orellazalonia

Latest Posts by orellazalonia

Stray Magic

Summary: After your last incident of being cursed into a cat, you now stumble, quite literally, across the ability to shift into a feline form whenever you want. A lot of benefits and amusing situations have resulted from your newfound ability. (Bucky Barnes x reader)

Word Count: 1.7k+

A/N: A continuation of the original sorta with more cat shenanigans. Might turn it into a series. Happy reading!!!

Main Masterlist | Original Fic

You swore you'd never touch another cursed artifact. You swore. But then Wanda said she needed help organizing the weird magical storeroom under the compound, and someone (you) tripped over an ancient feline statue with glowing gemstone eyes and an inscription that translated roughly to: "Blessing of the Dual Form."

Sure, it sounded cool.

Until ten minutes later, when your body shrank, your vision sharpened, and your very human yelp turned into a confused meow.

Bucky found you pawing at your clothes in a confused heap on the floor of the kitchen. Again.

“No. Nope. I am not doing another week of this,” He groaned.

You squeaked indignantly and padded over, tapping his boot with one paw.

“What, is this your thing now?” He asked, looking down. “You just… turn into a cat whenever you're bored?”

You nodded dramatically, then sneezed. Cat noses were weird.

It took three hours, a call to Wong, and a consultation with Strange to figure out the truth: the statue had permanently bonded to your soul. You now had the ability to shift into a cat whenever you wanted. No time limit. No cooldown that they were aware of. Just poof. Cat.

Bucky looked like he was going to short-circuit. “So what, you’re like a superhero shapeshifter now? Are you gonna be on missions like this? What’s the strategy? Distract the enemy with your toe beans?”

You gave him a deadpan stare before jumping onto the table and promptly curling up on a warm pizza box like it was your throne.

“You are going to abuse this, aren’t you?” He muttered.

You chirped.

The next following days, you started turning into a cat for the dumbest reasons:

Didn’t want to have a conversation? Cat. Someone asked you to do dishes? Cat. Avoiding a training session? Instant cat. Wanted to nap in a sunny spot on the windowsill with zero responsibilities? Meow.

The first time Bucky caught you turning mid-sentence just to avoid answering a question, he stared in disbelief as a smug little feline face stared up at him.

“Oh, no. You don’t get to cat your way out of everything.”

You blinked slowly, purring just to mess with him.

Later, he found you curled up in his bed, in his hoodie, making biscuits like you owned the place.

“I don’t know if I should be concerned or impressed,” He mumbled, watching you knead the pillow with your tiny murder mittens.

Eventually, you started using your powers for good. Sort of.

You helped sneak into tight spaces on stealth missions. You distracted bad guys by running across their feet in a blur of fluff and chaos. You even learned how to meow loudly enough to trip motion sensors on command. It was kind of amazing.

But you also definitely turned into a cat during a briefing just to curl in Bucky’s lap and nap through the whole thing. He pretended to be annoyed, but everyone saw how he started bringing an extra hoodie just to drape over you like a blanket.

“You’re lucky I like cats,” He mumbled, scratching behind your ears during a debrief.

You stretched, tail flicking, then headbutted his hand with practiced affection.

"You're even worse than when you were human," He added.

You meowed innocently.

He rolled his eyes but didn't stop petting you.

When you weren’t going on missions or avoiding unwanted situations, you got bored. Extremely. So, you got into some mischief.

You weren’t trying to prank anyone.

Okay. That was a lie. You were absolutely trying to prank everyone. Your new cat powers were just too convenient to resist.

Your first target was Sam.

He left his lunch unattended for five seconds. Rookie move. You slipped into cat form, trotted over, and started dragging a chicken tender off the plate with all the confidence of a thief in the night.

Sam walked in right as you jumped down from the counter with your prize.

“Hey- HEY! Get back here, you tiny demon!”

You zoomed out of the kitchen with the tender in your mouth, tail high like a flag of victory. Sam chased you halfway across the compound before Bucky stopped him.

“Let it go,” Bucky said without looking up from his book. “She does this now.”

Sam glared. “You enable this.”

Bucky shrugged. “She has powers. We adapt.”

Your second target was Tony. He had been boasting that no living creature could break into his lab.

You took that as challenge.

You slipped in through the vents, turned into a cat mid-air, and landed with the silent grace of a furry ninja. Ten minutes later, Tony walked in to find a cat wearing one of his Arc Reactor cores like a glittery collar and a sticky note on his desk that read:

"Your security sucks. - Cat burglar :3”

Tony stared. Then he rolled his eyes and started slow-clapping before promptly kicking you out, muttering something along the lines of “I hate that I’m impressed.”

Your third target was Steve. Honestly, there wasn’t much you had to do for him.

You waited until he was giving a serious, very Captain America-style speech to a group of new recruits in the training room.

You padded in, tail swaying, and flopped dramatically onto the mat in front of him.

Steve tried to continue, but you rolled onto your back and made a dramatic mrrrow.

One of the recruits burst out laughing. Steve paused, looked down, and sighed.

“You done?”

You yawned, stood up, and trotted off like nothing happened. Steve looked over at Bucky, who was leaning against the wall, clearly fighting a grin.

“This is your fault,” Steve said.

Bucky just raised an eyebrow. “I’m not the one who gave her magic powers.”

-

A week later, you were with the team on a stealth recon mission infiltrating a hidden Hydra base. Everything was going smoothly until it wasn’t. The ventilation system collapsed during your approach, sealing the entrance tunnel. Tony and Sam were on the other side, and the only path forward was a narrow vent shaft no human could fit through.

Everyone looked at you. You looked at the vent.

Then you sighed and shifted into your cat form.

You squeezed through like butter, tail flicking as you navigated a maze of cold metal and darkness. You dropped into a server room, located the control panel, and with some very creative paw-smashing, unlocked the emergency override.

Back outside, the sealed doors hissed open. Bucky walked in just as you leapt from the vent and landed in his arms like a smug little hero.

The others stared.

“She just… did that,” Sam said. “She cat-ninja’d the mission.”

You chirped proudly in Bucky’s arms.

Steve looked mildly bewildered, but nodded. “Good work, team. And… cat.”

Bucky scratched behind your ears.

“You know,” He murmured, “if you weren’t so annoying, I’d actually be impressed.”

You headbutted his chin and purred like a lawnmower.

“Yeah, yeah. You win.”

-

While your powers were good for pranking others and missions, you were not supposed to turn into a cat in public.

That was rule number one. The most important rule. The rule you insisted you could totally follow when Bucky warned you, “One slip, and someone’s gonna try to adopt you.”

But the city was loud, it was hot, someone stepped on your foot, and the moment of panic hit, poof: cat mode. You’d slinked under a bench to hide and tried to shift back… only to realize something was off. Maybe it was stress, maybe magic hated you, but either way you were stuck.

And then a kind old woman spotted you.

“Oh, you poor thing!” She gasped, scooping you up before you could bolt. “Where’s your owner?”

You tried to meow in protest, but she tucked you into her tote bag like a smuggled muffin and carried you away.

Bucky, meanwhile, had only stepped into the café for two minutes. He came back out with your coffee and you were gone.

He stared at the empty spot on the bench. Then at the faint pile of your discarded hoodie behind it. Then at the tiny tuft of fur stuck to the sleeve.

“Oh, come on.”

Thirty minutes later, you sat in a glass enclosure at a pet store. A pet store. On display.

Your ears twitched as a child tapped on the glass. The name on the little card outside your enclosure?

"Peanut. Age: 2. Found near 5th and Main. Very fluffy. A little grumpy."

Grumpy?! You were raging. You’d tried to escape twice, but the staff were unnervingly good at cat-wrangling.

A bell jingled near the entrance. You sat up immediately. Then, like a vision, there he was.

Bucky Barnes. Leather jacket, metal arm, and classic murder expression on his face. He scanned the store, locked eyes with you, and mouthed, What the hell?

You pawed at the glass frantically. Rescue was at hand.

He took a quick breath as if to mentally prepare himself for the absurdity of the situation before stalking up to the counter. “I need to… buy that cat.”

The cashier blinked. “Oh, Peanut? She’s very popular today. Already has two applications in-“

Bucky slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the counter. “Now she has one.”

They stared. “Sir, we don’t really-“

Another fifty. “I’m adopting her. Today.”

The cashier finally relented. “Do you… want a carrier or..-“

“No.”

Five minutes later, you were tucked under Bucky’s arm like a furry football as he power-walked down the block, muttering.

“You promised me you’d stop turning into a cat in public. And what happens? You disappear for half an hour and suddenly I’m buying you back from a place with chew toys and squeaky mice.”

You meowed apologetically.

He stopped and looked down at you. A grin appeared on his expression accompanying a smug tone. “You were so close to getting adopted by a five-year-old. You’d have had a glitter collar and a stroller.”

You shuddered at the mental image.

When you finally shifted back behind an alley dumpster (and yes, it was a little gross), you stood there sheepishly, putting on the oversized hoodie and extra clothes he brought.

When you finished, he turned back and handed you the iced coffee he’d carried the whole way.

“You,” He said, “are never living this down.”

“…Thanks for buying me back.”

He smirked. “You’re lucky I didn’t leave you in the window. You looked adorable in that little hammock.”

You groaned.

He added, “Peanut.”

You chased him down the sidewalk swearing vengeance.

Again

Summary: You live in a carefully constructed world with Bucky Barnes, unaware he’s been resetting your memories every time you try to leave him. Each time you begin to remember the truth, he gently erases it, cloaking control in affection. To you, it feels like love. To him, it is. (Yandere Bucky Barnes x reader)

Warnings/Disclaimer: Minors DNI. Dark Bucky Barnes, Memory loss, Gaslighting, Obsessive love, Hints of confinement, Yandere themes, etc.

Word Count: 2.9k+

A/N: Been a while since I’ve written something dark. Can you tell I love stories that have something to do with memories yet? You are responsible for the media you consume. Let me know if I should add something else to the warnings, tags, or anything else.

Main Masterlist

You weren’t really the kind of person who got involved with superheroes.

You worked quietly at a small publishing office in Brooklyn, mostly handling edits and scheduling for midlist fantasy writers. Your days were filled with manuscript notes, cheap coffee, and chasing deadlines. It was all comfortably mundane.

You weren’t the kind to chase chaos. You didn’t attend Stark-sponsored gala events or run towards falling buildings with a camera. The Avengers were just another headline, another source of distant awe that didn’t belong in your world.

Until him.

You met Bucky Barnes on a Tuesday morning in the rain. Your umbrella had fallen apart five minutes into your walk to work, and you’d ducked into a tiny, half-hidden café. He had held the door open for you; tall, quiet, gloved hands, and hood up.

You nodded your thanks. He nodded back. That was it.

The second time you saw him was two days later at the same café. He was at the same seat near the back window. You ordered your tea, and he was already nursing his coffee. You’d never seen him speak to the barista, but his drink always arrived without question. You wondered if he’d once lived in this neighborhood, before the metal arm, before the wars.

Weeks passed before you spoke again. It started small with quick glances, polite smiles, and silent nods that eventually turned into one-word greetings. Then one afternoon, as you sat reading a worn paperback in your usual seat, he asked what book it was.

You looked up, startled. His voice was gravel and velvet all at once. You told him the title, and he tilted his head, thoughtful.

“Used to read a lot,” He said. “Stopped for a while.”

You asked why to which he smiled faintly. “Memories. Some of ’em don’t belong to me.”

You didn’t comment on it considering his past.

After that, he started waiting for you.

Or maybe you started going there hoping he’d be there. You couldn’t tell when it changed. Your work days blurred together, but those moments with him became sharp, vivid pieces of color. You learned that he liked his coffee bitter and preferred home-cooked meals over fast food. He told you small things about himself: that he didn’t sleep well, that he liked jazz, that he used to have a sister. Never much more.

You never asked about the arm. You never needed to.

He started walking you home when it got dark. Just in case, he’d say, glancing at the sidewalk like it was dangerous. At first, he’d leave you at the corner of your street. Then at your building’s door. Then one evening, he followed you up.

Nothing happened that night. He didn’t even kiss you. But he looked around your apartment with that solemn, haunted stare, like he’d stepped into a dream he wasn’t sure he was allowed to have.

When you made him tea that night, he sat on your couch like he was afraid it would vanish if he blinked.

That was the beginning.

You didn’t fall for him in a rush of heat or fire. It was something quieter like water slipping under a door. He was gentle with you, more gentle than you'd imagined a man like him could be. He handled you like a secret. In some way, you liked that. It made you feel chosen.

He memorized you.

Your favorite foods, the way you liked your windows cracked just an inch at night, how your nose scrunched when you were skeptical. He’d brush your hair behind your ear absentmindedly, kiss your temple when you frowned at your laptop, run his thumb across your knuckles while you rambled about work.

When you finally asked if you were together, he simply nodded. “You’re mine,” he said, not possessively. Just… firmly. As if it had always been true.

You smiled. It felt warm and real after all.

As weeks passed, you didn’t realize how much of yourself was already unraveling.

You didn't notice that he always picked your meals before you had a chance. That when you asked about his past, his face turned to stone. That when you mentioned taking a weekend trip with friends, he flinched. Then the next day, every one of those friends mysteriously canceled.

You didn’t realize how often he said “You don’t need to remember that.”

Or that your own memories like how you met or how long you’d been dating started to feel soft, blurry, like a watercolor left out in the rain.

You didn’t question it then though because when you were with Bucky, you felt safe. And safety can be addicting, especially when you don’t know what’s missing.

But the truth was already whispering beneath your skin. And you were about to hear it for the first time.

Again.

You never noticed the changes at first.

They crept in like dust on a windowsill so subtle and quiet, you didn’t realize how much had shifted until it was far too late.

It began with a contact missing from your phone. You were trying to text your friend about a shared memory from childhood, a stupid inside joke involving a haunted amusement park, but her name was just… gone. Not grayed out. Not blocked. Gone. You assumed it was a glitch. You’d call her later.

But you didn’t. You couldn’t seem to remember the number. You opened your gallery to find the picture of the two of you at the beach with your arms around each other, her tongue out at the camera, wind in your hair yet the photo wasn’t there. Not in albums. Not in cloud storage. Not even in your deleted folder.

You frowned and chalked it up to a syncing error. You’d been so tired lately after all. Work had been relentless, your sleep scattered. It was probably your fault.

Besides, Bucky said you’d been overwhelmed.

“You’ve been stressed, doll,” He murmured that night, when he found you staring blankly at your phone. He slid into bed behind you, arms curling around your waist like a shield. “You’ve been forgetting things, yeah? That’s okay. I’m here now.”

His lips pressed to the back of your neck, soft and warm and grounding. “I’ve got you.”

And you believed him. Because Bucky didn’t lie. Because love was supposed to feel safe. Because it was easier than the other option: that something was wrong.

Then the dreams began.

Not nightmares in the traditional sense. They weren’t filled with monsters or screams. They didn’t leave you sobbing or breathless. They just felt wrong… familiar in a way that made your stomach twist.

In the dreams, you were in a room with white walls, too white. The sterile scent of alcohol and metal stung your nose. Your wrists were strapped to a gurney, a chill biting at your skin through the thin hospital gown. Machines beeped in the distance. Shadows moved behind frosted glass.

And you were crying.

Not screaming. Not pleading.

Just… crying. Quietly and exhausted like this had happened before.

Then a voice; male, calm, and clinical: “She’s starting to remember.”

Static buzzed through the dream, warping your hearing like water rushing through your ears.

And then, him.

Bucky.

But not your Bucky, not the gentle hands and tired smile that whispered “I’ve got you.” This Bucky stood behind the glass, unmoving, and half-shrouded in shadow. His face was unreadable and cold, tight-jawed with his blue eyes sharp with calculation. And something else beneath that: Guilt. Desire. Possession.

You always woke with your chest heaving, heart racing like a prey being hunted.

The dreams clung to your skin like fog. You couldn’t shake them, couldn’t forget the way your own voice had cracked in the dream: “Please, don’t do it again.”

You told Bucky about them one morning, curled on the couch with a blanket over your shoulders and your head pounding.

“They felt too real,” You explained, knuckles white around the mug he’d just handed you. “I… I don’t know. I was in some lab, or hospital maybe, and I was tied down, and someone said-“

You paused, trying to remember the exact words. They slipped through your mind like sand.

“‘She’s starting to remember.’”

Bucky froze. Just for a moment to the degree where you barely caught it. The tension in his jaw before it was gone, smoothed over by the version of him you trusted. He stepped closer, cupping your cheek in one calloused hand. His thumb brushed your temple, slow and steady.

“They’re just dreams,” He whispered. “You’re okay. I’m right here, remember? Nothing bad’s ever going to happen to you again.”

The pressure of his fingers lingered, gentle but firm. You leaned into it.

And you didn’t see the flicker of fear in his eyes. You didn’t notice how his hand trembled for just a second before he pulled it away.

Didn’t follow his gaze to the mirror where, behind the glass, a soft blue light blinked silently. A small device tucked into the frame, some HYDRA tech masked by a smear of dust. Unnoticeable unless you remembered it was there.

It hummed with quiet intent, its function cruel and simple: To monitor. To smooth the cracks. To start over.

Again.

-

The turning point finally came on the day you found the journal.

It was supposed to be a cleaning day.

Rain tapped gently against the windows. Bucky had gone out for groceries. He never let you go alone anymore, said it wasn’t safe. So you’d decided to reorganize the closet in your bedroom. It was cluttered, and you needed a distraction. Something to silence the weight of those dreams that had begun to come more often, vivid and fractured. Something to quiet the silence.

You were pulling out an old shoe box when your foot caught on the corner of the floorboard. It shifted under your weight with a soft, unnatural creak. Curious, you crouched and ran your fingers over the edge, pushing until the plank lifted just slightly enough to wedge your hand underneath.

There was something hidden beneath the wood. Wrapped in worn fabric, almost carefully. You pulled it free as your breath caught in your throat.

It was a journal. Black leather with no name on the cover. You didn’t remember buying it. You didn’t remember writing in it. But it was yours.

The handwriting was unmistakable. Slanted letters. Loopy e’s. The way you crossed your t’s too high. And inside…

Inside was your words: Unfiltered, unedited, and terrified.

He’s done something to me. Every time I leave, I wake up back in his bed. I think it’s him. I think it’s always been him. He smiles and tells me, “This is better. This is love.” Do not trust him. Do not trust him. You’ve done this before.

Your hands shook as you turned the pages. There were days recorded in scribbled fragments. Warnings. Notes written like you were trying to reach yourself across some invisible line.

You remembered none of them.

Not the time you described trying to run: “He caught me before I reached the door. Said he’d fix it. He always fixes it.”

Not the drawing of the device in the mirror. “It hums when I remember too much, blares out if I touch it.”

Not the shaky, final note: If you’re reading this, you still have a chance. Don’t let him see this. Don’t let him see you panic.

But it was too late.

Your breath hitched as you looked up. The walls of your apartment, the space you’d painted and decorated and thought you’d built with love, suddenly felt wrong. It was all too neat. Staged. The color schemes, the framed photos, the scent of lavender in the air, it was all… curated.

Like a set. Like a memory someone else had chosen for you.

And then you felt it. That presence. You turned, heart already racing.

Bucky stood in the doorway, grocery bag in one hand. His other hand was empty, fingers flexing once. Twice. His eyes weren’t on you.

They were on the open journal.

His expression didn’t twist in shock or confusion. He didn’t ask what it was. He didn’t even look surprised. He just stared at you for a moment, quiet, as if waiting to see which version of you he’d come home to.

And then, slowly, he set the bag down.

He stepped forward in a manner that wasn’t hurried, not frantic, just controlled. Measured, like a man who’d done this before.

“Doll,” He spoke softly, as if you were spooked. As if you’d simply read something silly. “That’s not what you think it is.”

Your mouth was dry as you stepped back, clutching the book.

“I wrote this,” You whispered. “I… I’ve done this before. Haven’t I?”

His jaw tightened. “You weren’t well. You didn’t understand what you needed.”

“I tried to leave.”

“And I couldn’t let you,” He said, eyes burning now but not with anger, rather something worse. Devotion. “You don’t remember how bad it was out there. You begged me to make it stop. You asked me to take it away.”

You backed into the wall.

“I don’t remember any of that.”

“I know,” He murmured. “That’s the point.”

He stepped closer. The air thickened.

“You were scared, and I saved you. Over and over again. I keep you safe, I give you peace. Isn’t that what you said you wanted?”

You shook your head. “No. I didn’t-“

“You did,” Bucky interrupted, “And even if you forgot, it doesn’t matter. I remember for both of us.”

Your chest was heaving as you took a step back. The journal slipped from your fingers and hit the floor between you. He picked it up carefully, smoothing the pages like an old wound.

Bucky watched you for a long moment, the journal still in his hands, the weight of your realization hovering between you both like smoke. You didn’t run, you couldn’t. Your body felt frozen in place, as if your mind already knew what was coming. Like it had before.

He approached slowly with no malice nor violence, just intention.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” He said gently. “You know that. I never have.”

Your breath hitched as he reached up. Not to strike, not to grab, but to brush your hair behind your ear. The gesture was intimate.

“But you always panic when it comes back. Always think you want out. And then you cry, and I have to watch you fall apart all over again.”

He moved slightly, lips brushing your temple.

“This is love, sweetheart. It’s just… not the kind you remember.”

That’s when he reached behind the mirror.

You didn’t struggle. Maybe part of you didn’t want to know the truth. Maybe part of you had been here before again and again, and each time ended in the same outcome: surrender wrapped in warmth and silence.

You heard the hum before you felt it. That low, soft frequency, like a lullaby trapped beneath your skin. Your vision blurred. The room warped slightly, as if you were seeing through water. Your knees gave out, and Bucky caught you easily, cradling your head to his chest.

“Sshhh. Just sleep,” He whispered into your hair. “I’ll keep you safe. I always do.”

-

The next morning, sunlight spilled across the room in pale golden stripes. The curtains swayed lazily with the breeze, and the air smelled like maple syrup and cinnamon. Somewhere in the distance, a record crackled softly with a melody playing something smooth and familiar.

You blinked up at the ceiling, your head foggy and strangely heavy. A dull ache pulsed just behind your eyes.

But your heart was quiet.

No fear. No dread. Just a lingering melancholy you couldn’t name, like missing a song you forgot you loved.

You sat up slowly, fingers curling into the sheets. The bed was warm and the room was tidy. On the nightstand sat a single framed photo of you and Bucky wrapped in a shared scarf, cheeks pink from the cold.

Something fluttered in your chest. You didn’t know why, but the sight made your throat tighten.

Then came his soft voice, full of that low, soothing rasp that always made your shoulders ease.

“Morning, doll.”

You looked up to find him standing in the doorway, wearing gray sweatpants and a soft black shirt with a spatula held in one hand and a dishtowel that rested over his shoulder. He smiled at you with such warmth, such relief, that it made your eyes sting.

“Smells good,” You mumbled, voice thick.

“Thought you could use something sweet.” He tilted his head. “You okay?”

You blinked at him, your eyes burning for some reason.

“Yeah. I think so. Just… a weird dream.”

His smile deepened, that tender practiced smile.

“Don’t worry,” He said. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

He always did.

And you’d never know how many times before: Never know about the journal that was burned in the fire pit. Never know how your phone only held five contacts, four of them fake. Never know how your reality was trimmed, polished, and maintained like a greenhouse.

Each morning reborn in the life Bucky made for you. Each memory rewritten not out of cruelty but love. Twisted, obsessive, relentless love.

And for now, this time, you were his again. Just as you were meant to be.

The team really should’ve gone down the route of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” lol. They tried their best though. And 36 reasons total, she’d probably make one of those monotone top 10 videos on YouTube explaining those reasons: “They fake having more legs by standing in groups. That’s eldritch illusion tactics 101. Too many legs and not enough trust.”

Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Infected by the Chaos

Summary: Overtime, your questionable tendencies and unpredictable phrases have rubbed off onto your boyfriend. The team reacts by trying their best to un-corrupt the supersoldier. (Bucky Barnes x Avengers!reader)

Word Count: 1.2k+

A/N: Thank you to @ozwriterchick for the idea. Enjoy and Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

There was a debriefing. The usual boring, long, and necessary meeting. Everyone sat around the conference table looking various degrees of irritated.

You were leaning back in your chair, chewing gum, spinning a pen between your fingers, and mentally ranking everyone’s haircuts from “tragic” to “god-tier.” (Sam had climbed two spots today.)

Steve was talking, bless him, but honestly, your brain had already turned into a screensaver.

“-and next time, we need tighter communication. Nat, cover the north entrance. Sam, recon from above. And you two,” He gestured at you and Bucky. “Try not to burn the entire building down next time.”

You opened your mouth, probably to say something deeply unhelpful and not at all relevant but then it happened.

Bucky got there first.

Deadpan, casual, and not even glancing up from his notepad, he muttered:

“I don’t control the fire. The fire controls me.”

The room went silent.

Sam slowly turned his head. “What.”

Nat blinked. “I’m sorry- Did Barnes just say that?”

Steve dropped his tablet. You were staring at him like he’d just told you he was pregnant with a spider-dog hybrid.

Bucky glanced up with a shrug. “What? It’s true.”

“No, no, no, back up.” You stood, pointing at him. “That’s my level of chaos. You don’t get to say things like that with a straight face. That’s my thing.”

“Pretty sure I’ve earned chaos privileges by now,” He said in an even tone, biting into an apple.

Nat coughed. “What else have you been saying lately?”

You whirled on Bucky. “You didn’t even flinch. You said it like a man who has absolutely Googled whether rats can legally vote.”

Bucky smirked. “I have due to our last date. They can’t yet.”

Sam slid down in his chair. “Oh god, there’s two of them now.”

Tony, who had joined the meeting late with a coffee and zero patience, looked between you and Bucky. “I always knew one of you was a bad influence. I just didn’t expect it to be her.”

“I resent that,” You said.

“I expected more from you, Barnes,” Tony replied.

Steve looked like he was having a mild stroke. “I spent a decade dragging him out of assassin mode and you…you-“ He pointed at you with all the drama of a soap opera actor. “You corrupted him.”

You crossed your arms. “Excuse me, I elevated him. You think he’d even know what a possum rave is without me?”

“Wait,” Bucky said, serious again. “That’s real?”

“Unfortunately,” Sam muttered.

Bucky turned to you. “Do you think we could-“

“No,” Steve and Sam said in unison.

Later that night, you and Bucky were sitting on the roof, feet dangling over the ledge, and watching the stars while splitting a packet of strawberry Pop-Tarts.

You nudged him with your shoulder. “You really said it, huh?”

He smirked. “It just came out.”

“And the fire controls you?”

He looked at you with something soft and proud in his eyes. “Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time with my favorite disaster.”

You grinned and leaned into his side. “Next step: getting you to name a pigeon.”

“Already done. His name’s Charles. He watched us fight three agents yesterday.”

You gasped. “You’re perfect.”

“I know,” Bucky said. “You trained me well.”

-

As time passed, Bucky was the problem now.

At first, the team found it endearing. The grumpy super soldier smiling at dumb jokes, randomly throwing out facts about duck mating rituals, or muttering “vibe check failed” after knocking someone out. In some strange way, it was charming. Odd, but charming.

But then he named a second pigeon. And that was the last straw.

“We need to intervene,” Natasha said, deadly serious with her arms folded as she stood at the head of the war room table.

“Why?” Bucky asked, mid-bite of a toaster strudel. “Charles Junior likes me.”

“Exactly,” Tony said, pointing dramatically. “The fact that you’re calling it Charles Junior is the problem.”

“I don’t see the issue,” You said from your seat next to Bucky, proudly wearing your ‘#1 Chaos Hero’ necklace again. “It’s genetic. Charles Prime had strong leader energy.”

Steve looked between you both like he was watching two people fall off a moral cliff in slow motion. “You used to be a soldier.”

“He is a soldier,” You said. “He just also knows five ways to make banana bread ”

Bucky nodded solemnly. “Just don’t over-mix the batter.”

Tony facepalmed. “Nope. This is a brain rot virus, and you’re patient zero.”

You smiled sweetly. “Thank you.”

“I wasn’t complimenting you.”

“Still taking it that way.”

Natasha, still painfully calm, pulled out a folder labeled “OPERATION: WINTER DETOX.”

“Oh no,” Bucky muttered.

“Yes,” She said. “We're deprogramming the chaos out of you. We're doing it for the safety of the building, and also the pigeons.”

-

During phase one, you were banned from interacting with Bucky for 48 hours. No comms. No breakfast together. No late-night feral cuddling where you told him shark facts until he passed out.

You broke the rule in 6 minutes.

Literally. You broke into the vent system and dropped into his room from the ceiling like some kind of gremlin god.

“Did you know octopuses have nine brains?”

Bucky looked up from his book, deadpan. “I do now.”

When Sam burst in to yell at you, he found Bucky trying to braid your hair while you explained the 36 reasons flamingos are both cursed and divine.

Sam left with his soul cracked in half.

Phase two didn’t end much better either. They tried re-soldiering him. Military documentaries. Physical training drills. A six-hour silent stare-off with Steve.

You showed up with a whiteboard that said “Today’s Mission: Turn Bucky Into a Lizard.”

Steve had to lock you out of the room and block your contact from Bucky’s phone for two hours.

By phase three, the team tried pairing Bucky with other Avengers. Nat. Rhodey. Bruce.

Each one ended up slightly more unhinged than when they started.

Bruce now exclusively drinks out of a cup shaped like a frog. Nat started saying “mood” unironically. Rhodey got a ferret and named it “Mini War Machine.”

“Do you see what you’ve done?” Steve begged one night as you and Bucky made soup in the communal kitchen while retelling an episode of River Monsters using only metaphors and curse words.

“I made the team fun,” You said, stabbing a ladle toward him.

Bucky beamed. “They laugh more now. And I haven’t threatened to murder anyone in two weeks.”

Tony nodded slowly. “He’s not wrong. Still terrifying, but now it’s… unpredictable terrifying.”

The breaking point came the next morning. Bucky walked into the briefing room wearing a shirt that said: “Emotionally Stable is a Strong Word”

You wore one that said: “I Know the Assignment. I Am Choosing to Ignore It.”

Steve stood then walked out muttering something about moving to Wakanda.

The team officially gave up trying to fix Bucky Barnes.

-

Later that night, Bucky was lying beside you, watching the stars again as the city hummed below.

“They really think I’m broken now,” He said.

You shrugged, twirling a glow stick between your fingers. “They just don’t know how to handle dual-wielding emotional repression and chaotic brilliance.”

He turned to you, smiling. “You really think it’s brilliance?”

You kissed his cheek. “Obviously. I don’t waste my time on mediocrity. Now help me build a pigeon obstacle course on the balcony.”

He nodded. “It’s what Charles Prime would’ve wanted.”

