Sweetheart Hand Pt. 2 // Brian May

Eddie Munson x Best Friend!Reader

Summary: You never meant for Eddie to know that you had a crush on him. What happened when he found out, courtesy of Mike Wheeler's big mouth?

WC: 2.6k

Warnings: smut (18+ only, minors DNI), angst to fluff to smut and then back to fluff?? I don't even know, idiots in love, p in v, semi-public sex (we get it on in the van, baby)

Part of @cherrycolored-punk's Softember event!

Divider credit to @saradika

Friday, May 16, 1986: the day you determined that Mike Wheeler was the worst. 

You tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, it couldn’t be easy growing up in Nancy’s perfect shadow. Just the time you spent working with her on the school newspaper was exhausting. 

That was where you were currently sprinting from, weaving through the empty hallways towards the drama room. Leave it to Nancy to schedule an emergency newspaper meeting on a Friday afternoon. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” You kept your head down as you breezed into the Hellfire meeting. Even without looking, you could feel the guys glaring at you. The only thing less forgivable than missing a campaign was interrupting one. 

Gareth let out a huff, crossing his arms over his chest. “Nice of you to join us, Lady Atwood.” He shifted forward in his seat. “You’re in luck today—our fearless Dungeon Master has yet to grace us with his presence.”

You wrinkled your nose, only then noticing that Eddie’s throne remained empty. “Where is he?”

From his spot at the table, Mike Wheeler scoffed. “Surprised you don’t know, considering you’re basically in love with him.”

You were about to refute his statement, or at least give him a well-deserved middle finger, when you heard a clattering behind you. 

Like metal hitting the floor tiles.

No. No, no no no…

“S-Sorry.” Eddie stammered. He quickly scooped up the tin lunch box that doubled as a place to stash his weed. “I had a last-minute deal. Apparently there’s a party at McKinney’s house tonight and he needed some, uh, provisions. So, uh, yeah.” He cleared his throat, eyes darting around the room and looking at everyone except for you. “We can get started.”

There might as well have been a spotlight beaming down, accentuating the embarrassment written all over your face. Everyone in Hellfire knew about your crush on Eddie, but they had the decency to keep it a secret. 

Everyone except for Mike Wheeler, apparently. God, you wanted to squish that little shit like a bug beneath your shoe.

It certainly didn’t help that Eddie kept glancing at you, even when he addressed the group. Like he was waiting for you to say something about Mike’s comment. Waiting for you to refute it, to roll your eyes and whip out a snappy comeback. Maybe he was even hoping you would.

He was probably internally cringing just thinking about you having romantic feelings for him.

“Lady Atwood?”

Your gaze instinctively snapped over to Eddie when he said your name. He was looking at you, brown eyes wide with anticipation of your response. 

Warmth crept up your neck. He had heard what Mike said about you being in love with him–he had to have. He’d just had the good grace to brush over it because…

Because he didn’t feel the same way and didn’t want to cause you any further humiliation.

“Y-Yeah?” You choked on the word, trying to put the incident behind you. But you couldn’t, because the pain of unrequited feelings kept yanking on your heart, drawing tears that you desperately wished would evaporate.

“Gareth the Great has proposed battling the demogorgon.” There was a hint of a smirk on Eddie’s lips. It was your first clue that the move would prove entertaining, perhaps at your character’s demise. “We’re waiting for your input.”

Nodding, you chewed the inside of your cheek and studied the board. Okay, it looked like winning the battle was feasible, though a bit risky. The rest of the club watched as you contemplated; Gareth especially was practically vibrating with anticipation.

Then the ceiling started leaking. Soft drops with no particular rhythm, landing on your cheeks. Just your luck–first Mike’s big mouth spilled your secret, then whatever nastiness was living in Hawkins High School’s pipes was now seeping into your skin.

“Holy shit, is she crying?”

Dustin Henderson’s voice broke into your thoughts. His tone, for possibly the first time since you’d met him, held only concern with a note of snark.

Who was crying? You were the only girl in the club now that Ronnie had graduated, save for the times Erica Sinclair served as a substitute. Which meant…

“Way to go, asshole.” Lucas thwacked Mike across the chest. 

“I didn’t know he was there!”

The purple fabric of your shirt darkened beneath your arms as another disconcerting flash of heat hit you. You wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Maybe you’d get lucky and the floor would open beneath you and swallow you up. 

“I need to get some air.” Whether you spoke the words aloud or said them silently to yourself, you weren’t sure. 

Your feet seemed to carry you out of the room and through the school’s front doors. Tears blurred your vision, and you swiped them away before any other lingering students could see. 

The air was warm, teasing of the approaching summer. God, summer—you always spent it with Eddie, lounging by the public pool or sitting down at Lovers Lake. You’d read a book while he pored over his Hellfire notebook, scribbling notes for future campaign ideas. 

Would he still want to do that, to spend those long days with you, now that he knew about your pathetic crush? 

It wasn’t until you reached the parking lot that you remembered: Eddie drove you to school that morning. If you started walking now, you’d definitely get home before dark. Or maybe you could call your parents from the payphone if you managed to scrounge up the change—

The sound of your name stopped you in your tracks. You should’ve kept walking the moment you saw Eddie, his frizzy curls bouncing as he jogged over to you. 

“Hey.” His hand brushed yours, though you pulled away before he could grab ahold of it. “Where are you going?”

“Home.”

He sighed. “Okay, let me rephrase that: Why did you leave? Because of what Wheeler said?” Eddie let out a small, disbelieving laugh when you nodded. “He’s such a little shit. Always messing with me. I’m gonna kick his sorry ass one of these days.”

Your eyebrows shot up. Messing with Eddie? “What are you talking about?”

“That joke about you being in love with me. He obviously saw me in the doorway and said it to embarrass me.” A blush crept onto Eddie’s cheeks. “Y’know, ‘cause…”

But you didn’t know. You had no idea what he meant. And as much as Mike was a menace, he seemed sincere when he said he didn’t realize that Eddie was there. 

“Because why?”

“Because,” Eddie’s gaze shifted to his van’s tires before he finally looked at you again. “Because he knows I have this dumb crush on you, and he thinks it’s hilarious to fuck with me about it.”

Words evaded you. This had to be some sort of elaborate set-up. Eddie had a crush on you? When girls like Chrissy Cunningham and Heather Holloway lived in the very same town? 

Impossible. 

Not privy to the argument playing out inside your head—thank God—Eddie babbled on. “I know it’s weird. That’s why I haven’t told you—well, until right now. And I’m starting to regret it, because you’re looking at me like I have three heads. So maybe I’ll just shut up now.”

“No.” Summoning all of your courage, you took his hand in yours and managed a smile. “Eddie, Mike was teasing me because I like you. More than a friend should like a friend.”

Eddie’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. “What if I told you…I don’t want to just be friends?”

You let your eyes meet his. “I-I don’t want to just be friends, either.”

He took a pause before he asked his next question. Your heartbeat thrummed in your ears as you waited for him to speak.

“And what if I did this?” One palm, callused from years of guitar playing, cupped your cheek. Eddie moved closer, his nose bumping against yours in a clumsy attempt to close the gap between you. “Shit, that–that was supposed to be suave.”

“Shut up and kiss me, Munson.” The words left your mouth before you could think them through. Your fingers tangled into his hair, pulling him back towards you and finishing what he had started.

His lips, soft and tasting vaguely of the cigarettes he’d smoked after school, crashed into yours. One hand snaked around your waist and pressed you against him until you felt his metal belt buckle through your shirt.

You moaned softly, letting his tongue into your mouth without hesitation. More, more, more…you needed more. You needed all of him. 

It was Eddie who broke the kiss, much to your chagrin. But what he said next made up for the loss.

“Sorry…I’m trying to be a gentleman. But it’s, uh, getting a little hard.” He chuckled, stealing another quick kiss. “Pun very much intended.”

A quick glance proved that Eddie wasn’t lying: His erection tantalizingly strained against his fly. What you wouldn’t give to feel him inside you…

“Y’know, take you on a date, tell you how pretty you look,” Eddie continued, shifting his stance in a pitiful attempt to quell his desire. “I don’t wanna go at it in the school parking lot like some feral rabbits.” He waved his hand haphazardly. 

You bit your lip, weighing your options. A date would be nice; perhaps a night at The Hawk, his arm around you as a movie played on a giant screen. Or maybe he’d take you to dinner—nothing as expensive as Enzo’s, but somewhere more romantic than your usual Benny’s hangout. 

A date with Eddie was something you’d only ever dreamed of. But right now, you needed to live out a different fantasy before you combusted from an overload of lust. 

“Remember the first campaign you created this year?” Your soft voice held a sultry air despite your nerves. “It was your most sadistic one yet. We were all ready to forfeit, but you took pity on us and gave us a hint.”

Taking a deep breath, you plunged your hand into his front pocket. “Do you remember what you said?”

Eddie shook his head. “I can’t remember my own goddamn name right now, Sweetheart.”

You laughed, your finger hooking around his keyring. “You said that sometimes, it’s better to work backwards.”

With a triumphant grin, you plucked the keys from his pocket. 

“You’re gonna be the death of me.” His own smile betrayed his exasperated exterior as he grabbed your hand. His van seemed a million miles away, though it was parked in one of the closest spots in the lot. 

Eddie yanked open the back door, waiting just long enough for you to get settled before he scrambled in behind you. The moment the door closed, he pulled you on top of him. 

You could feel him, feel his hardness, against your core. You rolled your hips instinctively, savoring the friction. 

Hands clamped down on your denim-covered thighs. “You gotta…you can’t…” Eddie choked, struggling for words. “We’re already about to do it in my van. I don’t wanna look even more pathetic by coming in my pants.”

Warmth blossomed in your body. You could imagine him sputtering out a stream of swear words as he came, flooding his own boxers with his release. 

Maybe another day. 

Buttons were undone, flies were unzipped, clothes were discarded into a pile in the corner of the van. It was only you and Eddie, not a single scrap of fabric between you. 

Sweat glistened on his chest, matting down the sparse hairs that curled around his nipples. You leaned in, kissing just above the demon head tattoo etched on his pec. 

“Baby,” he crooned. The new pet name wasn’t lost on you. Your heart beat faster, a butterfly frantically flapping its wings. “Baby, I need you.”

He did need you, unless he was going to take care of his achingly hard cock by himself. The pink tip leaked with pre-cum, and if you had more room, you would have licked it clean off. 

You settled for swiping it away with your thumb, his abdomen tightening at the sudden contact. Eddie nearly passed out on the spot when you sucked on your finger, savoring the salty taste.

“Baby,” he groaned again. “I w-wanted to get you off first, ‘cause I know I’m not gonna last like this.”

“S’okay.” You lined him up with your entrance, ignoring the way your hands shook as you slowly sank down onto him. His hips bucked up almost of their own accord. “F-Fuck, Eddie…”

Eddie looked up at you, brown irises wide. He paused for an extra moment; maybe he really had forgotten his own name. “I know, I know,” he said finally. “God, I fucking know, baby.” 

His thumb found your clit the second he composed himself, rubbing delicate circles until your toes curled. His other hand held you with just enough force to keep you stable while still being able to ride him.

“You’re so beautiful.” He let out a breathless laugh. “If I wake up and this was all a dream, I’m gonna be pissed.”

You shared the same thought. What if the Eddie laying before you, curls splayed against the worn carpet of his van, groaning your name–your name–was all a mirage? Another fantasy conjured up by your lovesick brain?

“I’ve never had a dream this good before.”

“Me either,” he admitted, “but the only ones that’ve come close involve you.”

You tightened around him, your hands flush against his chest. The fact that you occupied his thoughts, unconscious or otherwise, sent a wave of arousal rolling through you. You wanted to hear every last detail of those dreams, to know exactly what turned him on.

Maybe later. Right now, your focus stayed on the way he touched you. So intentional, so precise. And Eddie worked you through your orgasm, keeping his same rhythm as you came around him.

“There you go, pretty girl. That’s it,” he murmured. “‘M close. Where do you–where can I–”

“Inside.” You’d never been more grateful to be on the pill. 

Eddie let himself go, unleashing a torrent of desire. He thrust into you, chasing his own release now that he knew you’d gotten yours.

It was only when he slowed his pace, milking the last drops of cum from his cock, that reality began to settle in.

You just had sex with your best friend in the back of his van, a few hundred feet away from where your friends were gathered around a DnD board–

“Oh my God, Eddie!” Your eyes snapped open in realization. “Hellfire–they’re still there.”

Eddie pulled you closer and kissed your forehead. You relaxed into his chest. “They’re smart guys when they’re not being idiots.” The words vibrated against your skin. “I’m sure they figured out that we weren’t coming back.”

He sighed, wrapping one arm around you. “Can I take you on that date now, baby? Y’know, once we get dressed.” He smirked. “We can go to Scoops Ahoy and split a sundae. And then, if you want, I’ll take you back to my place and undress you again?”

