A/N:
This was requested by Fusnif a little while ago. I really hope you like this: it was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I tried REALLY hard and am REALLY hopeful that you like it! Let me know, sweetie!
I'm working in chronological order with the requests. If anyone requested anything it'll be up soon, I promise! I have six more, unfinished, but they're all in the works.
Thank you all so, so much! We've hit 12K reads and I'm so grateful for all of your comments, votes, and reads! I adore writing for all of you amazing people! Lots of love :)
Winnie
Words: 4.6K
Darkness has a funny way of changing things: changing people. It's certainly changed you since you joined the Avengers team a few years ago. You'd been plucked from your everyday life and thrusted into this crazy world of aliens and Infinity stone-wars after being discovered hiding away in a rural town as an enhanced human.
Darkness likes to burrow down into the soul—inhabiting whatever form of life it crawls upon next. The lack of light you see in your world now has led to the growth of darkness within you. It manifests like a weed deep in your chest. It's gotten far too large to simply pluck it away now. You've seen too much death and despair to truly be free of it now.
You're stuck in darkness, and you can't see enough to know how to get out.
You suspect that you're not alone in the shadows. The assumptions of the rest of the team fighting their own demons has been proven true time and time again. The hollow look in Steve's eyes when he sees something flashing too fast on TV. Nat's emotionless voice she keeps on her for days after coming back to base after an especially bad mission. Banner's disappearance and then reemergence as someone much quieter and less confident than before. Tony's breakdowns: followed by him locking himself in his lab for days on end with no sign of eating or drinking or even sleep being reported. Sweet, sweet Wanda tiptoeing into your room at night to cry into your shoulder.
Bucky Barnes being impossibly mean to you.
You realize it sounds juvenile to admit, but the man has been nothing but nasty to you in the past few months. It all started with a botched mission in Pakistan. You'd been set up as partners because of your complimentary skills—his fighting style and your invisibility trickery—and ultimately ended up screaming at each other over a disagreement that led to the loss of five civilian lives. The news stations reported it as a freak accident. You and the rest of the team know the truth: you and Bucky couldn't agree on a tactic, and the whole mission went to hell.
It's been since that day that the man has been cold, shady, and ignorant towards you. And it kills you inside: it really, truly does. Why does it hurt so much? Because, for a while, you looked at Bucky Barnes as one of the only sources of light in your life. He was funny—he'd tell off-putting jokes that always made Steve annoyed. Bucky is a good man. After he came back from Wakanda and joined the original team again he's been... different. More human—less monster. While the two of you were never especially close, you'd been partners on enough missions and stakeouts to know his favorite color and how adorable his genuine smile can be.
You thought maybe you were finally moving on from your dead boyfriend when you caught feelings for Bucky. You'd taken a pause in crying yourself to sleep at night imagining the last moments of Pietro again and again... and started to actively move your mind towards the most positive images of Bucky. It was a silly crush, maybe, but it offered you some light.
And now Bucky Barnes hates you.
Blanket wrapped around your shoulders you shuffle out of the elevator towards the kitchen. Its Sunday breakfast at the Avengers' base. You can hear chattering from out in the hall as you near the sweet smelling place. You paint a smile onto your tired, aching face as you enter.
"Good mornin'," Tony greets you with a small grin over his shoulder. He's recently trimmed back his goatee. You consider making a comment on the niceness of it before finding the idea of speaking much too exhausting. So you simply nod and take the cup of coffee he extends graciously towards you.
Mug curled against your chest, you turn towards the counter set with breakfast foods. Most of it is store bought—like Costco muffins and danishes— but someone's made scrambled eggs. You carefully pick up a plate and step into the line. You're very sensitive to the fact that Bucky is standing directly to your right side. The last time you saw the metal-armed man was yesterday around this time. He'd been in the gym when you went down to do some soft-core yoga. After you'd come into the room he began cursing in low grumbles before ultimately stomping angrily out of the room: slamming the door dramatically behind him.
"How, uh, are you?" You attempt to clear the lump from your throat. You hope Bucky will at least grace you with a glance this frigid morning.
Your hopes are shattered as Bucky blatantly ignores you. Fifteen seconds pass without a single reaction from him. He just keeps stacking his plate.
But then, out of no where, Bucky looks up into your face. Making contact with your foolishly hopeful eyes he coldly replies, "I was great until you showed up."
