanan-fics · 2 years

Text

Encounter 4

Series Summary: When Bucky starts to relapse into the Winter Soldier, he breaks up with you to keep you safe. But the Winter Soldier keeps coming back to you.

Chapter Summary: Bucky enters an empty HYDRA base in a desperate attempt to face his trauma, and the Winter Soldier confesses his newfound feelings for you.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader; Winter Soldier!Bucky Barnes x reader

F, A, S? Angst, fluff

Word Count: 8.8k

Warning(s): Angst; mistakes (I normally proofread like 3 times and I was only able to do so once so I’ll proofread it again later)

“Hey, Buck,” you said, confused, as you answered the phone. He never called you while you were at work.

“Y/N, hey, I uh- Steve just stopped by because he needs me for something and it’s the perfect opportunity to try out option one, so I’ve decided I’m gonna do that.”

“Wait, what? What are you talking about?”

“They found the HYDRA base I was kept in and cleared it out. I’m going in.”

You were completely baffled at the pure stupidity of that idea that for a second you couldn’t even talk. “How is this gonna help you?” you asked in pure disbelief.

Bucky frowned. “I have to face it, right?”

“Yeah,” you said slowly. “And we had trouble figuring out how because we need to start small, remember?”

“I know, but like you said we don’t know how to do that, and I figure it’s worth a shot.”

You opened your mouth to protest but you didn’t even know where to start. “Okay, Bucky, stop for a second. I know you want to find a solution fast, but you can’t handle the nightmares about the base. How in the world would physically being there make things better?”

“Maybe that’s what I need though, to just confront it head-on.”

You sighed. You couldn’t tell him with 100% certainty that he was wrong. You had no proof and maybe testing it out was the way to go about this, but it was still stupid and you hated that he was going back there.

“At least wait until I get off from work so I can be there if the Soldier does happen to take over.”

“No,” Bucky immediately said and sighed. “Look, I don’t like the Winter Soldier, that’s no secret, but I also remember being him. I know how lonely it is and how much it hurts, and I don’t wish that upon him. I suffer too whenever he suffers, you know. And you’re all he has, so I don’t want him to associate you with that place. And before you go off about telling him the truth again, let me just say that I know he deserves to know the truth, and I know it could significantly change him for the better, but I’m still not risking your safety, so don’t bring it up, please. Just… just stay safe while I’m gone, okay?”

Part of you wanted to protest, but you couldn’t. He had just told you something he had never dared to admit before: he cared about the Soldier. This was important to him, so all you managed to respond with was a soft “okay”.

-----

Bucky walked into the HYDRA base with both Steve, Sam, and a group of real SHIELD scientists by his side. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous, and apparently it showed.

“Hey, Buck, I know this is a lot to ask from you so if it’s too much, just tell us, okay?” Steve told him as he put a hand on his shoulder. Bucky had wavered at the entrance for a second and Steve, worried as ever about his best friend, had immediately noticed.

But Bucky was a stubborn man, and he had very little patience or kindness for himself. Who cares that he was breaking out in cold sweat, that every cell in his body was telling him to run away? Who cares that his heart felt like it was gonna explode? If this was how he could be fixed then it was worth it, and if it wasn’t then at least he’d know. He pushed away your voice in his head telling him that submerging himself in his own trauma was unlikely to do any good, and walked inside the lab on the ground floor.

It was different from how he remembered it. The lab used to be bustling with scientists, each of them working on certain projects individually at their station. Each of them scared, and lacking a moral compass. This time the lab was empty. He wasn’t sure which version felt eerier though.

Bucky walked through the stations, looking at files and test results of projects scattered about. His memories of this particular place weren’t all that bad as he rarely had to be here. When he did, it was mostly just passing through or to grab a scientist who had messed up really bad. He’d drag them over to his superiors and he’d never see them again. Still though, they were HYDRA scientists, so Bucky couldn’t feel too bad about that.

“Our scientists will be scanning the labs here, Bucky. We need you for the things downstairs.”

Bucky froze. Downstairs? Downstairs looked nothing like the labs here. There were no bright lights hanging from the ceiling, no white walls or clean, sparkly floors. Downstairs was the complete opposite, like a room in your house that you always keep locked up because you never find the time to finish construction. It was where the floors were grimy and the walls covered with mold, and the only thing present were various torture machines, prisoners, and the most heartless of scientists. Downstairs was the place of his nightmares. It was the Soldier’s home.

“Bucky,” Steve sighed. “I’m sorry, this is too much for you. Head on home, we’ll figure it out, don’t worry.”

But Bucky shook his head. No way was he just going to walk out like a scared little kid.

“I can do this, Steve.”

He wanted to get rid of the Soldier, for both his and your sake. So he was going to do this. He could do this. He was going to walk in there and come home to you tonight. Bucky clenched his hands into fists and walked over to the elevator, where he waited for Steve and Sam to join him. The worried look they exchanged didn’t slip past Bucky, but he decided to ignore it. He could do this.