You scrambled for your clothes almost as quickly as you’d shed them, Eddie following suit. And as much as you wanted to have sex with him again, to really take your time and cherish each second, you were equally excited to cuddle up in a booth and share some ice cream.

Friday, May 16, 1986: the day Mike Wheeler’s lack of filter didn’t completely backfire. Because it was also the day that you and Eddie Munson became boyfriend and girlfriend.

--

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A Private After Party

Summary: You've been invited to a very special afterparty with your rockstar boyfriends. "Sweetheart, you are the after party."

Pairing: Rockstar Stucky x Reader, Steve x reader, Bucky x Reader, mentions of other band members x reader

Warnings: Choking (reader and Bucky), Pussy slapping, implied group sex, public sex, fingering, smut, 18+, minors DNI, cream pie, oral (fem rec) exhibitionism, voyeurism, masturbation, praise kink, overstimulation, belly bulge, size kink, sir kink, dom/sub vibes, Buckys a switch

Word Count 2.4K

A/N: Beta'd by the wonderful @whisperlullaby and @sparkledfirecracker. But all mistakes are my own. Do not copy, repost, rewrite or translate my fics. I appreciate every comment, like and reblog so please let eet me know you think.

For the @star-spangled-bingo Rockstar AU and inspired by @nix-akimbo edit

The deafening roar of people shouting and clapping swells into a thunderous chant of Buc-ky, Buc-ky Buc-ky filling the arena.

Bucky’s a rock star, a talented musician with a wicked reputation. It's hard to tear your eyes away from his lean tattooed chest, his abs flexing as he stretches his arms above his head, his intricate tattoos weaving across his muscular shoulder down to his wrist.

The drumsticks twirling through his fingers as he launches into his solo making the crowd go wild as his bandmates watch the shirtless drummer live it up.

The air filled with chaotic energy. The sea of people moving as one, phones, signs, and lighters swaying above their heads as they scream.

You survey the stage, rainbow-colored lights glittering across them, fans blowing discreetly from the edge of the stage. Nothing like an up-close view of one of the greatest bands of your time.

Natasha swings her bright red hair as she holds onto the mic with her long manicured nails. The pit of dancers enraptured by the sultry singer swinging her curvy hips.

You laugh at Steve winking at the row of girls staring up at him in awe as he lightly strums his guitar.

It's the final show in this city and they always give their fans a little extra.

You lean on the wall, arms folded across your chest as you watch your man flip his drumsticks in the air, catching them with one hand, his head turning to find you.

20,000 people screaming Bucky’s name and all he cares about is his girl standing just to the side of the stage, wearing his ripped leather jacket over her shoulders.

Bucky finishes his solo, banging his sticks together in the air, the rumble of the boisterous audience vibrating across the stage. He whips out a bright red cloth from his leather shorts and wipes off his sweat laced forehead, heat radiating off his chest with every deep breath.

He turns his head again, watching your pretty eyes narrow in disbelief as you focus in on the red peeking through his fist. Those are your- you scrunch your eyes shut, pressing your fingers to your eyelids. You knew that fucker took them. He stole your panties after his ritual of eating you out before hitting the stage. You should have known when he scurried out the green room leaving you whimpering and trembling on the couch.

You raise your brow at the rockstar, sneering at his gleeful smirk. He waves your panties at you before twirling them around his drumstick as he screams goodnight.

Rolling your eyes, you pray that your panties don't end up in the crowd. The second the thought forms in your brain, it's like fate laughs at you, because your panties twirl off the end of his stick, heading straight to the front row. Steve catches them mid air and wipes his chest off with it. He screams your name to the crowd, whipping them around his finger before tossing them to Nat.

You sigh in relief, only to groan a second later when she holds the crotch of your lace panties under her nose and inhales into the microphone. “Nothing better than some sweet pussy right!”

Scrunching your eyes shut as the crowd roars in response. God, you can’t stand them sometimes, it’s okay though because you decide you’re going to accidentally leak a few pics to your IG tonight.

Flipping them off, you go to the green room to get ready for the after-party. And Bucky.

Adrenaline buzzes through Bucky's veins, nothing compares to the post-show high he gets. After waving to his adoring fans, he runs off stage, heading straight for you.

When the door bursts open, a sweaty Bucky envelopes you in a hug, plastering kisses along your neck and chest. He’s always so horny after a set and you fight him off ordering him to shower. Bucky puts you down, his mouth opening, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Nope,” you declare, walking away from your drummer. “Just did my hair and I’m not messing it up in the shower.”

Bucky’s face drops into a pout, his hand palming his crotch as he stares at you.“I’ll blow you after you’re clean.” You promise, biting your bottom. "You can fuck my throat if you're-" The sounds of your laughter follow him as he sprints into the bathroom.

Bucky saunters out almost thirty minutes later, a white towel around his waist. “Your man is clean, I’m ready for you to suck..." He trails off, you duck your head, hearing the shock in his tone.

"What the fuck” He huffs, skidding to a stop when he sees the room full of people.

Avoiding his gaze, you hid your smile. It's not your fault the door was left unlocked. You’re braiding Wanda’s hair as she plays blind man’s bluff with Sam. Nat’s propped up on the pile of suitcases in the corner taking a selfie, her shirt off and her hand barely covering her tits. Steve’s surrounded by a cloud of smoke as he lounges on the couch, his guitar propped next to his leg. Music playing softly under the chatter filling the room.

Bucky thought he was going to have you to himself for a while before the afterparty started. He’s been hard for two hours now and he can’t wait much longer. You catch his baleful eyes, tension rolling off him as he glares at you. Shrugging, you turn back to the redhead and finish her final braid.

Bucky slumps on the couch with a dramatic groan. His fingers playing with the hem of the fluffy white towel. You love when he gets like this, the rockstar who has groupies begging to suck his cock is practically pouting for your touch. He keeps groaning, shifting his hips lower and lower on the leather couch, his legs spread wide, the ends of the towel pulling apart, more and more skin showing.

Ignoring Steve’s mutter for him to knock it off, Bucky says your name, patting his thigh. “C’mere kitten. Need to tell you something.”

“She can hear you from over here.” Wanda quips you giggle as you smooth down her hair.

"Kitten.” The guttural warning has you glancing over your shoulder. Bucky meets your playful eyes, you know exactly what’s about to happen, slick forming in your aching cunt the second he flicks the towel open, his cock springing free.

“Put that thing away Buck,” Steve groans, his head dropping back on the couch.

Your mouth waters at the sight of cock swaying between his thighs. It’s practically saying your name as you stare at it. You get up, knocking Sam over with your hip when you scramble to your feet, his cards scattering on the carpet as you skip over to Bucky.

You stand in front of him, putting your hands on his tattooed shoulders. Bucky grips your waist, pulling you on his lap, your knees straddling his thick thighs.

Bucky pinches your chin between his fingers, licking your bottom lip as he hums. "Want me to put it away, kitten?"

Fuck yes you do. “You should listen to Steve,” you nod. Taking his hand, you lick his long fingers one by one before sliding it between your folds. His is hooded slate-blue eyes flare when he feels how soft and wet you are.

He orders you to turn around, his voice deepening. You smirk, turning around, your legs sliding over his thick thighs, your back flush to his firm chest. Lifting up your hips, he slides a warm rough hand under your skirt, the material bunching around your hips.

Without taking his eyes off your ass, he smirks, “alright Steve, I’ll put it away.”

He brings you down, down, down, over his thick cock, the sensation of his swollen head pushing up into your tight wet heat has your head flinging back on his shoulder.

“See Stevie-“ your mouth going slack as another wave of sensations hit you, “-it’s oh fuck me, it’s away”, you mewl.

Steve props open one eye, pursing his lips as he rolls his head to the side. The rest of the band watching you bounce on Bucky's cock, your gasps get louder as he stretches your velvety walls.

You hear murmurs of praise echoing around you, ‘take his cock pretty girl, fuck he’s deep, look how wet she is, damn she’s hot, I want a taste of her cunt’ and it’s driving you wild knowing you’re the center of attention. White-hot pressure building as he thrusts deeper into your pussy. You cling to his arms, the fast brutal pace making you lightheaded.

“Fuck Steve, her tight little pussy is sucking me back in. I can feel me right here,” he groans, putting his hand on your belly as he tugs your head back. His lips swallowing your cries as he pushes his fingers into your skin. “You feel me, don't you, kitten?”

You wheeze out a yes, yes Bucky oh god. Out of the corner of your eye, you see everyone staring at you, Sam whispering in Wanda’s ear as he pulls her braids, her hand slipping under the band of his shorts, a flash of color catches your attention, you catch Nat propping her leg on the table, spreading her pussy with her bright red nails.

“Cmon Barnes, give it to her harder, her pussy can take it,” her sultry voice tinged with lust as she works her clit. “That’s it, get it nice and sloppy for me.”

He feels your walls flutter around him as he pistons into you, “can you take it kitten, you think you can handle me?” He breathes in your ear, taunting you as he slams into your tight heat. “Don’t think she can take me Nat, feels like I’m splitting this little pussy in two.” Bucky angles his hips up, his cock hitting your sweet spot and oh god he’s so deep, stretching you so wide around him, you feel him in your belly. Your thin, high wail echos through the room, the air thick with need.

“Thatta girl.” you don’t know who said it, more praise drifting around you as you continue to shamelessly mewl.

“Make her cum before I do,” Steve warns as he sits up, his bottom lip rolling between teeth. He watches Bucky’s shaft move in and out your cunt, more and more of your slick coating him. The urge to taste both of you is overwhelming.

Steve stands in front of you, wrapping his large hand around your throat, squeezing softly before he yanks your shirt up, his fingers rolling your nipple.

“C’mon sweetheart, make a mess of his cock, lemme see you cream all over him so I can clean you up.” His hoarse, desperate promise makes you clench down, another wave of pleasure coursing through you as he pinches your sensitive nipple.

“‘m close Steve,” you sob out, the sounds of Bucky’s low groans in your ear, his warm breath washing over your skin. You gasp when he sinks his teeth into your shoulder, his pace getting erratic and sloppy. “Please, please Bucky,” you beg, needing just a little more, you’re so close to your peak, the knot in your belly tightening, god all you need is a little more.

"I said make her cum Bucky,” the way he says it, teasing with a hint of domineering impatience that has you and Bucky moaning. Steve places his hand around Bucky’s throat, your head snapping to the side to watch his fingers push into his skin. Oh god you never know what you like more, being choked or seeing Steve choke Bucky. Steve tightens his grip, his rings digging into the sides of his neck, your walls spasming as Bucky’s mouth falls open, a litany of fuck, fuck fuck pouring out of his mouth as you grind down.

“Right fucking now.” He grins, watching Bucky’s eyes flutter shut as he wheezes out a yes sir.

Steve’s darkened blue eyes slide over to your face. “You better cum for us, sweetheart. You better be good for me.” His guttural, dark tone has your belly tensing, as Bucky hits that little rough patch again, it's good, so good you can only nod. Steve raises his other hand, waiting for you to look up at it, your aching bud twitches as you lick your lips, a strangled, incoherent please seeping out.

He brings his hand down, slapping your clit, the sharp stinging sends you over the edge. The next couple of slaps have you jerking in Bucky’s arm as the knot snaps in two, pure electricity streaming through you, pleasure sinking into every fiber of your body.

“Oh yes fuck yes Steve,” you scream, your nails clawing into Bucky’s wrists as you toss your head back, your hips circling erratically as your orgasm winds through you.

“What did I say, Bucky?” Steve still has his grip on Bucky’s throat. “I told you to make her cum.” He stares him down, the challenge in Steve’s smug blue eyes has Bucky throbbing inside your sensitive cunt. Bucky grits his teeth, his hands moving to your waist, holding you still as he fucks up into you.

He blocks Steve’s next slap, his rough, calloused fingers slipping over your puffy clit. “Steve thinks he made you cum,” His voice, dark and gravelly, in your ear, “but it's my cock your greedy pussy is trying to strangle, isn’t it? Who’s making you feel good, kitten?”

“You are, you Bucky,” you chant, words slurring together as the heady pressure forms again, “so good, don’t stop, don’t stop Bucky.”

Steve pops his slicked covered fingers in Bucky’s open mouth, groaning under his breath as you come again. The force of your orgasm halts your breath in your chest, a faint gasp forming as your eyes roll back. “Good job, Bucky.” Steve praises, resting his forehead on his, staring into his dazed slate blue eyes. “Now cum for me, fill her pretty little pussy up until she’s leaking.”

“Fuck, goddamn you Steve.” He spits out in response. You don’t know if it's the way Steve demanded Bucky to cum or the way Bucky’s hips stutter into yours as Steve increased the pressure on his throat, but you feel yourself clench down again.

Another wave of bliss soaring through you as Bucky grunts his release, your spasming walls coated with ropes of his thick hot cum. You collapse on his chest, Bucky sliding down the couch, taking you with him as Steve let go of his throat.