You swallow and avert your eyes from the side of his chiseled face. God, how you wish you had the backbone to scream at him for being such an ass... instead, you only retreat farther into the darkness and self-consciousness.
"Bucky!" Steve hisses not-so-discreetly. His cheeks are burning red at embarrassment for his friend's behavior.
Bucky only grunts in reply—taking his plate and stomping to the table. He'd be carrying his plate up to his room, no doubt, if not for Tony's strict "no plates upstairs" rule.
"Forgive him," Steve begins to beg your pardon on Bucky's chilly behalf.
"It's fine." You set down your plate on the nearest surface and draw the corners of your blanket back up tighter. "I'm not that hungry, after all. I think I'm just going to go back to bed."
Steve sends a strained, pitiful lip-tug your way. He nods softly while you turn to leave. You make it as far as the dark hallway leading up to the elevator before leaning against the wall with a shaky sigh. Your head rests against the plaster and you feel yourself start to fade away from sight as the blanket falls to your feet.
You're thankful for your invisibility powers as Nat waddles down the hall from the elevator next—looking somber and cold. She stops just beside you, seeming to maybe sense something awry, before stepping into the kitchen where you can hear voices inside.
"Has anyone seen Y/N?" Nat asks the group in response to their "good mornings". You grow interested at the sound of your name.
"Ask Barnes," Tony grumbles in plain annoyance.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Bucky's voice responds dryly.
"Are you still being an ass?" Nat snaps. "I thought you said you were done with that."
"Well, apparently he's not, because he just scared the poor girl away," Sam can be heard chiming in. It sounds like he's got a lot of food stuffed in his mouth.
"Knock it off, Barnes. I know we're friends, but I'm going to actually kill you if you don't start at least pretending to like her." Nat stomps farther out of ear-shot but you can still hear her grumbling Russian threats under her breath.
"It's not like she hasn't been through enough," Tony mirrors. "Poor kid lost both her parents the same age I was when I lost mine."
"Then she lost Coulson," Steve reminds the group. As if explaining to Bucky, he says, "He was practically a father to her. She was right there next to him when Loki..." He stops himself as if he can't fathom gaining the stomach to finish the thought. You're glad he doesn't. The image your damaged mind has already painted in recollection of that awful day is enough to have tears ricocheting down your cheeks.
Vision's voice emerges and you realize for the first time that he's there in the room with the rest. "When I spoke to Wanda last night she said that today was going to be especially hard for Y/N. It's the same day and month that Pietro promised he'd marry her on right before... you know." He seems to gulp.
The room is eerily silent. Your whole body is tense. No one's known... no one outside of Wanda knew that you and Pietro were going to elope. It was a rash decision that came about just before you walked away from each other that last normal morning. You'd made him promise to be careful, and he comforted your fears by promising that once he made it out alive he'd take you to Vegas and you'd get married any day you wanted. You jokingly picked the first date that came to your mind: March 18th. As random as it was it made you both laugh instead of cry before your last proper goodbye.
When you close your eyes you can almost see Pietro's smile at the back of your mind.
"Fucking hell," Tony can be heard sighing. The rest of the room is deadly quiet.
You can't take any more—you don't want to hear another pitied word from your teammates' mouths. Before you can change your mind you turn and walk off towards the elevator—leaving your blanket behind in your haste.
You ride the lift past your floor. You take it all the way up to the roof, regretfully cold in your thin pajamas and the early morning sunrise, and walk towards the edge on bare feet. You stand with your painted toes slightly dangling over the ledge and feel your hair whip around in the wind. You stare up and out past the trees where the sun is now settled just above the hills—looking like a child's finger-painting in all shades of red, gold, and pink.
You always preferred sunrise to sundown. You appreciate the beauty of a beginning. But now, as you stand here with tears in your eyes, you can't help but think to how comforting ends can be. The darkness of a night feels similar to the way you are inside on your worst days. At your best, you're a sunrise.
Today you are dusk: dark, cold, and as alone as the moon in the sky.
You don't know how long you stand out there alone before hearing someone come up behind. It's long enough for the sun to move slightly higher, but yet it's still not all the way in the sky. The world is covered in shades of amber and gold. Dew drops on the grass of the field below seem to shake with anticipation.
"What are you doing out here?"
You wrap your arms around yourself and look down. You're still invisible. You're not sure how Bucky Barnes found you up here, let alone found himself comfortable enough to speak to you after all that he's done.
You stay silent in hopes that he'll think himself wrong in finding you and walk away.
