Cruel Summer

Chapter 16

A/N: YAYYy! We finally get a semi-fluffy chapter and more sandra content! WHOOO!! Another update will be coming later today, but after that it's singular updates for a while since i've got finals haha. That being said, PLEASE let me know your thoughts, what you'd like to see from them, and anything else :)

Chapter Text

Meg scarcely remembered what it was to be in a happy and healthy relationship, let alone one that was loving. It was the strangest shift in paradigm and she felt as though she were just a lovesick teenage girl again. When she was with Bucky Egan, she knew exactly who she was—and who she wanted to be. And that was someone who was worthy of his love, of his heart and goodness.

The tenderness in which he had made love to her initially, it had completely and fundamentally changed things for her. That lockbox which contained her heart and contained the things that she held so tenderly dear to her, it was now back in her chest. And she remembered what it was to not have to be on guard with someone all of the time anymore. Love didn't have to be transactional and it wasn't supposed to be.

She had asked him to be patient with her—because the years of torture and abuse in which she had endured would surely take time to break away from. Would surely take years of tender loving and gentle care to make her view herself in the way that he viewed her.

But that Meg, the one who had been so out of reach for years—the one that she had shoved down in the ground, the one she had buried in that house in Lille, she was back and it felt as though sunlight had been shoved straight in her chest. It was almost a burning sensation, one that made her feel intensely alive again. She had forgotten what that was like.

And the week after they had cemented that they were together—whatever the hell that really meant—she was set to go to London again for some training. Bucky had asked for a weekend pass and she wasn't quite sure why her father had given it to him, if only to have him out of his hair for a few days. What she wasn't aware of was the fact that her father and her brother noticed the change in Meg, the way that she carried herself, the way that she spoke—in the very way that she was alive.

For Colonel James Lewis, he could not deny the fact that he was a flawed individual. And his actions had gotten his wife killed, and had hurt his daughter beyond belief. But if he could make up for it in some part by helping Bucky and Meg come back together, then he would do everything in his power to achieve that thing.

This time when they arrived in London, late Friday night—they just checked into a new hotel for one room. It almost made Meg giddy—she could almost pretend that she was some wealthy socialite and they were here for their honeymoon or some anniversary trip, rather than two war-torn people just trying to steal moments of time wherever they could find them. Rather than being in their situation, she'd imagine something else—something that they should have had .

"You've got that face on," Bucky murmured, pressing a lingering kiss to her jaw as they entered the hotel room.

"What face?" Meg asked curiously.

"The one that's overthinking things."

She just tried to memorize the way that his lips tugged up in a smile, the way that his eyes sparkled when he looked at her. Tried to focus on him . "Just thinking about all the time we didn't have. The time we should have had."

"Oh....Meg—"

But then she was slipping her hands into his, shaking her head at him. "Which is not to say that I'm not grateful for the time that we do have. But I was just thinking."

He leaned his forehead against hers, drinking in her warmth. The way that her body fit against his. "I think about it too," he admitted quietly. "Where'd that pretty brain take you?"