Steve places his hands on his hips, sighing as he gazes down at the two of you tangled up in each other. Steve kneels down, you whimper as he takes Bucky’s softening cock out of your pussy.

“So pretty.” He murmurs at the sight of Bucky’s cum seeping out of you. "And look how she came all over you," he sighs, pumping Bucky's cock a few times until he groans out his name.

Steve pushes his finger in his mouth, the vulgar groan coming from his pink lips sends a shiver down your spine. He glances up at your faces, chuckling loudly. “Guess I should clean you both up, huh?"

“What about the after party?” you question, leaning on your elbow, your hand pushing on Bucky's abs. "I thought we had-oh" a broken moan falls from your lips at the feel of Steve's wet tongue gliding through your messy folds.

“Sweetheart your pussy is the party.”

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i am weak for shy and nervous eddie munson who fumbles when around his crush. imagine him pining over this girl who he’s never even talked to, (maybe they have different social circles) and he just sees her around with her friends and he is smitten and then one day they accidentally bump into each other and she’s like “you’re eddie right?” and you know he’d be so flustered.

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader word count: 2.2k

content warnings: lovesick eddie, pining, a little self-deprecation and self-doubt, mostly cheese and fluff, adult language - wildly unedited, oops.

“I hate this fucking school.”

The group exchange knowing glances as Eddie sits at the table with a grumble. His lunch tray lands with a low crash, nearly colliding with Gareth’s juicebox and therefore spilling its contents all over. A huff and quick reflexes on Jeff’s part save the group from catastrophe, more importantly, save the homework the boy had yet to finish ahead of next period. 

Eddie however, doesn’t notice the mess he has almost created. Frankly, he’s not paying attention. Even when Gareth tells him to, “Watch it, dude.”. The metal-head flicks his hand to say he’s sorry for whatever it is that his friends are chastising him for, but his eyes are fixed ahead, on the sole reason he’s in such a grumpy mood.

You.

Or rather Steve the dick Harrington, who’s got his arm draped shamelessly around your shoulders, as if he wasn’t just publicly humiliating Nancy Wheeler — since up until mere twenty-four hours ago, Hawkins High thought the blue-eyed girl was the King’s girlfriend, not you.

Eddie’s miserable. When did this happen? How did this even happen?

Last night, Steve and Nancy were all over each other. Eddie knows this to be fact since he saw them together at that party he wasn’t invited to as a guest, but to work because the popular kids always need a fix and he needs to make a living if he’s ever going to leave this shithole town. Anyway, that’s when Eddie saw the “it” couple and yet, now Nancy is nowhere to be seen and you’re snuggling into Harrington.

“I hate this fucking school,” Eddie repeats, sticking his fork into today’s cafeteria lunch. “Everyone is so two-faced and fake. No one has any integrity.”

The guys don’t need to follow his line of sight because they know very well who and what the metal-head is talking about.

“Maybe if you just talked to her, then you wouldn’t be so miserable today.” Jeff notes without looking up from his homework. “Plus, I overheard Charmaine tell Julie that Harrington is continuing to hold a candle for Nancy. This thing over there, that you’re obsessing over, is just friends being friends.”

“Doesn’t look like just friends to me,” Eddie grumbles, then looks at Jeff. “And I tried talking to her. It’s just, every time I do, my mind goes blank.”

Gareth rolls his eyes. “Dude, she’s not some superbeing. She’s a girl from our school. You’ve got no problem talking to other girls?”

Eddie doesn’t say anything because how does he go about explaining to his friends that to him, you’re more than a girl from school. It’s embarrassing enough how he’s never talked to you and yet, you occupy his entire mind and soul. The guys think it’s just another crush. Eddie knows it’s not. He can’t tell them though because they’ll laugh him out of it. Eddie the freak Munson is very much pining after a girl who doesn’t know he exists. Pathetic.

So, as any respectable guy in his situation would, Eddie continues to wallow in his own self-pity. 

He stares at you throughout the remainder of the lunch break, narrowly avoiding your gaze here and there by simply looking away. His downcast humour continues throughout the rest of the day. Since he doesn’t often engage in class anyway, the teachers pay him no mind. Although, their reasons are different: a quiet Eddie Munson is better than one who causes various disturbances. After the final bell ring, he hurries out of the building and blares music the entire drive home, to fizz out his thoughts.

Called into work. Here’s some cash. Go to the diner. 

Wayne

Eddie sighs. The one thing he was hoping for were his uncle's words of wisdom, although it seems that will also have to wait. Eddie slides the note into the pocket of his denim jeans and he is out the door again.

The diner is about thirty minutes away from the trailer, by foot. The metal-head decided to walk it anyway, hoping the fresh air would knock some sense into him because he’s got no business feeling this emotionally shattered. 

Maybe if he wasn’t such a bitch boy around you, things would be different. Unfortunately, for some reason, ever since he first laid eyes on you, Eddie’s default is shy.

Okay, maybe you and Harrington are a thing now, so what? Eddie’s got no claim on you, unspoken or otherwise. You can date whoever, even if it’s Steve the asshole. It’s also not like you and Nancy are friends. Everyone at school knows you two run in different circles, meaning no girl-code is being broken. There is also the possibility of what Jeff overheard from Charmaine and Julie being true: you and Harrington are nothing but friends. Very friendly friends. Touchy, feely. And Eddie would have noticed earlier if it were simply the case of friendship, therefore, he concludes that you are in fact dating Steve the douche Harrington and he somehow has to come to terms with it.

Eddie pushes the door open and makes a beeline for an empty booth. He orders a burger with fries and a soda from the middle-aged waitress, then whips out a notebook from his backpack while he waits. The only one he carries and it’s not for any schoolwork. The numbers scribbled hastily in the margins are easily mistaken for maths, but that’s just business. He focuses instead on the latest D&D campaign he’s working on.

For a moment, the metal-head forgets about today's events. He gets lost in the fictional world he’s creating. The made up monsters replace any harboured thoughts of you with Steve the turd, although one closely resembles Harrington's famous head of hair and he smirks, proud of himself for the immaturity. He figures if girls can write about their demons in journals, he can bring them into D&D. Bring them, then kill them.

He’s just about finished marking a big cross over the doodle of monster Steve when a figure steps in front of the light, creating a shadow over his notebook. Eddie sighs, foot tapping underneath the table in frustration. He’s about to make a rude remark, but when he looks up to meet the eyes of the perpetrator, he’s met with your wide gaze and naturally, he freezes.

“I like your drawings,” you say.

“Uhm, t-thanks,” he fumbles.

“You’re Eddie, right?”

All he can do is nod in response and you smile. Small and charming. Enough to make the brunette’s head spin and pinch his leg because he can’t believe this is happening. Surely, this must be a dream of some sort. He came home and passed out on the sofa. The only logical explanation for why you would be talking to him, complementing his stupid little doodles. The only logical explanation for why you know his fucking name.

“We’ve never officially met,” you begin and reach out your hand. 

Eddie glances at it and without really thinking, he utters, “I know who you are.”

It comes out a little more mean than he intends it to, he knows because you retreat your hand as if you’ve been burned. Eddie’s heart stings. Now he knows it’s real since only he’d be stupid enough to ruin a good thing before it even began. He’s an asshole.

“Sorry,” he mumbles quickly, then straightens in his seat. “Do you wanna sit? I-I have fries.”

He chews on the inside of his cheek for how incredibly pathetic that sounded; fries. You however, don’t notice and you’re also kind enough not to point out how he’s stumbling about his words like a little schoolkid.

“I love french fries.”

And with that, you’re sliding into the booth, across from him.

Eddie watches in disbelief as you help yourself to his food, not just the potato side, as if the two of you have been friends a lifetime. Then, probably to confuse him even more, you start telling him about how your parents locked you out and how it’s nice to see a familiar face, while he’s sitting there in silence, taking it all in, wondering whether perhaps this was some cruel joke Harrington and his band of losers were playing on him.

He wants to ask. Save himself the embarrassment if this does end up being a prank and tomorrow’s gossip: Eddie the freak Munson thought he had a chance. You keep talking, only taking small pauses to take bites out of his food or a sip of his soda, and to Eddie’s surprise nothing happens. No one jumps out screaming, laughing, pointing at him. This is really happening and he is truly baffled.

“Can we get another burger meal and the same soda?” You order from the waitress when she comes around to check the tables and afterwards, turn to look at Eddie, smile ever present. “Kinda ate most of yours.”

“It’s fine,” he manages to say.

For the first time since you sat down, it’s quiet. Now you’re the one staring at him, head tilted slightly to the one side. The smile on your face transforms into something more thoughtful, as if you were trying to read his mind — which is exactly the same thing Eddie was trying to do to you.

“So,” you begin again, “What were you scribbling intently before I crashed the party?”

“Just some stuff for an afterschool thing,” Eddie answers with a shrug, voice a little shaky.

“Mysterious.”

The sparkle in your eyes screams that you want to know more, but the metal-head is hesitant to share. Even though this wasn’t part of some scheme by Hawkins’ finest, it didn’t mean there wasn’t a different underlying reason as to why you were taking interest in him and he didn’t like when people made a fool of him.

Eddie clears his throat.

“Did your parents really lock you out?” He questions.

A brow goes up, it seems you are surprised at his push back. 

“Yes,” you say matter-of-factly, then add, “They do this sort of thing from time to time. They’re big hippies, so it’s not like neglect or anything. It’s weed. They don’t want me home when they’re high because they think it would make me undermine their authority.”

Eddie smirks and you tell him it’s not funny, but he can’t help the chuckle leave his throat. When you throw a fry at him across the table, smiling wide, he’s no longer feeling the nervous bubble. In fact, he’s suddenly quite relaxed.

“I’m sorry that I’m a good daughter. Next time I’ll be sure to pick a less judgemental table” you say dramatically, although the grin doesn’t leave your features.

The brunette lifts his hands in front of his chest in a defence motion.

“No judgement here. My social status requires me to second guess reasons people have for talking to me. I had to make sure your boyfriend wasn’t going to jump me the second we stepped outside.”

“Boyfriend?” You seem genuinely taken aback by the assumption.

“Harrington,” he clarifies, although he’s not sure why he should be.

Until you laugh. It’s soft and tender, but it’s a laugh nonetheless.

“Steve’s not my boyfriend,” you state in between giggles, “He’s madly in love with Wheeler. God, does the whole school think we’re dating? He’s gonna hate that. Poor Nancy.”

Eddie blinks. Seems Julie’s information was correct, but it still doesn’t explain the closeness and the banter the entire cafeteria was witness to. He feels weird for letting this bother him so much and even though he usually has difficulties keeping his big mouth shut, he doesn’t want you thinking he’s some sort of pervert, so he doesn't say anything, simply bops his head.

Although, his silence doesn’t seem to deter you.

“I noticed you staring,” you admit, half a decibel lower. 

A fresh burger and fries land on the table, followed by a large Coca-Cola. The waitress mutters something along the lines of enjoy, then walks away to tend to another table.

Eddie doesn’t know what to do next: admit or deny. He’d rather go back to fifteen minutes ago when you were eating his food and he wasn’t talking. Therefore, he slides the burger closer to himself and in one swift motion, lifts it to his lips, taking a bite too big for his mouth. He doesn’t care what he looks like at the moment, he just needs to keep himself quiet before saying something else he’s going to regret.

Across the table, you’re all smiley again.

“Do you think, when you’re done eating, you could walk me home?” You ask, offering him a napkin. 

As he nods, he reaches for the paper cloth and his fingers brush yours delicately. There’s a zap of electricity, but if you feel it, you don’t react. Eddie’s continuing with the shyness, so he looks down at the burger in his hand and pretends nothing happened to him either.

It’s not until you lean over the table, index finger stretched and inching forward to touch his face, wiping leftover ketchup from the corner of his mouth, that the metal-head thinks maybe, just maybe, you feel some type of way about him too because that’s not what a person does for someone they only officially met minutes before.

Afterwards, you say, “I’ll tell you all about how I’ve been watching you too.”, and Eddie nearly chokes on his food.

thank you for reading & please support your writers by reblogging <3

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After I Was Too Late

This fic can be read as a stand-alone or as a sequel to Before I Could Say It.

The above image does not indicate the reader's physical appearance.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Synopsis: The three times Bucky saved your life, and the one time you save each other.

Word Count: 10.1k (I got carried away)

Warning(s): gn!reader (pls advise me if there's any gender-specific detail in the fic), canon typical violence, angst, fluff, near death experience(s), hurt/comfort, alcohol consumption, physical injuries, it's a kinder ending this time I promise 🥺❤️ (lmk if I missed anything!!)