Bucky felt a weird sense of relief when he stepped out of the elevator. The place was different from how he remembered it and how it appeared in his nightmares: there were no prisoners, no test subjects, no HYDRA scientists. There were SHIELD scientists, and to be honest, Bucky couldn’t tell the difference, but Steve had reassured him that only the most trustworthy of SHIELD agents and scientists were assigned to this base.

They had installed extra lights. The dirt was more apparent because of it, as well as the dried bloodstains on the floors, but it was different enough from how it used to be that Bucky found it within himself to step through the large hallway. There were rooms with horrible equipment on both sides of him, and all the doors were wide open. Well, that didn’t matter too much because most of those rooms had windows anyway, or iron bars like jail cells. Daring to peek inside one, Bucky could immediately hear the screams of previous test subjects as his eyes laid upon the torture device inside. He wasn’t sure what this one in particular did because the Soldier never cared enough to watch. It was something Bucky was grateful for.

“Come on, it’s down the end of the hallway.”

Bucky followed Steve. He was trying not to look around, trying to pretend he didn’t know what exactly occupied each room, but the more he pushed it away the more he remembered. So when they got to the end of the hallway, he couldn’t help but look up to his left, to a room in which he had spent so much of his time. This was the room of his nightmares, this was why he was here. He had told himself not to look, that it would be too much, but something was pulling him towards it.

The room was void of people as SHIELD was already well aware of what the equipment inside was used for. So inside was but a lone chair, modified with straps, and a headset that would fire off electroconvulsive shocks to the occupant. Bucky couldn’t help but stare at it as the memories flooded back to him more lively than ever and his heartbeat spiked. He barely felt Steve’s hands on his shoulders, trying to turn him away from the horror in front of him - as if it wasn’t already playing on a loop inside of his head. When Steve’s face appeared in his field of view, Bucky shoved him away so hard that he was thrown against the wall. He averted his gaze to his friend, and then everything went black.

Why am I here? The Soldier wondered as he looked at the chair in front of him. He didn’t remember coming here, and the first thing he saw was the chair so… was he supposed to take the hint with this? He wasn’t sure. Orders were usually explicitly told to him, not vaguely suggested like this. And though he always promised himself to never take his handler’s promises seriously, he couldn’t help but remember you telling him you’d never hurt him. But then again, where were you anyway?

The Soldier got out of his trance and looked around him, only now did he become aware of the unfamiliar faces all pointing guns at him. He hadn’t been inside the base since you had become his handler, and all the strangers surrounding him now made him realize that several years - if not decades - must’ve passed since his last assignment and his last handler.

“Lower your weapons, it’s fine. I’m fine,” a somewhat familiar voice said.

He turned and saw Steve get up from the ground with a pained groan. There was a dent in the wall behind him. The Soldier turned back to the agents and scientists. Their guns were lowered as demanded, but they all looked wary. He inspected their faces, but the only ones he knew were Steve and this black guy he fought back at the airport. He had assumed they were friends of yours, not colleagues. That meant that he had attacked his own again, was he here to face the consequences for that? To be punished? It would make sense.

“Have you snapped out of it?” Steve asked him as he approached him.

The Soldier didn’t know what he meant, but he also didn’t really care. Something was wrong here, he could feel it, and more importantly: where the hell were you?

If he was about to be put in the chair, then that meant that you ordered it, that meant you were supposed to be here. That you were not could only mean that you weren’t his handler anymore, and he only gets a new handler upon the death of his previous one.

The Soldier’s heart rate picked up, and there was a feeling of nausea in his stomach he had never felt before. What was happening? Was this fear? No. The Soldier didn’t feel fear, he didn’t panic! It was something he simply didn’t do!

“Bucky? You okay, man? Just take a deep breath. I’ll get you out of here, okay?” Steve said as he placed a careful hand on the Soldier’s shoulder.

There it was again, that name you had called him by twice. A name that wasn’t his. Why did it constantly pop up?

Steve started to push him away from the door, but he wasn’t budging.

“Where’s Y/N?”

He felt his heart tightening as he waited for a response, it was a feeling he had experienced before around you, and he didn’t like it one bit. The Soldier wasn’t supposed to get emotionally attached to his handler - or anyone really - but your kindness had made that hard. Maybe that’s why you were gone. Maybe your approach to handling him had compromised him and therefore you had been disposed of.

“She’s at work,” Steve said, his tone confused.

He wanted to feel relieved at that answer, but it only confused him more: This was work. If you were at work, then you were supposed to be here.

“She’s still my handler?”

No answer followed that question. The Soldier looked up at Steve. The man looked back at him, realization flashed through his eyes, it looked like he wanted to say something but for a while nothing came out of his mouth.