With all Bucky has had to deal with, he definitely earned chaos privileges and should get his own medal lol. Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Infected by the Chaos

Summary: Overtime, your questionable tendencies and unpredictable phrases have rubbed off onto your boyfriend. The team reacts by trying their best to un-corrupt the supersoldier. (Bucky Barnes x Avengers!reader)

Word Count: 1.2k+

A/N: Thank you to @ozwriterchick for the idea. Enjoy and Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

There was a debriefing. The usual boring, long, and necessary meeting. Everyone sat around the conference table looking various degrees of irritated.

You were leaning back in your chair, chewing gum, spinning a pen between your fingers, and mentally ranking everyone’s haircuts from “tragic” to “god-tier.” (Sam had climbed two spots today.)

Steve was talking, bless him, but honestly, your brain had already turned into a screensaver.

“-and next time, we need tighter communication. Nat, cover the north entrance. Sam, recon from above. And you two,” He gestured at you and Bucky. “Try not to burn the entire building down next time.”

You opened your mouth, probably to say something deeply unhelpful and not at all relevant but then it happened.

Bucky got there first.

Deadpan, casual, and not even glancing up from his notepad, he muttered:

“I don’t control the fire. The fire controls me.”

The room went silent.

Sam slowly turned his head. “What.”

Nat blinked. “I’m sorry- Did Barnes just say that?”

Steve dropped his tablet. You were staring at him like he’d just told you he was pregnant with a spider-dog hybrid.

Bucky glanced up with a shrug. “What? It’s true.”

“No, no, no, back up.” You stood, pointing at him. “That’s my level of chaos. You don’t get to say things like that with a straight face. That’s my thing.”

“Pretty sure I’ve earned chaos privileges by now,” He said in an even tone, biting into an apple.

Nat coughed. “What else have you been saying lately?”

You whirled on Bucky. “You didn’t even flinch. You said it like a man who has absolutely Googled whether rats can legally vote.”

Bucky smirked. “I have due to our last date. They can’t yet.”

Sam slid down in his chair. “Oh god, there’s two of them now.”

Tony, who had joined the meeting late with a coffee and zero patience, looked between you and Bucky. “I always knew one of you was a bad influence. I just didn’t expect it to be her.”

“I resent that,” You said.

“I expected more from you, Barnes,” Tony replied.

Steve looked like he was having a mild stroke. “I spent a decade dragging him out of assassin mode and you…you-“ He pointed at you with all the drama of a soap opera actor. “You corrupted him.”

You crossed your arms. “Excuse me, I elevated him. You think he’d even know what a possum rave is without me?”

“Wait,” Bucky said, serious again. “That’s real?”

“Unfortunately,” Sam muttered.

Bucky turned to you. “Do you think we could-“

“No,” Steve and Sam said in unison.

Later that night, you and Bucky were sitting on the roof, feet dangling over the ledge, and watching the stars while splitting a packet of strawberry Pop-Tarts.

You nudged him with your shoulder. “You really said it, huh?”

He smirked. “It just came out.”

“And the fire controls you?”

He looked at you with something soft and proud in his eyes. “Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time with my favorite disaster.”

You grinned and leaned into his side. “Next step: getting you to name a pigeon.”

“Already done. His name’s Charles. He watched us fight three agents yesterday.”

You gasped. “You’re perfect.”

“I know,” Bucky said. “You trained me well.”

-

As time passed, Bucky was the problem now.

At first, the team found it endearing. The grumpy super soldier smiling at dumb jokes, randomly throwing out facts about duck mating rituals, or muttering “vibe check failed” after knocking someone out. In some strange way, it was charming. Odd, but charming.

But then he named a second pigeon. And that was the last straw.

“We need to intervene,” Natasha said, deadly serious with her arms folded as she stood at the head of the war room table.

“Why?” Bucky asked, mid-bite of a toaster strudel. “Charles Junior likes me.”

“Exactly,” Tony said, pointing dramatically. “The fact that you’re calling it Charles Junior is the problem.”

“I don’t see the issue,” You said from your seat next to Bucky, proudly wearing your ‘#1 Chaos Hero’ necklace again. “It’s genetic. Charles Prime had strong leader energy.”

Steve looked between you both like he was watching two people fall off a moral cliff in slow motion. “You used to be a soldier.”

“He is a soldier,” You said. “He just also knows five ways to make banana bread ”

Bucky nodded solemnly. “Just don’t over-mix the batter.”

Tony facepalmed. “Nope. This is a brain rot virus, and you’re patient zero.”

You smiled sweetly. “Thank you.”

“I wasn’t complimenting you.”

“Still taking it that way.”

Natasha, still painfully calm, pulled out a folder labeled “OPERATION: WINTER DETOX.”

“Oh no,” Bucky muttered.

“Yes,” She said. “We're deprogramming the chaos out of you. We're doing it for the safety of the building, and also the pigeons.”

-

During phase one, you were banned from interacting with Bucky for 48 hours. No comms. No breakfast together. No late-night feral cuddling where you told him shark facts until he passed out.

You broke the rule in 6 minutes.

Literally. You broke into the vent system and dropped into his room from the ceiling like some kind of gremlin god.

“Did you know octopuses have nine brains?”

Bucky looked up from his book, deadpan. “I do now.”

When Sam burst in to yell at you, he found Bucky trying to braid your hair while you explained the 36 reasons flamingos are both cursed and divine.

Sam left with his soul cracked in half.

Phase two didn’t end much better either. They tried re-soldiering him. Military documentaries. Physical training drills. A six-hour silent stare-off with Steve.

You showed up with a whiteboard that said “Today’s Mission: Turn Bucky Into a Lizard.”

Steve had to lock you out of the room and block your contact from Bucky’s phone for two hours.

By phase three, the team tried pairing Bucky with other Avengers. Nat. Rhodey. Bruce.

Each one ended up slightly more unhinged than when they started.

Bruce now exclusively drinks out of a cup shaped like a frog. Nat started saying “mood” unironically. Rhodey got a ferret and named it “Mini War Machine.”

“Do you see what you’ve done?” Steve begged one night as you and Bucky made soup in the communal kitchen while retelling an episode of River Monsters using only metaphors and curse words.

“I made the team fun,” You said, stabbing a ladle toward him.

Bucky beamed. “They laugh more now. And I haven’t threatened to murder anyone in two weeks.”

Tony nodded slowly. “He’s not wrong. Still terrifying, but now it’s… unpredictable terrifying.”

The breaking point came the next morning. Bucky walked into the briefing room wearing a shirt that said: “Emotionally Stable is a Strong Word”

You wore one that said: “I Know the Assignment. I Am Choosing to Ignore It.”

Steve stood then walked out muttering something about moving to Wakanda.

The team officially gave up trying to fix Bucky Barnes.

-

Later that night, Bucky was lying beside you, watching the stars again as the city hummed below.

“They really think I’m broken now,” He said.

You shrugged, twirling a glow stick between your fingers. “They just don’t know how to handle dual-wielding emotional repression and chaotic brilliance.”

He turned to you, smiling. “You really think it’s brilliance?”

You kissed his cheek. “Obviously. I don’t waste my time on mediocrity. Now help me build a pigeon obstacle course on the balcony.”

He nodded. “It’s what Charles Prime would’ve wanted.”

Awww, thank you so much! I’ve always loved fairies honestly, so it’s nice to see so many other people enjoying this idea as well. Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Tiny Winged Trouble

Summary: You’re only a few inches tall, full of sparkle and mischief. When SHIELD accidentally captures you in a jar, Steve and Bucky are tasked with figuring out what you are. You refuse to speak at first, until Steve gives you a cookie. Now they’re stuck with a clingy, stubborn fairy who calls them “Tree” and “Shadow.” (Steve Rogers x Fairy!Reader x Bucky Barnes)

Word Count: 1.1k+

A/N: It was either mermaid reader or fairy reader. Fairy was easier to write soooo… Enjoy! Happy reading!

Main Masterlist

You were caught in a jar.

A pickle jar, to be specific. It still smelled faintly of vinegar and dill, which you found personally offensive and not just because fairies are very sensitive to smell.

You were fluttering peacefully through the trees near the outskirts of New York when a group of shouting humans in dark armor leapt out from behind a bush and trapped you in what they called a “containment unit.” You didn’t know what SHIELD was, but their agents were very loud and very rough, and they didn’t even ask your name.

You sat cross-legged at the bottom of the jar, wings tucked in, arms folded across your chest, trying your best to look unimpressed.

And then he walked in. Tall, golden-haired, broad-shouldered, a man who practically radiated kindness and confusion in equal measure. Steve Rogers.

He approached the table with another man behind him, darker, quieter, haunted-eyed but alert watching everything. Bucky Barnes.

“I thought you said there was an artifact,” Steve said slowly, looking at the jar.

“It is,” The agent replied. “It talks.”

You gave the man your most dramatic eye roll.

Steve crouched beside the table, eyes soft, voice careful. “Hi there. What’s your name?”

You turned your head away and said nothing.

Bucky stepped closer, narrowing his eyes. “Do fairies sulk?”

You didn’t like his tone not cruel, just skeptical. So you stuck your tongue out at him and turned invisible.

Bucky jumped slightly. “Okay. That answers that.”

“Hey, hey,” Steve murmured, holding his hands up gently. “We’re not gonna hurt you, promise. You just surprised everyone, that’s all. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Still, you said nothing.

It wasn’t until someone walked by with a coffee and a chocolate chip cookie that you broke your silence. You reappeared instantly, pressed against the glass, eyes wide.

Steve blinked, then laughed softly. “You want one of those?”

You nodded furiously.

Five minutes later, the jar was opened and you bolted straight onto Steve’s shoulder, snatched the cookie chunk he offered, and curled into the crook of his neck like you’d always lived there.

You stayed close after that. Not that they had much of a choice.

You built a tiny hammock out of tissues on their bookshelf. Braided thread into their laces. Tried to “fix” Bucky’s grumpy face with flower petals and got scolded, very softly, for it. You called Steve “Tree” because he was tall and smelled like sap. You called Bucky “Shadow” because he followed you around pretending he wasn’t trying to protect you.

You refused to be studied, refused to go back in any jars, and made it very clear you’d chosen your new home: right between two super soldiers who didn’t know how much they needed something as strange and sweet as you.

Sometimes, you’d land on Bucky’s shoulder when he couldn’t sleep, singing soft, wordless melodies that reminded him of something in the past. Sometimes, you’d perch on Steve’s chest as he read, snuggled into the fabric of his henley like a kitten with wings.

You were tiny, fragile, ridiculous, and completely, utterly theirs.

Even if you still left cookie crumbs everywhere.

-

Steve and Bucky discovered quickly how particular fairies could be. Or maybe it was just you.

See, they realized you were much more stubborn than they had anticipated which caused another one of your sulking moods. It started because you weren’t allowed to use the microwave. Which, in your defense, made no sense.

You weren’t trying to start another fire, that was an accident. And yes, maybe the leftover spaghetti had exploded the last time, but how were you supposed to know that foil was banned? You’d never had a microwave before. You grew up in moss and tree hollows and warm sunlight. Your diet was dew, nectar, and whatever you could barter from passing squirrels.

Now, you wanted popcorn, but Bucky had said no. He had looked down at you with his arms crossed and that stupid I care about you and you’re being ridiculous face, stating, “You almost fried the tower’s circuits last time. Find something from the fruit bowl if you’re hungry.”

You responded with the most dramatic gasp you could manage and fluttered up to the top of the cabinets, crossing your arms with a huff.

Steve tried to step in, intervening gently. “He’s not trying to upset you. He just doesn’t want you to get hurt.”

You didn’t answer. You turned your back with your wings flaring slightly in righteous fairy fury, you refused to acknowledge either of them. Not even when Steve sighed and offered you a piece of shortbread. Not even when Bucky muttered something like “She’s sulking again, isn’t she?”

You remained a furious little sparkle, curled into a puffball of wings and pouting.

Hours passed. You still refused to come down.

They tried tempting you with cookies, with your favorite mug of rose petal tea, with one of Steve’s socks (which you always stole to use as a blanket).

Nothing. You were mad. And fairies, though small, are very good at holding grudges.

By the time night fell, you were still wedged behind a cereal box, curled into a mopey heap. And then… you heard a sound. Thump. It was a soft knock on the cabinet.

You peeked over the edge to find Bucky standing there, holding a tiny plate.

“I made popcorn. Not with the microwave. Just the pan.”

You stared at him.

“I didn’t put salt on it. Figured you’d want to do that yourself.”

He set the plate down gently on the counter, then leaned against it, arms folded.

“…You gonna stay up there forever?” He asked after a pause, tone mild.

You turned invisible.

He smirked. “Cute.”

Moments later, you reappeared beside the popcorn and began nibbling, still silent, still frowning.

Steve walked in just then and paused. “Is that a peace offering or a trap?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Bucky replied.

You muttered something under your breath.

Steve blinked. “Did she just call you a ‘grumpy tin soldier’?”

“I think so,” Bucky said, raising an eyebrow.

You stuffed a piece of popcorn in your mouth and glared at them both, cheeks puffed out like a hamster.

Steve crouched beside the counter, eyes warm. “Hey, no one’s mad at you, sweetheart. We just don’t want you getting hurt.”

You looked away before mumbling, “I wanted to make it myself.”

And that was the truth of it. You wanted to prove you could. That you weren’t just tiny and delicate and fluttery. That you could be useful, capable. That you weren’t always the one needing help.

Bucky leaned closer, voice quieter now. “Next time… I’ll show you how.”

You peeked up at him, suspicious.

“You can hold the lid,” He said, tone serious. “That’s an important job.”

“…Fine,” You muttered.

Steve smiled gently, brushing your wing with one careful finger. “We’re proud of you, y’know.”

You huffed, still pretending you weren’t moved before climbing into Bucky’s hand, wings drooping slightly from exhaustion and popcorn forgotten. You curled into his palm with a sigh, tiny fingers gripping the edge of his sleeve.

Still sulking but not as much. And this time, you weren’t alone.

Infected by the Chaos

Summary: Overtime, your questionable tendencies and unpredictable phrases have rubbed off onto your boyfriend. The team reacts by trying their best to un-corrupt the supersoldier. (Bucky Barnes x Avengers!reader)

Word Count: 1.2k+

A/N: Thank you to @ozwriterchick for the idea. Enjoy and Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

There was a debriefing. The usual boring, long, and necessary meeting. Everyone sat around the conference table looking various degrees of irritated.

You were leaning back in your chair, chewing gum, spinning a pen between your fingers, and mentally ranking everyone’s haircuts from “tragic” to “god-tier.” (Sam had climbed two spots today.)

Steve was talking, bless him, but honestly, your brain had already turned into a screensaver.

“-and next time, we need tighter communication. Nat, cover the north entrance. Sam, recon from above. And you two,” He gestured at you and Bucky. “Try not to burn the entire building down next time.”

You opened your mouth, probably to say something deeply unhelpful and not at all relevant but then it happened.

Bucky got there first.

Deadpan, casual, and not even glancing up from his notepad, he muttered:

“I don’t control the fire. The fire controls me.”

The room went silent.

Sam slowly turned his head. “What.”

Nat blinked. “I’m sorry- Did Barnes just say that?”

Steve dropped his tablet. You were staring at him like he’d just told you he was pregnant with a spider-dog hybrid.

Bucky glanced up with a shrug. “What? It’s true.”

“No, no, no, back up.” You stood, pointing at him. “That’s my level of chaos. You don’t get to say things like that with a straight face. That’s my thing.”

“Pretty sure I’ve earned chaos privileges by now,” He said in an even tone, biting into an apple.

Nat coughed. “What else have you been saying lately?”

You whirled on Bucky. “You didn’t even flinch. You said it like a man who has absolutely Googled whether rats can legally vote.”

Bucky smirked. “I have due to our last date. They can’t yet.”

Sam slid down in his chair. “Oh god, there’s two of them now.”

Tony, who had joined the meeting late with a coffee and zero patience, looked between you and Bucky. “I always knew one of you was a bad influence. I just didn’t expect it to be her.”

“I resent that,” You said.

“I expected more from you, Barnes,” Tony replied.

Steve looked like he was having a mild stroke. “I spent a decade dragging him out of assassin mode and you…you-“ He pointed at you with all the drama of a soap opera actor. “You corrupted him.”

You crossed your arms. “Excuse me, I elevated him. You think he’d even know what a possum rave is without me?”

“Wait,” Bucky said, serious again. “That’s real?”

“Unfortunately,” Sam muttered.

Bucky turned to you. “Do you think we could-“

“No,” Steve and Sam said in unison.

Later that night, you and Bucky were sitting on the roof, feet dangling over the ledge, and watching the stars while splitting a packet of strawberry Pop-Tarts.

You nudged him with your shoulder. “You really said it, huh?”

He smirked. “It just came out.”

“And the fire controls you?”

He looked at you with something soft and proud in his eyes. “Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time with my favorite disaster.”

You grinned and leaned into his side. “Next step: getting you to name a pigeon.”

“Already done. His name’s Charles. He watched us fight three agents yesterday.”

You gasped. “You’re perfect.”

“I know,” Bucky said. “You trained me well.”

-

As time passed, Bucky was the problem now.

At first, the team found it endearing. The grumpy super soldier smiling at dumb jokes, randomly throwing out facts about duck mating rituals, or muttering “vibe check failed” after knocking someone out. In some strange way, it was charming. Odd, but charming.

But then he named a second pigeon. And that was the last straw.

“We need to intervene,” Natasha said, deadly serious with her arms folded as she stood at the head of the war room table.

“Why?” Bucky asked, mid-bite of a toaster strudel. “Charles Junior likes me.”

“Exactly,” Tony said, pointing dramatically. “The fact that you’re calling it Charles Junior is the problem.”

“I don’t see the issue,” You said from your seat next to Bucky, proudly wearing your ‘#1 Chaos Hero’ necklace again. “It’s genetic. Charles Prime had strong leader energy.”

Steve looked between you both like he was watching two people fall off a moral cliff in slow motion. “You used to be a soldier.”

“He is a soldier,” You said. “He just also knows five ways to make banana bread ”

Bucky nodded solemnly. “Just don’t over-mix the batter.”

Tony facepalmed. “Nope. This is a brain rot virus, and you’re patient zero.”

You smiled sweetly. “Thank you.”

“I wasn’t complimenting you.”

“Still taking it that way.”

Natasha, still painfully calm, pulled out a folder labeled “OPERATION: WINTER DETOX.”

“Oh no,” Bucky muttered.

“Yes,” She said. “We're deprogramming the chaos out of you. We're doing it for the safety of the building, and also the pigeons.”

-

During phase one, you were banned from interacting with Bucky for 48 hours. No comms. No breakfast together. No late-night feral cuddling where you told him shark facts until he passed out.

You broke the rule in 6 minutes.

Literally. You broke into the vent system and dropped into his room from the ceiling like some kind of gremlin god.

“Did you know octopuses have nine brains?”

Bucky looked up from his book, deadpan. “I do now.”

When Sam burst in to yell at you, he found Bucky trying to braid your hair while you explained the 36 reasons flamingos are both cursed and divine.

Sam left with his soul cracked in half.

Phase two didn’t end much better either. They tried re-soldiering him. Military documentaries. Physical training drills. A six-hour silent stare-off with Steve.

You showed up with a whiteboard that said “Today’s Mission: Turn Bucky Into a Lizard.”

Steve had to lock you out of the room and block your contact from Bucky’s phone for two hours.

By phase three, the team tried pairing Bucky with other Avengers. Nat. Rhodey. Bruce.

Each one ended up slightly more unhinged than when they started.

Bruce now exclusively drinks out of a cup shaped like a frog. Nat started saying “mood” unironically. Rhodey got a ferret and named it “Mini War Machine.”

“Do you see what you’ve done?” Steve begged one night as you and Bucky made soup in the communal kitchen while retelling an episode of River Monsters using only metaphors and curse words.

“I made the team fun,” You said, stabbing a ladle toward him.

Bucky beamed. “They laugh more now. And I haven’t threatened to murder anyone in two weeks.”

Tony nodded slowly. “He’s not wrong. Still terrifying, but now it’s… unpredictable terrifying.”

The breaking point came the next morning. Bucky walked into the briefing room wearing a shirt that said: “Emotionally Stable is a Strong Word”

You wore one that said: “I Know the Assignment. I Am Choosing to Ignore It.”

Steve stood then walked out muttering something about moving to Wakanda.

The team officially gave up trying to fix Bucky Barnes.

-

Later that night, Bucky was lying beside you, watching the stars again as the city hummed below.

“They really think I’m broken now,” He said.

You shrugged, twirling a glow stick between your fingers. “They just don’t know how to handle dual-wielding emotional repression and chaotic brilliance.”

He turned to you, smiling. “You really think it’s brilliance?”

You kissed his cheek. “Obviously. I don’t waste my time on mediocrity. Now help me build a pigeon obstacle course on the balcony.”

He nodded. “It’s what Charles Prime would’ve wanted.”

Haha, thank you so much!! It’s one of my favorites to write for. I’m happy so many people seem to like it as well. Thank you for reading!!! ♡

⋆༺Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist༻⋆

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Summary: A collection of different one-shots with an unhinged reader as a chaotic whirlwind of misplaced confidence, untraceable knowledge, and genuine good intentions. People find you to be both a genius and an idiot, and no one can determine which side wins more often.

Main Masterlist

Keys | Fluff ✿ | Angst ⛆ | Dark 𓉸 | Hurt/Comfort ❦

✿ Heart First, Sanity Later - You, a dangerously chaotic genius with the common sense of a soggy spoon, somehow captures the heart of Bucky Barnes. Despite the constant emotional whiplash, raccoon-related injuries, and deeply cursed inventions, Bucky finds himself falling hard.

✿ Disastrous Dates - Bucky wanted to take you on an actual date. It was meant to be sweet. Normal. Quiet. Unfortunately, you were involved. So naturally, it was none of those things.

✿ Certified Genius, Unlicensed Moron - Exploring more of your relationship and dynamics with the rest of the Avengers, they are well-acquainted with how much whiplash and how many headaches you give them on a daily.

✿ Oops, I Joined a Cult Again - You joined a cult. That’s it.

✿ Operation: Lover’s Retreat (You Think) - Sent on a recon mission in the Carpathian Mountains, you treat it like a romantic getaway including but not limited to bath bombs, a sparkly kazoo, and one shared bed. Bucky remains constantly torn between exasperation and deep affection.

✿ Unqualified, Unhinged, and Unforgettable - A bunch of excited, hopeful rookies have the absolute displeasure honor of being trained under you.

✿ Chaos Counseling - You accidentally becomes the Avengers' unofficial therapist, delivering unhinged wisdom that changes lives whether they like it or not.

✿❦ Glitter, Gunfire, and Grape Juice - You throw yourself between a rookie and an energy blast.  Bucky panics.

Tiny Caretaker

Summary: Steve returns from a mission injured and emotionally drained. You wordlessly comfort him using small, nature-based gifts. Later, Bucky arrives, sees what you've done, and is deeply moved. Both men sit in reverent silence, realizing just how much your small, silent love means to them. (Steve Rogers x Fairy!Reader x Bucky Barnes)

Word Count: 1.1k+

A/N: Thank you to @cherryblossomfairyy for the request/suggestion. Enjoy and Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Original Fic

The door clicked open just past midnight.

You were already awake. You had been for hours, sitting curled in the tiny hammock you’d woven between two books on the shelf. The wind had felt strange tonight, sharp at the edges. A whispering kind of sharp. You’d known something was wrong before you heard the heavy steps in the hallway, slower than usual.

When Steve stepped inside, you didn’t rush to him.

You just watched. Observed.

He dropped his shield near the couch with a soft clatter. He was still in the dark navy suit, but it was torn in places. There was a long gash across the side and bruises blooming along his jaw. His shoulders were slumped in that way they only were when something had gone wrong. Not physically wrong, emotionally wrong.

He sighed as he lowered himself to the couch, hand pressed against his side. You saw red, dull and drying, on his gloves. You fluttered down silently, your wings barely whispering in the dim light.

He didn’t notice you right away. He had his eyes closed, breathing through the pain and focusing inward, as humans often did when they didn’t want to feel anything at all.

You stood on the coffee table in front of him, arms folded, brow creased. You didn’t like this. He was your Tree. And trees weren’t supposed to fall.

You disappeared for a moment, darting across the shelves, climbing inside the drawer where you kept your special collection. By the time you returned, Steve had opened his eyes.

He didn’t say anything though. He didn’t need to. Because there you were, wings fluttering tiredly, arms full of your treasures for him.

You placed a smooth, round stone beside his knee. The one you’d kept for three seasons because it felt like sunshine when you touched it. You set down your best leaf, soft and silvery on one side. Good for calming dreams. You also had a tiny pot they had given to you before, filled halfway with real honey. The kind you only used for injuries. You unscrewed the top with some effort and nudged it toward his hand.

Then finally… your favorite button.

It was a pale blue one, the color of the sky on warm days. You’d once told Bucky it was “lucky” with a proud little tap and a wide grin. It had always stayed in your drawer, wrapped in a bit of thread like a tiny treasure.

Now it sat beside Steve, on the curve of his palm. His fingers closed around it slowly.

“Is this for me?” He asked, voice rough and tired.

You nodded then sat cross-legged on his knee, your glow dim but steady. You didn’t speak much. You didn’t need to. Your wings brushed his arm gently, a small touch acting as a reminder that you were here, that he wasn’t alone.

Steve exhaled softly and leaned his head back against the couch, hand still curled around the button, the honey pot beside him.

“…Thank you,” He whispered.

You didn’t answer, but you stayed. And your silent company said the rest.

The sun hadn’t risen yet when Bucky pushed open the door.

The team was back, the worst was over, and he’d spent the last few hours finishing debriefs, patching his own wounds, and pacing. He hadn’t seen Steve since the quinjet landed.

So when he opened the door, he froze in the doorway.

Steve was half-asleep on the couch, sprawled awkwardly with one hand clutched loosely over his ribs and the other cupped around a single, small, pale blue button.

His eyes flickered open at the sound. “Hey.”

“You look like hell,” Bucky said, walking in, voice softer than his words.

Steve cracked a tired smile. “Felt worse.”

That’s when Bucky spotted you curled on Steve’s shoulder like a fallen petal, wings tucked tightly around yourself, and your arms holding a bit of thread that had come loose from your pouch. Your cheek was pressed to the fabric of his torn uniform, your tiny form rising and falling with his every breath.

Bucky stopped in his tracks.

There was a leaf on the armrest, a smooth stone by Steve’s knee, and a small pot of honey with the lid off, just barely untouched. And that button… your button.

Bucky knew that one. You’d once protected it from the vacuum like it was sacred. He had joked about it being your “dragon hoard,” and you had hissed at him like an angry kitten, then patted the button gently and flown off in a huff. You’d even growled at Sam once for trying to borrow it.

He stepped closer, crouching beside the couch, eyes flicking between the little offerings and the soft expression on Steve’s face.

“She left them for me,” Steve murmured. “Didn’t say anything. Just… stayed.”

Bucky stared at you for a long moment as his features softened. He reached out, and with one gloved finger, gently fixed the corner of the blanket that had fallen from Steve’s chest, then carefully draped a second piece over your tiny form, shielding you from the draft.

“She always knows,” He muttered, more to himself than Steve.

Steve let out a breath. “She gave me the button.”

Bucky blinked. “The button?”

Steve nodded, voice quiet. “Think I was supposed to hold it till I felt better.”

Bucky huffed, half-sigh, half-laugh. “She gave me a sunflower petal when I had a panic attack last month.”

“She didn’t say much, but… it worked,” Steve said, looking down at you again. “I feel better.”

Bucky’s gaze lingered on you curled up. You were so still, wings trembling slightly in your sleep. “You think she knows we’d burn the world down for her?”

Steve chuckled weakly. “She probably does.”

They both sat in silence for a while, watching the way your wings fluttered in your dreams. Then Bucky, very gently, reached into his pocket. He pulled out a dried dandelion puff, impossibly intact, and set it beside the button in Steve’s palm.

“She gave me this,” He spoke softly. “When you went dark on a mission last month. Said it was for… wishing.”

Steve looked at him.

“You keep it,” Bucky added. “Until she asks for it back.”

Steve nodded. His fingers curled around the puff and the button, chest rising with something deep and quiet. You shifted, still asleep, and leaned closer into the warmth of Steve’s neck.

Bucky turned to go fetch the Medkit before pausing at the door.

“Get some rest, Stevie,” He said over his shoulder. “She’s got you.”

Steve looked down at the little fairy asleep against his collarbone, then back at Bucky.

“So do you.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, just dipped his head in a small nod before slipping into the hallway, the door shutting quietly behind him.

Steve leaned back, hand still cradling the button and the wish, and let his eyes fall closed again. This time, he slept without pain because you were there.

And somehow… that made all the difference.

Awww, so glad you like it! I add more additions to this series here and there, so be on the lookout for more! Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Heart First, Sanity Later

Summary: You, a dangerously chaotic genius with the common sense of a soggy spoon, somehow captures the heart of Bucky Barnes. Despite the constant emotional whiplash, raccoon-related injuries, and deeply cursed inventions, Bucky finds himself falling hard… somewhere between a Capri Sun intervention robot and a vent-related rescue. (Bucky Barnes x Avengers!reader)

Disclaimer: This was based on this post I came across from @ghouljams earlier. Please let me know if you want me to remove any of the information you listed here.

Word Count: 3.4k+

A/N: I had a blast writing this and I am begging on my hands and knees that other people like this as well so I can write more of unhinged reader. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Sequel | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

Bucky didn’t mean to get attached. In fact, he very specifically meant not to get attached to you.

You, with your wide smile and increasingly concerning decision-making skills. You, who walked into a briefing ten minutes late with a Slurpee, claimed you got “time-displaced,” and then flawlessly identified the year, model, and VIN of a car from a blurry photo Tony handed out. “That’s a 1972 Chevelle SS,” You’d said casually. “But the rims are from a later model. 1976, I think.”

He stared at you. Everyone did.

You slurped. “What?”

Later, Bucky watched you put your phone in the fridge, forget about it, then ask him if he’d “seen a text from 7-Eleven recently.” You didn’t even seem high. That was the worst part. You just… existed like that. All the time.

A living contradiction. A walking cosmic joke. The human version of a browser with 72 tabs open, one playing music, none labeled, and all of them about wildly different topics ranging from “theoretical wormhole stability” to “can ducks feel shame.”

And the worst part? You were insanely good at your job.

When it came to the field, you moved like you’d choreographed every punch in advance. Like your brain hit a switch and rerouted all the loose marbles into sheer precision.

But outside of that? Absolute chaos.

One time you asked if the word “colonel” was a typo because you’d only ever read it.

"Why is it spelled like 'colon-el'?” You’d asked Bucky, eating popcorn with a throwing knife for apparently no reason. “Like. You’re telling me we all just agreed to ignore the 'L'?”

He blinked slowly. “Yes.”

“Sounds fake but okay.”

He wanted to strangle you. He wanted to kiss you. He wanted to wrap you in a blanket and take you to a doctor because no one should eat four bananas and not know why their stomach hurts. (“I thought they were like… nature’s snack bars!” You’d wailed from the floor. “Why does nature lie?”)