"I know you're there, Y/N. I found your blanket in the hall and had FRIDAY take me where she last sent the lift." He pauses, voice nearly void of emotion. "Unless you've already jumped."
"I'm not going to jump," you snap without proper reasoning. You turn your head back towards Bucky so fast that you find yourself teetering a bit farther onto the ledge.
Bucky stares in the direction of your voice. He's about seven feet behind you and takes a soft step closer before speaking. "Then what are you doing up here?"
"Just go the hell away, Barnes. I know you're only here to apologize to me because Nat threatened you." You return to your original sulking position and stare out at the sunrise. The hollowness in your chest feels so much colder than the sun on your skin now.
"I'm not here because Nat threatened me," is Bucky's reply. "I'm here because I've been a real ass."
"I know." You cross your arms and force yourself not to turn and look back at him. Your voice sounded much less mean and a lot more broken than you wanted it to.
Bucky lets out a soft sigh in response. "Can we go inside and talk?"
"I don't want to talk to you." You glance down the side of the tall building and a lump forms in your throat. You wonder how different it would all look if you went spiraling down... the thought causes you to shuffle forward to peer closer. A little pebble tumbles off the side at your movement. You gasp lightly and watch as it falls, falls, falls at the speed of light down towards the earth: never slowing in its movement before tumbling peacefully to the hard cement.
"Come on now," Bucky's voice is slightly closer and more agitated than before. "Stop messing around. You're really freaking me out."
"Why? It's not like you really care anyway." Just to piss him off you take another step closer and shimmer into view. You glance behind you, seeing him clench his jaw, and then shift invisible again. "You've been nothing but awful to me for weeks now."
"I know, I know. And—and I can explain."
"I don't know if I want to hear it," you reply in a raised tone. You're slowly becoming less sad and more furious: ready to turn around and pummel the hell out of Bucky for waltzing up here with the audacity to tell you what to do. "You just wanna get me off this ledge because if I jump everyone's going to blame you for being so goddamn mean and you don't think you can live with another dead person riding around on your back."
Bucky takes a hard swallow. His arms linger unsurely at his sides as he tries to asses where exactly you are now that you're invisible again. "That's... that's partially true." His blue eyes dart around to the seemingly empty space where your body stands a few feet ahead of him. "But if you come inside, I can tell you everything. We can talk. We used to talk all the time. Don't you wanna talk to me again?" He sounds like a man desperate to get a response as you teeter on the ledge unseen.
"No! I don't wanna talk to—" while you were distracted screaming at him, Bucky's launched his metallic arm forward to snatch you by the waist. He's scooped your body backwards and thrown you into his chest before securing both of his hands at your hips and dragging you far away from the roof's edge. In surprise your invisibility façade falls and you come into full view.
"Let go of me, ass!" You try shoving him off of you but he only stiffens his grip. While you thrash he rolls you beneath him onto the roof's rough terrain: locking your hips down with the weight of his and keeping your wildly slapping hands at your sides by the will of both of his. He stares down at you with tight-pressed lips and a bit of long chestnut hair swinging in front of his eyes.
"I'm not letting you go until you calm the hell down," Bucky replies evenly.
"I wasn't going to jump," you pause to try and kick him but to no use. You groan and look up past his face towards the sky.
"Doesn't matter. I can't risk it."
You close your eyes and will yourself to suddenly be filled with enough strength to push him off of you. But after a moment of ridiculous prayer you give up on that notion and simply succumb to the feeling of his body weighing down yours. The pressure of Bucky's weight is almost soothing—almost like a big, heavy quilt or gravity itself keeping you grounded.
"I wasn't going to jump," you repeat—softer this time. You sound a lot less sure.
"Okay," Bucky replies. His voice is soft, too. His head cocks slightly to one side as he looks down at your stilled body beneath him.
"I don't wanna die," you quietly admit. You close your eyes so that Bucky—the man who's been bullying you since that mission in Pakistan—doesn't see you cry. "I just don't want to feel broken anymore."
Bucky appears frozen in time and space as he witnesses the first of many upcoming tears leak from your squeezed-shut eyes. He loosens his grips on your wrists enough for you to pull your hands free, yet you don't: you let him hold you by the wrists for a few moments longer until he gets the idea to switch his placement and slide off of your body and onto the roof beside you. He helps you to a seat by your hands and then slowly—as if testing the waters—leads you closer to his chest. It takes very little coaxing for your cheek to find a resting place against his breast and your hands to bundle in the fabric of his light gray sweatshirt.