Author's Note: PT 2 IS FINALLY HERE Y'ALL!! I'm so sorryy for the delay, my work has been out of control lately (I legit had to go home at 9.30 PM last week 😭🙏🏼). But I've finally finished this piece, and I hope you guys like it!! I'm tagging everyone who left a comment/reblog-comment on the first part but if you prefer to keep the ending to the fic as it was, then you can just skip reading this. And if any of you want to be removed from the taglist, please just let me know!! As always, don't forget to comment, like, and reblog 💖

If someone were to ask you about the beginning, your mind would immediately go straight to that day.

Six years ago, your thread of fate wove into his, placing the two of you on polar ends in the middle of a highway shoot-out that revealed the face beneath the infamous Winter Soldier's mask. You recognized him from the sketches littered across Steve Roger's desk: Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes—Bucky, as Steve had called him. A shadow of the past, long presumed gone to the clutches of war and time. 

Yet, there he was.

Alive and breathing.

And he was trying to kill you.

After the events in D.C., you helped the Captain search for the man who had risen from the dead. You saw Bucky's apartment in Bucharest—a depressing little hole in the wall that was barely suitable for a human being to live in. It nicked at your chest, wrestled with a docile side of your heart that you hadn't entertained since they had dubbed you one of earth's mightiest heroes. And when you finally stood in front of the man—not the Soldat, not the merciless assassin who had sliced a dagger to your side two years prior—your chest tapered at the quiet war waging behind his eyes.

“I wasn't in Vienna,” Bucky told Steve. His eyes flickered briefly towards you as he said it, willing, perhaps, for at least one person in that room to put their trust in him; the man standing vulnerably in that apartment, not the weapon he was forced to become. 

“I don't do that anymore,” he added.

You believed him.

Steve did, too.

The next few hours were a whirlwind of chasing and being chased. After Zemo broke the Winter Soldier out of the facility in Berlin, you took Steve and Sam to an abandoned site you once neutralized where the three of you could keep Bucky safe from the authorities. You watched from the sideline as Steve interrogated Bucky for answers, listening intently while the Captain and the Falcon began rummaging their heads for a viable plan of action. 

Once Sam left to reach out to his contacts, Steve also excused himself from the room, muttering something about needing to make a phone call and leaving you alone with the burly man who was trying miserably to hide behind his curtain of hair.

Wordlessly, you walked towards the paper bag you kept on a rusty oil barrel, grabbing one of its contents before cautiously approaching the brooding man in the center of the room. Bucky looked up the moment you shoved the packaged croissant in his face, confusion shining with blue under the taut crease of dark eyebrows.

“Take it,” you said simply.

Bucky's frown deepened as he stared at your hand. 

You masked the sinking feeling in your stomach with a sigh, putting the package next to the makeshift chair Bucky was sitting on. 

“You haven't eaten since yesterday.” Your hands were buried in the pocket of your jeans as you spoke, hiding the tremble in them so the man in front of you wouldn't see just how much your heart was breaking for him. “We have a long journey ahead of us. And if Steve is anything to go by when it comes to a super soldier's calorie intake, you must be running on extreme deficit by now.”

Bucky stayed silent. 

You scraped the ground with the toe of your shoes, trying to fill in the quietness as you rambled, “I would've loved to prepare you a nice three-course meal, but considering half of the world is on our asses, I didn't think you'd mind a small downgrade. Believe me, I'd kill for a real croissant right now. There's a bakery near the Avengers’ old tower whose owner makes the best chocolate and butter croissants. They're fantastic. This one tastes like a foam board compared to them.”

Bucky continued to stay silent, only perusing you under his intense gaze. You rubbed the back of your neck and managed an awkward chuckle. “You know what? You don't have to eat that. It tastes terrible anyway. I'll just throw it out. Let me see if the pigeons would like some.”

You reached out to grab the plastic packaging, but Bucky stopped you in tracks, grabbing the croissant with a hesitant drag of his hand.

“Thank you,” he muttered curtly.

The sight in front of your eyes would have made you chortle under any other circumstances—the ludicrousness of seeing a Herculean with a metal arm grappling with the flimsy packaging of a factory-made pastry. The croissant was ridiculously small in Bucky’s hand, and you felt foolish for thinking it could offer anything close to sufficient sustenance for a man his size. He could probably devour the whole thing in a single bite and still be starving.

And yet, before he even savored a taste, Bucky tilted the croissant towards you in a silent proposition. An offer to share. To tear the pastry in two as if he didn't barely have enough for himself in the first place. The gesture lurched at something in your chest, winding down your ribs like overgrown vines.

You feigned a smile, feeling it crack around the sorrow you were desperately trying to quell. “That’s for you, Bucky,” you told him softly. “I have mine.”

The man nodded, hesitantly, as if the thought of having something to himself was stranger than fiction. He took a tentative bite, his forehead creasing as he chewed on the sad excuse of a pastry.

“Bad, huh?” You cringed sheepishly. “Told you. It's borderline inedible. You don't have to finish it if you don't want to.”

“I've had worse.”

You clenched your teeth. 

There was no room for doubt in your mind that he probably did have worse than an additive-laden confectionery.

“Yeah?” You didn't know why you were asking. “Like what?”

The metal fingers on Bucky's thigh whirred, like he was flexing, removing the stiffness in his joints if there had been flesh instead of vibranium. You waited with bated breath as he stared at a suspicious puddle on the ground.

“I was stuck in an underground cave system once,” Bucky began, pausing to take a tiny bite of the croissant. He looked defenseless that way. Almost like a child. “Spent a few days there. The only thing around me were bats.”

Your nose wrinkled. “You ate bats?”

Bucky didn't attempt to correct your assumption, just kept on munching on the artificial croissant as if he were a kid snacking on candy.

“Were they… good?”

Stupid.

What an incredibly, unbelievably stupid question.

“They were good enough to keep me alive.”

You didn't know what to say to that.

“Well,” you cleared your throat, “just tell me if you change your mind on that croissant. I can get you something else. Remember those pigeons I mentioned? They're not bats, but they've got, you know… protein.”

Then, upon some kind of miracle, it happened.

Bucky smiled.

It was brief, an ephemeral thing that evaporated by the next time you blinked, but it was there. As clear as day, as real as the foul smell of rotten carcasses that surrounded you in that dismal place.

You willed for the excitement in your belly to die down—the last thing Bucky needed was for you to go deranged over a mere smile, probably one of the firsts he allowed himself to have after decades of drought—giving Bucky a short nod before turning around to reward him some privacy, but you didn't go far before a rough voice halted your footsteps.

When your gaze landed on him again, Bucky was tense. His shoulders curled inward as if struggling desperately to keep himself small, his fingers twitched where they were curled around the half-eaten pastry.

“Are you okay?” he eventually asked.

“Me?” Your eyebrows knitted in a mixture of confusion and surprise. “Uh, I'm fine? Well, as fine as one can be after becoming a fugitive of the law, but otherwise—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

His scrutiny roved over your figure from the distance, as though his stare could penetrate through the deepest layer of skin, lighting up a flame that licked through every inch of your bloodstream. Blue irises jerked towards the side of your abdomen, a fleeting tic, but it was enough to force the realization to dawn on you.

Bucky was talking about your wound.

The laceration wound that he—no, that the Soldat—had administered during your altercation in D.C.

Instinctively, your hand lifted, brushing against the jagged scar that you knew was seething under the cover of your shirt. The simple movement didn't escape Bucky's notice, and you chastised yourself for your lack of consideration when you saw his body fold lower towards his knees.

“Bucky—”

“I'm sorry,” he said heavily, shakily. A striking fragility from a man who was supposed to be carved out of steel.

You shook your head in urgency, crossing the distance between you and him before stopping a good six feet away from the defeated man. He didn’t even look up at your proximity, keeping his head angled to the ground, shrinking more and more with every passing second as if he wanted to disintegrate into oblivion.

With careful strides, you removed the remaining space separating you and Bucky, sinking to your knee right in front of him. You called his name softly, begging him to glance up, coaxing him out of the shell of condemnation that he had crawled himself into.

When he finally peered at you, the blue of his eyes had dimmed into a stormy gray. You bit the inside of your cheek, fighting the urge to lean forward and gather this broken man into your arms.

“Bucky,” you called his name again, resolutely this time. Firm and steady, offering no room for even an ounce of doubt or a breath of protest. “It wasn't your fault.”

Bucky fleered.

“I mean it.” You searched his gaze, commanding him to stay there, to not run away from your eyes because you needed him to hear this. You needed him to believe. “I'm not gonna hold you accountable for what happened on that highway, or for anything else you might have done in the past few decades. None of that is your fault. They used you. You couldn't even remember your own name, let alone understand what HYDRA was forcing you to do. You're also a victim here, Bucky.”

He shook his head.

Your heart shattered into tiny little pieces all over the ground.

You shifted on the ball of your knee, sighing as you felt exhaustion pulling at your limbs. 

“Steve would agree,” you said quietly.

Those three words managed to snatch Bucky's attention.

“Actually, Steve does agree.” You glimpsed towards the entrance where the Captain had disappeared through earlier, swallowing the lump that had lodged itself in your throat. “It's the reason why he's here. The reason why we all are. He is the literal embodiment of everything good in this world, Bucky. And if Steve Rogers—Captain America himself—looks at you and sees someone worth saving, someone who deserves a second chance despite all that happened, then that says everything I need to know about the kind of man you truly are.”

You waited for something to shift, for the contempt in his eyes to dissipate, for the strain in his shoulders to melt, but nothing happened. He continued to drown, making no moves to get himself out of the murky waters that were pulling him under.

“Everything that happened while you were under HYDRA’s control—the missions, the casualties—none of it is on you, Buck,” you pressed on. “The wound on my side? That wasn't your fault either. Hell, I was shooting at you, too! I didn't know who you were back then. You didn’t know me. You didn’t even know yourself. They made sure of that.”

You took a shuddering breath, physically readying yourself to voice the next conviction out loud.

“If someone has to carry the blame, it should be HYDRA,” you determined. “Not you, Bucky. Never you.”

The silence that followed was strangulating. You watched Bucky with heart in your throat, waiting for him to react, to do something or say something. Perhaps if he had cried, it would've been better. Because then, you might have been able to help, to offer him the solace of your arms, to teach him how he could peel back the guilt that was clinging to him like a second skin. 

Yet, Bucky just sat, still as a tombstone and quiet as a graveyard. 

The eerie calm before a catastrophic storm.

When he finally looked up, Bucky's eyes were a tempest—dark and turbulent, thundering with the repercussions of a hundred lifetimes he never asked to live.

“Maybe—” Bucky's voice quivered. He ran his flesh hand across his face and started over, “Maybe you're right.

Your chest staggered.

Before you could respond, Bucky's gaze dropped, teetering towards your side, as though he could see the ridges of skin underneath the cotton fabric of your shirt. The place where flesh had once split under a blade he hadn't even known he was holding.

On his knee, Bucky's fingers twitched, like he wanted to reach out, to inspect the remnant of the wound with his own flesh and skin but didn't know how to trust himself enough to do so.

His jaw tightened.

“But it was still me, wasn't it?” Bucky's breathing stammered. The words came out choked, as though the truth tasted like rust on his tongue. “I was still the one holding the knife, Sugar.”

The nickname maimed you more than one could expect. Had Bucky said it with enough cynicism, maybe you would have chalked it up to bitterness and moved on. But he hadn't said it like that—he had said it with a devastating frailness, a frayed piece of another life bleeding through the cracks. It came from a version of him that had smiled at strangers and walked dates home in the rain, a boy from Brooklyn who probably said it with a charming grin and a flirtatious warmth.

Your heart broke for him all over again.

You ransacked your brain for something to say, to convince Bucky that he was wrong, but the sound of incoming footsteps stripped you of the chance, forcing you to quickly rise to your feet just in time for Sam and Steve to enter the room. Your conversation with Bucky was shoved to the backburner as the other two apprised you of your next step, both unaware of the tension stretching taut in the air, suspended between you and Bucky like a ghost no one else could see.

The next thing you knew, your life was unraveling like a house of cards in the span of one night. It felt like you blinked, and suddenly you were standing in the middle of a tarmac, staring down faces you used to sit with during breakfast and mission briefings, others who carried the weight of loyalty you could no longer afford.

The spider-like kid who loved to crawl on things was the first one you faced. He was nimble, all limbs and chatter, a fleck of innocence to testify to his lack of experience. You tuned out his nervous jokes and wide-eyed commentary as you focused on blocking each of his strikes, breathing through the ache in your ribs, willing your body to stay sharp.

But then, your instincts faltered.

The agonized sound wasn't loud, especially compared to the surrounding chaos that had befallen the airport. Your eyes flitted towards the man anyway, as if having a mind of their own, making you lose your footing for a fraction of second as your gaze landed on him from the distance.

Bucky.

The sight of him staggering back—blood blooming across his skin like a crimson tear—rustled an unknown weight within your chest. Natasha stood just a few paces away, her favorite knife in hand, the blade gleaming in the same shade of red running in rivulets down Bucky's cheek.