“Buck... Y/N is-”

“She is,” the black man from the airport quickly interjected. “She is still your handler.”

The Soldier turned to him. “Then where is she?”

The two men exchanged looks.

“I’ll call her,” Steve said and walked away while getting out his phone.

An hour later, you rushed inside the base. You had received Steve’s phone call with the bad news and had immediately left work to come here, but the place was quite far away, so it had taken you longer to get there than you would’ve liked. Some agent spotted you the moment you walked in and pointed you towards the elevator. You rode it down to the lower level and instantly got greeted by Sam once the doors opened.

“Where is he?”

“Down the hallway in one of the rooms. He’s getting restless.”

You knew that already. He had been restless even while talking to you on the phone an hour ago, of course it would’ve only gotten worse in your absence. Steve had let you talk to him to calm him down and he had thrown so many questions at you that you had no answers for: “Where are you?” “Why aren’t you here?” “Why am I here?” It was Bucky who had decided to come here, you didn’t want that for him, yet it was once again you who had to come up with an excuse to put the Soldier at ease. It was weird that Bucky always forgot that part, seeing as he was so convinced a single wrong word would end up getting you killed.

And worst of all the Soldier had once again asked about punishment. You really thought you might’ve gotten through to him last time, that you were serious about not hurting him, but then again, he was down here with the torture equipment, so how could you expect him not to revert back to thinking those thoughts.

“Seriously, you kept him down here - where they tortured him - for an hour?” You hissed at Sam. The Soldier had great hearing, you didn’t want him to overhear this.

“Where were we supposed to take him? This is where he used to spend all his time. Taking him upstairs would just confuse him more and then he’ll start asking questions. Questions Bucky never gave us an acceptable answer to”, Sam hissed back.

“Well, maybe you and Steve shouldn’t have brought him down here in the first place!” You couldn’t believe it. You felt the exact same way as Sam did, and yet you still defended Bucky. God, you were completely smitten.

“It was his choice!”

“If there is anything new I’ve learned about Bucky in the past two months, it’s that he’s not very good at making decisions. He doesn’t think them through! He acts on impulse.”

“Could’ve told us that before we asked him last minute to join us to the place where all his traumas originate from.”

“See, you say it like that, and yet it didn’t occur to you to simply not ask him?”

“Hey, it wasn’t my idea.”

“Enough!” Steve interrupted.

Sam turned to him apologetically, but you were annoyed. You crossed your arms over your chest and were just about to say something but Steve’s hard glare stopped you. You averted your gaze, feeling embarrassed to be scolded like a child.

“Bucky had the right to know about this place and he had the right to choose if he wanted to come here or not. He exercised that right, and how it turned out or how you two feel about it is secondary to that.”

Your eyes immediately focused on Steve again as rage started to course through your body. Screw embarrassment, he had no right to say these things to you. “How dare you!” you lashed out. “You’re really gonna tell me that me caring about keeping him safe is secondary to his self-destructive tendencies? You’re really telling me that it’s fine for him to ruin himself if that’s what he wants and that I should just shove my concern for him up my ass? Well, I guess that explains how easy it was for you to bring him here.”

Steve sighed. “That’s not what I meant. But whatever is happening to him… it’s his body and his mind. He had a right to make this choice.”

You bit your lip and looked away. He was right. Of course, Bucky had a right to make this choice, it’s not that you were arguing against that. Hell, you had even given Bucky the okay-sign - albeit reluctantly. It’s just that you knew this would happen, and between you and Bucky, you were the hopeful one, so there was no way Bucky thought that this would really work.

“I want to see him.”

Steve nodded and signaled you to follow him. He led you down to the end of the hallway and stopped in the doorway. Sam was right behind you two.

You peeked inside the room and saw a dazed Soldier sitting in the memory suppressing machine. He wasn’t strapped down and there was no one else in the room. He was hunched over a bit and his eyes stared ahead of him, but you could tell he wasn’t focused on anything.

“He’s been like this since I called you, and he glares at anyone who dares to enter the room. We didn’t want him to lash out so we thought it better to just let him be until you arrived. We’ll stay right here in case anything happens.”

“It won’t,” you said confidently and walked inside.

The chair was pretty tall so when you moved to stand right in front of him, you two were about the same height. The Soldier got out of his daze when he noticed something obstructed his view. He looked up at you and his features instantly softened upon recognizing you. You were here.

“Hey,” you said softly and smiled at him as you tucked some strands of hair behind his ear. Even a touch as light as that created tingles all over his body. “Everything alright?”

He didn’t know. He had this weird feeling overwhelming him that he couldn’t quite describe. All he knew was that it wasn’t pleasant. You had promised to never hurt him, and though he never believed his handler’s promises, he realized that he had believed yours. You had told him you cared about him and it had come across so sincerely. It was his own fault, he should’ve known better than to trust his handler’s words, but part of him also blamed you. You had pushed him over and over to believe you, and for what?