Still, there was something undeniably magnetic about you. Something that made Bucky keep finding excuses to be around you. Something that made him bite back a smile when you declared, with utter confidence, that “Citizen Kane” was a man’s full name and you “felt bad for him growing up with that.”

Sam had to leave the room. Steve looked like he aged five years. Bucky? He just leaned back in his chair and muttered, “You’re so lucky you’re pretty.”

You beamed. “I know, right?”

And that was just the beginning.

-

Bucky knew it the moment you turned to him in the middle of a high-stakes infiltration and whispered:

“Hey. Do you think raccoons ever get embarrassed?”

He froze mid-step, crouched beside you behind a cluster of storage crates, both of you watching a Hydra compound patrol pace along the wall ahead. Guns primed. Comms live. Two minutes to breach.

You blinked at him, eyes wide and totally serious about the question in the entirely inappropriate setting.

“What?” He hissed.

You frowned thoughtfully, like he was the weird one. “They have those little hands, right? Like… what if one drops its snack in front of another raccoon. Is that, like, raccoon shame? Do they feel judged?”

Bucky stared. He wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating. It had been a long week after all.

Then you added, “Anyway, two guards approaching. They’ll pass each other in about four seconds. I can take the left. You want the one with the scar?”

You didn’t even wait for an answer. Your body vanished into the shadows, clean and calculated. Three seconds later, both guards were unconscious and being gently rolled into the bushes like unwanted pizza boxes.

Bucky just stood there, breathing. You terrified him but not in the way enemies did. No, that would be too simple. Because he could fight Hydra, take a bullet, disarm a bomb, but you?

You were something else. A walking contradiction.

You once tripped over your own shoelaces while explaining quantum theory, then beat four highly trained operatives unconscious with a clipboard. You called a Glock a “grippy lil’ pew stick” but recited the Geneva Convention word-for-word because you “liked bedtime reading.”

And tonight was no different.

By the time the mission was done, the intel recovered, and the building cleared, Bucky was sore, bruised, and fully convinced that he was doomed. Because somewhere between the absurd commentary, the flawless fighting, and the way you wiped blood from your brow and grinned at him like you weren’t covered in chaos, he felt it.

That thing. The awful, nauseating, heart-clutching feeling.

Affection.

It hit him in the middle of your post-mission debrief, which mostly consisted of you sitting on the quinjet floor, drinking chocolate milk out of a thermos and recounting the entire op like it was a cute story you were telling children.

“And then I was like, Bam! right to the neck, and he just went down like a sack of sad potatoes. Did you see that? You saw that, right, Buck? I did the thing with the kick!”

He didn’t answer. He was looking at you like you’d grown a second head or like how you were the only thing stuck in his head these days. God, you were awful.

You had blood on your elbow and half your gear undone. You were sprawled out on the floor like a sleep-deprived gremlin, and when you looked up at him and smiled, like he was the only person in the world who mattered… He was done. Gone.

“You okay there, Grumpypants?” You asked.

“I think I might hate you,” He muttered, sitting down beside you.

You grinned, bumping his shoulder with yours. “That’s fair. I’m an acquired taste. Like oysters. Or war crimes.”

He barked a laugh before he could stop it. You looked so proud.

“I’m serious,” He said, sobering. “You’re gonna get yourself killed one day. You don’t take anything seriously.”

You just stared at him for a moment, and then, quietly, you said, “I take you seriously.”

The jet went quiet.

And Bucky sat very, very still because somehow, that hit harder than any mission ever had.

You weren’t just funny. Or weird. Or brilliant in a way that made his head hurt.

You were kind. Kind in a way he hadn’t felt in years. Like you saw through the Winter Soldier and the scowl and the kill count, and you still chose to sit beside him, sipping chocolate milk and talking about raccoon shame.

And Bucky Barnes, world-weary assassin, trauma-laden super-soldier, turned to you and realized:

He was fucked.

In love with a person who once confidently said “quinoa” was pronounced “kin-oh-ah” and didn’t believe him when he corrected you.

You looked up from your thermos. “You’re doing the staring thing again. Am I bleeding from the ear?”

“No,” Bucky said, voice low. “You’re just…”

“Sexy?” You offered helpfully.

“…Terrifying.”

You winked. “Same difference.”

And Bucky Barnes, against all logic, reason, and survival instinct, knew he was already in too deep.

-

The next mission had gone off without a hitch… at least, for everyone except Bucky.

A few cuts here, a couple of bruises there, but nothing too serious. At least, that’s what he told himself as he sat on the edge of the quinjet, feeling the burn in his shoulder from a bullet graze. But the moment you walked into the medbay with a roll of bandages in your hand, it was like everything inside him twisted in a way he couldn’t explain.

“Okay, Bucky. Time to let the master do her magic,” you said, flashing that grin of yours, the one that always made his heart do weird, involuntary things.

Bucky blinked, trying to shake the disoriented feeling. “You’re the one who got shot today. Why am I the one getting patched up?”

“Because I’m immortal,” You said matter-of-factly. “Also, I’m not bleeding anywhere you can see, so that’s a bonus.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “You’re immortal?”

You sat down beside him, rolling your sleeves up. “No, but I like to pretend I am. You know, like a cooler superhero.”

He winced slightly as you poked at his side. “That’s what I’m dealing with, huh?”

“You love it,” You teased, squeezing out some antiseptic onto a cotton pad.

“You’re lucky I haven’t thrown you out of a plane for this,” Bucky muttered, though he couldn’t stop the faint grin from tugging at his lips.

“Not gonna lie, I’d be mad if you did,” You admitted, gently dabbing at his side. “Also, I’d haunt you. I know how to haunt people. I’ve read a lot of books about ghosts.”

He chuckled, despite himself. “Of course you have.”

“Oh, absolutely. I even have a theory about why the Titanic sank, and it’s completely different from the official one. But I’m telling you right now, it’s not what they say.”

Bucky glanced over at you, eyebrow raised. “This I gotta hear.”

You leaned closer, lowering your voice dramatically as if revealing state secrets. “Okay, so. It wasn’t an iceberg that caused the sinking. It was actually the government trying to erase all evidence of the giant squid they were experimenting on, and they blamed it on the iceberg to cover up the real cause.”

Bucky blinked, unsure whether you were serious or not. “Wait, what?” He asked slowly.

You looked at him deadpan. “You didn’t hear the rumors? They found footage, you know. The squid was huge. It even had tentacles.”

He stared at you, speechless.

"Anyway," You continued, as if you hadn’t just suggested the world’s greatest conspiracy, "What we do know is that my bandage technique is flawless. See this?" You lifted a corner of the bandage to show him a perfect wrap around his side.

Bucky blinked. "Did you just distract me with a giant squid theory while you patched me up?"

“Absolutely.” You beamed at him. “Works every time. Just don’t tell anyone you’re in love with me because I’m not responsible for any heart attacks.”

Bucky froze, his heartbeat suddenly in his throat.

You were still so nonchalant. Still so you, so damn confident and so sure of yourself. It took everything in him not to lean in and kiss you right there.

But then, you looked up at him, and for the briefest moment, that smile of yours softened. “You’re good, Bucky,” You said quietly. “You’ve been through more shit than any of us. But you’re still here. That’s something, you know?”

His chest tightened.

“And you know what?” You continued, your voice so much softer now, like a quiet reassurance. “You don’t have to be a soldier all the time. Sometimes, you can just be Bucky.”

He swallowed, looking at you. “And what about you?”

“Oh, me? I’m a mess,” You shrugged, finally looking away, as if it was no big deal. “I’m just here to make the chaos look cute.”

Your eyes flicked back to him, that familiar teasing glint in them. “That’s my secret. You like it.”

Bucky chuckled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He wanted to say something, wanted to admit something. That little voice in his head kept screaming at him to just say it already, but he was scared. He was scared of how deep you had burrowed under his skin, of how easy it was to forget everything else when you were around.

Instead, he just leaned forward and cupped your face, his thumb gently brushing your cheek. “You’re… something else, you know that?”

You blinked at him in surprise, your lips parted, as if trying to process the sudden shift in the air. For a moment, there was a palpable tension between the two of you, like the universe was holding its breath, waiting for one of you to do something.

But then, in your usual way, you broke it, shrugging with a grin. “I know. You’re welcome.”

Bucky’s heart did a weird flip, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he allowed himself to truly relax, just a little. He didn’t want to admit it. Not yet. Not even to himself.

But as you leaned in to finish wrapping his side, your hand brushing his skin lightly, he knew he was already in way too deep.

-

The next incident started with a toaster. Not even a cool toaster. Just a boring, silver Stark-issued kitchen appliance that you were suspiciously proud of. I You’d taken it apart and rebuilt it but “better.” No one asked you to. No one gave you permission. You just did it.

“Now it sings the SpongeBob theme when your toast is done,” You explained, beaming as you held up a slice of whole wheat like it was a golden ticket.

Bucky stared at you. “You tampered with government property.”

“Enhanced.” You corrected. “And before you ask, no, I will not apologize. This is the future.”

Then it sang. “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” BWEEEEEP - Toast done.

Bucky looked like he was praying for divine intervention. “You’re gonna get us all court-martialed over this.”

Two hours later, you were banned from the kitchen, which didn’t stop you from relocating to the common area with your newest project: building what you claimed was a “mousetrap but for anxiety.”

It was made of pipe cleaners, glow sticks, and what might’ve been a dismantled Roomba.

“I call her Deborah,” You said, gently stroking it. “She senses emotional instability and gives you a juice box.”

As if on cue, it whirred over to Bucky, bumped into his leg, and slowly offered him a Capri Sun.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I’m not drinking that.”

“Then she thinks you’re too far gone. She’s very wise.”

Steve walked in, surveyed the scene, and simply turned around without speaking. He didn’t even ask anymore.

Later that night, Bucky caught you in the hallway attempting to climb into the ceiling with a flashlight between your teeth and a jar of pickles under your arm.

“Do I want to know?” He asked, exhausted.

You paused halfway into a vent, dropping the flashlight briefly. “Depends. Do you believe in ceiling gremlins?”

“No.”

“Then I’m doing taxes.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Please. I’m begging you. Come down.”

You stared at him for a long moment, then slowly slid back out like a raccoon emerging from a trash can. “Okay. But only because you asked nicely and not because I got stuck.”

You had absolutely gotten stuck. And the worst part? He was smitten.

Every time you did something completely absurd, which was always, he found himself watching you a little too long, smiling a little too much, wondering what the hell you were going to do next and why it made his chest ache in a weirdly pleasant way.

Even now, covered in ceiling dust and holding a pickle jar, you looked up at him with that infuriatingly endearing grin.

“You’re in love with me,” You stated confidently.

Bucky blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” You popped a pickle in your mouth. “You’ve got that look. Like a grumpy cat who accidentally cuddled someone and doesn’t want to admit it.”

“I do not look like-“

“It's okay. You don’t have to say it.” You patted his chest affectionately. “Your body language screams ‘emotionally unavailable man finds chaotic cryptid and feels things.’”

“I am not emotionally unavailable.”

“You have a go bag, Bucky.”

“…That’s standard protocol.”

“Your toothbrush is still in the packaging.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. You’d won. Again.

“You’re gonna kiss me one day,” You said as you walked past him, pickle jar under one arm, flashlight in your other hand. “And when you do, I’m gonna be so smug you’ll try to throw yourself off the building.”

Bucky stood there in the hall, alone, heart doing its dumb little thudding thing. He hated you. He adored you. And he was never getting that toothbrush insult out of his head.

-

When the big moment happened, It wasn’t a big mission. It wasn’t even a real mission. It was just supposed to be recon.

And yet somehow, you were sitting on the floor of a dusty, abandoned warehouse with a concussion, holding a broken walkie-talkie like it personally betrayed you.

“Okay, but in my defense,” You slurred slightly, “I didn’t know the raccoon had a knife.”

Bucky stared at you, expression unreadable, as blood dripped slowly from your temple.

“You ran into an unmarked building alone, set off three alarms, fell through a skylight, and got jumped by wildlife.”

You held up a finger. “Armed wildlife.”

He ran a hand down his face.

“I swear to God, you are one poorly timed pun away from getting locked in a broom closet until the end of time.”

You blinked up at him. “Kinky.”

He turned away so fast you could almost hear his brain blue-screen. “Jesus Christ.”

But when he looked back at you: your lip bloodied, eyes dazed, hair full of insulation from where you’d crashed through the ceiling like a chaotic Christmas angel, something in his chest snapped.

You were always like this. Impossible. Endearing. Brilliant in the most horrifying ways. A human Wikipedia article with a death wish and a spark in your eyes that made him forget, just for a second, that the world was awful.

And that spark was flickering. Just a little. And he hated it.

“You can’t keep doing this,” He began, voice tight. “You can’t keep treating your life like it’s expendable.”

You blinked slowly. “That sounds fake. I’m clearly immortal.”

“I’m serious.” He crouched in front of you, fists clenched. “You run into every situation like you’re bulletproof, and you’re not. One day, I’m not gonna be there to drag your dumbass out of a flaming building or disarm a guy who has a bazooka made of forks or- or whatever the hell today was!”

“It was a raccoon with a grudge.”

“That’s not a thing!”

You stared at him in silence for a beat, then said, very softly, “You’re worried about me.”

He froze.

“I’m always worried about you,” He said, almost too quiet to hear. “You think I wake up every day wondering what country I’ll have to fly to because you thought jumping off a roof would ‘probably be fine’ if you landed in a bush?!”

You tilted your head. “It was a very fluffy bush.”

”I love you, you absolute menace!”

Silence. You blinked. Then he blinked. Somewhere in the warehouse, a raccoon chittered menacingly.

“…You love me?” You echoed, like he’d just said he wanted to marry a zucchini.

Bucky looked like he might actually combust. “I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

“Say it like what?”

“Like I love you. Which I do. But I was gonna do it after, like… dinner. Or when you weren’t bleeding.”

“Is this why you made me tea every time I electrocuted myself?”

“Yes!”

“And why you punched that guy who called me a liability?”

“Also yes!”

“And why you didn’t kill me when I installed motion sensors in the hallway and forgot to tell anyone?”

“I almost killed you.”

You were quiet for a long moment. Then: “Okay.”

He blinked. “Okay?”

You nodded, still loopy but smiling now. “Okay. I love you too.”

He stared. “You do?”

“Yeah. I mean, why else would I let you eat the last cookie that one time? Or give Deborah full permission to follow you around and scan your emotional damage like a clingy Roomba?”

He laughed, just once, short and stunned.

You leaned forward and poked his chest with one finger. “Also, I have a very deep fondness for emotionally repressed war criminals. It’s kind of my thing.”

Bucky groaned. “You’re insufferable.”

“And yet. You’re in love with me.”

“I’m regretting it deeply.”

“No you’re not.” You smiled that crooked, chaotic smile that had ruined his life in the best way.

And despite everything, the dust, the blood, the deeply traumatized raccoon now watching you both from the shadows, he leaned in and kissed you.

It was gentle. Just for a second. As if to say, Yes. You’re chaos incarnate. But you’re mine.

When he pulled back, it was silent for a moment. Both of you looking in each other’s eyes before you whispered, “Did you just kiss me in front of a knife raccoon?”

Bucky exhaled slowly, already regretting all his life choices. “God help me. I did.”

Ooooo, Bucky being influenced by reader. Interesting idea, he’s already fallen hard for her anyways. Sounds like something I will definitely explore in the near future! Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Glitter, Gunfire, and Grape Juice

Summary: You throw yourself between a rookie and an energy blast.  Bucky panics. (Bucky Barnes x Avengers!reader)

Word Count: 1.3k+

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

The mission was going well. Suspiciously well, which should’ve been your first red flag. Another ordinary Hydra facility with minimal guards that was unusually quiet. You were even humming as you strolled through the hallway, twirling a baton and pointing it at doors like a remote.

Behind you, Bucky muttered, “Don’t touch anything.”

You responded, “That’s exactly what someone hiding treasure would say.”

Sam sighed. “Can you at least pretend to take this seriously?”

“I am taking it seriously. That’s why I packed four granola bars and a Capri-Sun.”

Bucky grinned, despite himself. He always did when you were like this, loose-limbed and smiling. Like the world couldn’t possibly touch you, which made what happened next all the more terrifying.

It happened in the blink of an eye.

An explosion of sound coming from the energy shot from a hidden drone. It was too fast to stop, too sudden to predict. One of the rookies on the mission—a wide-eyed kid with barely two field ops under his belt froze, dead in the line of fire.

So you didn’t.

You shoved him out of the way with a grunt and took the hit square in the side. It knocked you off your feet with a sickening crack.

The kid shouted. Bucky screamed your name.

When you hit the floor, you blinked up at the ceiling like it had just betrayed you. “Oh,” You said, dazed. “That’s not ideal.”

You were bleeding, quite a lot. Bright red blooming fast across your suit, staining your hand as you pressed it to your side with a hiss. “Y’know,” You mumbled, “I don’t remember having this many organs.”

“Stay with me- hey, hey, stay with me.” Bucky was suddenly at your side, voice hoarse, pressing his hands over yours to help stem the bleeding. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

You gave him a lazy grin, adrenaline running high. “If I die, delete my browser history and bury me with snacks. No one needs to know how often I google if raccoons can feel love.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “Don’t joke.”

“You love me because I joke.”

“I love you because you’re you,” He rasped. “But right now, I need you to fight and stay with me, okay?”

“Already fought,” You slurred. “I did the thing, saved the baby agent. Hero moment. I want a sticker.”

“Doll, if you die on me, I will bring you back just to yell at you.”

You laughed and winced immediately. “Hurts to laugh, write that down and it to the science books.”

The med team arrived then, Sam yelling over his comms, the rookie sobbing apologies, the chaos dimming into a kind of tunnel vision where all you could see was Bucky’s face above you. His eyes were wet and scared.

You lifted a bloody finger and tapped his nose weakly. “Boop.”

“God, you’re infuriating,” He whispered. Then he kissed your forehead with trembling lips. “Don’t leave me, okay? I don’t care how many granola bars you packed. You don’t get to check out early.”

-

A day later in the medbay, you woke up groggy and attached to enough wires to hack a satellite. You blinked blearily at the ceiling.

Bucky was there, instantly. “You’re awake.”

You looked at him then looked around. “Where’s my Capri-Sun?”

He closed his eyes like he was praying for patience. “You almost died, and that’s what you’re asking?”

“I saved a life, I bled dramatically, I deserve juice.”

He let out a shaky breath. Then, quietly, “Don’t ever do that again.”

You turned to get a good look at him. He looked wrecked honestly. Unshaven, sleepless, and red around the eyes. It’s clear he had barely left your side. “Hey,” You said softly, reaching for his hand. “I’m here.”

He held your hand like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to earth.

And for the first time, you didn’t joke. Didn’t quip. You just said, quietly, “I’d take the hit again, Buck. Every time.”

He leaned down, pressing his forehead to yours. “Don’t make me live in a world without you, alright?”

You smiled. “Deal. But next time, you bring the juice.”

-

As you had to spend more time in the medbay for recovery, you gradually grew bored. You’d never been a fan of hospital beds. They were too stiff, too white, too… beep-y.

So naturally, the first thing you did the moment you could sit up without passing out was try to climb out of one.

“Sit. Down.”

Bucky’s voice cracked like a whip across the room. He was standing by the medbay door with a takeout container in one hand and the fury of a thousand protective boyfriends in the other.

You blinked up at him. “I’m just stretching-“

“You have stitches, dumbass.”

You squinted. “You still love me though.”

He sighed and walked over, setting the food on your tray. “Unfortunately.”

You poked at the soup. “This doesn’t look like juice.”

“It’s miso. Doctor Cho said no juice until you’re off pain meds.”

You gasped like he’d personally betrayed your bloodline. “What about a popsicle?”

“You were clinically dead for twelve seconds and you want a popsicle?”

“…grape, preferably.”

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why do I love you.”

You leaned back against the pillows, smug. “Because I am an intellectual enigma with the survival instincts of a cat in traffic.”

Before Bucky could respond, there was a knock on the door.

Enter: The Rookie.

He crept in like a kid walking into the principal’s office, holding something behind his back and looking two seconds from crying again. “H-Hey.”

You grinned. “If it isn’t the human shield I saved.”

He flinched. “I’m so sorry-“

“Hey, no. Don’t do that.” You waved your spoon like a wand. “No guilt in my presence. It was my call and I would do again.”

Bucky muttered, “Don’t say that,” but you ignored him.

The rookie stepped forward, visibly shaking, and handed you what looked like… a paper plate necklace. With glitter. It said: “#1 Chaos Hero.”

You stared at it, then at him, then back at it.

“I didn’t know what to get you and I felt awful and I don’t have clearance for flowers and this was the only glitter glue left in the break room,” He rambled. “Also it’s taped because we ran out of string.”

You put it on immediately. Bucky just stared like he was reevaluating every life decision that led him to this moment.

“This is the greatest honor I’ve ever received,” You declared.

“You’re literally wearing a paper plate.”

“From a child soldier,” You corrected.

“I’m nineteen!” The rookie said.

“Exactly,” You said.

Later on, Bucky helped you back to your quarters. The both of you were walking slow with his metal hand on your back like he was afraid you might fall apart again. You let him tuck you in, mostly because you were still high on painkillers and partially because you liked the way he fussed when he was scared.

“I mean it,” He said quietly, sitting beside you. “You can’t keep risking yourself like that. Not for people who won’t do the same.”

“They will someday. Because people pay kindness forward, especially when it costs someone else blood.” You nudged him. “Plus, you did the same for Steve a hundred times.”

“That was different.”

“It wasn’t.”

He was quiet for a long time. Then:

“I almost lost you.”

You took his hand and held it gently.

“But you didn’t.”

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your temple. “You’re infuriating.”

“You love me.”

He sighed before whispering into your hair, “I really do.”

-

GROUP CHAT:

Tony: Who tf gave glitter glue to the interns?

Sam: The rookie made her a PAPER PLATE NECKLACE

Steve: She hasn’t taken it off in six hours.

Natasha: She told me it’s a ‘badge of honor’…

Wanda: They also threatened the vending machine for not having grape juice

Bucky: She got shot and she’s more upset about the juice

You: i saved a life AND survived a flesh wound, i earned grape juice

You: also i’m naming the scar after the rookie

Bucky: Please don’t

You: too late, buckaroo. i christen it kevin 2.0

[Bucky has left the group chat.]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :D

I loved the moment when she asked Bucky to delete her browsing history. I can only imagine what crazy things she’s tried to ask lol. Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Glitter, Gunfire, and Grape Juice

Summary: You throw yourself between a rookie and an energy blast.  Bucky panics. (Bucky Barnes x Avengers!reader)

Word Count: 1.3k+

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

The mission was going well. Suspiciously well, which should’ve been your first red flag. Another ordinary Hydra facility with minimal guards that was unusually quiet. You were even humming as you strolled through the hallway, twirling a baton and pointing it at doors like a remote.

Behind you, Bucky muttered, “Don’t touch anything.”

You responded, “That’s exactly what someone hiding treasure would say.”

Sam sighed. “Can you at least pretend to take this seriously?”

“I am taking it seriously. That’s why I packed four granola bars and a Capri-Sun.”

Bucky grinned, despite himself. He always did when you were like this, loose-limbed and smiling. Like the world couldn’t possibly touch you, which made what happened next all the more terrifying.

It happened in the blink of an eye.

An explosion of sound coming from the energy shot from a hidden drone. It was too fast to stop, too sudden to predict. One of the rookies on the mission—a wide-eyed kid with barely two field ops under his belt froze, dead in the line of fire.

So you didn’t.

You shoved him out of the way with a grunt and took the hit square in the side. It knocked you off your feet with a sickening crack.

The kid shouted. Bucky screamed your name.

When you hit the floor, you blinked up at the ceiling like it had just betrayed you. “Oh,” You said, dazed. “That’s not ideal.”

You were bleeding, quite a lot. Bright red blooming fast across your suit, staining your hand as you pressed it to your side with a hiss. “Y’know,” You mumbled, “I don’t remember having this many organs.”

“Stay with me- hey, hey, stay with me.” Bucky was suddenly at your side, voice hoarse, pressing his hands over yours to help stem the bleeding. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

You gave him a lazy grin, adrenaline running high. “If I die, delete my browser history and bury me with snacks. No one needs to know how often I google if raccoons can feel love.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “Don’t joke.”

“You love me because I joke.”

“I love you because you’re you,” He rasped. “But right now, I need you to fight and stay with me, okay?”

“Already fought,” You slurred. “I did the thing, saved the baby agent. Hero moment. I want a sticker.”

“Doll, if you die on me, I will bring you back just to yell at you.”

You laughed and winced immediately. “Hurts to laugh, write that down and it to the science books.”

The med team arrived then, Sam yelling over his comms, the rookie sobbing apologies, the chaos dimming into a kind of tunnel vision where all you could see was Bucky’s face above you. His eyes were wet and scared.

You lifted a bloody finger and tapped his nose weakly. “Boop.”

“God, you’re infuriating,” He whispered. Then he kissed your forehead with trembling lips. “Don’t leave me, okay? I don’t care how many granola bars you packed. You don’t get to check out early.”

-

A day later in the medbay, you woke up groggy and attached to enough wires to hack a satellite. You blinked blearily at the ceiling.

Bucky was there, instantly. “You’re awake.”

You looked at him then looked around. “Where’s my Capri-Sun?”

He closed his eyes like he was praying for patience. “You almost died, and that’s what you’re asking?”

“I saved a life, I bled dramatically, I deserve juice.”

He let out a shaky breath. Then, quietly, “Don’t ever do that again.”

You turned to get a good look at him. He looked wrecked honestly. Unshaven, sleepless, and red around the eyes. It’s clear he had barely left your side. “Hey,” You said softly, reaching for his hand. “I’m here.”

He held your hand like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to earth.

And for the first time, you didn’t joke. Didn’t quip. You just said, quietly, “I’d take the hit again, Buck. Every time.”

He leaned down, pressing his forehead to yours. “Don’t make me live in a world without you, alright?”

You smiled. “Deal. But next time, you bring the juice.”

-

As you had to spend more time in the medbay for recovery, you gradually grew bored. You’d never been a fan of hospital beds. They were too stiff, too white, too… beep-y.

So naturally, the first thing you did the moment you could sit up without passing out was try to climb out of one.

“Sit. Down.”

Bucky’s voice cracked like a whip across the room. He was standing by the medbay door with a takeout container in one hand and the fury of a thousand protective boyfriends in the other.

You blinked up at him. “I’m just stretching-“

“You have stitches, dumbass.”

You squinted. “You still love me though.”

He sighed and walked over, setting the food on your tray. “Unfortunately.”

You poked at the soup. “This doesn’t look like juice.”

“It’s miso. Doctor Cho said no juice until you’re off pain meds.”

You gasped like he’d personally betrayed your bloodline. “What about a popsicle?”

“You were clinically dead for twelve seconds and you want a popsicle?”

“…grape, preferably.”

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why do I love you.”

You leaned back against the pillows, smug. “Because I am an intellectual enigma with the survival instincts of a cat in traffic.”

Before Bucky could respond, there was a knock on the door.

Enter: The Rookie.

He crept in like a kid walking into the principal’s office, holding something behind his back and looking two seconds from crying again. “H-Hey.”

You grinned. “If it isn’t the human shield I saved.”

He flinched. “I’m so sorry-“

“Hey, no. Don’t do that.” You waved your spoon like a wand. “No guilt in my presence. It was my call and I would do again.”

Bucky muttered, “Don’t say that,” but you ignored him.

The rookie stepped forward, visibly shaking, and handed you what looked like… a paper plate necklace. With glitter. It said: “#1 Chaos Hero.”

You stared at it, then at him, then back at it.

“I didn’t know what to get you and I felt awful and I don’t have clearance for flowers and this was the only glitter glue left in the break room,” He rambled. “Also it’s taped because we ran out of string.”

You put it on immediately. Bucky just stared like he was reevaluating every life decision that led him to this moment.

“This is the greatest honor I’ve ever received,” You declared.

“You’re literally wearing a paper plate.”

“From a child soldier,” You corrected.

“I’m nineteen!” The rookie said.

“Exactly,” You said.

Later on, Bucky helped you back to your quarters. The both of you were walking slow with his metal hand on your back like he was afraid you might fall apart again. You let him tuck you in, mostly because you were still high on painkillers and partially because you liked the way he fussed when he was scared.

“I mean it,” He said quietly, sitting beside you. “You can’t keep risking yourself like that. Not for people who won’t do the same.”

“They will someday. Because people pay kindness forward, especially when it costs someone else blood.” You nudged him. “Plus, you did the same for Steve a hundred times.”

“That was different.”

“It wasn’t.”

He was quiet for a long time. Then:

“I almost lost you.”

You took his hand and held it gently.

“But you didn’t.”

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your temple. “You’re infuriating.”

“You love me.”

He sighed before whispering into your hair, “I really do.”

-

GROUP CHAT:

Tony: Who tf gave glitter glue to the interns?

Sam: The rookie made her a PAPER PLATE NECKLACE

Steve: She hasn’t taken it off in six hours.

Natasha: She told me it’s a ‘badge of honor’…

Wanda: They also threatened the vending machine for not having grape juice

Bucky: She got shot and she’s more upset about the juice

You: i saved a life AND survived a flesh wound, i earned grape juice

You: also i’m naming the scar after the rookie

Bucky: Please don’t

You: too late, buckaroo. i christen it kevin 2.0

[Bucky has left the group chat.]

Love chaotic stories, so glad you liked it as well! Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Glitter, Gunfire, and Grape Juice

Summary: You throw yourself between a rookie and an energy blast.  Bucky panics. (Bucky Barnes x Avengers!reader)

Word Count: 1.3k+

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

The mission was going well. Suspiciously well, which should’ve been your first red flag. Another ordinary Hydra facility with minimal guards that was unusually quiet. You were even humming as you strolled through the hallway, twirling a baton and pointing it at doors like a remote.

Behind you, Bucky muttered, “Don’t touch anything.”

You responded, “That’s exactly what someone hiding treasure would say.”

Sam sighed. “Can you at least pretend to take this seriously?”

“I am taking it seriously. That’s why I packed four granola bars and a Capri-Sun.”

Bucky grinned, despite himself. He always did when you were like this, loose-limbed and smiling. Like the world couldn’t possibly touch you, which made what happened next all the more terrifying.

It happened in the blink of an eye.

An explosion of sound coming from the energy shot from a hidden drone. It was too fast to stop, too sudden to predict. One of the rookies on the mission—a wide-eyed kid with barely two field ops under his belt froze, dead in the line of fire.

So you didn’t.

You shoved him out of the way with a grunt and took the hit square in the side. It knocked you off your feet with a sickening crack.

The kid shouted. Bucky screamed your name.

When you hit the floor, you blinked up at the ceiling like it had just betrayed you. “Oh,” You said, dazed. “That’s not ideal.”