The moment of distraction was fleeting. Short. But it was the only opening your opponent needed to yank you off balance and send your back straight to the ground. 

“Sorry,” the Spidey kid huffed, straddling your legs, his grip surprisingly strong for someone built like a string bean in spandex. “Big fan, though. Seriously. Hey, crazy idea. Maybe after all of this, you can sign my—”

He never got the chance to finish his sentence.

With a drive of your elbow to his side, coupled with a shove of your knee to his chest, Spidey was now the one pinned to the ground—winded limbs and spayed webbing as he stared up at the clouds. You rose to your feet with a heaving chest, the ground trembling beneath your boots as you stole a moment to breathe.

You didn't even notice the light shifting in the sky.

Your reflexes awakened a second too late, stirring only when a dark shadow swept over your head. There was no time to run. Whatever protective measure you could whip up, whatever direction your feet could carry you in a matter of seconds, the end result was clear—you wouldn't be able to make it out of there unscathed.

Or at least, you should not have been able to make it out of there unscathed—but you did.

Because Bucky Barnes—the Winter Soldier, the man whose name was whispered between cautions of death and terror—had saved you.

He lunged from somewhere behind the smoke, arms wrapping around your frame before shoving you forward and down. The force of the blast rocked the ground as a small aircraft detonated a few yards away, radiating a heat so raging it licked at your back. Debris rained down all around you as Bucky’s body remained curled over yours, shielding you from the worst of it, lying like a fortress between you and the explosion's aftermath.

For a moment, all you could hear was your own ragged breathing. Your ears were still ringing when Bucky finally stood up, pulling you by your elbow to your slightly unsteady feet. He examined you from head to toe, his grounding touch remaining steadfast around your forearm, eliciting goosebumps.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

You nodded, still in shock. Still breathless.

“Bucky.” Your fingers convulsed, moving up to clutch his jacket and stopping once you thought better of it. “You saved me.” 

He didn't answer at first, and when he did, his eyes evaded yours, jaw clenching as his gaze meandered somewhere distant. “It's the least I could do.”

Then, that same gaze moved, lowering until it settled on your side. You didn’t need him to spell it out to know exactly what he was thinking. The wound had been his doing once, delivered by a man with the same face but none of the same mercy. The shadow of a life that felt like his own but one he gravely wished to relinquish.

You felt the phantom sting of it then, not from the wound, but from the way Bucky was assessing it—like he was measuring his worth by the depth of that scar. Like saving you had been a down payment for a debt he could never repay.

Your mouth parted, already halfway to saying something, anything, that might severe the penance he had inflicted upon himself.

But before you could say a word, the world raged again, sending ripples of a faraway explosion that rattled the earth.

You swallowed hard, grounding yourself as you imparted, “We need to get to the jet.”

Bucky nodded once, his stature straightening as if his resolve had always been intact. The two of you broke into a sprint immediately, side by side, boots striking the tarmac in tandem as the smoke closed in all around you.

That was the first time Bucky Barnes saved your life.

And you knew, as you dashed across the airport grounds, that it wouldn't be the last.

After two years in Wakanda—two years since the disastrous battle on that infamous airport—you were finally bringing Bucky back home to New York.

Tony was not happy when he greeted the two of you at the compound, and you were even less thrilled to see him after everything that went down following his support for the Sokovia Accords—which, to your delight, had officially been nullified. Tony had promised he would play nice, and that included absolving Bucky—or at least, trying to—for all of the crimes that HYDRA forced him to do. It wasn't ideal, but it was a start; a show of good faith as Tony pledged to assist Bucky's recovery in every (financial) way possible.

Still, that didn't stop you from making sure that you walked in front of Bucky while the two of you were approaching the front gate, offering yourself as a human barrier should the philanthropist do anything untoward.

The first few weeks at the compound were dedicated towards ensuring a seamless transition for Bucky. From creating his daily schedule, vouching for a potential therapist, to showing him the nooks and crannies of his new home—you tackled every single task with purpose; convincing yourself that it was about structure, routine, and reintegration, but deep down, you knew better.

It was about keeping him close. Keeping him safe.

And maybe, that was exactly why you found yourself lashing out at Steve when he told you, a few weeks later, that Bucky would be sent on his first mission as an Avenger.

“This is bullshit,” you seethed, your fingers curling around the edge of the conference table in a death grip. “It's barely been two months and already they wanna send him back out there? After everything he's been through?”

The Captain sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don't like this anymore than you do—”

“Then stop it.”

“I tried!” Steve's eyebrows creased, his mouth pressed into a thin line. It was a rare sight to see Captain America this upset. “The higher-ups were asking questions, and his therapist already told them that Buck is ready. I tried talking to him about it, but he's adamant to go. There's nothing else I can do.”

“There's always something,” you retorted. “Maybe you just haven't tried hard enough.”

Despite how much your words stung, Steve forced himself to move past it. He knew they hadn't come from a place of malice. Instead, it had come from a place of affection—perhaps even love—a protectiveness he also shared towards a certain super soldier with a metal arm.

“Look,” Steve began, shifting in his seat, “have you ever thought that maybe this is what Bucky needs?”

Your head snapped up.

Steve took your silence as a cue to continue, “We know he hasn't forgiven himself yet. Not fully. And that's understandable, isn't it? Maybe what he needs, right now, is the chance to make it right. Maybe going on a mission—one he actually chooses to partake in, where he knows something good will come out of it—could be Bucky's way of making his amends.”

The Captain trailed off, letting his words linger above the tense atmosphere of the conference room.

You hated how much it made sense.

With a drop of your shoulders, you pinned your stare on the faraway wall, biting the inside of your cheek before mumbling, “Fine.”

Steve smiled, ready to wrap up the conversation once and for all when your voice interrupted him, “But I'm going.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” You got up from your own chair and sauntered towards the door, flicking a firm glance towards Steve that left no room for objection. “I'm not gonna stop you from assigning Bucky to that mission. But if he's coming, then I'm coming, too. And there's nothing you can do to stop me.”

In the end, Steve had relented, and what was once supposed to be a three-person crew's mission became four as you, Bucky, Sam, and Maria Hill took off towards Panama City.

Interference hailed the four of you upon arrival, running you into more hostiles than the initial intel had suggested. Despite your time away in Wakanda, your instincts didn’t waver. The rhythm came back effortlessly, muscle memory filling in the gaps left by your mind without a sliver of hesitation. 

However, between every swift kick and  precise strike, your focus frayed. Not from fear, but from a certain super soldier who was never out of your sight for long. Your gaze strayed to his silhouette again and again, making you stumble more times than you cared to admit, trying desperately to stand your ground in your own fight while keeping an eye on him all at once.

It was reckless.

And it was precisely why, as you realized too late, you ended up failing to notice the grenade.

“Watch out!”

Two strong arms—one flesh and one vibranium—shoved you out of the explosion's radius, a flying shrapnel missing your head by inches as your shoulder crashed against the ground. Bucky got thrown immediately on impact, sent over the edge of the skyscraper as the ground started to crack, fragment, and disintegrate into nothing.

“No!”

Horror erupted in your stomach at the building's cession to gravity. You scampered forward, dropping to your hands and knees to lean over the skirt where floor was supposed to be. Your relief escaped in a stammered breath when you spotted Bucky a couple of stories down, still alive, dangling by his flesh arm around the corner of a deteriorating girder.

A window pane launched into the air.

Bucky's agonized scream ripped through the chaos the moment it rammed against his left shoulder.

Something in your guts twisted at the sight of artificial axons peeking out of the ripped seams of his tactical jacket. Blood soaked through the torn fabric, staining the silver beneath in unforgiving red. 

“Bucky!” Your pulse hammered. “Don't move, I'm coming to get you!”

“Don't.” Bucky's voice was stern. Final. “You gotta get outta here before the whole thing collapse.”

“I'm not leaving here without you!”

Inside your earpiece, noises began to crackle. 

“Guys?” Maria's voice emerged. The sound of punches and clatter reverberated from her end of the line. “I think I need some help over here.”

“Go help Maria,” Bucky commanded.

“But you—”

“Sugar.” 

The nickname halted you in place. Bucky was smiling as he looked up at you, although you knew that it was nothing more than a facade. Any other person would have been fooled by his performance, but you could easily pinpoint the shadow of a grimace he was trying to conceal, the exhaustion crippling his body as he struggled to hold himself up at an angle that wouldn't put additional strain to the already splintering steel beam.

Blue eyes softened. “I'm gonna be fine. You should go.”

Your throat constricted.

You crouched frozen on the ledge, the roar of distant gunfire echoing through the shattered high-rise. Fifty stories below, parts of the building's skeleton scattered on the ground. Your hand twitched towards Bucky, wanting to reach out, desperate to haul him back into your arms, but the chasm between you felt impossibly wide.

Meanwhile, Maria's grunts and struggle continued to echo in your ears as she seemed to wrestle a few assailants at once. You knew you should go to her aid. You knew this wasn’t the time for hesitation.

And yet… Bucky.

His lips were still curled into that easy smile—the same one he shared with you during clandestine moments around the compound, because this side of Bucky Barnes was one he reserved specifically for you. His knuckles had gone white from supporting his entire weight, the beam creaking under the slightest sway of his body, jerking slightly. 

“I don’t—” Your voice cracked. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I do,” he said gently, as if he weren't hanging by one arm over nothing but air. “You save her.”

You could barely breathe. 

The seconds were ticking—Maria was calling for help, and Bucky was slipping.

You weren’t enough to save both of them.

“Sam,” you gasped, pressing your hand to the comms. Static was the only response, and you prayed to the heavens above that wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he could listen to your plea. “You’ve gotta get to Bucky. Now. He’s gonna—I can’t—just… please.”

There was a beat of silence, the kind that stretched longer than a lifetime.

Just when you began to think he wasn't going to answer, Sam's voice fizzled in, “On my way.” 

The comms fell silent again.

A violent wind tore through the air, hitting like a freight train.

The steel girder—the one remaining lifeline fastening Bucky to this world—buckled with a piercing screech.

In the blink of an eye, the girder snapped.

“BUCKY!”

A blur of silver and red swooped below him in the same breath, and before you could lunge forward to follow Bucky as he fell, Sam was there—arms locked securely around Bucky’s torso, wings flaring wide to steady the sudden addition of weight. Bucky’s head dropped against Sam’s shoulder, dazed but alive. Your whole limbs teetered towards the verge of liquefying as your lungs finally released the air you didn’t know you were holding.

“You okay, man?” Sam’s voice chirped through your earpiece. “Christ, what did they feed you in Wakanda?”

A sound escaped your chest—something between a strangled sob and a wry laugh.

Gathering yourself, you pressed another hand to the comms, rising to your feet and sprinting towards the server room as you announced, “Hang on tight, Maria. I'm on my way.”

By the time you and Maria went back to the safehouse over an hour later, Sam and Bucky were already there. Bucky was lying on the couch the moment you strode in, his metal arm detached and thrown almost haphazardly on the coffee table while Sam tinkered with Redwing on the kitchen counter.

From the bandage wrapped around Bucky's shoulder, you knew that the on-site medical android had taken a look at him already, but the anxiety in your mind still wasn't pacified. It dribbled all over the floor as you marched towards him, your body shaking partly from the adrenaline still coursing through your veins, but also from the anger and dread boiling in your blood.

“Why the hell did you do that?!”

Venom leaked from your voice the moment you approached the couch. Behind you, Sam and Maria fell silent, readying themselves for the imminent confrontation ahead. Bucky's face remained impassive as he rose to a seating position, a faint tug at the corner of his lips.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

“Don't fucking sweetheart me.”

Your chest rose and fell in a dizzying rythm, daggers flying from your eyes towards the man in front of you. The same one who had nearly, stupidly welcomed death into his arms due to some kind of foolish heroism embedded in his principles. The one who was currently looking at you with cerulean eyes so tender it almost made you forget that he was close to slipping from your fingers a mere hour earlier.

Bucky let out a sigh. “I'm okay.”

“Quit talking to me like I'm stupid, Bucky. We all can see your ripped metal arm on the table. Your bandaged shoulder.”

 “It's nothing.”

“It's not nothing!”

“It's nothing compared to what I've suffered before.”

An incredulous laugh tore from your larynx, sharp and sardonic. It was the only thing keeping the lump inside from choking you whole. “Just because you've survived worse doesn't mean you're fucking invincible, Buck! You could've died. You almost died. If Sam hadn't got there in time, you would've—”

The words wedged in your throat.

Your eyes fell shut as you expelled the images of Bucky dangling between life and death out of your mind. 

Gentle fingers encircled your wrist. You gasped at the sudden warmth surrounding you, opening your eyes to find that Bucky had tugged you closer to stand between his parted knees. Your palms automatically landed on the column of his neck, chest pounding at the unbearable softness shining out of Bucky’s eyes. 