Bucky's fingers unsurely pat your back before moving up to more comfortably comb through your hair. He turns his cheek to rest against the top of your head.
After about fifteen minutes of this you seem to be all out of tears. But Bucky doesn't pressure you to move nor initiate the end of this moment. The sun is fully out now and both of you have grown well beyond the point of properly warmed by the sun and the closeness of each other. Eventually you're struck with enough strength to pull you face away from where you've left tearstains on his chest.
Laughing, you try to wipe your sticky face. "Sorry about your sweatshirt."
Bucky doesn't spare his shirt a glance. His hand moves from the back of your head to your cheeks where he steps in to help wipe the dried tears away. "It's okay." He bites down on the inside of his cheek before saying, "I'm sorry for how I've been acting. It's not excusable, and it's not fair to ask for you to forgive me. I don't... I don't know what else to say about it except I was being immature and insecure."
You sniffle. "So you're not mad at me anymore?"
Bucky's eyes widen in shock. "No! No, no, no." He quickly begins rubbing his hands up and down your covered shoulders in a comforting, warming motion he doesn't seem to have full control over stopping. "No, sweetheart, no. I wasn't ever mad at you: not really. This was all about me and some... some things I've got wrong with me. I just... I'm not sure how else to explain it other than that I'm kinda messed up and I thought that if I pushed you away it'd be easier than... well," he pauses, "Than this." He makes a motion towards the position of you practically in his lap and his hands gripping your forearms protectively.
"What's wrong with this?" you ask.
Bucky opens his mouth to reply before changing his mind and shutting it again. He smiles softly. "I'm not so sure anymore, actually."
That was two days ago.
Now whenever you see Bucky around the compound it's awkward in an entirely different way. The other teammates have clearly caught on: they'd be stupid not to. They're essentially a group of spies, for crying out loud.
"What's going on with you and Bucky?" Wanda asks you one night as she sits in your bed and takes her turn at shuffling the deck of cards.
"Um, what do you mean?" You take a long sip of lemon water from the cup she brought you on her way over a few minutes ago. The girl who is practically a sister to you comes over nearly every night to talk and just relax.
"I mean," Wanda goes on in her thick accent, "He was a jerk to you. And suddenly you two can't be in the same room without blushing." She passes you your stack of cards with a raised brow.
"I—I..."
"Did you sleep together?"
"No," you shake your head with enough finality to convince her to believe you. "Nothing like that."
"Then what is it?" Wanda peers at her hand of cards and tries to keep up her poker face.
You hardly glance at your own hand. "He apologized."
"And you forgave him?"
You think about it for a moment. "I do." You nod. "I do, because it's not like he did anything extremely unforgivable... besides, if Tony and Steve can forgive each other after what happened with them, why can't I forgive Barnes for giving me the cold shoulder for a few weeks?"
Wanda stares at you thoughtfully for a moment before saying aloud, "You are in so deep for him." She smiles softly before adding, "King of hearts?"
"Go fish," you say. And then, "I am not."
"You're an awful liar."
You huff. "Three of spades?"
"Go fish."
You curse and grab another card. "Let's say I did have feelings for Barnes..." you tilt your head left and right to add to the hypothetical nature despite the fact it's completely true. "How would you feel?"
"I'd feel happy for you," Wanda admits. "I don't expect you to be hanging onto the memory of my brother forever: at least not to the point where it prevents you from being happy." She glances at her cards with the bright eyes that look so much like Piet's. "Eight of hearts?" She smiles as you pass over the card. "Pietro wouldn't want you to spend the rest of your life miserable. And I know you've been in a dark place lately, I have too, and if it makes it easier for you to lean on Bucky—you shouldn't pass up on the opportunity because you feel guilty about hurting me. Because you won't."
"Thanks, Wanda." You smile softly. "It really doesn't do me any good though until I get Bucky to like me, too."
"Don't worry about that," Wanda chuckles. "It's already done."
"What?" You nearly drop your cards.
"I've felt it for months now. He's smitten with you. Only reason I didn't tell you sooner was because I was pissed he was ignoring you. But the darkness in him was so strong—I could hardly sit in the same room as him without being uncomfortable. He's happier the last few days: lighter, I guess you could say." She tries to take a peek at your cards. "Queen of hearts?"