You were bleeding, quite a lot. Bright red blooming fast across your suit, staining your hand as you pressed it to your side with a hiss. “Y’know,” You mumbled, “I don’t remember having this many organs.”

“Stay with me- hey, hey, stay with me.” Bucky was suddenly at your side, voice hoarse, pressing his hands over yours to help stem the bleeding. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

You gave him a lazy grin, adrenaline running high. “If I die, delete my browser history and bury me with snacks. No one needs to know how often I google if raccoons can feel love.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “Don’t joke.”

“You love me because I joke.”

“I love you because you’re you,” He rasped. “But right now, I need you to fight and stay with me, okay?”

“Already fought,” You slurred. “I did the thing, saved the baby agent. Hero moment. I want a sticker.”

“Doll, if you die on me, I will bring you back just to yell at you.”

You laughed and winced immediately. “Hurts to laugh, write that down and it to the science books.”

The med team arrived then, Sam yelling over his comms, the rookie sobbing apologies, the chaos dimming into a kind of tunnel vision where all you could see was Bucky’s face above you. His eyes were wet and scared.

You lifted a bloody finger and tapped his nose weakly. “Boop.”

“God, you’re infuriating,” He whispered. Then he kissed your forehead with trembling lips. “Don’t leave me, okay? I don’t care how many granola bars you packed. You don’t get to check out early.”

-

A day later in the medbay, you woke up groggy and attached to enough wires to hack a satellite. You blinked blearily at the ceiling.

Bucky was there, instantly. “You’re awake.”

You looked at him then looked around. “Where’s my Capri-Sun?”

He closed his eyes like he was praying for patience. “You almost died, and that’s what you’re asking?”

“I saved a life, I bled dramatically, I deserve juice.”

He let out a shaky breath. Then, quietly, “Don’t ever do that again.”

You turned to get a good look at him. He looked wrecked honestly. Unshaven, sleepless, and red around the eyes. It’s clear he had barely left your side. “Hey,” You said softly, reaching for his hand. “I’m here.”

He held your hand like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to earth.

And for the first time, you didn’t joke. Didn’t quip. You just said, quietly, “I’d take the hit again, Buck. Every time.”

He leaned down, pressing his forehead to yours. “Don’t make me live in a world without you, alright?”

You smiled. “Deal. But next time, you bring the juice.”

-

As you had to spend more time in the medbay for recovery, you gradually grew bored. You’d never been a fan of hospital beds. They were too stiff, too white, too… beep-y.

So naturally, the first thing you did the moment you could sit up without passing out was try to climb out of one.

“Sit. Down.”

Bucky’s voice cracked like a whip across the room. He was standing by the medbay door with a takeout container in one hand and the fury of a thousand protective boyfriends in the other.

You blinked up at him. “I’m just stretching-“

“You have stitches, dumbass.”

You squinted. “You still love me though.”

He sighed and walked over, setting the food on your tray. “Unfortunately.”

You poked at the soup. “This doesn’t look like juice.”

“It’s miso. Doctor Cho said no juice until you’re off pain meds.”

You gasped like he’d personally betrayed your bloodline. “What about a popsicle?”

“You were clinically dead for twelve seconds and you want a popsicle?”

“…grape, preferably.”

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why do I love you.”

You leaned back against the pillows, smug. “Because I am an intellectual enigma with the survival instincts of a cat in traffic.”

Before Bucky could respond, there was a knock on the door.

Enter: The Rookie.

He crept in like a kid walking into the principal’s office, holding something behind his back and looking two seconds from crying again. “H-Hey.”

You grinned. “If it isn’t the human shield I saved.”

He flinched. “I’m so sorry-“

“Hey, no. Don’t do that.” You waved your spoon like a wand. “No guilt in my presence. It was my call and I would do again.”

Bucky muttered, “Don’t say that,” but you ignored him.

The rookie stepped forward, visibly shaking, and handed you what looked like… a paper plate necklace. With glitter. It said: “#1 Chaos Hero.”

You stared at it, then at him, then back at it.

“I didn’t know what to get you and I felt awful and I don’t have clearance for flowers and this was the only glitter glue left in the break room,” He rambled. “Also it’s taped because we ran out of string.”

You put it on immediately. Bucky just stared like he was reevaluating every life decision that led him to this moment.

“This is the greatest honor I’ve ever received,” You declared.

“You’re literally wearing a paper plate.”

“From a child soldier,” You corrected.

“I’m nineteen!” The rookie said.

“Exactly,” You said.

Later on, Bucky helped you back to your quarters. The both of you were walking slow with his metal hand on your back like he was afraid you might fall apart again. You let him tuck you in, mostly because you were still high on painkillers and partially because you liked the way he fussed when he was scared.

“I mean it,” He said quietly, sitting beside you. “You can’t keep risking yourself like that. Not for people who won’t do the same.”

“They will someday. Because people pay kindness forward, especially when it costs someone else blood.” You nudged him. “Plus, you did the same for Steve a hundred times.”

“That was different.”

“It wasn’t.”

He was quiet for a long time. Then:

“I almost lost you.”

You took his hand and held it gently.

“But you didn’t.”

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your temple. “You’re infuriating.”

“You love me.”

He sighed before whispering into your hair, “I really do.”

-

GROUP CHAT:

Tony: Who tf gave glitter glue to the interns?

Sam: The rookie made her a PAPER PLATE NECKLACE

Steve: She hasn’t taken it off in six hours.

Natasha: She told me it’s a ‘badge of honor’…

Wanda: They also threatened the vending machine for not having grape juice

Bucky: She got shot and she’s more upset about the juice

You: i saved a life AND survived a flesh wound, i earned grape juice

You: also i’m naming the scar after the rookie

Bucky: Please don’t

You: too late, buckaroo. i christen it kevin 2.0

[Bucky has left the group chat.]

Chaotic Cat Curse

Summary: You were accidentally cursed and turned into a cat, causing all kinds of fun chaos for Bucky: destroying things, attacking his shoelaces, and generally making his life impossible. (Bucky Barnes x reader)

Word Count: 1.4k+

A/N: Will be writing another fic with reader having the power to shapeshift into animals, but for now; I’m testing the waters with cat and chaos. Happy reading!!!

Main Masterlist | Sequel

You didn’t mean to touch the glowing, ominous-looking artifact in Strange’s Sanctum. Really, you were just trying to dust it off and maybe get a better look. It was dusty! And pulsing with weird red light! How were you supposed to know it was cursed?

The moment your fingers grazed it, there was a loud pop, a blinding flash, and then… paws. Fur. Whiskers. And an overwhelming urge to knock things off shelves.

Bucky was not impressed when he found you ten minutes later, sitting smugly atop a bookcase, licking your paw and knocking down an ancient scroll with a flick of your tail.

"You’ve got to be kidding me," He muttered, staring at your tiny, floofy form. You blinked slowly at him, then meowed very dramatically. It didn’t help that Wong started laughing the second he walked in. "They touched the Soul of Bastet? Oh, that’s rich."

Strange said the spell would wear off in a few days. Until then, you were stuck as a cat. A small, fluffy, highly expressive cat who unfortunately still had all your chaotic human instincts. Just… furrier.

Two days into your feline vacation, Bucky had to bring you along to Sam’s apartment while waiting for Strange to “align the right moon phase” or whatever nonsense he was mumbling about. You were restless, bored, and determined to explore every inch of Sam’s place. Which led you to the kitchen.

And the catnip.

To be fair, Sam did foster animals sometimes. So technically, the bag of catnip wasn’t for you. But Bucky had looked away for two seconds, and you were already rolling on the floor. Eyes wide, pupils dilated, and tail puffed up. The sounds you made could only be described as a mix between a war cry and screech.

Bucky walked into the kitchen to find you mid-roll, rabbit-kicking the air like a tiny lunatic. “What the hell?” He muttered, only to freeze as you bolted toward him and latched onto his boot like it owed you money.

“Seriously?” He tried to shake you off gently. “You’re high off your tiny furry face.”

You yowled in mock betrayal, then darted under the couch only to return five seconds later to attack his laces with renewed fury. Bucky was trying to have a perfectly normal conversation with Steve over speakerphone while you turned his shoelaces into your mortal enemy.

“I swear, this is just temporary,” He said, ignoring your furious little growls as you pounced on his foot. “Strange said they’ll be back to normal soon.”

“Are you being mauled?” Steve asked, deadpan.

“No. It’s fine.”

You flipped onto your back at that exact moment, paws curled and pupils blown wide. You stared at Bucky upside down like a possessed Furby.

“…Okay maybe a little.”

Eventually, you flopped in the middle of the floor, panting softly and staring at the ceiling like it just insulted your mother. Bucky sighed, grabbing a blanket and gently wrapping you like a tiny burrito.

“You better appreciate this when you’re human again,” He carried your limp, purring body to the couch. You immediately drooled on his shirt and let out a happy little meow.

Bucky looked down at you with the flattest expression imaginable. “Never telling Sam about this.”

By day three, Bucky had accepted begrudgingly that life with you as a cat meant no peace. He couldn't eat, sleep, or walk around barefoot without risking a stealth attack from a small feline assassin with a personal vendetta.

This morning, he woke up to find you perched on his chest like a judgmental gargoyle. Your face was three inches from his, your tail flicking with menace.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” He asked groggily.

You didn’t blink. Instead, you yawned. A very slow, dramatic, fang-filled yawn, then delicately slapped him across the nose with your paw.

He stared at you.

You stared back.

Then you jumped off the bed like nothing happened, leaving him to question every decision he’d made.

Later that day, you discovered a mirror. Not a small mirror. A full-length one leaning against the wall. And you were not okay with the strange, fluffy imposter staring back at you. You puffed up like a Halloween decoration, back arched, tail three times its normal size. You hissed, swatted the glass, then bolted out of the room like it owed you money.

From the kitchen, Bucky heard the thump, the screech, and then the sound of something shattering.

He found you on top of the fridge, tail flicking furiously, glaring at the now-cracked mirror like it insulted your ancestors.

“Did… did you fight yourself?”

You blinked at him with absolutely zero shame.

“Right. Of course.”

Another time, you had discovered it completely by accident. Bucky had taken off his vibranium arm to clean the joint, and you’d been fascinated. It gleamed, it was shiny, it made noise.

So obviously, it had to be your new toy.

The moment he left the room, you pounced.

He returned to find you curled around it, swatting at the fingers occasionally. When he tried to take it back, you hissed like a tiny demon and chomped down on the thumb with impressive commitment for a creature with no actual fangs.

“I can’t believe I’m being held hostage by my own arm,” Bucky muttered.

You growled in reply and flopped dramatically over it, like a dragon hoarding treasure.

That evening, Steve even brought over a laser pointer as a joke. Bucky thought it was stupid. You thought it was the greatest thing ever created by humankind.

The first time the red dot skittered across the floor, you chased it like your life depended on it. You bounced off furniture. You slid across the floor. At one point, you ran headfirst into Bucky’s shin so hard he dropped his coffee.

You immediately launched into a somersault, landed on your feet, and meowed at the laser dot like it had insulted your honor.

Steve was in tears. Bucky was unamused.

“Stop encouraging them,” He grumbled as you launched into another full-speed chase across the living room, knocking over a lamp.

“They’re going to break everything.”

Steve was still laughing, holding the laser pointer “Worth it.”

-

You’d been a cat for what felt like forever, and while the novelty was fun (mostly for you), you were more than ready to be yourself again. Bucky had been surprisingly patient even though he was tempted to cage you in an upside down laundry basket a few times and tape it to the ground.

Today, you were curled up in Bucky’s lap, purring softly as he absently ran his fingers through your fur. For a cat, you’d definitely picked the best spot in the whole compound: warm, safe, and right where you could hear his steady breathing.

Bucky was surprisingly calm, almost… fond of having you like this, despite the chaos you'd caused. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” He muttered, his voice low and rough.

You blinked up at him, half-asleep, when suddenly a strange warmth spread through your body. It started at your paws and traveled fast, like someone was flipping a switch from fuzzy to flesh. Your fur melted away, your legs stretched, and your claws shrank into fingers. Before either of you could blink, you were sitting there fully human again, only much bigger, and very, very confused.

Bucky froze. His eyes went wide, mouth hanging open like he’d just seen a ghost. “You’re-“ He started, then cut himself off, because honestly? No words could describe the moment.

You looked down at yourself, touched your face, then looked back up at Bucky with wide eyes. “I’m… me again?” You whispered.

He reached out carefully, almost afraid you’d disappear again. “Yeah. You’re you. Took you long enough.”

You stretched, flexing your fingers like you hadn’t used them in ages. “Yeah, being a cat is fun and all, but I kinda missed this.”

Bucky chuckled and shook his head. “Glad to have my partner back. Though I have to admit, I’m gonna miss the little fur ball who kept me on my toes.”

You grinned. “Don’t get used to it. No more letting me near cursed objects, okay?”

He nudged you gently. “Deal. But next time you turn into a cat, at least warn me so I can get some popcorn.”

You laughed, and for the first time in days, the apartment felt exactly like home again.

Glitter, Gunfire, and Grape Juice

Summary: You throw yourself between a rookie and an energy blast. Bucky panics. (Bucky Barnes x Avengers!reader)

Word Count: 1.3k+

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

The mission was going well. Suspiciously well, which should’ve been your first red flag. Another ordinary Hydra facility with minimal guards that was unusually quiet. You were even humming as you strolled through the hallway, twirling a baton and pointing it at doors like a remote.

Behind you, Bucky muttered, “Don’t touch anything.”

You responded, “That’s exactly what someone hiding treasure would say.”

Sam sighed. “Can you at least pretend to take this seriously?”

“I am taking it seriously. That’s why I packed four granola bars and a Capri-Sun.”

Bucky grinned, despite himself. He always did when you were like this, loose-limbed and smiling. Like the world couldn’t possibly touch you, which made what happened next all the more terrifying.

It happened in the blink of an eye.

An explosion of sound coming from the energy shot from a hidden drone. It was too fast to stop, too sudden to predict. One of the rookies on the mission—a wide-eyed kid with barely two field ops under his belt froze, dead in the line of fire.

So you didn’t.

You shoved him out of the way with a grunt and took the hit square in the side. It knocked you off your feet with a sickening crack.

The kid shouted. Bucky screamed your name.

When you hit the floor, you blinked up at the ceiling like it had just betrayed you. “Oh,” You said, dazed. “That’s not ideal.”

You were bleeding, quite a lot. Bright red blooming fast across your suit, staining your hand as you pressed it to your side with a hiss. “Y’know,” You mumbled, “I don’t remember having this many organs.”

“Stay with me- hey, hey, stay with me.” Bucky was suddenly at your side, voice hoarse, pressing his hands over yours to help stem the bleeding. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

You gave him a lazy grin, adrenaline running high. “If I die, delete my browser history and bury me with snacks. No one needs to know how often I google if raccoons can feel love.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “Don’t joke.”

“You love me because I joke.”

“I love you because you’re you,” He rasped. “But right now, I need you to fight and stay with me, okay?”

“Already fought,” You slurred. “I did the thing, saved the baby agent. Hero moment. I want a sticker.”

“Doll, if you die on me, I will bring you back just to yell at you.”

You laughed and winced immediately. “Hurts to laugh, write that down and it to the science books.”

The med team arrived then, Sam yelling over his comms, the rookie sobbing apologies, the chaos dimming into a kind of tunnel vision where all you could see was Bucky’s face above you. His eyes were wet and scared.

You lifted a bloody finger and tapped his nose weakly. “Boop.”

“God, you’re infuriating,” He whispered. Then he kissed your forehead with trembling lips. “Don’t leave me, okay? I don’t care how many granola bars you packed. You don’t get to check out early.”

-

A day later in the medbay, you woke up groggy and attached to enough wires to hack a satellite. You blinked blearily at the ceiling.

Bucky was there, instantly. “You’re awake.”

You looked at him then looked around. “Where’s my Capri-Sun?”

He closed his eyes like he was praying for patience. “You almost died, and that’s what you’re asking?”

“I saved a life, I bled dramatically, I deserve juice.”

He let out a shaky breath. Then, quietly, “Don’t ever do that again.”

You turned to get a good look at him. He looked wrecked honestly. Unshaven, sleepless, and red around the eyes. It’s clear he had barely left your side. “Hey,” You said softly, reaching for his hand. “I’m here.”

He held your hand like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to earth.

And for the first time, you didn’t joke. Didn’t quip. You just said, quietly, “I’d take the hit again, Buck. Every time.”

He leaned down, pressing his forehead to yours. “Don’t make me live in a world without you, alright?”

You smiled. “Deal. But next time, you bring the juice.”

-

As you had to spend more time in the medbay for recovery, you gradually grew bored. You’d never been a fan of hospital beds. They were too stiff, too white, too… beep-y.

So naturally, the first thing you did the moment you could sit up without passing out was try to climb out of one.

“Sit. Down.”

Bucky’s voice cracked like a whip across the room. He was standing by the medbay door with a takeout container in one hand and the fury of a thousand protective boyfriends in the other.

You blinked up at him. “I’m just stretching-“

“You have stitches, dumbass.”

You squinted. “You still love me though.”

He sighed and walked over, setting the food on your tray. “Unfortunately.”

You poked at the soup. “This doesn’t look like juice.”

“It’s miso. Doctor Cho said no juice until you’re off pain meds.”

You gasped like he’d personally betrayed your bloodline. “What about a popsicle?”

“You were clinically dead for twelve seconds and you want a popsicle?”

“…grape, preferably.”

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why do I love you.”

You leaned back against the pillows, smug. “Because I am an intellectual enigma with the survival instincts of a cat in traffic.”

Before Bucky could respond, there was a knock on the door.

Enter: The Rookie.

He crept in like a kid walking into the principal’s office, holding something behind his back and looking two seconds from crying again. “H-Hey.”

You grinned. “If it isn’t the human shield I saved.”

He flinched. “I’m so sorry-“

“Hey, no. Don’t do that.” You waved your spoon like a wand. “No guilt in my presence. It was my call and I would do again.”

Bucky muttered, “Don’t say that,” but you ignored him.

The rookie stepped forward, visibly shaking, and handed you what looked like… a paper plate necklace. With glitter. It said: “#1 Chaos Hero.”

You stared at it, then at him, then back at it.

“I didn’t know what to get you and I felt awful and I don’t have clearance for flowers and this was the only glitter glue left in the break room,” He rambled. “Also it’s taped because we ran out of string.”

You put it on immediately. Bucky just stared like he was reevaluating every life decision that led him to this moment.

“This is the greatest honor I’ve ever received,” You declared.

“You’re literally wearing a paper plate.”

“From a child soldier,” You corrected.

“I’m nineteen!” The rookie said.

“Exactly,” You said.

Later on, Bucky helped you back to your quarters. The both of you were walking slow with his metal hand on your back like he was afraid you might fall apart again. You let him tuck you in, mostly because you were still high on painkillers and partially because you liked the way he fussed when he was scared.

“I mean it,” He said quietly, sitting beside you. “You can’t keep risking yourself like that. Not for people who won’t do the same.”

“They will someday. Because people pay kindness forward, especially when it costs someone else blood.” You nudged him. “Plus, you did the same for Steve a hundred times.”

“That was different.”

“It wasn’t.”

He was quiet for a long time. Then:

“I almost lost you.”

You took his hand and held it gently.

“But you didn’t.”

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your temple. “You’re infuriating.”

“You love me.”

He sighed before whispering into your hair, “I really do.”

-

GROUP CHAT:

Tony: Who tf gave glitter glue to the interns?

Sam: The rookie made her a PAPER PLATE NECKLACE

Steve: She hasn’t taken it off in six hours.

Natasha: She told me it’s a ‘badge of honor’…

Wanda: They also threatened the vending machine for not having grape juice

Bucky: She got shot and she’s more upset about the juice

You: i saved a life AND survived a flesh wound, i earned grape juice

You: also i’m naming the scar after the rookie

Bucky: Please don’t

You: too late, buckaroo. i christen it kevin 2.0

[Bucky has left the group chat.]

So happy you like it. Thank you so much!!! ♡

⋆༺Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist༻⋆

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Summary: A collection of different one-shots with an unhinged reader as a chaotic whirlwind of misplaced confidence, untraceable knowledge, and genuine good intentions. People find you to be both a genius and an idiot, and no one can determine which side wins more often.

Main Masterlist

Keys | Fluff ✿ | Angst ⛆ | Dark 𓉸 | Hurt/Comfort ❦

✿ Heart First, Sanity Later - You, a dangerously chaotic genius with the common sense of a soggy spoon, somehow captures the heart of Bucky Barnes. Despite the constant emotional whiplash, raccoon-related injuries, and deeply cursed inventions, Bucky finds himself falling hard.

✿ Disastrous Dates - Bucky wanted to take you on an actual date. It was meant to be sweet. Normal. Quiet. Unfortunately, you were involved. So naturally, it was none of those things.

✿ Certified Genius, Unlicensed Moron - Exploring more of your relationship and dynamics with the rest of the Avengers, they are well-acquainted with how much whiplash and how many headaches you give them on a daily.

✿ Oops, I Joined a Cult Again - You joined a cult. That’s it.

✿ Operation: Lover’s Retreat (You Think) - Sent on a recon mission in the Carpathian Mountains, you treat it like a romantic getaway including but not limited to bath bombs, a sparkly kazoo, and one shared bed. Bucky remains constantly torn between exasperation and deep affection.

✿ Unqualified, Unhinged, and Unforgettable - A bunch of excited, hopeful rookies have the absolute displeasure honor of being trained under you.

✿ Chaos Counseling - You accidentally becomes the Avengers' unofficial therapist, delivering unhinged wisdom that changes lives whether they like it or not.

LOL, I KNOW RIGHT? Such a fun story to write for, I love it. Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Certified Genius, Unlicensed Moron

Summary: Exploring more of your relationship and dynamics with the rest of the Avengers, they are well-acquainted with how much whiplash and how many headaches you give them on a daily. (Bucky Barnes x Avengers!reader)

Word Count: 1.2k+

A/N: The other going on dates fic didn’t have enough unhinged questionable reader for me. And to be honest….I didn’t like it as much as the prequel. So! I wrote this to cheer me up and feed my need for dumb & genius reader. Purely self-indulgent but hopefully you like it too. Happy reading!!!

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

Being an Avenger came with certain expectations. Tactical prowess. Cool one-liners. Teamwork. A mild-to-moderate understanding of physics.

You had exactly none of that. And yet, you were thriving.

You had taken on aliens, mercenaries, HYDRA agents, and that one time, an actual raccoon with a vendetta. You once guessed the password to a SHIELD vault on the first try by inputting “boob69.” It worked. Nobody ever explained why. You were untouchable.

But nothing broke the team more than the group chat.

It had been a standard team communication channel at first: briefings, updates, emergency alerts. Then you joined and everything fell apart.

-

GROUP CHAT: “Earth’s Mightiest Dumbasses”

Tony: Meeting in the conference room at 9 A.M. sharp.

You: what’s 9 AM in frog time

Natasha: What does that mean?

You: like if a frog wears a watch is the time upside down

Tony: Please, I’m begging you to just answer the question like a normal person.

You: normal is a strong word

-

You once sent a photo of a pigeon wearing a hat with the caption “me when I infiltrate enemy lines.” No one questioned it. Mostly because they couldn’t.

After all, you’re the same person who confidently gave a TED Talk about the strategic history of medieval siege warfare mid-mission while wearing Crocs. The same person who once said, “Vibranium tastes like disappointment,” and then refused to elaborate. You somehow manage to both ace every debrief but also once asked if Wi-Fi is just helpful air soup.

Thor called you “small thunder” after you electrocuted yourself trying to microwave aluminum “as a science experiment.” You did not have lightning powers. It was just dumb luck. And you’d do it again.

-

GROUP CHAT:

Clint: who the hell labeled all the fridge items in latin?

You: idk man maybe someone wants you to be cultured

Bucky: You labeled the eggs, “Future ankle peckers, do not anger them”

You: ...and have you been attacked? no? you’re welcome.

-

Bucky still doesn't understand you. Not even a little.

And a lot of times, that haunts him.

He watches you eat hot sauce straight from the bottle like it's a health tonic, quote Shakespeare when you’re tired, and wear mismatched crocs into certain battles because "they're my war shoes." One has a tiny sword glued to it.

You once looked him dead in the eye and said, “I wasn’t born. I was assembled in a Target parking lot during a thunderstorm.”

And then walked away.

He’s been thinking about it for months.

Another time you brought him a bag of gummy worms, patted his head, and said, “For when the depression demons attack.”

Despite all your nonsense, he can’t stop looking at you like you hung the moon with glitter glue and then ate half of it because that brand “smelled like frosting.”

He had tried to pretend you’re a nuisance at first, shaking his head and sighing at some of your antics. But it’s all morphed to reluctant acceptance of the fact that he’ll have to live with so many unanswered questions. That doesn’t stop him from taking care of you though.

He brings you hot chocolate after missions. He makes sure you’re behind him when it gets dangerous. He drags you out of fountains you jump into because you wanted to know what the regals birds like about it. He even downloaded TikTok just to understand your references.

One time you disappeared in the Tower. For five hours.

He found you in the broom closet, sitting cross-legged with three Roombas, wearing a crown made of forks.

“They know secrets,” You whispered. “I’m learning their ways.”

Bucky blinked.

“…I brought you pizza.”

You gasped. “I knew the prophecy would come true.”

-

GROUP CHAT:

Steve: Can someone explain what this is?

Image attached: You in a vent near the ceiling wearing a bad ghost outfit like a cursed Halloween decoration, eating Cheez-Its.

You: surveillance

Steve: Why…

You: i wanted to know what Bucky does when I’m not looking

Bucky: They’ve been up there for 6 hours. I offered help. They hissed at me.

-

Despite it all, you were deadly in the field.

You’d spout off the periodic table in the middle of a fistfight, pull off gravity-defying stunts “because I saw it in a cartoon once,” and solve encrypted Hydra codes in 30 seconds, all while questioning if Mickey Mouse and his friends ever had to pay rent to live in the Mickey Mouse clubhouse.

Bucky, your begrudgingly loving boyfriend, no longer reacts when you do things like wear medieval armor to a stealth op for morale reasons or quote Shrek during hostage negotiations. He just quietly takes your hand and steers you away before you lick anything radioactive.

Steve once asked why you were on a mission wearing roller skates. You said, “Speed and style, Cap,” then crashed directly into a vending machine and pulled out a single uncrushed Twix with solemn reverence.

Tony called you “the human embodiment of a broken Google search.” Wanda called you “a mystery I’ve chosen not to solve.” Natasha just called you “terrifying.”

Because for every baffling thing you did, like calling her “Mom” during a sniper stakeout because “you give off stern PTA energy”, you turned around and cracked encrypted intel before Bruce finished making coffee.

Once, in a mission briefing, Rhodey asked, “Wait, wasn’t the Hindenburg caused by a gas explosion?” and you, dead serious, replied, “Who’s the Hindenburg? That sounds like a guy who collects teeth.”

Everyone went dead silent.

Sam just nodded slowly and said, “Right, okay. Yeah, cool. This is the part where I stop paying attention.”

Nobody could figure you out.

Bruce once ran 14 psychological profiles on you. None of them matched. One came back as possibly a goat in human form.

Clint swears you once explained string theory using sock puppets and a waffle. And it made sense.

-

GROUP CHAT:

Tony: I’m updating the security protocol. Everyone needs to re-register their biosignatures.

You: what if I am a security risk

Tony: You are. Absolutely. Every day. In every way.

You: then I win

Natasha: What did you win?

You: You’ll see 😈

Tony: I have forgotten what peace feels like anymore.

-

You called yourself “The Distractinator” in combat.

Enemies didn’t know what to do with you. Were you a genius? Crazy? Feral? Was that a printer you just threw at their face while quoting Pride and Prejudice?

Yes. To all of it.

And somehow, impossibly, you were everyone’s favorite. Because while you were a chaos gremlin of untold magnitude, you cared.

You noticed when Clint seemed tired and unorthodoxically left snacks in his quiver.

You taught Steve how to use TikTok but made sure to curate only dog videos and motivational frog memes.

You convinced Bucky he could wear purple and look amazing. He does now. Regularly.

You helped Tony fix a faulty AI loop by accident while trying to build “a blender that screams.”

You’re not just a part of the team. You’re the emotional support cryptid.

And no matter how many explosions you cause with your “experiments,” or how many philosophical debates you start about whether lasagna is a cake, the Avengers wouldn’t trade you for the world.

…Though Tony did try to sell you to the X-Men once.

It didn’t work.

They sent you back with a fruit basket and a strongly worded letter.

Escape Room Chaos

Summary: You take Steve and Bucky to an escape room for a fun, relaxing evening, but things quickly spiral into chaos. Both somehow ignore the obvious clues in favor of dramatic theories and property damage. You’re just trying to survive until you can successfully escape without a lawsuit. (Steve Rogers x reader x Bucky Barnes)

Word Count: 1.6k+

Main Masterlist

You really should’ve known better.

The moment Bucky rolled up his sleeves and said “This’ll be easy,” you felt the first ripple of doom. You’d booked the escape room as a fun, harmless activity. Something like a little post-mission team bonding that didn’t involve hand-to-hand combat or collapsing buildings. You even picked a cheesy detective theme, thinking they’d enjoy something grounded and puzzle-y. Maybe even quiet.

You were wrong.

The three of you stood in the lobby of “The Great Escape,” surrounded by plastic magnifying glasses, dusty fedoras, and a suspiciously chipper staff member in suspenders and a fake mustache. She gave you the usual speech: 60 minutes to escape, no real danger, don’t break the props, yada yada.

Steve nodded solemnly like he was being briefed before an intense mission. Bucky? He crossed his arms and smirked. You could already tell his competitive switch had flipped.

The room itself was dimly lit and lined with fake wood panels. A ticking clock glowed red above the door while there were clues scattered everywhere ranging from files, books, old telephones, and even a fake fireplace. As soon as the door clicked shut behind you, Steve took a deep breath like he was about to deliver a speech at a press conference.

“We should split up to cover more ground. Look for patterns, numbers, keys. And be sure to keep a level head.”

You blinked. “It’s not a hostage situation, Cap.”

But Steve was already kneeling to inspect a lockbox with the intensity of a man deciphering enemy codes. Meanwhile, Bucky was tapping along the walls with the knuckles of his metal hand.

“Could be a hidden panel,” He muttered.

“Could be drywall,” You replied, dragging your palm down your face.

Ten minutes in, you had two clues solved and one increasingly serious argument about whether the bookshelf was a red herring or not. Bucky was now trying to climb it.

“James Buchanan Barnes, get down before you collapse the whole set!” You hissed.

He looked down, half-smirking. “It’s not real, doll. Look.” He gave it a little shove, just enough for it to creak ominously. You glared.

Steve, across the room, had located a cipher wheel and was mumbling to himself. “It’s gotta be a Caesar shift. Or maybe Morse code…”

“Steve, it’s literally a riddle that says ‘Look in the desk drawer,’” You pointed out, pulling it open and revealing a key taped inside.