This was new territory—Bucky had always treated closeness like something fleeting, something borrowed. His touches, his embraces, were often hesitant, as though affection was a luxury he couldn’t afford. But now, he held you like he had done it a thousand times before, like your body against his was the very thing chaining him to reality. His hand curled firmly around your waist, anchoring himself, grounding his entire existence to the certainty of your presence.

“Hey,” Bucky said, squeezing your side lightly. “I'm right here, Sugar. I'm alright.”

Your chest burned. “We almost lost you.”

“But you didn't.”

“But what if we had?!”

“Then you should take solace in the knowledge that I haven't gone in vain.”

Your fingers clenched around the edge of Bucky's shoulders, nails branding crescent moons into the skin. He didn't even flinch.

“You don't need to sacrifice your life for me, Bucky. I don't need that kind of thing on my conscience,” you spat.

“I wouldn't call it a sacrifice, sweetheart,” Bucky said firmly, resolutely. “If that's what it takes to keep you safe, then I'd gladly take the fall.”

Bucky's declaration propelled the tears you had been desperately trying to contain to the forefront. A strangled whimper shredded from your lips. You quickly tried to mask it with a scowl.

“That's the very definition of a ‘sacrifice’, you idiot.”

“Not in my book.” Bucky smiled. “Not when it's you.”

Before he could say another word, you removed the distance between you and threw yourself in his arms. The dam within you finally caved in, freeing the ragged sobs you had been trying to keep at bay. Your tears stained the collar of his undershirt, your arms locking around him tightly as though sheer willpower might fetter him to you, to life itself.

He staggered slightly under your weight, grunting from the pull on his wounded shoulder, but his hand—his only hand—immediately rose to your back, fingers splayed as they began tracing slow, calming patterns across your spine. 

“Don’t ever do that again,” you whispered hoarsely. “Don’t throw yourself in front of danger for me. I don't ever want to watch you fall like that again. I can’t—”

“I know,” Bucky murmured, pressing his cheek to your temple. “I know, Sugar.”

“Promise me,” you croaked out.

He stilled for a second. “I can't,” Bucky said breathlessly. “I'd do it again in a heartbeat, sweetheart. I’ll always choose to save you.”

A fresh wave of tears surged behind your eyes. Your fingers curled tighter into the fabric of his undershirt. You hated him for that. 

And you loved him even more because of it.

From behind you, someone cleared their throat. 

“I hate to interrupt the Notting Hill shit we’ve got going on here,” Sam said, “but is anyone else starving or is it only the guy who just saved Barnes’ ass?”

The evening wind bit your cheeks the moment you stepped out of the bar. In a chorus of jovial shrieks and mischievous laughter, your friends from the Academy all bid each other goodbye—some heading straight home, some scuttering after the next round of drinks and fun, but all equally giddy and tipsy—stumbling on the curb and crashing against unassuming lamp posts.

“Sure you're not coming?” one of your friends asked.

“No, told you I've got an early morning tomorrow,” you slurred slightly, shaking your head twice when the face in front of you began to blur around the edges.

“Okay. Text me when you get home!”

You waved them off with a lopsided smile, turning on your heel and starting the slow trek back to the station. The pavement felt oddly slanted under your feet, and you blamed the tequila for the fifth time that night. The wind swept down the empty street, nipping at your exposed skin, sending discarded wrappers tumbling aimlessly along the sidewalk.

“Hey, Gorgeous! You need a ride?” a voice called out.

You didn’t bother looking. The city was full of idiots, and you weren’t in the mood for petty confrontations when your balance already wavered like a tightrope walker with a death wish.

You were in the midst of stifling a yawn when your foot unexpectedly hit a shallow crack in the pavement, pitching your body forward, arms flailing wildly before you caught yourself mid-fall.

The voice spoke again, this time laced with a grin that lit a match in the back of your mind, “Careful, sweetheart. Steve's gonna be pissed if you break an ankle before the mission tomorrow.”

Your eyes snapped up.

Leaning against a dark motorcycle across the street, like some kind of B-list actor playing a bad boy in a trashy movie franchise, was none other than Bucky Barnes. He looked way too good for someone who just watched you nearly eat concrete—leather jacket unzipped, gloved hand resting on the handlebar, and an easy smile tugging at his lips. 

Your face broke into an instantaneous grin.

“Bucky, what are you doing here?”

You skipped across the street without looking. The squeal of tires resonated in the air, blaring horns and flashing headlights as you registered too late the oncoming car speeding your way. You stumbled in your haste to escape the street, to save yourself before your crushed skull and its content became the next headline for tomorrow's 6 A.M. news.

But before gravity could make a fool out of yourself, Bucky’s arms were already around you. He caught your body with ease, keeping your face from planting onto the curb, his broad frame shielding you from the splash of puddle as the honking car zipped past. 

“Jesus, sweetheart,” he muttered, his metal fingers squeezing your hip, “you lookin’ to give an old man a heart attack?”

“Sorry,” you offered sheepishly, willing the percussion in your chest to assuage. “Thanks for saving me.”

“I'd save you anytime and anywhere, Sugar.” Bucky smiled, his gaze soft and genuine despite the flirtatious nature of his words. “But it'd be nice if I didn't have to do it all the time.”

You feigned a gasp. “And here I thought you were my personal hero on call, Buck.”

The man in front of you laughed—a carefree thing with his head thrown back, ocean blue glinting under the paltry luminance of streetlights. You stepped out of his embrace with great reluctance, shivering slightly in the absence of Bucky's warmth.

The motion didn't escape Bucky's notice. “Did you not bring a jacket?”

“I did.” You wrapped yourself with your own arms, stroking the goosebumps away with your palms. “I lent it to my friend and I guess… well, I forgot to ask for it back.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

“Because everyone knows how kind, selfless, and generous I am?” You grinned.

Bucky didn't say anything in return. Instead, he made quick work shedding the jacket off his back, revealing the outline of muscles under the gorgeous cover of dusty blue henley. Your throat went dry, every nerve ending lighting up in fireworks when Bucky stepped forward, draping the leather garment around your shoulders.

“There you go. That would have to do for now,” he muttered.

His fingertips brushed your neck as he tugged the leather collar closer around you. The scent of coffee, mint, and something indistinguishably Bucky attacked your senses, stealing your breath and leaving the taste of longing on your tongue. He looked at you in that same infuriating tenderness that made your insides spume, reduced to tiny bubbles filled with hope and yearning.

“Thanks,” you breathed out once he withdrew. “By the way, how come you're here? I thought you had that mission with Nat today.”

“I did,” Bucky replied, burying his hands in his jeans’ pockets. 

Your forehead creased. “No way. Did you bail?”

“Are you crazy? Steve would have my ass.”

“Then…” 

“Came straight from the jet,” he said casually, the impish quirk of his lips giving him away before his words even landed.

“You what?” You gawked. “Are you serious? Did you even debrief with Steve before you went here?  Did you even go to the medbay? At all?”

“It was just recon.” He shrugged, far too nonchalant for your liking. “Nat can handle the debrief. She did all the sneaking around anyway, I barely lifted a finger.”

“That’s not the point.” You groaned, massaging the headache that had started gnawing at your temple. “Who cares if it was just recon, Bucky? The procedure says you're to go to the medbay after every mission. The rule is there for a reason. What if you were injured but you didn't even notice? What if you were exposed to a dangerous substance while you were on the field? It's incredibly reckless, stupid, and—”

Your words dissolved the moment his hands cupped your cheeks.

Bucky studied your countenance in silence, his eyes delicate, his thumbs gentle as they skimmed along your jaw. He smiled at you as if your soul was scribbled in a script only he could decipher. An intimate secret shared between the meager spaces the two of you occupied in this infinite universe.

Your breath hitched.

Everything around you tilted on its axis, the world dulling into a distant hum to make room for the cosmic threads tethering you both to each other. His eyes were tired as they locked onto yours, but behind the muted blue, something else shone through—something steadfast and searing, like an eternal flame trapped in the most secluded heights of the Himalayan range.

“I’m okay,” he said at last, voice low but certain. “I’m right here, and I’m okay.”

You didn't blink—you couldn't.

Your chest deflated in the aftermath of worry, the relief sweeping through you like a tide pulling back after a storm. Bucky withdrew, his hands leaving your face in a parting goodbye, and you had to fight the urge to yank him back in, to stay in the fragile moment that had cracked open between the two of you.

“‘Sides,” he drawled, a teasing glint replacing the ferocity in his eyes, “if I didn't pick you up, you'd probably end up passed out in a dumpster somewhere. Can't have you jeopardizing the mission like that, can I?”

You groaned and shoved his shoulder. “Ass.”

Bucky chuckled, rounding the bike before handing you a helmet. “C'mon, lightweight.”

You rolled your eyes, although the blooming smile on your face betrayed the faux irritation as you climbed onto the motorcycle. Bucky was warm in front of you, your arms finding purchase around his waist the second the engine roared to life, buildings and trees alike blurring past as the two of you sped through the streets of New York.

This time, you held Bucky a little tighter than usual, just in case he forgot how much it mattered that he made it home safely.

The pain was the first thing your brain registered.

Lights spilled through the all-encompassing darkness, rousing you awake, filling the gaps in your mind with an awareness of life. The ache traveled through your body in an unimaginable speed, a ravenous beast as it ate away your soul, and you could barely contain the pained whimper before it tumbled free out of your lips.

Something engulfed your hand.

Warmth.

“Sugar?”

You whimpered louder.

“Shit." There was a rustling by your side before the same voice sprouted again, “Hang on, sweetheart. I'll get the doctor.”

Time stumbled in and out of your grasp. You thought you could hear several voices conversing in the room not long after. One of them, unrecognizable in your ears but settled deeply within your chest, rose above all of them. It sounded desperate, broken, as if the person had attempted to barter with God using merely a mangled heart and a splintered spine.

“...please,” you caught him say, the end of a sentence blown by the breeze before you could curl your fingers around it.

“I understand, Barnes,” another voice spoke. “We'll take care of it. Just wait outside, will you?”

A pair of hands proceeded to roam over your body. You felt the pull of consciousness behind your eyelids, heaving you out of the void, an aimless ghost slipping violently back into flesh.

You gasped.

The world returned in a fragmented mosaic—white ceiling, antiseptic air, and a beeping monitor that echoed stubbornly beside your ear. Inside your body, a burning agony erupted. It sank into the deepest corners of your being, clutching around your lungs, turning you into nothing more than a wailing heap of muscles and bones.

“Hey, hey, easy now,” came a calm voice. 

The words arrived in the company of gentle hands, too cold for your liking, but they were a reprieve nonetheless. The face in front of you zoomed in and out of focus like moonlight dancing across shattered glass, the contours merging and sundering as they finally morphed into the features of a familiar friend. 

Dr. Helen Cho.

She pressed the back of her hand to your forehead before shining a penlight into your eyes. “Pupils reactive. That’s good. Welcome back.”

You blinked away the harsh light from your vision, wincing when the effort sent a jolt of pain through your neck and shoulder. Your lips parted in an attempt to speak, but your throat felt like it had been shoved with hot coals, shredding your voice into nothing more than a torn, fragile snivel.

“W-what… what happened?” you croaked out.

“You were shot,” Helen answered. “Do you remember?”

Just like that, the memory barreled into you like a sucker punch to the face.

Images of drab walls and ceilings, the sight of mold and moss co-existing with dead rodents’ remains filled your mind. The abandoned building once posed as the warehouse of an illegal bio-weaponry enterprise that had long ceased to operate. The Avengers’ presence on site was supposed to be a straightforward recon—gather the intel on the culpable syndicate, perhaps scour for names complicit in supplying the deadly goods in the first place—and it was implied as such on the case files given to the entire team.

No one could have predicted that the simple job would turn into an ambush.

Your mind began flipping through the pages of memory, recalling how it took you no time at all to neutralize the four agents sent your way. Under different circumstances, you might have felt offended by the measly number of hostiles assigned to you—had your thoughts, of course, not already been preoccupied with a certain super soldier. Still, any insolent disparagement your opponent once hurled at your combat abilities was indefinitely put on ice as you dashed across the site's west wing.

By the time you arrived, Bucky was already cornered.

Instinct, and something else akin to protectiveness, fueled your movements as you thundered into the room. Most of the assailants were already lying in stacks on the floor, the rest following suit with every deliberate strike you threw their way. Your chest rose and fell in erratic bursts, each breath scraping your throat as the last body hit the ground.

Across the room, Bucky rose from behind the makeshift fortress, aiming his gun before stopping dead in tracks. The corner of your mouth lifted when your gazes found each other.

“Hi, handsome. Miss me?”

Bucky let out a rough breath, his grip around the gun loosening. “Was wondering when you'd show up, sweetheart.”

He stood up and approached you in merely four strides, smiling so sweetly as though your presence in front of him had been God's own gift to mankind. You fought off a shudder and attempted nonchalance as your palm brushed the dust off his shoulder.