But what was weirder was that he himself had asked for this. He wanted to be punished to do his job better. He was here now, you had granted him his wish, and he hated it.

“Soldier?” you asked again once you realized you had lost him to his thoughts again. You had a feeling this was going to be tough. “Talk to me, please.”

“Why am I down here?”

You bit your lip in contemplation for a second but you had already thought of an answer to that question on your way here. “I had some work to do upstairs that you don’t have clearance for, so you had to stay here. I’m sorry for taking so long.”

There you went again, spreading lies for Bucky. You knew he told you not to come here, but that was not the solution. The Soldier would find his way back to you and ask these questions regardless. Bucky didn’t want the Soldier to associate you with this place, but he had undermined himself by coming here before he was ready to. Whether you were here or not didn’t matter: The Soldier saw you as his handler, so if he was down here, then in his eyes, you were responsible.

The Soldier looked down and only responded with a slight nod. He had not been wrong then? You were not going to hurt him? It was still unclear, so he refused to let the hope that was welling up inside of him spill over. He’d do that if you got him out of there without torturing him first. If that happened then he’d never question your intentions again.

You frowned at the lack of response and placed a hand on his upper arm. “What’s wrong?”

He wasn’t sure what to say or do. Part of him wanted to just shake his head and hope you’d drop it, but another part of him wanted to voice his thoughts and his questions.

Your free hand clamped around his right one. It was all he needed to make his decision.

He looked back up at you and drew in a deep breath. “You told me you cared for me and that you’d never hurt me… did you mean it?”

He was way out of line, he knew that. Even as the words left his mouth he could feel how wrong they were: he had no business questioning you, and no matter how nice you were, there was no way you could just let this slide. But you did and to be completely honest, he wasn’t even that surprised.

“Of course, I meant it,” you whispered. “Where is this coming from?”

The Soldier only responded by looking down at the chair.

You followed his gaze and sighed. “Did somebody tell you to sit here? Because I didn’t.”

He stayed quiet for a second before he looked at you with disappointed eyes. Why were you pretending the situation wasn’t what it was? “I know what happens when I’m down here.”

“You mean you know what used to happen. Things have changed.” You squeezed his hand once more before letting go and taking some steps back. “Is this just about the chair? Because if so, then screw that thing! Nobody is ever gonna put you in it again. And you know what?” You turned to Steve, who was still shamelessly staring at you from the doorframe, along with Sam. “Steve? I want that chair gone. Ripped into a million pieces. Make it unrecognizable.”

The Soldier couldn’t believe his ears. You were getting rid of the chair? He didn’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, it proved you were serious about not hurting him and he was relieved because the experience was incredibly painful, but on the other hand it was also an important part of his life in HYDRA. It taught him what was acceptable and what wasn’t, it strengthened him. At least that’s what he believed.

“Wait,” he spoke up with hesitation and jumped to his feet. “I need it, remember? I’m not doing a good job lately, I need to protect you from dangers-”

“You are doing a wonderful job, as always. That chair causes nothing but pain, something you’ve already experienced more than enough. Nothing good is gonna come out of that.”

The Soldier looked down with a frown, so you approached him and gently rubbed his arm. “Trust me on this, please?”

He did trust you, he realized. That was not the problem, the problem was that you trusted him more than he deserved. You didn’t seem to understand that his performance recently had been anything but wonderful, in fact, it had pretty much been abysmal.

He looked back up at you. “But the people that are trying to hurt you… I’m never around.”

You sighed and dropped your hand. This argument again, you were so done with it.

“I lied,” you confessed and tried your hardest not to think about what Bucky would be thinking right now. You started fidgeting with your fingers and averted your gaze away from him, desperately looking to the wall on your right to avoid his eyes. “There are no people after me, I’m not in danger. I was scared you were gonna leave so I made it up… I’m sorry, please, don’t be angry.”

It was obviously not the whole truth, but it also wasn’t a lie. At the time, you needed to give him a reason why he was with you so late at night and that lie had been the obvious choice. Back then, you had been mostly scared for your life, but you also knew you had to keep him by your side, to make sure he wouldn’t hurt anybody because if he did, then Bucky would have to live with that guilt. So, maybe what you revealed right now was only partially true, but it was still true.

The Soldier was speechless. You had lied to keep him close? It made sense now, why you didn’t want him to go after the enemy, why you never asked him to stand guard, why you were never in danger or concerned for your own safety when he was not around. But if you wanted him close, then why were you never around?

“Soldier?” you asked hesitantly and gathered the courage to look him back in the eyes.

You wanted him to say something, to tell you what he was thinking or how he felt.

How did he feel? He knew he wasn’t angry. It didn’t matter that you lied. He had to follow his handler’s wishes no matter what, and he has had paranoid handlers before who made him stand guard all night, every night, because they thought they were being watched or hunted down even though in reality no one thought them important enough to even give a second glance. You had done it deliberately, but you also never asked him to waste hours standing guard or to chase false leads to make your lie believable. In fact, you had done nothing to make your lie believable.