He looked genuinely offended. “They’re dumbing it down.”

You exhaled through your nose. “Yes, they’re dumbing it down for people who aren’t 100-year-old super soldiers who do escape rooms like they’re battle strategy.”

By minute twenty, you were regretting everything. Steve had taken charge like a squad commander and Bucky had declared himself the “wildcard” of the team, which essentially meant “loose cannon with a metal arm and no patience.”

You were the only one actually reading the instructions on the wall.

By minute thirty, you’d reached the room’s second stage which was a secret chamber revealed when Bucky yanked on a wall sconce you definitely weren’t supposed to touch.

You all froze when the wall creaked and groaned like a bad horror movie. Then, with the slow drama of a B-grade haunted house, the panel slid open.

Steve actually clapped, cheering.

“I knew there was a hidden passage!”

“No, you didn’t,” You said, stepping cautiously inside. “You were still trying to decode that cipher wheel that said, ‘The butler did it.’”

The new room was darker with a desk, some faux-blood splatter, and a very questionable plastic skeleton slumped over a chair. Its skull was tilted sideways with a bowler hat perched on top of its head. There was also a magnifying glass clutched in one bony hand, and a suspicious envelope glued to its chest with “CLUE #6” scrawled across it in marker.

Steve stared at it. “I think we’re meant to… talk to him?”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Interrogate the corpse.”

You opened your mouth to say something, then thought better of it. You just took out your phone and started recording. For science… and for future blackmail.

Steve crouched beside the skeleton, folding his hands like he was addressing a witness. “We’re here to help. If you can tell us who killed you, we’ll bring them to justice.”

You bit your lip so hard trying not to laugh, you swore you tasted blood.

Bucky leaned over the desk and yanked the envelope from the skeleton’s chest.

Steve’s jaw tightened. “You’re contaminating the scene.”

“It’s a twenty dollar prop, Steve. I don’t think it’s going to trial.”

Then Bucky poked the skeleton’s head, making it fall off and clatter dramatically to the floor.

Everyone stared at it. Steve looked personally offended.

You raised an eyebrow. “Did you just decapitate our only lead?”

“It… it was barely hanging on anyway,” Bucky muttered, setting the skull back with exaggerated care. “These things happen.”

Steve knelt beside the fallen plastic remains, eyes full of regret. “He served his purpose. We thank him for his sacrifice.”

You threw your hands in the air. “It’s a skeleton, not a fallen comrade!”

The intercom crackled. “Hey guys,” The perky staff member’s voice rang out, “Just a reminder: Please don’t disassemble the props. Sir with the metal arm? Yes, you. Please don’t interrogate the decor.”

Bucky gave a small chuckle. Steve immediately stood at attention. “Sorry, ma’am.”

You looked between your two supersoldier boyfriends and the half-decapitated skeleton, then turned toward the camera in the corner and gave it a deadpan stare. “I just wanted a nice evening. That’s all. Just puzzles and maybe a little fun but no. Instead I get a dramatized cold case and two very intense golden retrievers with trauma.”

“Hey,” Bucky said with a shrug. “You’re the one who invited us.”

You squinted at him. “…You know what? That one’s on me.”

By minute forty-five, you were starting to suspect the real puzzle wasn’t the escape room. It was figuring out how you were going to survive this without needing a drink afterward. Bucky had taken it upon himself to test “structural weaknesses” in the fake brick walls. His version of “testing” was punching one lightly. With his metal arm.

The wall cracked and the room went silent.

From the intercom: “Please do not damage the set. Also, we are not responsible for injuries caused by over enthusiastic participation. Thank you!”

You turned on him like a storm. “What happened to ‘this’ll be easy’?”

“It is easy. The wall just looked suspicious,” Bucky replied, wiping fake cobwebs from his sleeve like a man with no regrets.

“It’s foam!” You yelled. “It’s suspicious because it’s clearly styrofoam!”

Steve, meanwhile, had discovered a locked chest with an old rotary phone on top. He was pacing in front of it like he was expecting it to ring with instructions from headquarters.

“I think it’s a code,” He murmured. “We dial something, and it opens. Maybe if we spell out a word using the numbers-”

“Steve,” You interrupted, pinching the bridge of your nose, “The clue literally says: ‘Dial 911 to unlock the final key.’ That’s not a code. That’s just instructions.”

Steve blinked. “Oh.”

He dialed 911 on the dusty phone. The chest popped open with a ding and a dramatic puff of dry ice that startled all three of you.

Inside was a black keycard and a note that said “Final door: 5 minutes remain.”

Bucky snatched the keycard. “Let’s finish this thing. I’ve got a hot date with a milkshake and a nap.”

Steve furrowed his brow. “We should think this carefully and plan. There could be traps in the last room.”

You looked between them and snorted. “What, like the staff’s gonna throw in a booby trap just to spice it up?”

“…They could,” Steve muttered. “It’d be unexpected, that’s good design.”

You made a mental note to ban both of them from anything resembling a mystery game for the rest of your natural life.

Then came The Moment.

You all stepped into the final room that was all dark with eerie music playing from a hidden speaker, and a blinking red countdown above the last door. Dramatic fog rolled out across the floor.

There was a button on the wall.

Just a red, glowing button with a sign above it that said:

“EMERGENCY ESCAPE – DO NOT PRESS UNLESS YOU GIVE UP.”

You hadn’t even opened your mouth to say “don’t” before Bucky pressed it. The room lights blared on and the music stopped. The countdown froze at 00:03 as you all stood in stunned silence.

The intercom crackled again.

“…So, you technically escaped, but also forfeited. That’s… a first.”

Bucky blinked. “What? It said emergency. I figured it’d blow something up. Or, like… open a trapdoor. Something dramatic.”

Steve looked personally betrayed. “We were three seconds away from winning with full completion.”

“You were still looking for tripwires,” You snapped. “I was reading the last clue. He just wanted to blow something up!”

Bucky looked sheepish. “You can’t give me a glowing red button and not expect me to press it. That’s on them.”

You stared at the ceiling like it might offer you divine intervention. “I invited two enhanced soldiers into a puzzle-themed children’s attraction. This is my fault. I accept that.”

As the final door clicked open and the staff came in to escort you out, one of them gave you a pitying smile.

“Hey,” She said brightly, “At least no one tried to climb into the air vents this time!”

You blinked. “Wait. That’s an option?”

Steve immediately looked intrigued.

You grabbed both their arms. “Nope. Out now. I’m buying you both ice cream so you don’t break anything else.”

Left Alone with the Air Fryer

Summary: You leave him home alone with a new air fryer and strict instructions not to use it. He does it anyways. (Bucky Barnes x reader)

Word Count: 400+

A/N: Hi, I’m sick. So, enjoy Bucky being a slight menace. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist

You were only gone for a couple of hours.

That’s it. Two hours. You had a simple errand: pick up your dry cleaning and stop by the store. You even made sure to leave Bucky with very clear instructions, a sticky note that read: “Do not touch the air fryer. Just eat the leftovers.” It was short, straight to the point, and should have been foolproof.

Except you apparently forgot who you were dealing with.

When you walk through the door, the first thing you notice is the smell. It’s not bad. It’s… actually kind of amazing. A mix of melted cheese, garlic, and something slightly suspicious, like someone tried to recreate fair food from memory. The second thing you notice is the mess. Not a disaster, exactly but Bucky Barnes, ex-assassin and super soldier, is hunched over the kitchen counter, squinting at the air fryer like it just gave him attitude.

“Hey,” He says, without looking up. “Quick question. Is it supposed to smoke like that?”

You drop your bags and rush over. Your heart is skipping a beat, but the smoke is minimal, more of a dramatic wisp. Still, there are three bowls on the counter, each filled with what appears to be a different kind of fried cheese. One has mozzarella sticks (burnt on one side), another has some kind of pizza roll Frankenstein hybrids, and the last looks like he tried to batter and fry actual slices of provolone.

You blink. “Bucky. What… happened?”

He finally looks up, face too serious for the situation. “Okay so, I was hungry. You said not to touch the air fryer, but it was… calling to me.” He gestures vaguely, like the machine whispered forbidden secrets. “And I remembered you said something about preheating it, but then I forgot what button that was, so I just hit all of them. Twice.”

“You what?!”

“Look, I fixed it! I googled a YouTube guy who said air frying was an ‘art form’ and I think I may have found my calling.” He walks over to the counter and presents a Tupperware container with a proud flourish. Inside? Perfectly golden, crispy mozzarella sticks. Like… dangerously good.

He grins, immensely proud over his perfect appetizer. “I even plated them or contained them.”

You narrow your eyes. “You did all this in two hours?”

“Oh, no, this took like… twenty minutes. I spent the rest of the time organizing the spices alphabetically. Also, your cinnamon expired in 2019. I’ve buried it in the trash can.”

Despite yourself, you start laughing and he looks entirely too smug about it. Bucky leans back against the counter, arms folded, saying with mock seriousness, “I’m not saying I’m that Gordon fellow for air fryers, but I am taking name suggestions for my cooking channel.”

You walk over, take one of the mozzarella sticks, and bite into it. It’s amazing, annoyingly amazing.

“I hate you.”

He beams. “That’s fair. But… want to try the pizza bites next?”

It’s the angst I bet… Thank you so much for reading!!! ♡

Falling For You, Again and Again

Summary: Each time you "die" and return, you fall in love with Bucky all over again in different ways. Bucky sees a new version of you every time, but he’s always his same self. Each time, you both always find your ways back to each other, but you never know it's happened before. (Bucky Barnes x reader)

Disclaimer: Reader has the power of immortality. However, each death erases your memory of what you knew and who you were before. ANGST.

Word Count: 2.6k+

A/N: I wasn’t even sure if I could classify this under this series. However, it’s still an enhanced ability. Also, I’m hoping y’all like this. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Whispers of the Gifted Masterlist

The first time you came back to life, it took three days. You woke in a hospital morgue, shivering under a white sheet, the taste of salt and ash on your tongue. You had no memory of your name, no recollection of what had killed you, and no sense of identity.

The only thing you possessed was a quiet panic and the sharp, cold awareness that you should not be here. You stumbled out into the world with no guidance, no answers, and one inexplicable truth: you couldn’t die.

You learned the pattern eventually. Every time you died whether by accident or violence, sickness or sacrifice, you returned. The process was inconsistent though. Sometimes, it took hours. Other times, days or weeks. Each time, you emerged in your body just as it was before death, seemingly untouched… but your memories, every one of them, were stripped away.

You couldn’t remember the name of the man who’d died holding your hand on a battlefield. Or the child you once saved from drowning. Or the language you’d spoken fluently last time you were alive. Every death reset your soul like a blank canvas, and the world became something you had to re-learn.

Sometimes people told you things about who you were, where you’d been, but they felt like borrowed stories. You smiled politely. Pretended. Sometimes even fell in love with the past versions of yourself they described. But you never felt like her.

The only exception was him.

The first time you saw Bucky Barnes, it was in a coffee shop in D.C. You didn’t know his name. You didn’t know yours, either. He was sitting alone reading something dense and battered yet you were inexplicably drawn to him, like an invisible thread pulled you into his orbit. You stood in line behind him without realizing, your fingers twitching as if remembering a touch you’d never felt. He glanced back. His eyes locked on yours.

He stared like he’d seen a ghost.

You didn’t speak,not then but you sat across from him twenty minutes later because you felt you should. Because your heart beat faster when he smiled, and it shouldn’t have. Because he seemed to know you, and you… you wanted to know why.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” He asked, softly, one hand wrapped around a warm mug.

You shook your head. “I don’t even remember me.”

He swallowed hard, staring at the steam between you. “I think you’ve died again.”

You didn’t ask how he knew. You just believed him.

It was like that every time.

You’d die. Come back. Then forget.

And somehow, Bucky would find you. Or you’d find him. A different place. A different life. But the same pull. You might meet him at a bookstore, brushing fingertips over the same worn copy of Catch-22. Or in a combat zone, both fighting for someone else’s cause. Or on a rainy street corner where he offered you a shared umbrella without knowing if you’d remember him this time. Sometimes you’d fall in love quickly. Sometimes slowly. But always, deeply.

He tried not to hold on too tightly. He never told you too much too fast. He let you find your own path, even if it meant losing you all over again.

But every version of you looked at him like you’d known him forever. Every version of you fell in love with him, as if your soul remembered even when your mind couldn’t.

And that was the tragedy of it. For him, it was always a reunion. For you, it was always the beginning.

-

Rain fell in soft curtains over the city, blurring the glass of the bookstore window and washing the world into dull, dreamlike greys. Inside, the scent of old paper, dust, and aging wood filled the quiet. Bucky sat in the far corner, a thick book open in his lap, though he wasn’t really reading. His fingers had gone still on the page twenty minutes ago.

He’d spent the past eleven months scouring D.C. by checking shelters, hospitals, cafés, the Metro; anywhere someone who had nothing might go. Most of the time, you always seemed to come back near where you died, and though he didn’t know exactly where that had been this time, instinct had guided him here.

The bookstore had become his checkpoint. A place of stillness where he could let the anxiety press against his ribs without showing on his face. He came every Sunday, pretending to read, waiting for a flicker of something to pull the world back into motion.

Then the door opened.

The bell jingled, and cold air swept in, heavy with rain and city smoke. A figure stepped inside, hunched slightly with hair damp and clinging to their cheeks. You looked up, blinking against the light, eyes wide and searching.

Bucky went still.

You’d returned.

Even before you saw him, even before you reached for the books on the nearest shelf, he knew. It wasn’t just the way you looked even though your face never changed. It was something else. A tension in your posture. A flicker of familiarity in your eyes that didn’t belong to this version of you, not yet.

You drifted further into the store, trailing fingers over spines as though pulled by instinct. He stood slowly, book forgotten on the chair behind him, as his heart hammered in his chest.

Then, like fate nudging you into place, your hand stopped on a copy of Catch-22.

It was always that book.

You ran your hand over the cover like it meant something you couldn’t name before your gaze flickered over to his. “Have we met?” You asked in a soft and uncertain tone. “I’m sorry… I feel like I should know you.”

God, it hit him like a punch every time.

Bucky’s voice caught in his throat before he forced a quiet, “Yeah. We’ve met before.”

You smiled politely, a little nervous. But your eyes lingered on his face like they were trying to etch something into memory that didn’t exist yet. “Do you… do you know who I am?”

He nodded. “I do.”

And he wouldn’t say more, not yet. He never did. You needed to come to it in your own time. So he took a step back, gestured to the armchair in the reading corner. “Do you want to sit for a while?”

You blinked at him, then at the chair, as if the idea of resting had never occurred to you. Slowly, you nodded.

“I’d like that.”

You stayed for two hours. Browsing, reading, or asking cautious gentle questions that Bucky answered with care. You didn’t remember dying. You never did. But you’d woken up in a hospital two weeks ago, no ID, no fingerprints on file. A social worker had told you your memory loss might be trauma-induced. You didn’t tell them about the dreams, about the way your hands shook when you tried to sleep. Or how you sometimes stared at your reflection and didn’t feel like it belonged to you.

Bucky listened quietly, never once pressing. He never once was asking you to be someone you weren’t ready to become again.

And just before you left, you turned to him. “I know this sounds strange, but… I feel safe with you. Like I’ve known you before.”

He swallowed hard, nodding. “You have.”

You opened your mouth like you wanted to ask more but didn’t.

Instead, you said, “I think I’d like to see you again.”

He smiled. “I’ll be here.”

You hesitated one more moment, then added, “Maybe I’ll come back next week… and you can tell me a story.”

He watched you go, heart aching.

He had hundreds. All of them about you.

You came back the next Sunday, just like you said you would. Same bookstore with the same faint, hesitant smile. This time, your coat was dry and your hair was pulled back. There was a small bandage on your knuckle from some accident you wouldn’t remember. You hadn’t told Bucky that, but he noticed. He always noticed the small things.

The two of you sat in the corner by the fogged-up window, and Bucky brought you tea from the shop next door without asking what kind you liked. He already knew. You took it with a grateful murmur, sipping slowly before your eyes flickered up to him.

“You said last week that you knew me,” You spoke cautiously but curious. “How? Did we work together or…?”

He studied you for a moment, then looked down at the teacup in his hands. “Not work. We were close, for a long time.”

You tilted your head, watching him. “Were we… lovers?”

There it was. The question that always came eventually. He looked back up. Your expression wasn’t flirtatious, it was vulnerable. Searching.

“Yes,” He answered quietly. “Many times.”

Your breath hitched just a fraction. And then, “You say that like we’ve done this before.”

He hesitated. “Because we have.”

You stared, frowning. “Have what? Met?”

“Fallen in love.”

You didn’t speak for a moment. Then you looked down at your hands. “Is that why I feel… strange around you? Like I should be afraid to get too close, but also like I want to?”

“Probably,” He laughed softly. “Most versions of you have that same feeling. You never remember me, but something in you always recognizes me. I don’t know if it’s instinct, or your soul remembering, or just… whatever’s left behind.”

You were silent, absorbing that. Then, in a quiet voice, “How many times?”

Bucky met your eyes. “Forty-eight.”

You looked away sharply. “Forty-eight deaths.”

“That I know of.”

“And I don’t remember any of them?”

“No.”

You stared out the window, your fingers tightening around the mug. “Then how can you… how do you not hate me for forgetting?”

He leaned forward, voice steady. “Because I remember you. All of you, and because every version of you is worth meeting again.”

Tears welled up in your eyes without control as you wiped them quickly, embarrassed. “Sorry. I don’t know why that made me-“

“It happens sometimes,” He reassured gently. “Your body remembers things your mind doesn’t. Emotions bleed through.”

You looked at him then, really looked at him and something in your chest ached. Something deep and familiar.

“Tell me a story,” You whispered. “Tell me something about her- about me. A version you knew.”

Bucky nodded.

He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small, battered notebook. The leather was fraying at the edges, the pages slightly warped from time and tears. He set it on the table, his hand resting on the cover.

“You used to hum in your sleep,” He said quietly. “Sometimes it was a lullaby, sometimes it was nothing at all. But it was always soft. And when you had nightmares or when the dreams got too heavy, you’d say my name before you woke up.”

You stared at the journal, transfixed.

Bucky’s voice didn’t tremble, but there was a break in it now. “That version of you was terrified of losing herself. You left notes, voice recordings, instructions. But every time you came back, you were still a stranger to yourself.”

You reached for the journal before you could stop yourself.

“Can I… read them?”

His hand remained on the cover for a moment longer, then he slowly slid it toward you.

“You can.”

You took it carefully. Reverently. Like it was something sacred.

Every time you left his world, he added another entry in that journal and kept it close with him. It was as if to keep a piece of you nearby when he couldn’t find you right away. The journal was heavier than it looked.

Not in weight, but in presence. It felt lived in, full of love and plagued with grief. You held it in your lap like something precious and terrifying, afraid that turning the page would tear a hole in your chest you didn’t know how to close.

You glanced up at Bucky. He hadn’t moved as he watched you with the quiet patience of someone who had waited through storms you couldn’t remember. You looked down again as your fingers brushed over the leather cover. There were marks, faint indents from a pen pressed too hard. Some pages were dog-eared. One corner had a smear of dried paint. Or maybe blood.

“I don’t understand,” You whispered. “Why would you keep doing this? Why would you…wait for me? For this?”

Bucky exhaled slowly. “Because even when it breaks me, you’re still worth every second I get.”

Your mouth opened slightly. No sound came out. Instead, you opened the journal.

The first page held a drawing. A sketch in faded pencil, your face, or someone who looked like you. The features were careful, practiced. You were looking down in the image, eyes shadowed, but peaceful. Beneath it, in neat handwriting:

11th time: She liked to paint near windows in sunlight. Said it made her feel alive. She told me to keep going, even when she was gone. I didn’t know how. Still don’t, but I’m trying.

Your heart pounded.

You turned the page.

31st time: She left me a voicemail before she died. Said if I ever found her again and she didn’t remember me, to tell her it was okay. That she was stronger than her forgetting. That love wasn’t something the body forgot, it was something that echoed in the soul and bones.

And the next:

42nd: She came back scared. She didn’t trust anyone, not even herself. But the second I said her name, she cried. She didn’t know why, just said it felt like home.

Your hand shook as you flipped further.

Tiny mementos were tucked inside throughout the journal. A movie ticket. A torn page from a crossword puzzle. A faded photo of the two of you, you laughing with your arms around him, eyes bright with a love you didn’t remember but suddenly longed for like oxygen.

And then… your voice.

Not now. Not this version. But one of you from before. It was a clipped audio, barely two minutes long, the file embedded into a tiny recorder taped to a page.

You pressed play.

“Hi. I know you’re me. Or some part of me. Or… maybe you’re someone entirely different now. That’s okay. You don’t have to remember everything. I just want you to know he’s safe. His voice is safe. His hands are safe. If you don’t remember anything else, remember that.”

You felt the sob before you heard it. Your hand flew to your mouth as your chest crumpled in on itself. You had said this. You had known you’d forget. And you’d wanted to leave yourself something, some thread to hold on to.

Across from you, Bucky didn’t speak. His eyes were glassy, but he didn’t interrupt. He never did. He let you come to him, always.

The journal was shaking in your hands. “I don’t know how to live like this,” You said, broken. “How can I be me if I’m always being rewritten?”

He leaned forward, voice low and certain. “Because no matter how many times the world erases you… you always find your way back.”

You looked at him again and something in you moved. A thread, a spark. Not a memory but an emotion. A warmth like sunlight through your body. It didn’t bring images, names, or facts. But it brought trust. Safety. The echo of something lost but not gone.

“Stay with me,” You pleaded in a whisper.

“I always do,” He said, steady.

And for the first time, in this lifetime, you reached for his hand. Not out of obligation. Not from the ghost of some former self. But because your heart, untouched by memory, still knew him.

And Bucky held on like he had every time before.

Thank you!!! Fairy reader is so adorable when they aren’t sulking lol. Thank you for reading! ♡

Tiny Wings, Gentle Things

Summary: Steve gently teaches you human things like books, buttons, and manners, while Bucky encourages mischief, showing you how to pull harmless pranks around the tower. The others react with a mix of confusion, amusement, and affection. (Steve Rogers x Fairy!Reader x Bucky Barnes)

Word Count: 700+

A/N: Little day in the life as I work on something else for them. Thank you to @lexi-anastasia-astra-luna for some of the ideas here. Enjoy! Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Original Fic

No one really knew what to do with you.

You were small, winged, usually perched somewhere high, and spoke only when you really had something to say. And even then, it was usually short answers or a half-muttered grumble. But Steve and Bucky understood your silences, the way you blinked slowly to show you were listening, or how you folded your wings just slightly when you were shy.

Tony tried, for about five minutes. He offered you a nanobot containment suit that looked like a miniature Iron Man armor. You stared at it, picked it up, and immediately used it as a bowl to hold berries.

Clint once tried to feed you a gummy worm. You were offended he gellied a worm, threw it back at his face, and disappeared in a sparkle.

Natasha never tried. She just nodded at you once, quietly, like she saw you in the way only someone used to silence really could. You nodded back. A silent truce.

But it was Steve and Bucky who brought you into their strange human world piece by piece.

Steve started with books.

Children’s stories at first, Grimm’s fairy tales (which you found rude), then picture books, then little poems he read aloud to you in the warm morning sun. You’d perch on the windowsill, legs swinging, wings drowsy and half-spread out, as he explained what a “library” was. You didn’t say much, just blinked slowly, then nodded once.

Then came buttons.

You were obsessed with them, often hoarding them after being given some as rewards for your lessons with Steve. The man would sit you on the table and give you different things one at a time. Sometimes it was light switches, other times old radio dials or clicky pens, and he would explain each time what they did.

“Elevator,” Steve said once, pointing to the big silver doors. “You press that button, and it takes you to another floor.”

You looked at him then at the button before pressing it. When the doors opened, you flew inside and hovered in the corner like a suspicious bee.

He didn’t laugh. Just waited.

You ended up going up four floors by yourself and refused to speak for two hours afterward.

Bucky, on the other hand, was… different.

He saw your silences as permission. Permission to teach you everything you weren’t supposed to know.

“Okay,” He whispered one evening, crouched beside the kitchen island like he was about to spill government secrets. “This is a prank. It’s not bad. It’s mischief. And Sam deserves it.”

You blinked slowly, sitting on his shoulder.

He held up a spoon and nodded toward the sugar bowl.

“Swapped with salt. Classic.”

You didn’t say anything, but when he looked away, you fluttered over and swapped every single label in the spice rack.

Bucky stared, then smirked. “Okay. Overachiever.”

From then on, it became a game.

You’d turn invisible and move Sam’s phone two inches to the left every day until he questioned reality.

You filled Peter’s web-shooter with glitter. You unzipped Tony’s backpack halfway so it spilled post-its everywhere. No one ever suspected you except maybe Nat, who watched you a little too knowingly.

You never laughed out loud. But sometimes, when no one was looking, your wings would pulse in little ripples like soft, silent giggles.

And sometimes Bucky caught you smirking behind your hand.

You didn’t talk much. But you listened.

You remembered that Steve said “please” and “thank you” even to vending machines. That Bucky never let anyone touch his dog tags but didn’t mind when you rested on them. That Sam talked too loudly but always smelled like clean laundry and summer air. That Wanda could feel emotions like a river and once gifted you a leaf shaped like a heart.

You never spoke of it, but sometimes you left little gifts.

A petal in Natasha’s drawer.

A marble in Peter’s hoodie.

A single, silver button beside Steve’s bed.

You were quiet, mysterious, and easily mistaken for decoration sometimes. But the tower shifted around you, softened. They grew used to the way coffee mugs were suddenly left out around the place or how the microwave would beep and no one was there.

And every morning, without fail, Steve would say, “Good morning, sweetheart,” to the windowsill just in case you were there, curled in a sock, pretending not to care.

Agreed. Thank you so much for reading!!! ♡

Falling For You, Again and Again

Summary: Each time you "die" and return, you fall in love with Bucky all over again in different ways. Bucky sees a new version of you every time, but he’s always his same self. Each time, you both always find your ways back to each other, but you never know it's happened before. (Bucky Barnes x reader)

Disclaimer: Reader has the power of immortality. However, each death erases your memory of what you knew and who you were before. ANGST.

Word Count: 2.6k+

A/N: I wasn’t even sure if I could classify this under this series. However, it’s still an enhanced ability. Also, I’m hoping y’all like this. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Whispers of the Gifted Masterlist

The first time you came back to life, it took three days. You woke in a hospital morgue, shivering under a white sheet, the taste of salt and ash on your tongue. You had no memory of your name, no recollection of what had killed you, and no sense of identity.

The only thing you possessed was a quiet panic and the sharp, cold awareness that you should not be here. You stumbled out into the world with no guidance, no answers, and one inexplicable truth: you couldn’t die.

You learned the pattern eventually. Every time you died whether by accident or violence, sickness or sacrifice, you returned. The process was inconsistent though. Sometimes, it took hours. Other times, days or weeks. Each time, you emerged in your body just as it was before death, seemingly untouched… but your memories, every one of them, were stripped away.

You couldn’t remember the name of the man who’d died holding your hand on a battlefield. Or the child you once saved from drowning. Or the language you’d spoken fluently last time you were alive. Every death reset your soul like a blank canvas, and the world became something you had to re-learn.

Sometimes people told you things about who you were, where you’d been, but they felt like borrowed stories. You smiled politely. Pretended. Sometimes even fell in love with the past versions of yourself they described. But you never felt like her.

The only exception was him.

The first time you saw Bucky Barnes, it was in a coffee shop in D.C. You didn’t know his name. You didn’t know yours, either. He was sitting alone reading something dense and battered yet you were inexplicably drawn to him, like an invisible thread pulled you into his orbit. You stood in line behind him without realizing, your fingers twitching as if remembering a touch you’d never felt. He glanced back. His eyes locked on yours.

He stared like he’d seen a ghost.

You didn’t speak,not then but you sat across from him twenty minutes later because you felt you should. Because your heart beat faster when he smiled, and it shouldn’t have. Because he seemed to know you, and you… you wanted to know why.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” He asked, softly, one hand wrapped around a warm mug.

You shook your head. “I don’t even remember me.”

He swallowed hard, staring at the steam between you. “I think you’ve died again.”

You didn’t ask how he knew. You just believed him.

It was like that every time.

You’d die. Come back. Then forget.

And somehow, Bucky would find you. Or you’d find him. A different place. A different life. But the same pull. You might meet him at a bookstore, brushing fingertips over the same worn copy of Catch-22. Or in a combat zone, both fighting for someone else’s cause. Or on a rainy street corner where he offered you a shared umbrella without knowing if you’d remember him this time. Sometimes you’d fall in love quickly. Sometimes slowly. But always, deeply.

He tried not to hold on too tightly. He never told you too much too fast. He let you find your own path, even if it meant losing you all over again.

But every version of you looked at him like you’d known him forever. Every version of you fell in love with him, as if your soul remembered even when your mind couldn’t.

And that was the tragedy of it. For him, it was always a reunion. For you, it was always the beginning.

-

Rain fell in soft curtains over the city, blurring the glass of the bookstore window and washing the world into dull, dreamlike greys. Inside, the scent of old paper, dust, and aging wood filled the quiet. Bucky sat in the far corner, a thick book open in his lap, though he wasn’t really reading. His fingers had gone still on the page twenty minutes ago.

He’d spent the past eleven months scouring D.C. by checking shelters, hospitals, cafés, the Metro; anywhere someone who had nothing might go. Most of the time, you always seemed to come back near where you died, and though he didn’t know exactly where that had been this time, instinct had guided him here.

The bookstore had become his checkpoint. A place of stillness where he could let the anxiety press against his ribs without showing on his face. He came every Sunday, pretending to read, waiting for a flicker of something to pull the world back into motion.

Then the door opened.

The bell jingled, and cold air swept in, heavy with rain and city smoke. A figure stepped inside, hunched slightly with hair damp and clinging to their cheeks. You looked up, blinking against the light, eyes wide and searching.

Bucky went still.

You’d returned.

Even before you saw him, even before you reached for the books on the nearest shelf, he knew. It wasn’t just the way you looked even though your face never changed. It was something else. A tension in your posture. A flicker of familiarity in your eyes that didn’t belong to this version of you, not yet.

You drifted further into the store, trailing fingers over spines as though pulled by instinct. He stood slowly, book forgotten on the chair behind him, as his heart hammered in his chest.

Then, like fate nudging you into place, your hand stopped on a copy of Catch-22.

It was always that book.

You ran your hand over the cover like it meant something you couldn’t name before your gaze flickered over to his. “Have we met?” You asked in a soft and uncertain tone. “I’m sorry… I feel like I should know you.”

God, it hit him like a punch every time.

Bucky’s voice caught in his throat before he forced a quiet, “Yeah. We’ve met before.”

You smiled politely, a little nervous. But your eyes lingered on his face like they were trying to etch something into memory that didn’t exist yet. “Do you… do you know who I am?”

He nodded. “I do.”