“Sorry, Sarge. You know I like to keep people on their toes.”

The grin on Bucky's face expanded. He bumped his shoulder to yours, the two of you heading for the exit as Bucky started requesting for extraction through his comms.

A split second was all it took for everything to go sideways.

You didn't know what compelled you to turn around for one last glance. Had you heard something? Felt something? Had the hairs on the back of your neck sensed the imminent danger before your brain could even begin processing it? 

It was impossible to say, but something dragged your gaze over your shoulder, an invisible hook yanking you back just in time to catch the glint of metal under the scanty light. One of the bodies on the ground, presumed dead, had begun to stir. His arm trembled as he lifted his gun from the blood-slick floor, the barrel rising with all of the inevitability of a verdict carved in stone.

Your breathing caught.

Everything in your body told you to run. To take shelter behind the wooden crate in the corner of the room, call out a warning, anything. But you knew exactly where that gun was aimed, where that bullet would go if you dared to move even an inch.

Straight into Bucky.

The whole world narrowed. What happened next wasn't a choice—it was a decision your body made under direct instructions of your heart, born not from years of training but from the gentle fondness you harbored for the man beside you. It commanded you to hold your ground, freezing your limbs, your chest pounding as though wishing to somehow intercept the bullet before it could write the ending you weren’t ready to read.

Then, the shot rang out.

Everything else had transpired in a blur. You remembered certain bits and pieces through the fog in your mind—the pain on your neck, the retaliation shot Bucky had fired from his gun, the look of pure terror you saw on his face as he held your crumbling body before it could shatter against the concrete ground.

The confession.

“Bucky.” His name fled your lips before you could even think about it.

Helen's gaze softened. “He's outside. He's been here the whole time. Never left your side since the surgery.”

You swallowed, throat thick with the weight of half-formed questions. “H-How long…?”

“Thirty-eight hours,” she replied. “The bullet missed your artery by millimeters. We almost lost you a couple of times. You were extremely lucky this time, Agent.”

Your eyes closed momentarily. When they opened again, your gaze found Helen with an unshakable purpose. “Could you please send him in?”

The doctor gave you a single nod, landing a reassuring pat on your knee before leaving the room silently.

Not long after, the door opened with a quiet hiss.

The sight of Bucky standing in the doorway smashed your heart into a million little pieces.

His hair was unkempt, sticking to different directions as if his fingers had run through them too many times to count. Even from the distance, you could still see how bloodshot his eyes were, how hollow and agonized they were under the harsh lighting of the room. He looked like a man who had outrun hell only to realize that it had made a home right inside his chest.

“Bucky,” you called out, slowly, gently.

His shoulders tensed at the sound of your voice.

Bucky's movement was tedious, as though it was painful for him to move, as though lifting his head required more strength than Atlas needed to carry the world on his shoulders. The moment his eyes met yours, something inside him cracked and splintered. 

“You're awake,” he said hoarsely.

“I am,” you replied, offering a soft, shaky smile. “I'm okay.”

Bucky didn't move.

He looked like he didn't even breathe.

It was as if an intangible weight had shackled itself around his ankles, stopping him in place. Bucky didn't try to fight it, to break himself out of the phantom hold he had been cast under. He just kept standing there, motionless, like he was afraid that if he came any closer, the fragile image of you in front of him—alive, breathing, and speaking—would vanish.

Your throat tightened.

“Buck,” you tried again, a tremor in your voice now, too. “Come here.”

His fingers twitched.

“Please.”

It was that single word that finally did it—the plea that fell onto him like a torrent on scorched earth.

He took one step, then another, erasing the distance between him and the bed with a slowness that might convince someone he was walking barefoot on shards of glass. You watched every inch of him draw nearer, his pain thick in the atmosphere of the room, heavier than the oxygen nesting in your lungs.

The hesitation returned when he reached your bedside, keeping him a good six inches away from you. He hovered in the space around the bed, uncertain, both of his hands clenching and unclenching like they wanted to hold you but were afraid you would completely dissipate like vapor under his touch.

You lifted your hand and reached out, tentatively, with the precision of someone trying to pet an easily-spooked cat. Eternity must have passed at least once or twice when your fingers finally brushed the inside of his wrist.

That was all it took.

The singular touch was all it took for Bucky Barnes—the Winter Soldier, the man with the power of a collapsing star, who had faced death and catastrophe greater than anybody else on earth could ever imagine—to entirely crumble under your palms.

A sound escaped him—something torn and guttural and not meant for human ears to hear. He fell to his knees beside the bed, clutching your hand like it was the only echo of mercy in a world that had offered him none. His head bowed against your stomach, shoulders shaking violently with the aggressive sobs he could no longer contain in his chest.

Your own tears spilled out of you in a tide stronger than the Pacific current, staining your cheeks as you brought your other hand to cradle the back of Bucky's head, threading your fingers through the short tendrils.

“I’m okay. I'm okay, Bucky, I'm fine,” you whispered, over and over, each word a balm against the searing agony inside his bloodstream. “I’m right here, darling. I'm okay now.”

“But you weren’t,” he choked, the sound of his anguish slicing your nerves deeper than the sharpest dagger ever could. “You weren’t, a-and God, I thought I lost you, sweetheart. I was holding you, tried to stop the blood—there was so much blood—and you just… you just went still. Was so cold and still and I couldn't—I didn't know what to do.”

“Bucky.” Your voice quivered. “I'm here, baby. You didn’t lose me.”

“I almost did.” 

His head rose, and your breath halted in your throat at the sight or red in Bucky’s eyes. He was not someone who cried often—perhaps it was the archaic 40s’ notion of masculinity that was still embedded in his system—and the only time you had seen him cry was back in Wakanda, when you and Ayo stood by him in the vulnerable moment that confirmed the severance of HYDRA's control over his soul.

Somehow, this Bucky—the one kneeling in front of you—looked even more shattered than the one in your memory.

“Your heart stopped, Sugar,” Bucky continued, the weight of his words pressing and twisting your ribs until you were nothing but a mire. “You weren’t breathing. So cold and stiff, and I… Shit—I didn't know if you'd make it. Had to do CPR the whole flight. Everyone told me to stop. They said y-you were gone. But I couldn't, Sugar. I just—I couldn't.”

“Bucky,” you whimpered. “Darling.”

“I thought I was too late,” he rasped, voice fracturing under the weight of a requiem still resonating in his chest. “I kept thinking if I'd been faster—if I’d stood closer—if I had just noticed sooner, then you… you would've…”

You cupped his face, forcing him to stop his self-torment and look up at you. To remind him that whatever horror still clawing at his being was no longer real, because you were fine, you were alive, and you were here with him. His cheeks were wet, flushed with the remnants of grief and an exhaustion that had been postponed for far too long. The pain in his eyes had dimmed the blue in his irises to gray.

“I'm fine now, Bucky,” you murmured, misty eyes and traces of salt on the tip of your tongue. “You did it. You saved me.”

“I shouldn't have had to,” he said, shaking his head as if trying to reject the truth. “You shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place. You should've been safe. I was supposed to protect you.”

“You did, Bucky. You did protect me.”

“Not enough.”

“Baby, look at me.” Your voice is firm, a lighthouse cutting through a war-born fog. Bucky's forehead furrowed as his eyes locked with yours, as if he still struggled to believe that the you in front of him weren't simply a mirage. “You brought me back, Buck. You didn’t lose me. I'm here because of you.”

His breath hitched.

His lips quivered.

You leaned down, pressing your forehead gently to his, ignoring the strain it caused to your wound because this—the man you held inside your palms, this tender moment you shared after everything the universe had put you through—was far more important than any pain you could ever feel.

“You didn't lose me,” you repeated.

There was silence in the next breath, a sacred one commonly heard in the space between lightning and thunder. You could feel his every exhale, shallow and staggered, like a beast coaxed out of fight but still bristling with a proliferate instinct.

After a stuttered heartbeat, his metal arm slithered around your waist, his flesh one wrapping around your hand again, tighter this time.

“Say it again,” he begged, barely audible. “Please.”

“You didn't lose me,” you uttered. “I'm here, I’m alive, and I’m not going anywhere.”

He crushed you against him then—still careful, still gentle—but underneath the heedfulness, his desperation bled through. Gripping you like you were the only thing that mattered in this vast universe, like he wanted to fold you into himself and keep you some place where danger and death could never lurk over you again.

You felt Bucky's lips on your skin, grazing along your shoulder, moving up the curve of your neck, your jaw, and your cheek. Worshipping you with prayers shaped as a thousand reverent kisses, moving like he was searching for the evidence that you were real, like he was memorizing a miracle while time was still ticking.

And when his mouth finally found yours, the press of his lips wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t greedy.

It was trembling.

He kissed you as if you were the divine being who granted him life, respiring your moans and gasps as if they were the instruments needed to mend his ruptured soul. Bucky tasted like every future you were always too scared to envision for yourself—the promise of companionship, affection, and happiness that had once been too surreal for your heart to believe in. But now, in this moment with him, they all suddenly became inevitable.

You kissed him back, slowly, cradling his face between your hands to hold together all of the fractured pieces that forged his being. Time slipped away in the hush where sorrow once lived, getting you lost in everything Bucky, until eventually, your lungs had to force you to part and come up for air.

“I love you,” Bucky confessed, holding onto your wrists to keep you tethered to him. To this moment. And to life itself.

Your thumb brushed the apple of his cheek, catching a silent tear, leaning in to steal another kiss from the corner of his mouth.

“I love you, too,” you whispered.

A sound between a sob and relief escaped him, and Bucky buried his face in the unwounded crook of your neck, breathing you in like he had been suffocating for days and had finally resurfaced for air. His arms stayed enveloped around you as he murmured praises against your skin—thanking the Gods for listening to his prayers, thanking the universe, thanking you. Paying reverence for the mercy that fate had bestowed over a mangled man such as himself.

You stayed like that for a long time. His weight against your side, his heartbeats slowly steadying beneath your touch. The monitors beeped gently beside you, grounding the two of you to reality, an anchor in the otherwise stagnant room. But in that moment, the only sound that mattered—the only one you cared about—was the soft inhale and exhale of your breaths, a proof of life, shared within the modest spaces that felt more freeing than a hummingbird flying over an open field.

Gradually, the room began to fade into silence.

And in the safety of Bucky's embrace, you had never appreciated the quiet more.

Taglist: @steph88x @athenabarnes @sugarmummystuff6 @wintercrows @jay-jaystevebuckyloki @spideysimpossiblegirl @vainillacookie @mazzaroni-cheese @killerwendigo @s-r-reads @nydubs @rafeskai @unpeellievable @thisismyacc11 @rimunagenius @buckygirls @buckyslove1917 @defn0tonyourleft @buhangini @infinitymitten @lemonhead456 @thescooponsof @buckytheloveofmylife95 @mizukiqr @littlegreenjellybean @p3nis-parker @shortlikerdj @onlyheluvsme @theschoolbasketcase @jjulesii @jvanilly @seaskysunrise @minminswag04 @dameronspector @buckybarnesfic @nameless-ken @marie-sworld @silverwolfeyes @idkitsem @waiting-so-long @redtabularasa @buckyinluv @ghostytoasty17 @moreadsfic @chlovocaine @mcira @personal-fanfic-storage @spookyreads @eternalsams @the-sunflower-room

---

play-by-play | b.b.