"You skipped my turn!" You laugh. Laying down your hand, you ask, "Are you being serious about the Bucky thing?"
"Would I ever lie to you?" Wanda raises a brow.
No: she wouldn't. Wanda loves you far too much to ever steer you wrong. That's a fact you have to keep telling yourself on repeat as you linger outside of Bucky Barnes' apartment door the very next morning. It's early, very soon after sunrise, but you just couldn't wait until after breakfast to talk to him. You need to know if what Wanda was saying is true. And above all, you need to give yourself a little bit of light to hold onto. Thinking about the possibilities with Bucky last night left you in a damn happy mood. You can only imagine how it'd feel if those possibilities came true...
"Y/N?"
Bucky's voice in the hall behind you has you spinning on a heel. Walking up the staircase as opposed to the lazy-man's elevator is Bucky in workout shorts and no shirt—a towel strung up around his neck and the ends of his long hair tied up in a bun. There's a bit of sweat on his forehead that he attempts to wipe away. Instead of being soaked up by the towel it travels down his brow before running the length of his long, sharp nose towards his pink lips.
"Are you okay?" he asks. He looks over you carefully as if to assess what's wrong. "What do you need?" he sounds genuinely concerned and the notion warms you.
"I think I'm okay," you admit—treading carefully.
Bucky senses your unease. He nods, lips pursed, and then gestures towards his closed door. "Want to come in and talk about it?"
You open your mouth to attest to your true feelings on the man before being overcome with a wave of fear much like the one you're swept up with before stepping onto the battlefield.
"No, no." Your shaking head angles towards the floor. "I—I don't know why I'm here."
Bucky's face is expressionless but you can see it in his eyes that he's trying to pick yours: your face that is so easily read. "Yeah, you do." He takes a soft step closer to you before reaching for his door. "Why don't you come in and you can tell me?"
"I don't think that's a good idea," you say before you can stop yourself.
Bucky stiffly nods. He has his bottom lip pulled beneath his teeth as he lets out a jagged sigh. "Okay." He waits a few moments, seeing if you'll truly leave, but you're frozen in place. Then he says thoughtfully, "I really messed things up here, didn't I?"
Wide-eyed you angle your head up to look at the man. "What?"
"I messed things up," Bucky repeats. You can hear the growing agitation in his voice. He reaches up with the mechanical hand to tug at the roots of his hair—ultimately ruining the updo. "I don't even know how to apologize to you. I was an ass. I just—I just can't make up for that."
"I—I think you could," you slowly reply. Your words are drawn out long and soft.
Bucky leans against his doorframe. "How?"
You take a deep breath.
Here goes nothing.
"You could take me out to dinner."
Bucky's left eyebrow jolts up towards his hairline. He stares down at you—almost gawking—with a sort of surprised smirk tugging at his lip.
"A dinner date?" he clarifies. "You and me?"
"Me and you." You wrap your arms around yourself as if to soften the blow of the denial you're expecting to be met with here.
Bucky chuckles to himself quietly as he rubs the back of his neck. The muscles of his toned bicep get stretched and strained in the process. His blue eyes flicker down at you and you feel your lips pull into a smile.
"I don't know if I deserve the right to take you out on a date, Y/N." Bucky shakes his head and watches as your face quickly begins to fall. "But," he hurries to add in hopes to get you smiling again. Your eyes move to look deeper into his. "But you deserve to get what you want and be happy more than anything." His head tilts as he inspects you closely. "What would make you happy? Me leaving you alone, or taking you out tonight?"
"It would make me happiest if you picked me up at seven." You laugh lightly at the grin that appears on Bucky's stupidly handsome face. "And I'd be especially happy if you wore that red button up shirt and had your hair down loose." You stop to feel yourself blushing. "It looks very handsome like that."
Bucky's crooked smile is a sight you'll truly never forget. "You're really something amazing, Y/N."
The look of confusion on your face causes Bucky's heart to ache. "You don't have to say that, Bucky..."
"I mean it though."
You frown. "But I'm just... me."
Bucky smiles sadly. "You say that like it's a bad thing." He leans closer to you. "I honestly don't know what the hell I did to deserve you."
"We've both made mistakes. But we both deserve to be happy." You shrug as if you're unsure but you know that you've never been surer of anything in your life.
Bucky's smile is as bright of a light as you've ever seen. It warms your soul as it reaches up to his eyes and crinkles the tan skin there by his left dimple. "Damn right on that one, sunshine."