And he wouldn’t say more, not yet. He never did. You needed to come to it in your own time. So he took a step back, gestured to the armchair in the reading corner. “Do you want to sit for a while?”

You blinked at him, then at the chair, as if the idea of resting had never occurred to you. Slowly, you nodded.

“I’d like that.”

You stayed for two hours. Browsing, reading, or asking cautious gentle questions that Bucky answered with care. You didn’t remember dying. You never did. But you’d woken up in a hospital two weeks ago, no ID, no fingerprints on file. A social worker had told you your memory loss might be trauma-induced. You didn’t tell them about the dreams, about the way your hands shook when you tried to sleep. Or how you sometimes stared at your reflection and didn’t feel like it belonged to you.

Bucky listened quietly, never once pressing. He never once was asking you to be someone you weren’t ready to become again.

And just before you left, you turned to him. “I know this sounds strange, but… I feel safe with you. Like I’ve known you before.”

He swallowed hard, nodding. “You have.”

You opened your mouth like you wanted to ask more but didn’t.

Instead, you said, “I think I’d like to see you again.”

He smiled. “I’ll be here.”

You hesitated one more moment, then added, “Maybe I’ll come back next week… and you can tell me a story.”

He watched you go, heart aching.

He had hundreds. All of them about you.

You came back the next Sunday, just like you said you would. Same bookstore with the same faint, hesitant smile. This time, your coat was dry and your hair was pulled back. There was a small bandage on your knuckle from some accident you wouldn’t remember. You hadn’t told Bucky that, but he noticed. He always noticed the small things.

The two of you sat in the corner by the fogged-up window, and Bucky brought you tea from the shop next door without asking what kind you liked. He already knew. You took it with a grateful murmur, sipping slowly before your eyes flickered up to him.

“You said last week that you knew me,” You spoke cautiously but curious. “How? Did we work together or…?”

He studied you for a moment, then looked down at the teacup in his hands. “Not work. We were close, for a long time.”

You tilted your head, watching him. “Were we… lovers?”

There it was. The question that always came eventually. He looked back up. Your expression wasn’t flirtatious, it was vulnerable. Searching.

“Yes,” He answered quietly. “Many times.”

Your breath hitched just a fraction. And then, “You say that like we’ve done this before.”

He hesitated. “Because we have.”

You stared, frowning. “Have what? Met?”

“Fallen in love.”

You didn’t speak for a moment. Then you looked down at your hands. “Is that why I feel… strange around you? Like I should be afraid to get too close, but also like I want to?”

“Probably,” He laughed softly. “Most versions of you have that same feeling. You never remember me, but something in you always recognizes me. I don’t know if it’s instinct, or your soul remembering, or just… whatever’s left behind.”

You were silent, absorbing that. Then, in a quiet voice, “How many times?”

Bucky met your eyes. “Forty-eight.”

You looked away sharply. “Forty-eight deaths.”

“That I know of.”

“And I don’t remember any of them?”

“No.”

You stared out the window, your fingers tightening around the mug. “Then how can you… how do you not hate me for forgetting?”

He leaned forward, voice steady. “Because I remember you. All of you, and because every version of you is worth meeting again.”

Tears welled up in your eyes without control as you wiped them quickly, embarrassed. “Sorry. I don’t know why that made me-“

“It happens sometimes,” He reassured gently. “Your body remembers things your mind doesn’t. Emotions bleed through.”

You looked at him then, really looked at him and something in your chest ached. Something deep and familiar.

“Tell me a story,” You whispered. “Tell me something about her- about me. A version you knew.”

Bucky nodded.

He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small, battered notebook. The leather was fraying at the edges, the pages slightly warped from time and tears. He set it on the table, his hand resting on the cover.

“You used to hum in your sleep,” He said quietly. “Sometimes it was a lullaby, sometimes it was nothing at all. But it was always soft. And when you had nightmares or when the dreams got too heavy, you’d say my name before you woke up.”

You stared at the journal, transfixed.

Bucky’s voice didn’t tremble, but there was a break in it now. “That version of you was terrified of losing herself. You left notes, voice recordings, instructions. But every time you came back, you were still a stranger to yourself.”

You reached for the journal before you could stop yourself.

“Can I… read them?”

His hand remained on the cover for a moment longer, then he slowly slid it toward you.

“You can.”

You took it carefully. Reverently. Like it was something sacred.

Every time you left his world, he added another entry in that journal and kept it close with him. It was as if to keep a piece of you nearby when he couldn’t find you right away. The journal was heavier than it looked.

Not in weight, but in presence. It felt lived in, full of love and plagued with grief. You held it in your lap like something precious and terrifying, afraid that turning the page would tear a hole in your chest you didn’t know how to close.

You glanced up at Bucky. He hadn’t moved as he watched you with the quiet patience of someone who had waited through storms you couldn’t remember. You looked down again as your fingers brushed over the leather cover. There were marks, faint indents from a pen pressed too hard. Some pages were dog-eared. One corner had a smear of dried paint. Or maybe blood.

“I don’t understand,” You whispered. “Why would you keep doing this? Why would you…wait for me? For this?”

Bucky exhaled slowly. “Because even when it breaks me, you’re still worth every second I get.”

Your mouth opened slightly. No sound came out. Instead, you opened the journal.

The first page held a drawing. A sketch in faded pencil, your face, or someone who looked like you. The features were careful, practiced. You were looking down in the image, eyes shadowed, but peaceful. Beneath it, in neat handwriting:

11th time: She liked to paint near windows in sunlight. Said it made her feel alive. She told me to keep going, even when she was gone. I didn’t know how. Still don’t, but I’m trying.

Your heart pounded.

You turned the page.

31st time: She left me a voicemail before she died. Said if I ever found her again and she didn’t remember me, to tell her it was okay. That she was stronger than her forgetting. That love wasn’t something the body forgot, it was something that echoed in the soul and bones.

And the next:

42nd: She came back scared. She didn’t trust anyone, not even herself. But the second I said her name, she cried. She didn’t know why, just said it felt like home.

Your hand shook as you flipped further.

Tiny mementos were tucked inside throughout the journal. A movie ticket. A torn page from a crossword puzzle. A faded photo of the two of you, you laughing with your arms around him, eyes bright with a love you didn’t remember but suddenly longed for like oxygen.

And then… your voice.

Not now. Not this version. But one of you from before. It was a clipped audio, barely two minutes long, the file embedded into a tiny recorder taped to a page.

You pressed play.

“Hi. I know you’re me. Or some part of me. Or… maybe you’re someone entirely different now. That’s okay. You don’t have to remember everything. I just want you to know he’s safe. His voice is safe. His hands are safe. If you don’t remember anything else, remember that.”

You felt the sob before you heard it. Your hand flew to your mouth as your chest crumpled in on itself. You had said this. You had known you’d forget. And you’d wanted to leave yourself something, some thread to hold on to.

Across from you, Bucky didn’t speak. His eyes were glassy, but he didn’t interrupt. He never did. He let you come to him, always.

The journal was shaking in your hands. “I don’t know how to live like this,” You said, broken. “How can I be me if I’m always being rewritten?”

He leaned forward, voice low and certain. “Because no matter how many times the world erases you… you always find your way back.”

You looked at him again and something in you moved. A thread, a spark. Not a memory but an emotion. A warmth like sunlight through your body. It didn’t bring images, names, or facts. But it brought trust. Safety. The echo of something lost but not gone.

“Stay with me,” You pleaded in a whisper.

“I always do,” He said, steady.

And for the first time, in this lifetime, you reached for his hand. Not out of obligation. Not from the ghost of some former self. But because your heart, untouched by memory, still knew him.

And Bucky held on like he had every time before.

It was such a tragic idea, I’m so happy I was able to write a good story for it. Thank you so much for reading!!! ♡

Falling For You, Again and Again

Summary: Each time you "die" and return, you fall in love with Bucky all over again in different ways. Bucky sees a new version of you every time, but he’s always his same self. Each time, you both always find your ways back to each other, but you never know it's happened before. (Bucky Barnes x reader)

Disclaimer: Reader has the power of immortality. However, each death erases your memory of what you knew and who you were before. ANGST.

Word Count: 2.6k+

A/N: I wasn’t even sure if I could classify this under this series. However, it’s still an enhanced ability. Also, I’m hoping y’all like this. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Whispers of the Gifted Masterlist

The first time you came back to life, it took three days. You woke in a hospital morgue, shivering under a white sheet, the taste of salt and ash on your tongue. You had no memory of your name, no recollection of what had killed you, and no sense of identity.

The only thing you possessed was a quiet panic and the sharp, cold awareness that you should not be here. You stumbled out into the world with no guidance, no answers, and one inexplicable truth: you couldn’t die.

You learned the pattern eventually. Every time you died whether by accident or violence, sickness or sacrifice, you returned. The process was inconsistent though. Sometimes, it took hours. Other times, days or weeks. Each time, you emerged in your body just as it was before death, seemingly untouched… but your memories, every one of them, were stripped away.

You couldn’t remember the name of the man who’d died holding your hand on a battlefield. Or the child you once saved from drowning. Or the language you’d spoken fluently last time you were alive. Every death reset your soul like a blank canvas, and the world became something you had to re-learn.

Sometimes people told you things about who you were, where you’d been, but they felt like borrowed stories. You smiled politely. Pretended. Sometimes even fell in love with the past versions of yourself they described. But you never felt like her.

The only exception was him.

The first time you saw Bucky Barnes, it was in a coffee shop in D.C. You didn’t know his name. You didn’t know yours, either. He was sitting alone reading something dense and battered yet you were inexplicably drawn to him, like an invisible thread pulled you into his orbit. You stood in line behind him without realizing, your fingers twitching as if remembering a touch you’d never felt. He glanced back. His eyes locked on yours.

He stared like he’d seen a ghost.

You didn’t speak,not then but you sat across from him twenty minutes later because you felt you should. Because your heart beat faster when he smiled, and it shouldn’t have. Because he seemed to know you, and you… you wanted to know why.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” He asked, softly, one hand wrapped around a warm mug.

You shook your head. “I don’t even remember me.”

He swallowed hard, staring at the steam between you. “I think you’ve died again.”

You didn’t ask how he knew. You just believed him.

It was like that every time.

You’d die. Come back. Then forget.

And somehow, Bucky would find you. Or you’d find him. A different place. A different life. But the same pull. You might meet him at a bookstore, brushing fingertips over the same worn copy of Catch-22. Or in a combat zone, both fighting for someone else’s cause. Or on a rainy street corner where he offered you a shared umbrella without knowing if you’d remember him this time. Sometimes you’d fall in love quickly. Sometimes slowly. But always, deeply.

He tried not to hold on too tightly. He never told you too much too fast. He let you find your own path, even if it meant losing you all over again.

But every version of you looked at him like you’d known him forever. Every version of you fell in love with him, as if your soul remembered even when your mind couldn’t.

And that was the tragedy of it. For him, it was always a reunion. For you, it was always the beginning.

-

Rain fell in soft curtains over the city, blurring the glass of the bookstore window and washing the world into dull, dreamlike greys. Inside, the scent of old paper, dust, and aging wood filled the quiet. Bucky sat in the far corner, a thick book open in his lap, though he wasn’t really reading. His fingers had gone still on the page twenty minutes ago.

He’d spent the past eleven months scouring D.C. by checking shelters, hospitals, cafés, the Metro; anywhere someone who had nothing might go. Most of the time, you always seemed to come back near where you died, and though he didn’t know exactly where that had been this time, instinct had guided him here.

The bookstore had become his checkpoint. A place of stillness where he could let the anxiety press against his ribs without showing on his face. He came every Sunday, pretending to read, waiting for a flicker of something to pull the world back into motion.

Then the door opened.

The bell jingled, and cold air swept in, heavy with rain and city smoke. A figure stepped inside, hunched slightly with hair damp and clinging to their cheeks. You looked up, blinking against the light, eyes wide and searching.

Bucky went still.

You’d returned.

Even before you saw him, even before you reached for the books on the nearest shelf, he knew. It wasn’t just the way you looked even though your face never changed. It was something else. A tension in your posture. A flicker of familiarity in your eyes that didn’t belong to this version of you, not yet.

You drifted further into the store, trailing fingers over spines as though pulled by instinct. He stood slowly, book forgotten on the chair behind him, as his heart hammered in his chest.

Then, like fate nudging you into place, your hand stopped on a copy of Catch-22.

It was always that book.

You ran your hand over the cover like it meant something you couldn’t name before your gaze flickered over to his. “Have we met?” You asked in a soft and uncertain tone. “I’m sorry… I feel like I should know you.”

God, it hit him like a punch every time.

Bucky’s voice caught in his throat before he forced a quiet, “Yeah. We’ve met before.”

You smiled politely, a little nervous. But your eyes lingered on his face like they were trying to etch something into memory that didn’t exist yet. “Do you… do you know who I am?”

He nodded. “I do.”

And he wouldn’t say more, not yet. He never did. You needed to come to it in your own time. So he took a step back, gestured to the armchair in the reading corner. “Do you want to sit for a while?”

You blinked at him, then at the chair, as if the idea of resting had never occurred to you. Slowly, you nodded.

“I’d like that.”

You stayed for two hours. Browsing, reading, or asking cautious gentle questions that Bucky answered with care. You didn’t remember dying. You never did. But you’d woken up in a hospital two weeks ago, no ID, no fingerprints on file. A social worker had told you your memory loss might be trauma-induced. You didn’t tell them about the dreams, about the way your hands shook when you tried to sleep. Or how you sometimes stared at your reflection and didn’t feel like it belonged to you.

Bucky listened quietly, never once pressing. He never once was asking you to be someone you weren’t ready to become again.

And just before you left, you turned to him. “I know this sounds strange, but… I feel safe with you. Like I’ve known you before.”

He swallowed hard, nodding. “You have.”

You opened your mouth like you wanted to ask more but didn’t.

Instead, you said, “I think I’d like to see you again.”

He smiled. “I’ll be here.”

You hesitated one more moment, then added, “Maybe I’ll come back next week… and you can tell me a story.”

He watched you go, heart aching.

He had hundreds. All of them about you.

You came back the next Sunday, just like you said you would. Same bookstore with the same faint, hesitant smile. This time, your coat was dry and your hair was pulled back. There was a small bandage on your knuckle from some accident you wouldn’t remember. You hadn’t told Bucky that, but he noticed. He always noticed the small things.

The two of you sat in the corner by the fogged-up window, and Bucky brought you tea from the shop next door without asking what kind you liked. He already knew. You took it with a grateful murmur, sipping slowly before your eyes flickered up to him.

“You said last week that you knew me,” You spoke cautiously but curious. “How? Did we work together or…?”

He studied you for a moment, then looked down at the teacup in his hands. “Not work. We were close, for a long time.”

You tilted your head, watching him. “Were we… lovers?”

There it was. The question that always came eventually. He looked back up. Your expression wasn’t flirtatious, it was vulnerable. Searching.

“Yes,” He answered quietly. “Many times.”

Your breath hitched just a fraction. And then, “You say that like we’ve done this before.”

He hesitated. “Because we have.”

You stared, frowning. “Have what? Met?”

“Fallen in love.”

You didn’t speak for a moment. Then you looked down at your hands. “Is that why I feel… strange around you? Like I should be afraid to get too close, but also like I want to?”

“Probably,” He laughed softly. “Most versions of you have that same feeling. You never remember me, but something in you always recognizes me. I don’t know if it’s instinct, or your soul remembering, or just… whatever’s left behind.”

You were silent, absorbing that. Then, in a quiet voice, “How many times?”

Bucky met your eyes. “Forty-eight.”

You looked away sharply. “Forty-eight deaths.”

“That I know of.”

“And I don’t remember any of them?”

“No.”

You stared out the window, your fingers tightening around the mug. “Then how can you… how do you not hate me for forgetting?”

He leaned forward, voice steady. “Because I remember you. All of you, and because every version of you is worth meeting again.”

Tears welled up in your eyes without control as you wiped them quickly, embarrassed. “Sorry. I don’t know why that made me-“

“It happens sometimes,” He reassured gently. “Your body remembers things your mind doesn’t. Emotions bleed through.”

You looked at him then, really looked at him and something in your chest ached. Something deep and familiar.

“Tell me a story,” You whispered. “Tell me something about her- about me. A version you knew.”

Bucky nodded.

He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small, battered notebook. The leather was fraying at the edges, the pages slightly warped from time and tears. He set it on the table, his hand resting on the cover.

“You used to hum in your sleep,” He said quietly. “Sometimes it was a lullaby, sometimes it was nothing at all. But it was always soft. And when you had nightmares or when the dreams got too heavy, you’d say my name before you woke up.”

You stared at the journal, transfixed.

Bucky’s voice didn’t tremble, but there was a break in it now. “That version of you was terrified of losing herself. You left notes, voice recordings, instructions. But every time you came back, you were still a stranger to yourself.”

You reached for the journal before you could stop yourself.

“Can I… read them?”

His hand remained on the cover for a moment longer, then he slowly slid it toward you.

“You can.”

You took it carefully. Reverently. Like it was something sacred.

Every time you left his world, he added another entry in that journal and kept it close with him. It was as if to keep a piece of you nearby when he couldn’t find you right away. The journal was heavier than it looked.

Not in weight, but in presence. It felt lived in, full of love and plagued with grief. You held it in your lap like something precious and terrifying, afraid that turning the page would tear a hole in your chest you didn’t know how to close.

You glanced up at Bucky. He hadn’t moved as he watched you with the quiet patience of someone who had waited through storms you couldn’t remember. You looked down again as your fingers brushed over the leather cover. There were marks, faint indents from a pen pressed too hard. Some pages were dog-eared. One corner had a smear of dried paint. Or maybe blood.

“I don’t understand,” You whispered. “Why would you keep doing this? Why would you…wait for me? For this?”

Bucky exhaled slowly. “Because even when it breaks me, you’re still worth every second I get.”

Your mouth opened slightly. No sound came out. Instead, you opened the journal.

The first page held a drawing. A sketch in faded pencil, your face, or someone who looked like you. The features were careful, practiced. You were looking down in the image, eyes shadowed, but peaceful. Beneath it, in neat handwriting:

11th time: She liked to paint near windows in sunlight. Said it made her feel alive. She told me to keep going, even when she was gone. I didn’t know how. Still don’t, but I’m trying.

Your heart pounded.

You turned the page.

31st time: She left me a voicemail before she died. Said if I ever found her again and she didn’t remember me, to tell her it was okay. That she was stronger than her forgetting. That love wasn’t something the body forgot, it was something that echoed in the soul and bones.

And the next:

42nd: She came back scared. She didn’t trust anyone, not even herself. But the second I said her name, she cried. She didn’t know why, just said it felt like home.

Your hand shook as you flipped further.

Tiny mementos were tucked inside throughout the journal. A movie ticket. A torn page from a crossword puzzle. A faded photo of the two of you, you laughing with your arms around him, eyes bright with a love you didn’t remember but suddenly longed for like oxygen.

And then… your voice.

Not now. Not this version. But one of you from before. It was a clipped audio, barely two minutes long, the file embedded into a tiny recorder taped to a page.

You pressed play.

“Hi. I know you’re me. Or some part of me. Or… maybe you’re someone entirely different now. That’s okay. You don’t have to remember everything. I just want you to know he’s safe. His voice is safe. His hands are safe. If you don’t remember anything else, remember that.”

You felt the sob before you heard it. Your hand flew to your mouth as your chest crumpled in on itself. You had said this. You had known you’d forget. And you’d wanted to leave yourself something, some thread to hold on to.

Across from you, Bucky didn’t speak. His eyes were glassy, but he didn’t interrupt. He never did. He let you come to him, always.

The journal was shaking in your hands. “I don’t know how to live like this,” You said, broken. “How can I be me if I’m always being rewritten?”

He leaned forward, voice low and certain. “Because no matter how many times the world erases you… you always find your way back.”

You looked at him again and something in you moved. A thread, a spark. Not a memory but an emotion. A warmth like sunlight through your body. It didn’t bring images, names, or facts. But it brought trust. Safety. The echo of something lost but not gone.

“Stay with me,” You pleaded in a whisper.

“I always do,” He said, steady.

And for the first time, in this lifetime, you reached for his hand. Not out of obligation. Not from the ghost of some former self. But because your heart, untouched by memory, still knew him.

And Bucky held on like he had every time before.

Falling For You, Again and Again

Summary: Each time you "die" and return, you fall in love with Bucky all over again in different ways. Bucky sees a new version of you every time, but he’s always his same self. Each time, you both always find your ways back to each other, but you never know it's happened before. (Bucky Barnes x reader)

Disclaimer: Reader has the power of immortality. However, each death erases your memory of what you knew and who you were before. ANGST.

Word Count: 2.6k+

A/N: I wasn’t even sure if I could classify this under this series. However, it’s still an enhanced ability. Also, I’m hoping y’all like this. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Whispers of the Gifted Masterlist

The first time you came back to life, it took three days. You woke in a hospital morgue, shivering under a white sheet, the taste of salt and ash on your tongue. You had no memory of your name, no recollection of what had killed you, and no sense of identity.

The only thing you possessed was a quiet panic and the sharp, cold awareness that you should not be here. You stumbled out into the world with no guidance, no answers, and one inexplicable truth: you couldn’t die.

You learned the pattern eventually. Every time you died whether by accident or violence, sickness or sacrifice, you returned. The process was inconsistent though. Sometimes, it took hours. Other times, days or weeks. Each time, you emerged in your body just as it was before death, seemingly untouched… but your memories, every one of them, were stripped away.

You couldn’t remember the name of the man who’d died holding your hand on a battlefield. Or the child you once saved from drowning. Or the language you’d spoken fluently last time you were alive. Every death reset your soul like a blank canvas, and the world became something you had to re-learn.

Sometimes people told you things about who you were, where you’d been, but they felt like borrowed stories. You smiled politely. Pretended. Sometimes even fell in love with the past versions of yourself they described. But you never felt like her.

The only exception was him.

The first time you saw Bucky Barnes, it was in a coffee shop in D.C. You didn’t know his name. You didn’t know yours, either. He was sitting alone reading something dense and battered yet you were inexplicably drawn to him, like an invisible thread pulled you into his orbit. You stood in line behind him without realizing, your fingers twitching as if remembering a touch you’d never felt. He glanced back. His eyes locked on yours.

He stared like he’d seen a ghost.

You didn’t speak,not then but you sat across from him twenty minutes later because you felt you should. Because your heart beat faster when he smiled, and it shouldn’t have. Because he seemed to know you, and you… you wanted to know why.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” He asked, softly, one hand wrapped around a warm mug.

You shook your head. “I don’t even remember me.”

He swallowed hard, staring at the steam between you. “I think you’ve died again.”

You didn’t ask how he knew. You just believed him.

It was like that every time.

You’d die. Come back. Then forget.

And somehow, Bucky would find you. Or you’d find him. A different place. A different life. But the same pull. You might meet him at a bookstore, brushing fingertips over the same worn copy of Catch-22. Or in a combat zone, both fighting for someone else’s cause. Or on a rainy street corner where he offered you a shared umbrella without knowing if you’d remember him this time. Sometimes you’d fall in love quickly. Sometimes slowly. But always, deeply.

He tried not to hold on too tightly. He never told you too much too fast. He let you find your own path, even if it meant losing you all over again.

But every version of you looked at him like you’d known him forever. Every version of you fell in love with him, as if your soul remembered even when your mind couldn’t.

And that was the tragedy of it. For him, it was always a reunion. For you, it was always the beginning.

-

Rain fell in soft curtains over the city, blurring the glass of the bookstore window and washing the world into dull, dreamlike greys. Inside, the scent of old paper, dust, and aging wood filled the quiet. Bucky sat in the far corner, a thick book open in his lap, though he wasn’t really reading. His fingers had gone still on the page twenty minutes ago.

He’d spent the past eleven months scouring D.C. by checking shelters, hospitals, cafés, the Metro; anywhere someone who had nothing might go. Most of the time, you always seemed to come back near where you died, and though he didn’t know exactly where that had been this time, instinct had guided him here.

The bookstore had become his checkpoint. A place of stillness where he could let the anxiety press against his ribs without showing on his face. He came every Sunday, pretending to read, waiting for a flicker of something to pull the world back into motion.

Then the door opened.

The bell jingled, and cold air swept in, heavy with rain and city smoke. A figure stepped inside, hunched slightly with hair damp and clinging to their cheeks. You looked up, blinking against the light, eyes wide and searching.

Bucky went still.

You’d returned.

Even before you saw him, even before you reached for the books on the nearest shelf, he knew. It wasn’t just the way you looked even though your face never changed. It was something else. A tension in your posture. A flicker of familiarity in your eyes that didn’t belong to this version of you, not yet.

You drifted further into the store, trailing fingers over spines as though pulled by instinct. He stood slowly, book forgotten on the chair behind him, as his heart hammered in his chest.

Then, like fate nudging you into place, your hand stopped on a copy of Catch-22.

It was always that book.

You ran your hand over the cover like it meant something you couldn’t name before your gaze flickered over to his. “Have we met?” You asked in a soft and uncertain tone. “I’m sorry… I feel like I should know you.”

God, it hit him like a punch every time.

Bucky’s voice caught in his throat before he forced a quiet, “Yeah. We’ve met before.”

You smiled politely, a little nervous. But your eyes lingered on his face like they were trying to etch something into memory that didn’t exist yet. “Do you… do you know who I am?”

He nodded. “I do.”

And he wouldn’t say more, not yet. He never did. You needed to come to it in your own time. So he took a step back, gestured to the armchair in the reading corner. “Do you want to sit for a while?”

You blinked at him, then at the chair, as if the idea of resting had never occurred to you. Slowly, you nodded.

“I’d like that.”

You stayed for two hours. Browsing, reading, or asking cautious gentle questions that Bucky answered with care. You didn’t remember dying. You never did. But you’d woken up in a hospital two weeks ago, no ID, no fingerprints on file. A social worker had told you your memory loss might be trauma-induced. You didn’t tell them about the dreams, about the way your hands shook when you tried to sleep. Or how you sometimes stared at your reflection and didn’t feel like it belonged to you.

Bucky listened quietly, never once pressing. He never once was asking you to be someone you weren’t ready to become again.

And just before you left, you turned to him. “I know this sounds strange, but… I feel safe with you. Like I’ve known you before.”

He swallowed hard, nodding. “You have.”

You opened your mouth like you wanted to ask more but didn’t.

Instead, you said, “I think I’d like to see you again.”

He smiled. “I’ll be here.”

You hesitated one more moment, then added, “Maybe I’ll come back next week… and you can tell me a story.”

He watched you go, heart aching.

He had hundreds. All of them about you.

You came back the next Sunday, just like you said you would. Same bookstore with the same faint, hesitant smile. This time, your coat was dry and your hair was pulled back. There was a small bandage on your knuckle from some accident you wouldn’t remember. You hadn’t told Bucky that, but he noticed. He always noticed the small things.

The two of you sat in the corner by the fogged-up window, and Bucky brought you tea from the shop next door without asking what kind you liked. He already knew. You took it with a grateful murmur, sipping slowly before your eyes flickered up to him.

“You said last week that you knew me,” You spoke cautiously but curious. “How? Did we work together or…?”

He studied you for a moment, then looked down at the teacup in his hands. “Not work. We were close, for a long time.”

You tilted your head, watching him. “Were we… lovers?”

There it was. The question that always came eventually. He looked back up. Your expression wasn’t flirtatious, it was vulnerable. Searching.

“Yes,” He answered quietly. “Many times.”

Your breath hitched just a fraction. And then, “You say that like we’ve done this before.”

He hesitated. “Because we have.”

You stared, frowning. “Have what? Met?”

“Fallen in love.”

You didn’t speak for a moment. Then you looked down at your hands. “Is that why I feel… strange around you? Like I should be afraid to get too close, but also like I want to?”

“Probably,” He laughed softly. “Most versions of you have that same feeling. You never remember me, but something in you always recognizes me. I don’t know if it’s instinct, or your soul remembering, or just… whatever’s left behind.”

You were silent, absorbing that. Then, in a quiet voice, “How many times?”

Bucky met your eyes. “Forty-eight.”

You looked away sharply. “Forty-eight deaths.”

“That I know of.”

“And I don’t remember any of them?”

“No.”

You stared out the window, your fingers tightening around the mug. “Then how can you… how do you not hate me for forgetting?”

He leaned forward, voice steady. “Because I remember you. All of you, and because every version of you is worth meeting again.”

Tears welled up in your eyes without control as you wiped them quickly, embarrassed. “Sorry. I don’t know why that made me-“

“It happens sometimes,” He reassured gently. “Your body remembers things your mind doesn’t. Emotions bleed through.”

You looked at him then, really looked at him and something in your chest ached. Something deep and familiar.

“Tell me a story,” You whispered. “Tell me something about her- about me. A version you knew.”

Bucky nodded.

He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small, battered notebook. The leather was fraying at the edges, the pages slightly warped from time and tears. He set it on the table, his hand resting on the cover.

“You used to hum in your sleep,” He said quietly. “Sometimes it was a lullaby, sometimes it was nothing at all. But it was always soft. And when you had nightmares or when the dreams got too heavy, you’d say my name before you woke up.”

You stared at the journal, transfixed.

Bucky’s voice didn’t tremble, but there was a break in it now. “That version of you was terrified of losing herself. You left notes, voice recordings, instructions. But every time you came back, you were still a stranger to yourself.”

You reached for the journal before you could stop yourself.

“Can I… read them?”

His hand remained on the cover for a moment longer, then he slowly slid it toward you.

“You can.”

You took it carefully. Reverently. Like it was something sacred.

Every time you left his world, he added another entry in that journal and kept it close with him. It was as if to keep a piece of you nearby when he couldn’t find you right away. The journal was heavier than it looked.

Not in weight, but in presence. It felt lived in, full of love and plagued with grief. You held it in your lap like something precious and terrifying, afraid that turning the page would tear a hole in your chest you didn’t know how to close.

You glanced up at Bucky. He hadn’t moved as he watched you with the quiet patience of someone who had waited through storms you couldn’t remember. You looked down again as your fingers brushed over the leather cover. There were marks, faint indents from a pen pressed too hard. Some pages were dog-eared. One corner had a smear of dried paint. Or maybe blood.

“I don’t understand,” You whispered. “Why would you keep doing this? Why would you…wait for me? For this?”

Bucky exhaled slowly. “Because even when it breaks me, you’re still worth every second I get.”

Your mouth opened slightly. No sound came out. Instead, you opened the journal.

The first page held a drawing. A sketch in faded pencil, your face, or someone who looked like you. The features were careful, practiced. You were looking down in the image, eyes shadowed, but peaceful. Beneath it, in neat handwriting:

11th time: She liked to paint near windows in sunlight. Said it made her feel alive. She told me to keep going, even when she was gone. I didn’t know how. Still don’t, but I’m trying.

Your heart pounded.

You turned the page.