Maybe part of him felt a bit of distrust because you had lied to him, but overall, the strongest feeling was that really good feeling he didn’t know the name of, that you gave him whenever you touched him or spoke kind words like these. That feeling as if the nerves in his stomach were jumping up and down. And the way you were looking at him: with regretful eyes and rosy cheeks, only made it worse. His eyes wandered down to your lips and his heart jumped because he realized then that he really wanted to kiss you. And that thought scared him because it was not something he was supposed to want or do. He wasn’t even allowed to, but he wondered if you’d let him. The boundaries between handler and slave were already a bit murkier with you than with any other handler before, but would you let it go this far? No, right? There was simply no way.

“Please say something,” you said a bit more desperately because of the lingering silence and took a brave step forward to capture both his hands in yours.

That woke the Soldier up from his thoughts. He looked from your intertwined hands to your fearful eyes. Why were you scared? What did it matter how he felt about your lie? You were the one who called the shots, he just did whatever you wanted him to.

“What should I say?”

You couldn’t believe your ears. He had no opinion on this?

“I just told you I lied to you… I mean, I don’t want you to be angry with me, but don’t you feel anything?”

Oh, he felt something, just not anything he could disclose to you.

“You’re my handler, if you want to lie to me about missions, that’s your prerogative. As long as I can do my job, I have no business questioning you.”

You opened your mouth to say something, but then realized that you were completely speechless. But thinking about it, it was true. The only time he had shown you real emotion was when he thought he was screwing up his mission to keep you safe.

“Soldier… I’m telling you there is no mission, no job for you to do.”

The Soldier froze. “Just give me a new one.”

You had seen him tense up and though you knew you had to tell him the truth, you couldn’t do it here. Not with all these strangers around, not inside the base of his nightmares. You’d have to get him home first. So you handed him the car keys and told him to wait in the car while you talked to Steve and Sam.

“What the hell did I just see?” Sam asked you the moment the elevator closed with the Soldier in it.

“Sam,” Steve merely said, but it was clearly a warning to stop.

“What? You saw it too, didn’t you? Any other time we’ve seen the Winter Soldier, he tried to kill us, but put Y/N in the same room and he’s as docile as a newborn puppy.”

You sighed annoyed and shook your head. This was not what you wanted to talk about. “He thinks I’m his handler, remember?”

“It seemed like more than just that,” Steve said however as he crossed his arms over his chest and gave you an inquisitive look. “What’s going on, Y/N? I thought you two had broken things off.”

This was so frustrating. “We did! That-” you said as you pointed at the elevator on the other end of the hallway, “-is not Bucky.”

“Okay, but that’s worse,” Sam said slowly. “You realize how that’s worse, right?”

“So you’re in love with the Winter Soldier?”

You opened your mouth to say something, but you didn’t know what. So you just shook your head as tears were burning your eyes and turned around to not see their judging faces. This was pure humiliation, something you never expected to go through at the hands of either of these two.

“Y/N, we’re not judging you.”

As if they weren’t. You took a deep breath and turned back to them, not caring that the tears were still making your eyes all glassy. “Look, I need his dossier. The one HYDRA made.”

Steve seemed taken aback. “Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’? Because Bucky needs to learn how to handle his trauma and unlike you, I’m opting for baby steps. I know you have it.”

He nodded. “Okay, I’ll bring it to your place tomorrow. But Y/N, we are not done here. Just tell us, okay? Tell us what’s going on.”

You were silent for a second, contemplating. You had kept most of it to yourself because everything you did tell Bucky he ended up misinterpreting or he just plainly didn’t understand. You didn’t want more of that, but you were also so tired of not having anyone to talk to about this.

“I don’t know, okay? All I know is that Bucky’s been treating me like yesterday’s trash for about two months now, whereas the Soldier protects me and worries for me. And both of them share the body of the man that I love, so I don’t know what I’m feeling and for who.”

Steve and Sam exchanged a look, then Steve crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “It’s confusing, I get it. And you’re right, Bucky hasn’t been treating you right.” You gave him a weird look. “He’s told me everything. All the things he’s done, the times he fucked up. He still loves you, Y/N, he’s just struggling with everything that’s happening.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not the only one.”

It was sort of the first time you said that aloud. Sure, you told Bucky he had to choose between leaving or staying, but you had never really said – or even dared to think – how much you were struggling with the entire situation.

Steve nodded. “Of course, you are struggling too. Nobody’s saying you’re not, but this thing – whatever it is – between you and the Soldier, is not the right way to respond to what you’re feeling. Bucky is the one who was born into that body, the Soldier is nothing but an intruder. He doesn’t belong here.”

