verb.
To come or go back to a place or person.
noun.
The firing of a weapon to counter a shooter's shot.
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They recoiled from their pasts, and in doing so found each other.
But the universe isn't kind enough to let a moment of peace last.
It took se...
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"I've got you, Sweetheart."
Kat felt her ragged, panicked breaths halt at those words. At the sound of that voice.
She almost didn't believe it. Not in the beat of a second that it took for those words to permeate her consciousness. To sink past the blinding fear and pulsing adrenaline of the battle. To overcome the five years of believing she would never hear that voice again.
"It's okay- you're safe. I've got you."
The reassurance that came with the tightening of the arm around her, the sensation of her body being shifted to roll onto her back barely penetrated her breathless disbelief – but the touch of cool metal to her cheek coaxed her eyes to open.
And the sight she was met with reminded her how to breathe.
"Kat – are you hurt?"
Her cheek was cradled by smooth Vibranium at those words, the weight of the body atop hers shifting to search for injuries, his eyes shining with clear concern at the staggered, halting breath that tore from her chest in a broken sob as she met those eyes.
His desperately, desperately blue eyes.
"Sweetheart, talk to me, are you-"
His words were cut off as her arms were flung around his neck, dragging his body back to hers as another fractured sound cracked from her throat, lost against the impossibly real warmth of his shoulder as she clung to him like she was afraid he would turn to mist under her hands.
But he didn't.
Because he was here. He was really here, closing his arms around her and clutching her to his chest as she sobbed his name. Because no word was more important in this moment.
Bucky.
"I'm here- I've got you. I've got you, Kat."
His words in her ear, the hand soothing over her hair as his arm of Vibranium held her to him so tightly couldn't have been a dream. Because no matter how heartbreakingly real her dreams had been over the last five years, they had never come close to this. Not to the way he clung to her in that missile-crater, holding her like they were the last two people on the face of the earth, letting her sob his name into his shoulder as he pressed his lips to her hair.
"I'm here." He promised, gently drawing her up to her knees, his hands carefully running over her shoulders, her arms, her ribs, reassuring himself that she was physically in one piece before he let his forehead rest against hers. His shuddering breath of relief ghosted over her lips as her hands slipped to run over his shoulders, his neck, rising to sweep her fingers over the dark scruff of his beard, his cheekbones, as if she needed to touch every part of him to reassure herself that he was real.
And then his lips were on hers, warm and urgent and she knew. She needed no more proof to know that the man kissing her so lovingly was as real as she was as she buried her fingers in his hair, pouring out the impossible ache of grief and love that welled in her chest as she kissed him desperately. Every cutting moment of separation, every agonising breath she had drawn without him by her side, every tear she had shed, every scream of loss she had hurled to the sky, every smile she had longed to share with him, every sleepless night she had reached for him, every ounce of love she had been unable to find a place for – it was all poured into that kiss. That blinding moment where she was sure her heart would burst from her chest as she clung to him.