31st time: She left me a voicemail before she died. Said if I ever found her again and she didn’t remember me, to tell her it was okay. That she was stronger than her forgetting. That love wasn’t something the body forgot, it was something that echoed in the soul and bones.

And the next:

42nd: She came back scared. She didn’t trust anyone, not even herself. But the second I said her name, she cried. She didn’t know why, just said it felt like home.

Your hand shook as you flipped further.

Tiny mementos were tucked inside throughout the journal. A movie ticket. A torn page from a crossword puzzle. A faded photo of the two of you, you laughing with your arms around him, eyes bright with a love you didn’t remember but suddenly longed for like oxygen.

And then… your voice.

Not now. Not this version. But one of you from before. It was a clipped audio, barely two minutes long, the file embedded into a tiny recorder taped to a page.

You pressed play.

“Hi. I know you’re me. Or some part of me. Or… maybe you’re someone entirely different now. That’s okay. You don’t have to remember everything. I just want you to know he’s safe. His voice is safe. His hands are safe. If you don’t remember anything else, remember that.”

You felt the sob before you heard it. Your hand flew to your mouth as your chest crumpled in on itself. You had said this. You had known you’d forget. And you’d wanted to leave yourself something, some thread to hold on to.

Across from you, Bucky didn’t speak. His eyes were glassy, but he didn’t interrupt. He never did. He let you come to him, always.

The journal was shaking in your hands. “I don’t know how to live like this,” You said, broken. “How can I be me if I’m always being rewritten?”

He leaned forward, voice low and certain. “Because no matter how many times the world erases you… you always find your way back.”

You looked at him again and something in you moved. A thread, a spark. Not a memory but an emotion. A warmth like sunlight through your body. It didn’t bring images, names, or facts. But it brought trust. Safety. The echo of something lost but not gone.

“Stay with me,” You pleaded in a whisper.

“I always do,” He said, steady.

And for the first time, in this lifetime, you reached for his hand. Not out of obligation. Not from the ghost of some former self. But because your heart, untouched by memory, still knew him.

And Bucky held on like he had every time before.

Aww, I’m glad to hear so! Writing comforting Bucky is something I enjoy (clearly since most of what I write is hurt/comfort lol) but it can be difficult at times to do each scene and situation justice. Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Exactly As You Are

Summary: You slowly form a tender, deeply emotional relationship with Bucky Barnes supports you through the bad days and gently breaks down the walls you’ve built from past abandonment. Despite fears of being a burden, Bucky stays, proving with quiet strength and unwavering presence that love doesn’t need to be perfect to be real. (Bucky Barnes x reader)

Disclaimer: Reader is chronically ill. Mentions/Depictions of symptoms of said illness. Angst. Hurt/comfort.

Word Count: 2.3k+

A/N: This is sort self-indulgent but still an enjoyable read regardless. I left the type of illness ambiguous. You are responsible for the media you consume. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist

The first time Bucky saw you, he thought you were just tired.

You were sitting on a bench outside a small, independent bookstore in Brooklyn, a reusable water bottle half-empty beside you, a paperback open in your lap. It was cold out, the kind of sharp October chill that cuts through jackets and settles in bones. But you sat completely still with your shoulders slumped, hands trembling slightly, and breath shallow.

He might not have noticed if not for the way your fingers struggled to hold the book steady.

He didn’t stop. Not at first. He just glanced, like a thousand other people passing by, and kept walking. But two blocks later, something tugged at him soft and persistent, like a memory he couldn’t place. He turned around.

You hadn’t moved from your spot.

By the time he walked back and crouched in front of you, your lips were pale, and your skin had that waxy undertone he recognized from war hospitals and med units. His instincts kicked in, but not the soldier kind, rather the man who’d learned how to read distress in the quietest forms.

“You okay?” He asked, voice low but steady.

You blinked up at him slowly, as if hearing him from underwater. Then you offered a weak, breathless smile and said, “Yeah, just… my body does this sometimes.”

“Does what?”

“Stops.”

He didn’t fully understand what that meant then. But it wasn’t pity that made him sit beside you, not fear or heroism either. It was something else. Familiarity. A kind of haunted recognition.

“Can I call someone for you?” He asked. “Friend? Partner? Family?”

You shook your head. “No one close by. It’ll pass. I just need a minute.”

But your hand was still shaking as you reached for the water. He watched silently, then gently reached over and held the bottle steady so you could drink.

“Thanks,” You murmured.

He nodded. He didn’t press. He simply sat there, beside a stranger who looked like their body was betraying them one breath at a time.

After a long stretch of silence, you spoke again. “You don’t have to wait.”

“Don’t want you to pass out on a sidewalk.”

You huffed a dry laugh. “Romantic.”

He smirked. “I’ve heard worse.”

You turned to look at him then, and something in your expression shifted.

“You’ve had bad days too,” You said.

His breath caught. You weren’t asking. You knew.

He gave a slow nod. “Yeah.”

Your eyes softened. Not out of pity, but out of understanding. “Then you get it.”

He didn't reply out loud, but the way his hand hovered hesitant, then steady, offered the only answer you needed.

Eventually, you regained enough energy to stand. He offered his arm, and you took it without flinching at the metal. That surprised him. Most people still tensed.

Inside the bookstore, he bought a copy of the same book you'd been reading before slipping you his number. You noticed, and raised a brow.

“Trying to impress me?”

He shrugged. “Trying to have an excuse to see you again.”

You laughed then. Still tired, still aching, but real. “Well. It worked.”

-

You didn’t start dating right away. There were slow texts. A few coffee shop visits where he learned which chairs were softest for you to sit in for long periods, which days your hands couldn’t hold a cup, and how sometimes you’d go quiet mid-sentence but not from disinterest, just exhaustion.

But Bucky never minded. He’d lived too many years rushing through the world. With you, everything slowed down. And for once, that felt like healing.

On your first date, he had planned it carefully.

Not because he thought you needed to be impressed but because he wanted to show you he was paying attention. That he’d been listening, clocking every tiny detail you never made a big deal about.

So when he asked, “Dinner with me?” and you hesitated, not because you didn’t want to, but because your body was in one of its quiet warning phases, he didn’t try to convince you. He simply offered an alternative.

“I know a rooftop,” He said. “It’s a quiet and private place with a good view. I’ll bring the food.”

You smiled, that same tired-but-warm curve of the lips he was learning to read better each time. “What kind of food?”

“Soft stuff,” He smiled before teasing. “Things that won’t piss off your stomach.”

You laughed, which he counted as a win.

The night of the date, he showed up at your door with a reusable picnic bag over one shoulder and that awkward, lopsided grin of his. You were in your softest clothes, sweatpants and a knit sweater two sizes too big, and your hair wasn’t doing what you wanted it to.

But he looked at you like you were wearing a red carpet gown.

“I like this,” He said simply, and gestured to your entire self. “It’s very you.”

“Exhausted?”

“Real.”

The trip to the rooftop was just a short elevator ride and half a flight of stairs, but halfway up, your legs started to tremble.

You tried to play it off, pausing to “check the sky,” you said. But Bucky had already seen the shift in your breathing, the tremor in your hand as you gripped the railing.

Without a word, he stepped behind you and wrapped an arm gently around your waist, the cool metal of his left hand bracing your spine.

“You okay with help?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper.

You nodded once. He didn’t rush you. Just matched your pace, supporting you the whole way to the roof.

By the time you sat down on the old couch someone had dragged up there years ago, your body was already crashing. You tried to hide it like you always did. But your hands were limp in your lap, your eyes glassy, and your shoulders had that slight slump Bucky was learning to hate.

He knelt beside you.

“Tell me what you need,” He said gently. “No pressure. Just… tell me.”

You wanted to smile. To tell him he didn’t have to stay, or fuss, or worry. But the words stuck somewhere behind your ribs.

“…I don’t want to ruin this.”

His eyes softened. “You’re not.”

“It’s not fair. You finally ask me out and I’m… this.”

“You were always this,” He countered. “And I asked you anyway.”

That made you blink.

He took the blanket from the bag, yes he’d brought one, and wrapped it around your shoulders. Then he pulled out a thermos of broth and a soft rice dish you’d once mentioned in passing. No wine. Just herbal tea. No candles. Just the city lights. No pressure to be anything but what you were.

You looked at him and he didn’t flinch from the fog in your eyes or the weakness in your voice. He didn’t reach for the version of you from the good days. He reached for you.

“I don’t need the perfect night,” He told you gently, watching you carefully. “I just need you.”

You let out a slow, aching breath. “What if I never get better?”

He brushed a knuckle down your cheek. “Then I’ll learn every version of ‘bad’ until I can walk you through it with my eyes closed.”

You felt something in your chest unravel.

And when he curled up beside you, careful not to jostle your fragile form and content to just sit in silence; you knew, with absolute certainty, that this wasn’t the beginning of something fragile.

It was the beginning of something real.

-

There were days that weren’t as pleasant. Yet time and time again, Bucky insisted on staying. Comforting and reassuring you every step of the way.

One afternoon, the apartment was quiet but not the peaceful kind. The kind of silence that pressed against the walls, thick and tense. The kind that settled in your chest and made it hard to breathe.

You sat on the couch with your knees pulled up, a blanket draped around your shoulders even though it was midafternoon. You should’ve taken your meds earlier, should’ve eaten something by now, should’ve answered the texts piling up on your phone. But your joints ached like they were full of broken glass, your head pounded from hours of tension, and every sound, every thought, felt like it might shatter you.

You didn’t hear Bucky come in. Not at first.

He always moved quietly, even when he wasn’t trying to. It was a habit that never left him. A ghost of another life. He didn’t say anything right away, just took in the picture in front of him. The faraway look in your eyes. The way your hand gripped the edge of the blanket like it was the only thing tethering you to the room. The way your body curled in, like it was trying to disappear.

He crossed the room slowly and knelt in front of you, not touching you yet, but remaining close.

“Hey,” He greeted gently. “Rough day?”

You nodded, barely. Your throat felt too tight to speak.

Bucky waited. He was good at that, waiting. Letting you come to him on your own time with no pressure or pity. Just quiet, patient presence.

But then the words came tumbling out before you could stop them.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice cracked. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this all the time. With me.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed, not in confusion, but in a kind of slow heartbreak. Like he’d heard this before because he had, and every time it hurt more.

He reached slowly, brushing your hand with his gloved fingers before gently taking it in his.

“Don’t say that,” He spoke quietly.

You looked down, unable to meet his eyes. “But it’s true. You didn’t sign up for this. For all the canceled plans, and the bad days, and the… God, the way I feel like a burden.”

He exhaled, long and steady, and then stood, just enough to sit beside you. His arm curled around your shoulders, pulling you in with a kind of care that felt deliberate. Solid and unshakeable.

“I know what it feels like to think you’re too much,” He began slowly. “To think you’re broken, that people will get tired, or that you’ll wear them down until they leave.”

You swallowed hard.

“I spent years feeling like that,” He continued. “Even when Steve stayed. Even when Sam stuck by me. It never went away easy. But then I met you.”

His hand found yours again. Held it tighter.

“You taught me that people aren’t burdens. That pain doesn’t make someone less worthy of love. That needing help isn’t weakness.”

You shook your head, voice hoarse. “That’s different. You went through hell. You didn’t choose it.”

“And neither did you.” His voice was low but firm now. “You didn’t ask for this. You fight through more pain in a day than most people even imagine. And you still smile. You still care. You still show up.”

“But this isn’t fair,” Your voice was shaky. “You shouldn’t have to see me like this. You could… you could have anyone.”

Bucky went very still.

You turned your head away. “I don’t want you to stay because you feel obligated. I don’t want to trap you in something broken.”

His voice was low, firm as he asked. “You think I stay out of pity?”

“No. I think you’re kind. And maybe you don’t realize yet how permanent this is. How much this takes. I can’t go on missions with you, I can’t run, I can’t even cook without getting dizzy. Some days I can’t even-“

You broke off. Voice cracking.

“I can’t give you a normal life, Bucky. I’m tired all the time. And someday you’re going to wake up and realize I’m more burden than person and I can’t survive that again-“

Your breath caught. You hadn’t meant to say again. But it was out there now.

He didn’t try to shush you. He didn’t give you empty words or say you’re not broken, or you’re still beautiful, or it’s not that bad. Instead, he leaned forward and rested his forehead gently against yours. His voice was raw and honest.

“You think I want a normal life?”

You blinked at him.

“I spent years being turned into someone else’s weapon,” He whispered. “I wake up some nights not knowing what year it is. I have blood on my hands I can’t wash off, and a mind that doesn’t always feel like mine. You think I came here for normal?”

He exhaled shakily. “No, sweetheart. I came here for you. Just you.”

Your chest caved with a soft, helpless sob.

“I don’t want perfect,” He said. “I don’t want easy. I want real. And you… this pain, this fight, all of it; it’s real. You’re still here. You keep going. And if you think for one second I’m walking away because your body’s at war with you…”

His hand slid into yours, careful and steady.

“…then you don’t know me yet. I choose to be here,” He said. “Not out of obligation. Not because I feel sorry for you. But because I love you. All of you. Even on the bad days. Especially on the bad days.”

Tears welled up before you could stop them. You hated crying in front of people but with Bucky, it never felt like weakness. It just felt honest, safe.

He pulled you closer, tucking your head beneath his chin, wrapping both arms around you like a fortress. “You are not a burden,” He murmured. “You are my home.”

And in the stillness, something inside you began to loosen. Not the pain, no, that stayed. But the guilt, the weight of it all began to lift just a little as you let yourself be held.

For once, it felt okay to just exist. To be loved, even when you didn’t feel lovable.

And Bucky held you like he’d never let you forget it again.

Because he didn’t try to fix you.

He just loved you.

Exactly as you are.

Haha, they’re so much fun even if she doesn’t make a bit of sense sometimes. Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Chaos Counseling

Summary: You accidentally becomes the Avengers' unofficial therapist, delivering unhinged wisdom that changes lives whether they like it or not. (Bucky Barnes x chaotic!reader)

Word Count: 1k+

A/N: As a psychology major, I do not condone the advice or techniques reader uses for a professional setting (lol). It’s all for speculative fun. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

It started because you caught Peter Parker crying in the hallway and handed him a Capri Sun.

Partially because of a real desire to help, but mostly because you just had one in your pocket. Peter took it like it was a lifeline. He sniffled then muttered, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m like this.”

You blinked, leaned in, and whispered solemnly, “Crying is just eye vomiting. You gotta get it out or your soul gets constipated.”

Peter stopped crying. Not because he felt better, but because he had no idea what to do with that sentence.

He went silent for ten seconds, wiped his eyes, and hesitantly said, “That’s… actually helpful?”

“Yeah,” You stabbed another Capri Sun with aggressive force. “I’m basically Freud if he was raised by raccoons and Disney Channel.”

And just like that, you became the Compound’s Emotional Support Cryptid.

By the time Bucky found out three days later, you’d already “accidentally therapized” Peter, Clint, Sam, and most surprisingly Wanda, who now referred to you as her “mind gremlin of peace.”

He entered the rec room to find Sam staring blankly at the wall, murmuring, “I am not my productivity.”

“…What the hell did you do to him?” Bucky asked.

You were upside down on the couch, feet in the air while eating an apple with a spoon.

“I told him hustle culture is a capitalist trap designed to keep us from achieving true inner joy. Also that pigeons are government spies. One of those hit him real hard.”

Bucky stared. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

You shrugged. “No. But apparently my unmedicated inner monologue is therapeutic.”

The final straw (or blessing, depending who you ask) was Tony Stark’s meltdown. He’d been spiraling in the lab for days now with low sleep, bad attitude, and a full ego. The standard stuff. You wandered in eating popcorn with chopsticks and sat on his table, pushing one of his gadgets aside with your foot.

“You need to feel your feelings, Tony.”

He didn’t even look up. “I built a suit of armor to avoid that exact thing.”

“Cool,” You said, chewing. “But now your trauma is building you a suit of armor. And it’s ugly.”

Tony froze, slowly turning to you. “That… was either the dumbest or most brilliant thing I’ve ever heard.”

You offered him a bag of marshmallows and patted his cheek. “Let’s call it both and have a cry.”

He did.

-

You weren’t trained, of course. And you didn’t plan to become the Avengers’ emotional crutch. But one by one, they came to you.

Natasha sat beside you and confessed she sometimes felt like a ghost. You told her ghosts are just trauma that didn’t pay rent.

Wanda asked how to cope with her past. You said to build a new house out of grief and invite joy over for tea.

Steve admitted once he was tired of being the symbol of hope. You handed him a juice box and told him it’s okay to be a tired little guy sometimes.

Every time, Bucky watched from the sidelines, equal parts baffled and smitten.

“You’re not qualified for this,” He muttered one night, watching Clint sob out of the room from something profoundly dumb you said while you knitted a scarf out of yarn you had found in the vents.

You just smiled at Bucky, eyes soft. “Nope. But neither is life, and I’m still doing that too.”

He pulled you in by the waist, kissed your forehead, and muttered, “God, I love you.”

“Obviously,” You said, already distracted. “Anyway, pass me that bowl. I’m about to emotionally dismantle Loki.”

-

Nick Fury tried to fire you. Twice. He wanted to submit a formal request to “hire an actual mental health professional.” He was denied.

The first time, you responded by sending him a PowerPoint titled “Why I Am Vital to Team Morale: A Threat and a Promise,” which included hand-drawn pie charts, quotes you definitely made up from Plato and Beyoncé, and a photo of a possum in a teacup labeled “Emotional Support Rodent (not metaphorical).”

The second time, he walked into the compound and found all the Avengers crowded in your room. Thor was wrapped in a blanket you made him (“my thunder cocoon”), Wanda asleep against your shoulder, Sam and Clint mid-debate over which Pokémon best represents childhood abandonment, and Bucky sprawled on your bed, fast asleep with your hand in his hair and a peaceful look on his face like he hadn’t had in years.

Fury stood silently in the doorway for a full ten seconds, then turned around and walked out.

No one’s heard from him since.

A few nights later, you and Bucky were curled up on the couch. You were using him as a weighted blanket while reading a quantum physics book upside-down and occasionally arguing with the toaster nearby (which you'd programmed to “vibe check” everyone who used it).

He was half-asleep, running his thumb over your shoulder, when he murmured, “You know they’d fall apart without you, right?”

You snorted. “They’d be fine. Steve can tie a tie and Sam knows how to keep plants alive. That’s practically domestic stability.”

“No,” He said, voice low and eyes steady. “You help them in the best way. You say the things no one expects but everyone needs. You make the weird stuff feel normal. You make me feel normal.”

You blinked, heart flipping slightly sideways in your chest.

Then you smirked. “You just like me because I told Thor his emotional baggage could crush Mjölnir.”

Bucky laughed, the low, warm kind that curled in your ribs and stayed there. “Maybe. And because you somehow gave Loki a complex about not recycling.”

You shifted to give him a quick kiss before whispering, “You love me.”

“I do.”

You rested your head against his chest with a content hum. “Good. Now help me convince Tony to install a therapy ball pit. For, like, emotional regulation purposes.”

He sighed. “God help me, I’ll do it.”

And he would. Because somehow, against all logic, you made chaos feel like home.

Chaos Counseling

Summary: You accidentally becomes the Avengers' unofficial therapist, delivering unhinged wisdom that changes lives whether they like it or not. (Bucky Barnes x chaotic!reader)

Word Count: 1k+

A/N: As a psychology major, I do not condone the advice or techniques reader uses for a professional setting (lol). It’s all for speculative fun. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

It started because you caught Peter Parker crying in the hallway and handed him a Capri Sun.

Partially because of a real desire to help, but mostly because you just had one in your pocket. Peter took it like it was a lifeline. He sniffled then muttered, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m like this.”

You blinked, leaned in, and whispered solemnly, “Crying is just eye vomiting. You gotta get it out or your soul gets constipated.”

Peter stopped crying. Not because he felt better, but because he had no idea what to do with that sentence.

He went silent for ten seconds, wiped his eyes, and hesitantly said, “That’s… actually helpful?”

“Yeah,” You stabbed another Capri Sun with aggressive force. “I’m basically Freud if he was raised by raccoons and Disney Channel.”

And just like that, you became the Compound’s Emotional Support Cryptid.

By the time Bucky found out three days later, you’d already “accidentally therapized” Peter, Clint, Sam, and most surprisingly Wanda, who now referred to you as her “mind gremlin of peace.”

He entered the rec room to find Sam staring blankly at the wall, murmuring, “I am not my productivity.”

“…What the hell did you do to him?” Bucky asked.

You were upside down on the couch, feet in the air while eating an apple with a spoon.

“I told him hustle culture is a capitalist trap designed to keep us from achieving true inner joy. Also that pigeons are government spies. One of those hit him real hard.”

Bucky stared. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

You shrugged. “No. But apparently my unmedicated inner monologue is therapeutic.”

The final straw (or blessing, depending who you ask) was Tony Stark’s meltdown. He’d been spiraling in the lab for days now with low sleep, bad attitude, and a full ego. The standard stuff. You wandered in eating popcorn with chopsticks and sat on his table, pushing one of his gadgets aside with your foot.

“You need to feel your feelings, Tony.”

He didn’t even look up. “I built a suit of armor to avoid that exact thing.”

“Cool,” You said, chewing. “But now your trauma is building you a suit of armor. And it’s ugly.”

Tony froze, slowly turning to you. “That… was either the dumbest or most brilliant thing I’ve ever heard.”

You offered him a bag of marshmallows and patted his cheek. “Let’s call it both and have a cry.”

He did.

-

You weren’t trained, of course. And you didn’t plan to become the Avengers’ emotional crutch. But one by one, they came to you.

Natasha sat beside you and confessed she sometimes felt like a ghost. You told her ghosts are just trauma that didn’t pay rent.

Wanda asked how to cope with her past. You said to build a new house out of grief and invite joy over for tea.

Steve admitted once he was tired of being the symbol of hope. You handed him a juice box and told him it’s okay to be a tired little guy sometimes.

Every time, Bucky watched from the sidelines, equal parts baffled and smitten.

“You’re not qualified for this,” He muttered one night, watching Clint sob out of the room from something profoundly dumb you said while you knitted a scarf out of yarn you had found in the vents.

You just smiled at Bucky, eyes soft. “Nope. But neither is life, and I’m still doing that too.”

He pulled you in by the waist, kissed your forehead, and muttered, “God, I love you.”

“Obviously,” You said, already distracted. “Anyway, pass me that bowl. I’m about to emotionally dismantle Loki.”

-

Nick Fury tried to fire you. Twice. He wanted to submit a formal request to “hire an actual mental health professional.” He was denied.

The first time, you responded by sending him a PowerPoint titled “Why I Am Vital to Team Morale: A Threat and a Promise,” which included hand-drawn pie charts, quotes you definitely made up from Plato and Beyoncé, and a photo of a possum in a teacup labeled “Emotional Support Rodent (not metaphorical).”

The second time, he walked into the compound and found all the Avengers crowded in your room. Thor was wrapped in a blanket you made him (“my thunder cocoon”), Wanda asleep against your shoulder, Sam and Clint mid-debate over which Pokémon best represents childhood abandonment, and Bucky sprawled on your bed, fast asleep with your hand in his hair and a peaceful look on his face like he hadn’t had in years.

Fury stood silently in the doorway for a full ten seconds, then turned around and walked out.

No one’s heard from him since.

A few nights later, you and Bucky were curled up on the couch. You were using him as a weighted blanket while reading a quantum physics book upside-down and occasionally arguing with the toaster nearby (which you'd programmed to “vibe check” everyone who used it).

He was half-asleep, running his thumb over your shoulder, when he murmured, “You know they’d fall apart without you, right?”

You snorted. “They’d be fine. Steve can tie a tie and Sam knows how to keep plants alive. That’s practically domestic stability.”

“No,” He said, voice low and eyes steady. “You help them in the best way. You say the things no one expects but everyone needs. You make the weird stuff feel normal. You make me feel normal.”

You blinked, heart flipping slightly sideways in your chest.

Then you smirked. “You just like me because I told Thor his emotional baggage could crush Mjölnir.”

Bucky laughed, the low, warm kind that curled in your ribs and stayed there. “Maybe. And because you somehow gave Loki a complex about not recycling.”

You shifted to give him a quick kiss before whispering, “You love me.”

“I do.”

You rested your head against his chest with a content hum. “Good. Now help me convince Tony to install a therapy ball pit. For, like, emotional regulation purposes.”

He sighed. “God help me, I’ll do it.”

And he would. Because somehow, against all logic, you made chaos feel like home.

Toy Store Visit

Pairing: Stucky x little!reader [Disclaimer: Age Regression!]

Summary: You go to a toy store with a budget and pick out one new stuffie. Your caregivers gently guide you and remain patient as you carefully choose which stuffed animal or toy to bring home.

Word Count: 1.2k+

Main Masterlist

The car ride felt like forever even though in reality, it was maybe fifteen minutes, but your legs were already bouncing with excitement by the time Steve pulled into the parking lot. You were pressed up against the window, nose leaving a faint smudge on the glass, eyes wide as the bright, colorful sign of the toy store came into view. You gasped, your hands grabbing at the straps of your seatbelt.

“We there we there we there!” You chanted, voice high and bouncy in your little headspace.

Bucky chuckled from beside you, already unbuckling himself. “Yeah, peanut, we’re here. But don’t forget the rules, okay?”

Steve turned in the driver’s seat to look back at you, his tone gentle. “One toy, just one. Doesn’t matter what it is. It can be big or small but we’re sticking to one, alright, sweetheart?”

You nodded fast. “Uh-huh! One! Jus’ one. Promise!”

“Alright then,” Steve said with a smile. “Let’s go.”

You practically wiggled out of your car seat as Bucky helped undo the buckle, and you reached up for his hand without thinking. His metal fingers curled softly around yours as you stepped out onto the sidewalk, sticking close between your two caregivers. Your eyes lit up the moment the automatic doors whooshed open, rows and rows of colors, boxes, plush, and puzzles stretched out in front of you like magic.

You didn’t know where to start.

Steve leaned down and whispered in your ear, “Take your time, honey. No rush.”

So you did. You wandered down every aisle, with Bucky patiently walking beside you and Steve keeping an eye out from a few feet behind. Every so often, you’d stop and gasp while you pointed at something shiny, squeaky, or soft. You picked up a few things to study them carefully before putting them back with a quiet, “Not the one…”

Steve and Bucky never rushed you. Even when you doubled back to the same aisle three times, debating between a pink dinosaur plushie that roared when squeezed and a sensory pop-it shaped like a turtle.

“Dino roars,” You mumbled to Bucky, your bottom lip pushed out in a thinking pout. “But turtle’s got bubbles.”

He knelt beside you, his metal hand brushing your hair out of your face. “What does your heart say? Which one makes it feel warm?”

You placed both toys down carefully and looked between them, then slowly reached for something you hadn’t noticed before: a soft little stuffed jellyfish that was pale blue with velvety tentacles and sleepy embroidered eyes. You held it to your chest instantly. “This one,” You whispered, voice low and in awe. “She’s soft an’ shy like me.”

Bucky smiled gently. “Then I think she’s perfect.”

You beamed, holding her tighter. “Her name’s Bubbles,” You informed them proudly, skipping just a little as you made your way to the front register. Steve gave you a wink as he took her to scan, slipping her right back into your arms after the purchase. “Welcome to the family, Bubbles,” He teased as you giggled, cradling her like something fragile and precious.

Back in the car, snuggled in the back seat with your seatbelt carefully fastened, you stared out the window, petting Bubbles’ soft head. Bucky passed you your juice box, and Steve glanced back briefly.

“You did really good, sweetheart,” Steve said softly.

“Waited your turn, made a thoughtful choice, and you didn’t get overwhelmed,” Bucky added, a proud smile on his expression.

You looked up at them, eyes wide with sleepy pride. “Thank you f’r takin’ me.”

Steve smiled. “Always. You’re our little, this stuff matters.”

You curled into your seat, jellyfish in one arm, juice in the cup holder next to you, and a heart full and warm.

-

Back at home, the apartment had the faint scent of dinner leftovers still lingering in the air, and soft music playing in the background belonging to one of Steve’s old vinyl records humming low from the living room speaker.

You kicked your shoes off clumsily at the door, still cradling Bubbles in your arms like a fragile baby. Bucky was right behind you, taking your shoes and putting them by the door neatly, while Steve carried in your empty juice box and tossed it in the recycling with a soft chuckle.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Steve said, ruffling your hair. “Show Bubbles around. Bet she’s curious.”

You nodded seriously. “Uh-huh. She don’ know where nothin’ is.”

Bucky smiled, settling on the couch to watch you. “Well then, she’s lucky to have the best tour guide in the whole house.”

You led Bubbles around the space starting with the living room, holding her up so she could “see” the couch, the blanket basket, and your bin of toys tucked in the corner. You pressed her soft jelly legs against each thing, whispering things like, “This the squishy blankie, but sometimes I share… sometimes…” or “That’s the remote. Not ‘llowed to touch it. Papa says so.”

Then you padded down the hall to your room where a soft nightlight was already glowing along the baseboards. Your room smelled like lavender and lotion, felt like home and safety. You climbed up on the bed and sat cross-legged, settling Bubbles in your lap.

“This is home,” You whispered to her, brushing her soft fabric head. “S’our room now.”

Steve leaned in the doorway, arms crossed gently. He was watching with that patient, warm expression he always got when you were especially little. Bucky peeked in behind him with your favorite sippy cup. He walked over and handed you yours with a quiet, “Hydrate, little fish.”

You giggled at the nickname and took a careful sip before setting your drink down on the nightstand. Then you picked up your favorite blankie and tucked Bubbles under it, right beside your pillow. “She’s sleepy,” you whispered to Steve. “She gots all tired in the car.”

Steve came in and crouched down beside the bed. “Think she needs help falling asleep?”

You nodded. “Need lull’by. She scared.”

Bucky climbed in beside you, pulling you into his lap so you could watch while Steve tucked Bubbles in properly by adjusting the blanket and fluffing a little pillow under her round jelly head. Then he began to hum a soft, comforting slow rhythm that you’d heard a dozen times, usually when you were dozing against his chest or curled in bed half-asleep.

You sighed content and leaned into Bucky, thumb in your mouth now, eyelids fluttering as Steve continued.

By the time he finished, you were barely awake, still holding Bucky’s hand while your body melted into the calmness of the atmosphere. Steve kissed your forehead gently, then Bubbles’, then helped you lay down beside her.

“She’s okay now,” You mumbled, already halfway gone. “She gots us…”

“She sure does,” Bucky whispered, brushing hair back from your cheek. “Just like we got you.”

Steve flicked off the bedside lamp, and both men stayed until your breathing slowed and softened. You were wrapped in blankets and love, Bubbles tucked close, and your tiny fingers resting gently on her soft head as sleep took over.

Just like your new plush friend, you were home, safe, and loved.

Wherever You Are, I’ll Stay

Summary: You are a stealth-based Avenger with the ability to teleport, often the one pulling teammates out of danger. However, when you’re injured on a mission one day, you’re found by Bucky, panicking as he tells you that you could’ve escaped. You admit you stayed because you couldn’t leave him behind. (Bucky Barnes x Avengers!reader)

Disclaimer: Reader has the ability to teleport.