“That’s not fair-”

“If you want to move on from Bucky with somebody else, go ahead. Nobody would blame you for it. But don’t do it with the Soldier. That’s just cruel.”

You were silent for a moment, but then - not knowing how to respond - you just walked away.

Sam called out to you as you were walking through the cars in the parking lot, trying to remember where you parked yours. You turned around in surprise and saw him running over to you.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry for my reaction back there, that wasn’t cool. This entire situation is tough, for both of you. So how about you tell Bucky to come down to the VA sometime? He doesn’t have to talk, he can just listen to other people’s stories. Sure, his is more extreme, but there’ll be similarities and no one will judge him. Just don’t tell him I came up with that idea, you know he’ll refuse to come just to spite me,” Sam chuckled.

You chuckled too, though you were sad he was right. “Thanks, Sam.”

“You’re doing good work, Y/N. Forget what Steve said, I have heard so many stories of traumas ending relationships and marriages. An identity disorder? Now that’s another step up. You weren’t even the one who broke things off, and you’re still around, ready to do whatever’s necessary. That you love him is about the last thing that should be doubted at this point.”

You were grateful for Sam’s words, but Steve had only given you a warning, you were the one who truly doubted your love for Bucky.

“I don’t know, Sam. Like I said, lately, the Sold-”

“No, Imma stop you right there,” Sam said and lowered himself a bit to your height. “Who cares if you love the Soldier too? I mean, you’re the only one who’d even dare do that, but regardless, the Soldier is part of Bucky. Steve and Bucky might try to tell you otherwise, but that’s only because they’re in denial. You know him best and you love him most, if there’s anyone who can help him, it’s you. Don’t doubt yourself.”

An identity disorder. That’s what Sam had called it. Of course, you knew Bucky was experiencing something like that but it had never occurred to you to put the term ‘identity disorder’ on top of it. Why had he not been diagnosed with it back in Wakanda? Why hadn’t they treated it? You shook your head. You were being ungrateful, the Wakandans had done so much already.

“Y/N?” the Soldier asked as he joined you on the couch.

You were back in your apartment. The ride home had been weirdly tense. The Soldier had been trying his hardest to hold back his feelings from overwhelming him, and you were still very much affected by Steve’s words.

Now back in your apartment, he felt lost again. This was usually the moment where he would check your place to make sure it was secure, and then stand guard while at the same time doing any activity you wanted him to do which was mostly showering or watching some movie with you. Then when it got late, you’d convince him to sleep and he’d fail to do his job. But failure was one thing, and sure, he didn’t like it, but right now he was just standing there without a purpose. There was nothing for him to do, and that feeling was worse. You said there was no mission, yet you had given him the order to join you to your place. That had to mean something. You had a new mission for him, right? It had to be that. He could see you were deep in thought, but he needed you to give him some kind of order, so he called your name and joined you on the couch.

You looked up at him and only now noticed how distressed he was. He was biting his bottom lip, shaking his leg up and down, and harshly gripping the cushions of the couch. You pushed your thoughts back when you saw that and placed a cautious hand on top of his.

“What’s wrong?”

“Can you give me my new mission now? I don’t know what to do.”

Your gaze softened and you began to soothingly rub your thumb over his hand. You had returned to the conversation you hadn’t been able to finish inside the base. Time to do that now.

“What do you want to do?”

The Soldier shook his head vehemently. Not this again. “Please, don’t. You know I can’t, just give me an order I can follow.”

“You’ll have to, because I have nothing for you.”

He froze again. That couldn’t be true. Why was he here if you didn’t have a mission for him? You should’ve left him at the base.

“Then put me away.” He didn’t want to say it because part of him wanted to be close to you and who knew when the next mission would be available to him. Maybe when he woke up, you would be dead and he’d have a new handler. He didn’t want that, but still, it was the right call because without a mission his presence served no purpose.

You knew he was talking about cryo, and though you had hoped he wouldn’t mention it, you weren’t surprised he did.

“No.”

“But-”

“The reason I lied to you in the first place was to keep you at my side. I told you the truth because I didn’t want to keep lying, not because I’m okay with losing you all of a sudden.”

You didn’t want to lose him? His breath got stuck in his throat. That meant something, right? So, should he do something? Should he kiss you? He looked up into your eyes which were looking back at him with a certain tenderness that made it all the more difficult for him to resist his urges. Once again, his gaze wandered down to your lips, and once again there was a little voice in his head telling him not to. No matter how nice you were to him, you were still his handler. You wouldn’t want it. He’d probably ruin whatever good thing was going on between the two of you now. So he lowered his head and tried to push the thoughts out.

“Tell me what you want. There’s got to be something no matter how small,” you said once again while gently squeezing his hand, but the timing was all wrong. The Soldier was still fighting with himself and your words just encouraged him to go for it. Something he knew he shouldn’t.