Word Count: 1.6k+

A/N: We are so back with a super powered reader! Ignore that it’s been a day or two. It feels like forever to me lol. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist | Whispers of the Gifted Masterlist

You were the teleporting specialist on the team. A living escape route, as Tony once put it, even though you hated the way it made you sound like a tool instead of a person. Your powers weren’t eye-catching like Wanda’s or devastating like Thor’s, but they were precise, fast, and life-saving. You could vanish in the blink of an eye and reappear on the other side of a locked compound without so much as triggering a motion sensor.

What made your ability rare wasn’t just that you could teleport. In fact, plenty of enhanced individuals could, in theory. But the level of control you had was what made you stand out. You could take others with you. You could land in tight quarters without crashing into walls. You could sense coordinates by memory, not just by sight. And most importantly, you could stay calm under pressure, until recently.

Lately, your powers had started to falter under stress. It didn’t happen all the time, but it was enough to plant a seed of doubt in your mind that stayed long enough to hesitate.

You hadn’t told Bucky.

You weren’t exactly sure why. Maybe because he looked at you like you were the one person on the team he didn’t have to worry about. You were competent, quiet, and observant. When missions went to hell, you were the person he looked to and the one he trusted to get everyone out. You didn’t want to shatter that image. You didn’t want him to look at you differently.

Especially not when things between you had started to… shift.

It hadn’t happened in an instant. It was in the small things, the slow things. Like the way he stood a little closer when debriefings dragged too long. The way he always offered an extra water bottle during training without asking if you needed it. Or maybe it was the way his fingers brushed your shoulder when passing behind you, like he couldn’t help needing a point of contact.

You hadn’t talked about it and you didn’t need to. It was present in the silence, in the weight of his glances, and in the softness of his voice when he said your name. A voice so different from the clipped tone he used with everyone else.

You’d die for Bucky Barnes.

But more than that, you’d stay alive for him too.

One mission you were given was intel extraction from a dormant Hydra site outside Budapest. It was expected to have low resistance and a swift completion. You’d done dozens of missions like this, but something had felt off the moment you landed. It was too quiet, too clean. Bucky had gone to secure the east corridor while you took the west.

Then the ambush hit.

You’d fought back, ducking and teleporting rapidly, as you disabled guards as they came. But there were more of them than you had anticipated, and one of them managed to clip you. A messy shot to the side. It wasn’t fatal, but it was deep. And worse, it shook your focus.

The pain bloomed like fire in your ribs, radiating outward. You tried to port, but your vision blurred, your body trembled, and your power slipped from your grasp like sand through your fingers. You blinked out but not far enough. Just into another corner of a nearby room, a couple feet away, where you collapsed behind a half-toppled server bank.

You could’ve tried again. You could’ve forced it. But something in you wouldn’t let go of one thought:

Bucky’s still in the building.

You didn’t know where. You didn’t know if he was safe or had been ambushed too. You didn’t care that your side was soaked with blood, or that your head throbbed from slamming against the wall when you landed wrong.

You weren’t leaving without him, even if it killed you.

Your breathing had grown shallow by the time Bucky found you. You weren’t sure how long you’d been lying there, staring up at the flickering ceiling lights, but the moment the door slammed open with a crash of metal and rage, you knew it was him. You always knew.

“Hey- hey!” His voice was rough with panic, feet pounding across the broken floor until he dropped to his knees beside you. “You're alive-! Thank god, you're alive.”

You opened your eyes, barely. “I said I’d be,” You rasped, the words sticking to your tongue.

Bucky’s hands hovered over you, uncertain and frustrated. He was scanning for wounds, piecing together what had happened. “You're hit.” His voice dropped, the softness undercut by fury. “Why didn’t you teleport out of here?”

You winced, not from the pain, but from the question. “Tried,” You whispered. “Wasn’t focused, too much adrenaline… too much noise.”

“Still,” He snapped. “Still… you could’ve gotten out. That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s what you always do.”

You looked at him, gaze resting onto his worried expression. And for a moment, he didn’t see the blood or the wound or the mission. He saw you. Pale, exhausted, stubborn, and still here.

“I didn’t want to leave you behind,” You admitted. The truth tasted heavier than blood.

Bucky’s mouth opened, then closed. He shook his head with a shaky breath. “You’re out of your mind,” He muttered.

You smiled weakly. “You’re one to talk.”

His hands finally stopped trembling enough to press against your wound in a gentle but firm way. “You could’ve died,” He reminded you again, his voice cracking. “I could’ve walked into this room and found your body. You ever think about that?”

You let your eyes fall shut for a moment. “I thought about how I’d rather die with you than live not knowing what happened to you.”

The silence was thick. Bucky didn’t speak for a moment, but when he did, his voice was low and nearly broken.

“You really are out of your mind,” He repeated, but softer now. “And I don’t think I’ve ever loved someone more because of it.”

Your eyes fluttered open. “That a confession, Barnes?”

He exhaled a laugh, but it was tight, like it hurt. “Damn right it is.”

Carefully, he pulled you into his arms, supporting your weight like it was nothing, like it was everything. You felt the metal of his arm against your back, cold and reassuring. The other arm was warm where it cradled your legs. You didn’t protest to either.

“You’re going to the med bay,” He said. “Then we’re having a long talk about you not being a damn martyr.”

You rested your head against his shoulder, eyes heavy. “I’m not a martyr.”

“Then stop acting like one.”

There was a pause before you murmured, “You would’ve done the same for me.”

“Doesn’t mean I want you doing it for me.”

Outside, the quinjet engines roared to life. The rest of the team was waiting.

But for now, in the middle of that wrecked Hydra facility, with dust still hanging in the air and blood soaking into Bucky’s shirt, it was just the two of you.

And you were both alive. Together.

-

The med bay was silent, dimmed for your recovery. The overhead lights were off, replaced by a single low lamp that cast long shadows across the room. The hum of machinery filled the silence with monitor beeps, IV drips, and the occasional hiss of an oxygen line. Stark tech kept everything sterile and efficient.

You hated it.

Not because of the pain, that had dulled into something manageable, but because you hated stillness. When you were still, you had time to think. And now that the mission was over, you couldn’t stop replaying it. The moment you failed to teleport. The cold bloom of panic. The blood. The look on Bucky’s face when he found you like the world had nearly ended.

You stared at the ceiling trying not to think about it, when the door hissed open quietly. You didn’t have to look to know it was him.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” Bucky said, voice low, teasing in a way that didn’t quite mask the worry.

“I was. For a while,” You murmured. “You still pacing outside?”

He huffed. “How’d you know?”

“You always pace when you’re trying not to panic.”

Bucky stepped closer, the soft tread of his boots grounding. When he reached your bedside, he didn’t sit right away. Just stood there, arms crossed, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to be here even though he’d barely left your side since you got back.

“I’m fine, Buck,” You reassured him softly.

“You’re not,” He finally lowered himself into the chair next to you. “You were bleeding out and couldn’t get out. That’s not fine.”

You hesitated. “It’s not the first time my powers have… flickered.”

His jaw tightened. “How long?”

“Couple months but only under stress. Usually I push through it.”

He was quiet for a long time before finally speaking, “You should’ve told me.”

“I didn’t want to be seen as a liability.”

His hand moved, not quickly but with intent. His fingers brushed your wrist, grounding you. “You’re not a liability. You’re you. And if something’s wrong, we fix it together.”

You blinked, throat tightening unexpectedly. “I didn’t want to lose your trust in me.”

“You didn’t,” He said. “You scared the hell out of me, but you didn’t lose anything.”

You let that sit between you for a moment before you whispered, “You said you loved me.”

He didn’t flinch and he didn’t deflect.

“I meant it.” He stated.

You turned your head to meet his eyes. “I love you too, you know.”

Bucky leaned forward, resting his forehead gently against yours. His voice was barely above a whisper.

“I know. I’ve known.”

You reached up, fingers threading through his as you held each other’s hands like none of you ever wanted to let go. “Stay?”

He nodded once. “Always.”

Thank you so much!! I love writing for unhinged/chaotic reader. It’s so wild lol

Thank you for reading!!! ♡

Found some footage of unhinged!reader training rookies:

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMS8vnswe/

(Hi! I love your works, you're amazing!!)

I’M DYING LOL AND IT WORKS SOMEHOW. So, that got me thinking how would she train them…. Now we turn it into a Drabble/blurb [Confession: I don’t know the difference between those two yet LOL] Happy reading! Also greetings! Thank you so much, always so nice seeing you around. Thanks for following along!!! :D

Unqualified, Unhinged, and Unforgettable

Summary: A bunch of excited, hopeful rookies have the absolute displeasure honor of being trained under you.

Word Count: 700+

Main Masterlist | Earth’s Mightiest Headache Masterlist

The rookies were excited. Nervous, but excited.

After all, they’d been assigned to training with one of the Avengers. A respected, battle-hardened legend. Probably someone like Steve Rogers. Or maybe Natasha Romanoff! God, even Sam Wilson would be incredible.

“Wait,” One of them whispered. “Who’s that?”

You walked onto the training mat holding a stick of string cheese like a cigarette, wearing mismatched socks and aviators. You pointed the cheese at them.

“Morning, nerds.”

The recruits glanced at each other.

“…Are you the trainer?” One asked hesitantly.

You bit the cheese, chewed, and nodded. “Absolutely. Avengers’ top strategic mind. Fun fact, I have never successfully used a revolving door. You’ll respect me soon enough though.”

One recruit hesitantly raised their hand. “Why are you barefoot?”

“I fight better when grounded to the earth’s vibrations,” You replied. “Also I couldn’t find my shoes.”

And so began the most absurd training session in S.H.I.E.L.D. history.

-

Hour 1:

You paired them off. “First, pick a partner. Then pretend they just betrayed you in a high-stakes casino heist.”

They hesitated, looking around at each other as they tried to process the instruction. You shouted, “Feel the betrayal! Feel the drama! Slap them if you need to!”

One poor recruit started sobbing. Another screamed, “I LOVED YOU, TYLER,” and tackled their partner into a fountain.

You applauded. “Amazing. Raw and painful. That’s real combat.”

-

Hour 2:

You rolled a blender onto the mat with duct tape, Christmas lights, and three timers.

“This,” You announced dramatically, “is your bomb.”

“That’s a blender,” Someone whispered slowly.

You leaned in, deadly serious. “That’s what they want you to think.”

The rookies huddled, genuinely trying to figure it out. One made the mistake of cutting the red wire (which was actually a Twizzler). The blender turned on and shot glitter everywhere.

“That was a decoy,” You told them solemnly. “Now you’re covered in regret and sequins.”

-

Hour 3:

You took them on a “field simulation” which turned out to be a surprise shopping trip to IKEA.

“Navigate this labyrinth. Assemble a chair. Use only hex keys and trauma.”

Two recruits got lost in the kitchen model displays. One called you from inside a wardrobe. You refused to help.

“If you can’t escape IKEA,” You said, eating a meatball with your bare hands, “How will you escape Hydra?”

-

Aftermath

When the rookies returned to HQ, some crying, some covered in glitter, and one holding an emotional support fern; they were never the same.

But they were better, somehow. Sharper and unpredictable. Capable of disarming actual bombs and Swedish furniture with nothing but rage and a plastic fork.

Bucky found you later in the common room, sitting on the couch, eating marshmallows with chopsticks and watching a documentary on nuclear fission at max volume. You were also wearing his hoodie, which meant you were either thriving or about to cause an international incident.

He leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. “You turned those rookies into emotionally unstable weaponized gremlins.”

You didn't look away from the TV. “I prefer the term ‘innovative prodigies.’”

“They challenged Sam to a duel using plungers and grief metaphors.”

“They need to learn how to weaponize emotion. That’s day three material.”

“They built a working trebuchet and launched my motorcycle onto the roof.”

You finally turned to look at him. “And did it not work?”

Bucky stared at you. “You trained them for one day.”

You gave him a slow blink, then gently offered him a marshmallow with the chopsticks. “You love me.”

“I love you,” He said flatly, taking the marshmallow. “I also think you might be a war crime in human form.”

You grinned. “That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He walked over and dropped his head into your lap with a tired sigh, arm slinging around your waist. “Next time you train anyone, I’m sedating you first.”

“Won’t happen but that’s fair,” You said, petting his hair with one chopstick. “But you have to admit… they’re kind of unstoppable now.”

From down the hallway came a loud bang, a screech of victory, and someone yelling, “FOR SCIENCE AND THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!”

You sipped juice from your “World’s Best Trainer” mug and said softly, “My legacy begins.”

Bucky just groaned. “God help us all.”

It really is! Full of fluff, they’re so cute. Thank you for reading! ♡

A Shot of Something More

Summary: You’re the closing barista at a campus café. Steve comes in to study, Bucky shows up to tease him, and you. They start staying late, helping you close, or walking you home. Over time, flirting turns into banter, and late nights turn into something deeper. (College AU! | Steve Rogers x reader x Bucky Barnes)

Word Count: 3.7k+

A/N: Really hoping other folks like this too. It’s a college AU/setting by the way. I thought it was cute and I quite like flirty Bucky lol. Happy reading!

Main Masterlist

The espresso machine hissed as you wiped down the counter for what felt like the hundredth time that night. It was nearing 9:00 p.m., and the usual lull had settled over the campus café. Half the lights were dimmed, soft jazz hummed through the speakers, and the scent of coffee clung to your oversized hoodie like a second skin. You were alone behind the counter, as usual, your co-worker having ditched early with a vague excuse and a flirty grin you ignored out of habit.

It had been a long day with two lectures, lab work, and your phone buzzing every twenty minutes with group project drama. This place was your tiny sanctuary tucked between the English building and the art studios. It was the only space that ever felt quiet, even when it was loud.

You were just about to flip the “Closing Soon” sign to close early for the night when the bell above the door chimed.

You glanced up, already expecting some last-minute caffeine addict who’d argue for one more shot of espresso, but your fingers paused mid-reach.

He was back.

Steve Rogers stepped inside, eyes scanning the room like he always did as if expecting danger even in a sleepy café with free Wi-Fi and discount muffins. He gave you a small smile, polite and familiar. His blond hair was slightly tousled from the wind, and his flannel sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing forearms that did dangerous things to your focus.

“Hey,” He said, voice low and warm. “Didn’t realize it was this late.”

You tilted your head. “You always realize it’s this late.”

A chuckle escaped him as he made his way to his usual table in the corner, setting down a textbook the size of a brick. Philosophy, or maybe ethics… you weren’t sure anymore. He had this routine down to an art: order a plain black coffee, sit for one or two hours, read maybe five pages, and somehow leave you flustered even when he barely looked your way.

You grabbed a clean mug. “Let me guess. Caffeine to fight existential dread?”

Steve looked up, smiling wider now. “You read my mind.”

You started the brew, glancing at him from the corner of your eye. “That’s not impressive. You’re a walking finals-week poster boy.”

And then, just as you were pouring the coffee, the bell above the door rang again.

This time, the energy shifted.

“Rogers, you’re such a nerd,” came a familiar voice all smooth, teasing, and louder than necessary.

Bucky Barnes strolled in like he owned the place, wearing a black hoodie, ripped jeans, and a look that could melt steel. His eyes flicked over to you then back to Steve, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“Tell me you’re not actually studying again,” Bucky said, sliding into the seat across from his best friend without asking.

“I was,” Steve muttered.

You stood there, holding a mug in each hand, heart suddenly beating faster.

Bucky looked up at you, and something about his gaze, lazy and sharp all at once, made your fingers twitch.

“Well hey there, doll. Don’t suppose you’ve got something strong for a guy who had to suffer through group critique today?”

Steve rolled his eyes. You went behind the counter and made Bucky’s usual order, double shot with vanilla and just a touch of cream, before he even asked. He smirked.

You didn’t say it out loud, but they were both regulars now. And you were starting to wonder if they really came for the coffee… or if something else kept bringing them back, night after night.

-

As silence settled comfortably among you three, rain started somewhere between Bucky’s first sip and Steve’s third sigh.

It began as a soft patter, barely audible over the music, but soon grew into a steady drumbeat against the windows. Outside, the streetlights blurred into glowing halos through the glass, casting warm shadows over the near-empty café.

You glanced at the clock. 9:47. Almost fifteen minutes until closing time.

Most nights, you’d be starting your last round of cleaning out the espresso portafilters, wiping down the milk steamer, stacking the chairs. But tonight, you hesitated. You weren’t sure if it was the weather or the way Bucky had stretched out in the booth, legs spread, and his eyes watching you from under thick lashes. Or maybe it was the way Steve hadn’t looked at his book in twenty minutes, choosing instead to glance at you whenever he thought you weren’t paying attention.

They didn’t seem in any rush to leave. And truthfully… neither were you.

“You’re closing up soon, right?” Steve finally asked, his voice low as he reached for his mug again.

You nodded, wiping your damp hands on a towel. “Yeah. I usually start around now, but…” You gestured toward the rain. “Didn’t want to kick anyone out into that.”

Steve smiled faintly. “You’re always this nice to your customers?”

“Only the ones who don’t make a mess,” You answered, raising a brow. “So one of you.”

Bucky laughed, his head falling back against the booth. “Guilty. I do spill a lot. But I also tip well.”

You tried not to stare too hard at the way his neck looked when he stretched like that. “That’s true. I guess you can stay.”

“Generous,” He said with a wink.

There was a long pause. The café was nearly silent now with just the low hum of the fridge, the soft rain, and the clink of Steve’s spoon against his mug.

Then Bucky spoke up to ask in a casual tone, “You always close alone?”

You hesitated for a moment. “Usually. My coworker bails. Most nights.”

Steve frowned slightly. “That doesn’t seem safe.”

You shrugged, not used to concern like that. “It’s a college café, not a crime scene.”

Bucky made a face like he wasn’t satisfied with the answer. “Still… maybe we stay until you lock up. Walk you out.”

You blinked. The offer shouldn’t have made your stomach flip the way it did. But it wasn’t just the offer, it was the way they both looked at you when Bucky said it. Like it wasn’t just about safety. Like maybe they wanted to linger.

“…You’d wait around just to walk me to the bus stop?” Your voice was more curious than skeptical.

Steve shrugged. “We’ve got nowhere else to be.”

Bucky leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “Unless you wanna kick us out. We could be very offended. Might leave a bad Yelp review.”

You laughed, too surprised to stop yourself. “Fine. But if you’re staying, you’re helping.”

“Oh?” Steve looked amused. “Helping how?”

You tossed a towel at him with a smirk. “You, Captain Neat, are wiping tables. Bucky, you’re mopping. Try not to make it worse.”

“Hey,” Bucky protested, catching the mop you handed him with mock offense. “I’ll have you know I was almost a janitor once.”

“Was that before or after your brief career as a barista at that goth café downtown?” You teased.

His eyes narrowed. “You stalked me?”

“You told me.”

“I did?”

You nodded. “You said you got fired for stealing scones.”

Steve laughed; really laughed, eyes crinkling and shoulders shaking. “You would get fired for stealing scones.”

“Allegedly.”

You rolled your eyes, heart full in a way you hadn’t felt in a long time. There was something comfortable about this. Domestic, even. The three of you cleaning up the café together like it was some weekly tradition. Like you weren’t just the barista and they weren’t just two regulars with unread books and flirtatious smiles.

Maybe it was nothing. Or maybe it was the beginning of something.

Either way, the rain hadn’t let up by the time you three got finished.

If anything, it had gotten heavier with each droplet sounding like a soft drumbeat against the awning as you turned off the café lights and locked the front door behind you. The three of you stood just outside, huddled under the narrow cover as the neon “Closed” sign flickered quietly in the window.

Bucky shoved his hands into his pockets and looked up at the sky. “I take back everything I ever said about romantic rain scenes in movies. This is miserable.”

Steve pulled a small, very very sad-looking umbrella from his backpack. “I brought this. But it’s… yeah.”

You looked at it. “That’s a two-person umbrella, Steve.”

“Three, if we’re friendly,” He offered, holding it up between you all.

Bucky snorted. “I don’t mind getting a little wet.” Then, with a wink your way, “Unless someone wants to get friendly.”

You rolled your eyes, but your chest felt warm. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

“I’ll survive,” He grinned. “But I’ll complain the entire time.”

You glanced from him to Steve, then sighed. “Fine. Scoot over.”

Somehow, you ended up in the middle with Steve on your right and Bucky on your left. Your shoulders bumping as the three of you navigated the narrow sidewalk beneath the umbrella’s barely-there coverage. Rain still splashed across your boots, soaked the edge of their sleeves, but you didn’t really mind.

Not when Bucky kept cracking terrible jokes about how this was definitely the origin story for a very wet, very tragic indie film. Not when Steve kept leaning just a little closer to keep the umbrella steady over you. Not even when your hands brushed once, then twice, then lingered.

Your dorm wasn’t far. Just past the library and through the row of tall sycamore trees that lined the main walkway. It should’ve taken five minutes.

It took twenty.

Not because you were walking slowly (though you were), or because Bucky got distracted by every glowing window (which he did), but because none of you seemed in any rush to get to the end.

Steve was the first to break the silence as you neared the edge of campus.

“So… do you always do closing shifts?”

You tilted your head. “Most nights.”

“Kind of late to be walking back alone, don’t you think?” He asked carefully.

“Kind of late to be hanging around the café every night,” Your voice was light as you shot back playfully.

He smiled. “Touché.”

Bucky smirked. “We like the vibe.”

“Oh? The coffee?”

He looked at you, serious for a moment. “No. Just the vibe.”

You held his gaze longer than you meant to, heartbeat quickening. Steve’s fingers brushed yours again, deliberate this time, and you swore your breath caught.

The trees overhead rustled with wind. The rain, gentler now, tapped softly on the umbrella like it, too, was listening in.

You cleared your throat as your dorm came into view, its warm yellow lights glowing through the fog.

“Well. This is my stop,” You said quietly, turning to face them beneath the umbrella.

Steve nodded, but didn’t step back. “Thanks for letting us help tonight.”

“Thanks for staying.”

There was a pause.

Bucky looked like he wanted to say something more, but didn’t. Instead, he stepped forward and brushed a raindrop off your cheek with the back of his finger gently, like it was an accident, even though it wasn’t.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” He asked.

You nodded. “Same time?”

Steve smiled. “We’ll be there.”

And then, because it was easier than saying anything else, you turned and walked up the steps to your building, only glancing back once.

They were still standing there, shoulder to shoulder under that tiny umbrella. Making sure you got in safe before heading to their own dorm, teasing each other the whole way back.

-

Sleep didn’t come easily.

You laid in bed long after midnight staring at the ceiling. Your pillow was cool against your cheek as your thoughts were tangled in the warmth of the moments earlier that day and the quiet laughter you shared.

It wasn’t just that they walked you home. Or that Steve looked at you like you were worth protecting. Or that Bucky had touched your face so softly you could still feel it hours later.

It was everything. The quiet between you. The way they filled the silence without crowding it. The way you felt seen, not just as a barista or a student or some tired person behind a register, but as you.

You didn’t know what to do with that.

So you didn’t do anything. You showed up for your shift the next afternoon like always. Your hair was still damp from your rushed shower as you wore an apron that was only half-tied. Caffeine already whispered promises of survival.

The café was slower today. The sky was gray but unthreatening. The air smelled like rain that might come back, if only to keep you on your toes.

Steve and Bucky didn’t show up right away. A small part of you worried they wouldn’t. Maybe last night had meant more to you than it did to them.

But then you heard the bell above the door chimed.

You didn’t have to look up to know it was them.

Steve entered first, holding the door for Bucky, who strolled in like he owned the place (which, to be fair, wasn’t far from the truth with how many drinks he ordered a week). They were dressed down wearing hoodies and jeans, student backpacks slung casually over shoulders, but their presence still shifted the room like sunlight through a window.

You met them at the counter, hands already reaching for their usual orders.

“Afternoon,” Steve greeted, a little smile tugging at his lips.

“You’re late,” You said, teasing. “I was about to give your booth to someone else.”

Bucky raised a brow. “You’d betray us like that?”

“Rent isn’t free. Loyalty has limits.”

He smirked. “Guess we’ll have to earn it back.”

You turned to start their drinks, only to find a folded piece of paper under your cup they had slipped when you reached for the cups to fulfill their order moments prior. Your brows pulled together.

Steve gave you a look, mischief and nerves tucked behind his smile. “It’s nothing. Just… open it.”

You wiped your fingers on a towel and unfolded the note.

Movie night. Our place at 6 on Friday. Pizza, bad commentary, and a couch big enough for three. Say yes. – Bucky (and Steve, but I’m the cooler one)

Your fingers paused on the paper, glancing at the address scribbled at the bottom. You looked up at them slowly.

Steve shrugged, just a little. “Only if you want.”

Bucky leaned on the counter, chin in his hand. “No pressure. Just… thought you might want a night off.”

You stared at them. These two men both bright and ridiculous, kind and impossible were standing there like they hadn’t just turned your whole week upside down with a handwritten note.

You tried to play it cool.

“Depends,” You said lightly. “What movie?”

Steve looked at Bucky. Bucky looked at you.

Bucky grinned. “You’ll just have to see.”

-

You spent most of Friday pretending it was just any other night.

You didn’t put extra effort into your outfit. (Except for the third shirt you changed into before leaving but that didn’t count.) You didn’t check your phone every ten minutes. (Except you absolutely did.) And you definitely didn’t spend a full fifteen minutes debating whether to bring snacks or let them handle it. (You settled on bringing cookies. Homemade. But again, not a big deal.)

Their apartment wasn’t far. A short walk off campus, tucked above an old bookstore with ivy growing along the brick walls and a buzzer that didn’t work unless you pressed it just right.

Bucky answered the door. He was barefoot, wearing soft joggers and a t-shirt that looked like it had been washed a hundred times. His hair was a little messy, eyes bright.

“You made it,” He smiled, stepping back to let you in.

Steve was already in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, pulling a pizza from the oven. “Hey!” He called out, grinning when he saw you. “Perfect timing.”

The place was cozy with bookshelves lining the living room wall, posters of vintage comics and cheesy movie prints framed above a massive couch that had clearly seen better days. A blanket was already tossed over one end, and two mugs of something warm steamed on the coffee table.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” You set your cookies down on the table.

Steve waved you off. “You work too much. You deserve a night off.”

“And,” Bucky added, flopping onto the couch, “You deserve to know how terrible Steve is at picking movies.”

“Bold talk for someone who suggested Sharknado 3,” Steve shot back.

“Exactly. It’s a masterpiece.”

You laughed, already feeling the tension in your chest ease.

Eventually, the pizza was sliced, drinks were topped off, and the three of you settled onto the couch. Steve sat on your right, Bucky on your left, and it didn’t take long for knees to brush, for shoulders to touch, for the space between you to shrink until it barely existed at all.

The movie played, albeit half-forgotten, while the room was filled with lazy commentary and sleepy warmth. Bucky stretched out with his feet on the table, arm draped casually along the back of the couch, his fingers just barely grazing your shoulder. Steve leaned forward now and then to refill your drink or offer another slice, always gentle, always looking at you like he meant it.

You were full, warm, and softened in a way you hadn’t expected.

Halfway through the second movie (something terrible with robots and space cowboys), you shifted to get more comfortable. Steve moved with you, letting you lean just slightly into his side.

And then Bucky did the same. His fingers found yours on the blanket all tentative and light, and for one moment, no one moved.

Not a word was said.

But your fingers curled around his. And Steve’s hand settled on your knee, thumb brushing slowly. And it felt like something unspoken had finally been understood. You didn’t know what this was, this tangle of limbs and comfort or the way your chest ached in the best possible way, but you weren’t afraid of it.

Not here. Not with them.

Even as the movie kept playing and the leftover pizza grew cold, none of you moved.

-

You weren’t sure when you fell asleep. You hadn’t mean to and neither did they. You woke up not in your own bed and not alone. But you weren’t in a rush to change any of that.

The living room was quiet, filled with the pale blue light of early morning seeping through half-closed curtains. The TV had long since gone dark, the screen reflecting only faint movement from the rain streaking the windows.

Your head rested on Steve’s chest, steady and warm. One of his arms was wrapped around you, loose but certain, holding you there like he never wanted you to move.

On your other side, Bucky sat slumped at an angle, legs draped half off the couch, mouth parted slightly as he snored, quiet and completely unbothered by how awkwardly he was folded. His fingers were still tangled loosely with yours.

You didn’t move. Couldn’t, maybe. Your body was tucked into theirs like a puzzle piece, your heart beating too loud in a space that had become too quiet. It should’ve been awkward. Too intimate, too vulnerable, or too much. But it wasn’t.

Because it was safe. It was warm too.

Steve stirred beneath you. His thumb began to stroke slowly up and down your arm, just enough to let you know he was awake.

“Morning,” He murmured. His voice was rough from sleep, a little quiet.

“Hi,” You whispered.

You both glanced toward Bucky. He was still out cold, lips slightly parted, hair tousled like a storm. You smiled without meaning to.

Steve caught it. His voice was softer now, barely a breath: “He really likes you.”

Your gaze flicked to him. “You say that like it’s a secret.”

“It’s not,” He said. “Not to me.”

“And you?” You asked carefully, heart skipping.

He didn’t look away. “Me too.”

You swallowed, your mouth suddenly dry. “You both… talked about this?”

Steve nodded, slow and honest. “We weren’t sure how you felt. We didn’t want to push.”

You looked between them. Steve, awake and steady. Bucky, still asleep but even then, he felt familiar and safe. You thought about the nights at the café, the walks, the note, the night before, the way neither of them ever really asked for more than you were ready to give.

And the way you’d wanted more anyway.

“I don’t know how this works,” You said softly.

Steve smiled. “We figure it out together.”

It was Bucky who shifted then groggy and blinking, mumbling something unintelligible as he stretched and then promptly smacked Steve in the face with his arm.

“Watch it,” Steve said with a quiet laugh.

“Wha…? What time-” Bucky rubbed his face, squinting at the light. “God, why am I on a couch. Who let me fall asleep like this?”

You raised a brow. “You literally said, ‘I’m not moving. This couch is my home now.’”

Bucky blinked at you. Then at Steve. Then at your very obvious shared position on the couch.

A slow, sleepy smirk spread across his face. “Did we finally say it?”

Steve gave him a dry look that clearly implied he did all the work. “You didn’t say anything. You drooled a little though.”

Bucky reached over and flicked Steve’s shoulder. “Shut up.” Then he turned to you. “You okay?”

You nodded. “Better than okay.”

He leaned in a little. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His grin softened, almost turning shy for a moment before it shifted bold and certain. He leaned in the rest of the way and kissed you. It wasn’t rushed nor was it loud.

It was soft, like the first word in a language none of you had dared to speak before.

And when Steve kissed you after, slow and reverent like he’d been waiting forever, you realized something else:

You weren’t falling for them. You already did long before you realized it. And they fell just as hard for you too.