He shook his head but gave in with a defeated sigh. “There is one thing…”

Your ears perked up. “Great! What is it?”

“You,” he raised his head again to look at you, but immediately averted his gaze with an embarrassed look on his face. “I want you...”

Now, that was unexpected. Maybe you shouldn’t have pushed because now what were you supposed to do? Either you gave into the Soldier and broke Bucky, or you rejected the Soldier and ruined whatever trust you were building up with him. And this, this is what always happened. No matter what decision you had to make, it always ended up hurting one of them.

But also, what about you?

Steve’s voice was inside your head, telling you not to move on with the Winter Soldier, but Sam’s voice, telling you that the Soldier and Bucky were one and the same person, was louder.

You reached your hands out to his face slowly and then gently guided him closer to you until you were close enough to kiss him.

If only you could’ve heard Bucky’s heart break when your lips touched his, but you were completely unaware as you wrapped your arms around the Soldier’s neck, pulling him in closer. The Soldier, however, did feel something inside of him. Besides the nerves in his stomach doing acrobatic stunts and heat spreading throughout his entire body, he felt a distant ache in his heart of which he didn’t know the origin. He tried to ignore it and focus on you. You were kissing him, for fuck’s sake! And all he could think of was some unpleasant feeling in his chest? No. No way was he going to let that ruin this. His hands found their way to your back and your waist, and his lips moved against yours rhythmically, as if you were a song he was singing along to. But the pain got worse and he had never felt anything like it before, so, confused as he was, he did end up stopping the kiss after a few minutes and looked down at his chest, as if the answer would be written there.

You took this time to catch your breath and looked at him. The way he kissed you was almost exactly like Bucky, and when your eyes landed on him, you couldn’t help but be confused for a second. But then he looked up to you again and the look in his eyes immediately told you that you were wrong. This was still the Soldier.

“What’s wrong?” you asked after shaking off what you realized was disappointment. No matter how soft you were for the Soldier and how much you adored him, he was only a part of Bucky. You wanted Bucky himself to kiss you like this again. You realized that you didn’t prefer the Soldier over him, rather it’s that the way the Soldier was treating you, was close to how Bucky used to treat you, so basically, you just missed him.

“Felt something weird”, the Soldier mumbled with a frown.

You misunderstood what he meant, however. Him feeling something while kissing you and consequently looking down made you believe he was just getting excited.

“It’s okay, it’s normal,” you reassured him while playing with the short hairs at the nape of his neck.

The Soldier nodded but frowned. “And this? Is this okay? Is this normal?” he asked without pointing or looking at anything but you.

You let out a soundless chuckle. “Depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you.”

You tilted your head and smiled sadly. You didn’t know how normal or okay this was. Part of you couldn’t shake the feeling that this was Bucky, which made it normal because you loved him, but abnormal because he was your ex-boyfriend. Another part of you couldn’t shake the feeling that this was not Bucky, which was just plain confusing.

“I don’t know,” you said honestly. “But you want me, right? And I want this. Isn’t that enough?”

The Soldier nodded at your words and kissed you again. The ache in his chest got worse, but it was normal, right? So, he paid it no mind and lost himself in you again. He pulled your body against his fully and moved one hand from your back to your hair while kissing you passionately, forcing Bucky to watch from the front line as the woman he loved made out with someone he - unlike you - did not see as a part of himself. Or at least, he really didn’t want to.

But the longer it lasted, the more the pain didn’t seem normal. So after a few minutes, the Soldier broke off the kiss again and shook his head before looking at you with slight disbelief in his eyes. “Really? This pain is normal? I don’t understand.”

Your brows furrowed. “What?”

“It hurts. You said it was normal, but it doesn’t feel like it is.”

You followed his movement as he placed a hand on his chest. Oh, he wasn’t talking about… “What, no! That’s not normal! What do you mean it hurts?”

Realization suddenly hit you and your eyes filled themselves with horror and guilt. You drew in a shaky breath and in a whisper his name escaped from your lips. “Bucky.”

You peeled the Soldier’s hand from his chest and stared at it as if Bucky himself was hiding behind it - well, that wasn’t entirely false.

“Bucky, baby, I’m so sorry,” you whispered and placed a kiss on his clothed chest. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I’m sorry.”

That name, again. The Soldier grabbed your upper arms and made you sit straight again, facing him. His expression was hard. “Who the hell is Bucky? And why does everyone keep calling me that?”

You looked up at him, but all you could see was the betrayal in Bucky’s eyes. You should’ve listened to Steve instead of Sam, but still, you knew that if you had to do it over, you’d make the same decision.

“Let go of me”, you quietly demanded when his grip on you got a bit too tight. The Soldier obeyed with a frown. You knew it wasn’t his fault, but at the moment even looking at him was hard. You needed to talk to Bucky, you needed him to be in control right now, not the Soldier.

“Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t answer your question right now. It’s really complicated.” You placed a careful hand down on his shoulder and squeezed it gently. “Do you trust me?”

He nodded almost instantly.

“Okay, well I don’t know if this will work and I don’t know how it’ll feel for you, but this Bucky guy everyone keeps mentioning? He’s inside of you and I need you to take a step back and hand him the reins.”

“What?”

“I know it sounds nuts, but that heartache you felt? Lean into that, let it take over.”

The Soldier wanted to protest - he had no idea what was going on - but your pleading eyes looking into his just made him nod obediently. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate, but instead he felt something pulling him back and the pain got worse. The last thing he felt before being pulled into complete darkness was you cupping his cheeks and softly kissing him - an apology of sorts.

Bucky broke off the kiss and pulled your hands from his face. He took in a shaky breath and hung his head down low. He had no idea how you had accomplished that, how you had been able to force the Soldier to surrender to him, but he also didn’t care at the moment.

He lost you. It was stupid that it only occurred to him now seeing you two had broken up almost two months ago, but he always believed that once the Soldier was gone, you’d take him back. But you’d probably rather see him go instead. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks. How could this have happened?

“Bucky?” you asked nervously.

You knew it was him, but still, you needed confirmation. The only thing you got however was a sob, but it was enough because the Soldier didn’t cry. You lunged forward and threw your arms around his neck. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Bucky asked with a regretful voice as he sobbed into your shoulder. “I kept pushing you away in hopes of keeping you safe from him, whereas he constantly came back to you. I did this.”

Denying that would be the same as lying. It was him who had screwed up, but you knew he only ever did things with the best intentions… well, except for when he had had sex with you a few weeks ago, that was still a sour memory for you.

You placed a hand on his cheek and lifted his head from your shoulder, then your other hand cupped his other cheek, and like that you made him face you. Your thumbs brushed away the tears still falling from his eyes which were staring into yours with the most heartbreaking look one would utter.

You felt terrible.

“Bucky, I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that without your permission,” you rested your forehead against his and took in a shaky breath. “Look, yes, you’re right, you pushed me away whereas the Soldier kept pulling me closer, but he is you, Bucky.” Bucky shook his head. “Yes, he is. He is a part of you! There would be no Winter Soldier without you, he wouldn’t exist. That means he is a part of you and we can work with that. It’s an identity disorder, so Buck, we won’t have to shoot in the dark anymore looking for answers. We can fix this.”

“This?” Bucky asked in disbelief. “What is ‘this’? Are you talking about me? Because if you want to fix me then he’ll have to go, and you made it pretty clear that you don’t want that.”

You sighed as shame welled up inside of you.

“Do you love him?”

“I love you,” you said clearly with sincerity in your voice and eyes. “And he’s a part of you. I wholeheartedly believe that, so you can deny it all you want, but this is me giving you an honest answer: he is a part of you and I love you, so yes. I do love him.”

Bucky placed his hands on your shoulders and pushed you away slightly to give himself some space. He could tell you really believed that, and he had noted your sincerity. It made it all hurt a little less, but if he wanted to move past this with you, then he’d have to believe it too.

“I don’t want him to be a part of me, Y/N.”

“I know, Bucky. And believe it or not, I really don’t like being in this position either, so maybe it’s about time we find out what’s really going on here, and do something about it.”

----------------------------------

Tag list (if you want to be added, let me know in the comments of the most recent chapter at that moment please):

@eclecticpatrolroadlawyer; @sarahivi; @anon142409; @jester2407; @metalarmslut; @themorningsunshine; @matchat3a; @impala1967666; @leahkenobi; @kissmeunicornbaobei; @harrrystyles5; @thatgirljohnathan; @la--figue; @uglyasswoman; @winters1917; @sergeantbuckybarnes; @foreveralone223; @lil-baby-nor; @hallecarey1; @saranghaey; @jjthoughts3000; @vicmc624; @marrigold-2002; @needing-therapy; @explosiongamora; @ellie-dorothie; @mousee555; @thats-a-gaybie; @wrmtlsof; @vaultmango; @coffeejustcoffee; @dreamerglassesgirl; @niallerhere; @patricks-fabulous-face; @v0idl1nq; @reallysparklychaos; @samanthacookieone; @vxrona; @magicalsimp; @jokersqueenofchaos;

List of people who asked to be tagged but tumblr won’t allow me to: mattxxamryli; jordan005; loveyou5everr; hermcusmutsmutcroissant; sicklyinloves. It normally has something to do with your settings. I will try to add you in every part I’ll upload, so take your time to figure it out!

If you asked to be tagged but you can’t find your username on either of these two lists then leave me another comment down below, there’s a chance I missed it.

#Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky fanfic #Bucky angst #bucky x y/n #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky #winter soldier fanfic #winter soldier x reader #winter soldier x you #winter soldier x y/n #Winter Soldier #winter soldier angst

410 notes · View notes