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

summary: you can’t stop posting live updates of the civil war

warnings: avenger!reader, fox shifter!reader, comedy, chaotic dumbass reader, grumpy bucky, the team is so done with reader’s shit, mentions of bucky’s past, swearing, civil war tension?, reader is team cap, suggestive content, fluff

a/n: guess who’s back bitches!!! this isn’t a request or anything, i just wanted to write some cw!bucky x reader. i promise i’m working on all the joaquin requests🤞🏻anyways enjoy lovelies :)

yourusername added to their story —>

[caption: sokovia accords?? ho what?!]

story replies

user1: lmao

user2: girl get over it🙄

user3: y’all need to be kept in check….

steverogers: y/n delete this

user4: you’re so real for this

jamesrhodes: 🤦🏿‍♂️🤦🏿‍♂️

liked by wandamaximoff, samwilson, mariahill, and others

yourusername: throwback to that time my future husband almost killed my friends and i

tagged: @/steverogers @/samwilson @/natasharomanoff

view comments below

user5: GIRL WHAT?!

wandamaximoff: so that’s the guy you keep bringing up👀😲

user6: ho is that the winter soldier???

user7: wait a damn min—

user8: THE WINTER SOLDIER?!?!

user9: i don’t think y/n is okay…

user10: girl we been knew

steverogers: please stop calling bucky your future husband

user11: 😭😭

user12: y/n really out here tryna date cap’s brainwashed bestie from the forties

user13: honestly bucky barnes is so hot tho

samwilson: can your future husband stop leading us on a wild goose chase🙄

yourusername: that would be nice😔

user14: lmaoooooo

steverogers: please stop encouraging her, sam

user15: i’m convinced y/n was dropped on the head as a baby

yourusername: bold of you to assume i was held

user16: i—

user17: girl are you okayyyyy????

yourusername: don’t ask stupid questions

steverogers: this is why tony and i tried to get you to go to therapy🤦🏼‍♂️

natasharomanoff: when did you even have time to take these pics??

yourusername: uhhhhhhh

yourusername: so i may or may not have had time to prevent you getting shot….

natasharomanoff: …

nastasharomanoff: i hate you

liked by samwilson, natasharomanoff, sharoncarter, and others

yourusername: rip peggy carter but sam and i are slaying

tagged: @/samwilson

view comments below

user18: HELLOOOOO?????

user19: peggy carter: slayed. sam and y/n? SLAYED

user20: 😭😭

user21: OH MY GOD😭

sharoncarter: it’s what she would have wanted😔✊

yourusername: pouring one out for a legend😔✊

user22: peggy so would have wanted this!!😭

user23: omg i’m crying

user24: THIS is how i find out?!

samwilson: i would like everyone to know that cowboy hat did wonders for me

yourusername: save a horse, ride a cowboy

yourusername: except it’s more save a horse, ride a bird?

user25: y/n what😭

steverogers: i don’t even know what to say right now…

user26: rip to a real one

yourusername added to their story —>

[caption: HUBBY NO!!!!]

story replies

steverogers: y/n…..🤦🏼‍♂️

user27: so sorry babes…..

user28: rip✊

natasharomanoff: y/n. people are dead….

user29: girl, stop simping for a literal terrorist

user30: this is not it….

liked by sharoncarter, samwilson, clintbarton, and others

yourusername: my pookie and i have been reunited🥰❤️

view comments below

samwilson: awwww…..fuck your husband

yourusername: i’m trying….

user31: 😳😭

user32: y/n😭😭

user33: why the winter soldier kinda….

user34: frfr👀

user35: he’s a literal terrorist. what is wrong with you people!

user36: still hot🤷‍♀️

user37: convinced y/n has like a dash cam on her harness or smth bc….

steverogers: why do i even bother🙄

user38: cap’s face😭😭

user39: watched the chase on the news, you hopping onto barnes’ back to get off the building was hilarious😭

user40: omg i saw thattttt

user41: and when he just tossed her to the side after by picking her up by the scruff😭😭

yourusername added to their story —>

[caption: the fucking audacity these bitches have…]

story replies

user42: awwwww

user43: why didn’t you just shift back😭😭

samwilson: deserved

yourusername: 🖕

natasharomanoff: they leashed you???

jamesrhodes: saving this for blackmail purposes

user44: why do you look so happy tho😭

yourusername: saw the love of my life

liked by jamesrhodes, natasharomanoff, tonystark, and others

yourusername: papa y papa are fighting and my love is locked up😔

view comments below

natasharomanoff: WE TOOK YOUR PHONE??

natasharomanoff: what is this sorcery

yourusername: 🤭🤗

user45: sad day to be y/n…

user46: y/n is a child of divorce😔😭

tonystark: stop posting pictures of secure government buildings

yourusername: *bugs bunny ‘no’ gif*

user47: bucky barnes committed regicide and has murdered countless people…

user47: he deserves to be locked up

user48: wrong account to say this to babes

user49: you act like the bitch cares

user50: frrrr….y/n is horrible too

user51: she should be locked up too imo

sharoncarter: king t’challa keeps looking like he’s a second away from murdering you…

yourusername: i have that effect on people

user52: 😭😭

yourusername added to their story —>

[caption: pookilicious is evil again😔😩]

story replies

tonystark: A LITTLE HELP WOULD BE NICE

natasharomanoff: GET OFF THE FUCKING PHONE

samwilson: i hate this bitch so much….

user53: those thighs tho👀😩

user54: GIRL RUN!!!

liked by wandamaximoff, scottlang, samwilson, and others

yourusername: abouta fight, kinda nervous👉🏻👈🏻

tagged: @/steverogers @/samwilson @/clintbarton @/wandamaximoff @/scottlang

view comments below

user56: we really made this girl an avenger😭

steverogers: bucky would like you to stop taking pictures of him

user57: 😭😭

yourusername: tell him to talk to me to the face then, bitch

samwilson: language!

clintbarton: language!

wandamaximoff: language!

user58: you still a criminal🤷‍♀️

user59: hope you get arrested😘

user60: team whatever team ends up with y/n and bucky barnes getting married

[liked by yourusername]

clintbarton: so this is why nat’s been complaining nonstop over text about you….

scottlang: great to meet you!

yourusername added to their story —>

[caption: weird spider kid beat these bitches asses]

story replies

samwilson: you’re insufferable🖕

user61: men doing men things: manspreading

user62: they look so done….

scottlang: oh shit, bird and scary dude are down!

user63: love how you always have time to update us😭😭

liked by scottlang, peterparker, wandamaximoff, and others

yourusername: 🎶everybody was kung fu fighting🎶

view comments below

steverogers: the least you could do is get a good pic of me….

user64: poor guy has given up trying to stop y/n😭

user65: 🎶kung fu fighting🎶

user66: 🎶those cats were fast as lightning🎶

user67: 🎶in fact it was a little bit frightening🎶

scottlang: 🎶but they fought with expert timing🎶

user68: omg hawkeye!!!

user69: why’s the spider got cap’s shield😱

user70: scarlet witch deserves to be locked up for lagos!!

natasharomanoff: i don’t know how you of all people managed to escape….

yourusername: ☺️🤗

yourusername added to their story -->

[caption: little guy can be big guy!!]

story replies

peterparker: big guy big guy big guy—

user71: omg ant-man?!

user72: holy shit….

user73: the duplicity of scott lang🤭

hopepym: well….that’s new

liked by natasharomanoff, tchallaudaku, peterparker, and others

yourusername: siberia is cold

tagged: @/steverogers @/buckybarnes

view comments below

user74: slay queen💅

natasharomanoff: d-did you make barnes an instagram???

yourusername: had a spare phone and was bored on the flight

buckybarnes: i have never met someone who can talk as much as you…

yourusername: awwww i love you too hubby!!

user75: egypt is hot

user76: usa is room temp

peterparker: man this is better than my footage!

user77: not y/n making the WINTER SOLDIER an instagram😭😭

liked by samwilson, scottlang, peterparker, and others

yourusername: my dads broke up and pookie lost his arm but it’s ok bc i got mcds😌

view comments below

user78: #rip stony 2016😔✊

user79: GIRL RIP THE AVENGERS?!

user80: avengers: 2012-2016😢

buckybarnes: i LOST my ARM

yourusername: you’d think you’d be used to it but noooooo

buckybarnes: IT WAS MY FUCKING ARM????

samwilson: the raft fucking sucks bestie

yourusername: i’m so sorry bestie

user81: i’m literally speechless rn…

user82: the winter soldier being framed WAS NOT on my 2016 bingo card😭😭

user83: frfr

user84: say sike rn

yourusername added to their story —>

[caption: damn this place is nice]

story replies

steverogers: we’re literal fugitives y/n

user85: i-is that fucking wakanda?!?

buckybarnes: i’m not getting rid of you anytime soon am i?

yourusername: nope!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~two years later~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

liked by buckybarnes, steverogers, samwilson, and others

yourusername: stuck for life🤍🥂

tagged: @/buckybarnes

view comments below

buckybarnes: wouldn’t have it any other way, doll

user86: omg omg omg!!!!!!!!

samwilson: prettiest flower girl by the way!

user87: STOP😭😭

user88: you’re literally glowing🫶🏻

user89: congrats!!!

natasharomanoff: you see, this is an appropriate post

user90: y/n is the manifester of all manifesters…

steverogers: i can’t believe i just witnessed my best friend get married….

tonystark: lovely wedding. only critique is the groom

yourusername: 🖕

user91: 😭😭

user92: oh my god😭

steverogers: tony i swear to god—

clintbarton: language!

© tea-writes19 do not repost, translate, or copy

---

Your Muse

Eddie Munson x Artist!reader

Summary: Eddie finds out what the little secret you’ve been hiding in your sketchbook is.

Warnings: Just fluff I think

Wordcount: 2,332

Eddie knows that you love to draw.

Since the day he met you, you have always had a pen or pencil in hand, doodling whenever the opportunity presented itself. Worksheets, no matter the class, filled to the brim with messy sketches of whatever came to your mind. Palms covered in hearts and flowers from when you got bored listening to your teachers' lessons. But most of the time you would dig into your backpack to retrieve the mysterious little black book that you spent most of your time drawing in.

It was a thing that you never let anyone look at what filled the pages of your sketchbook, not even Eddie had seen the inside of it, and as your best friend he'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious about what exactly you were hiding. On more than one occasion, though he hates to admit it, he had thought about taking a peek at the, what he presumed were promiscuous, pages of art you spent so much of your precious time working on but the thought alone made him feel an inkling of guilt that he just couldn't get passed.

“What are you drawin’ this time, huh?” Eddie’s question ends in a prolonged yawn; he’s laid back comfortably in your bed trying to take a nap but the scratch of your pencil against rough paper keeps his curiosity piqued enough to overcome his exhaustion from school for the time being. He stretches like a cat along the length of your bed and his feet dangle off the edge, toes wiggling after being still for so long.

You're sitting at your desk hunched over in a way Eddie is sure must be uncomfortable, but he doesn’t say anything because he knows his posture isn't much better. He tries to glance over the top of your shoulder for a chance to see what exactly your drawing but he wasn’t nearly quiet enough because you’re quick to shut the book before his eyes can even break over the hill of your shoulder and all he can do is grunt in annoyance in correspondence to your secrecy. A deep rumble releases from the depth of his chest before he roughly plants his face into your pillow. The smell of your shampoo is enough to make him forget his previous irritation.

Spinning in your chair to face him you smile in amusement, “Why are you so nosey? Wayne didn’t teach you to mind your manners or somethin’?” You're teasing him and he knows it, he lifts his hand just enough to flash you his middle finger and the melody of the giggle you let out in response to his antics makes the beat of his heart accelerate to an alarming rhythm and his stomach flutter with the most vicious of butterflies. He's never been more grateful for a pillow because he’s sure that the heat that’s spreading along the skin of his face is causing his cheeks to redden an embarrassing amount. He can’t believe that just the sound of your laugh has him practically falling to your feet in absolute devotion. He turns his head to glare at you but finds that the glowing smile stretched along your lips, lifting the apple of your cheek which further rounds your face, has his own face softening into a gentle grin that almost matches the brightness of yours. 

Eddie continues to look at you even as you turn away to gently guide your fingers along the worn leather of your sketchbook, there is a look of uncertainty that flashes in your eyes and if Eddie wasn’t paying close attention to you like he always does he wouldn’t have noticed. He makes an effort to change the subject, “We should order in some pizza or something, I’m fuckin’ starving.” 

“Aren’t you always?” Eddie swats your thigh just barley from how you spin your chair to avoid his hand, grumbling words you assume to be comebacks.

You laugh again and despite your previous comment you get up to make the call for your usual pizza with no argument, somewhat of a tradition when Eddie comes over, and dig into the bag Eddie had haphazardly tossed on the foot of your bed when he first got to your place for his wallet; you paid last time so it’s his turn.

The door to your room creaks almost eerily when you open it to step out and creaks again when you close it; he hates that sound. For a while Eddie doesn’t move, just lays comfortable listening to the faint sound of your voice in the kitchen as you order the food. Eddie wishes you had made the call closer so he can hear the sound of your honeyed voice even if it wasn’t aimed at him.

He looks around your room regardless of the fact that he’s been in there more than his own room as of late. His probing eyes find their way to your desk and on your desk, just as you had left it only moments ago, is the little black sketchbook he was always so curious about.

It was wrong, his desire to grab it so he could selfishly get a glimpse of something that was absolutely none of his business. It was a breach of privacy but he had never had such an opportunity, the book was almost always in your line of sight never fully giving someone the chance to open it. He looks at the door, ears straining to see if you were on your way back to the room, but he hears nothing and so, with shaky hands, he stretches his arm across the gap between your bed and the desk and gently grabs the book. The guilt pours in almost immediately and he sighs in frustration. In truth he doesn’t know why he’s so adament on finding out what’s in it, he guesses that maybe he doesn’t like that you feel the need to hide something from him- or maybe he was just greedy, wanting to know everything there was to know about you so that he may keep you closer to his heart more than you were to anyone else's-, he was pretty sure you trusted him he just wasn’t sure why you didn’t with this.

You’ve had no problem letting him have his quick glances at other drawings; the little butterflies you’d draw with precision along the lining of homework, or the randomly drawn eyes in between sections of your notes, why was this so different?

Eddie sighs once more before placing the book back onto your desk, taking care to place just as it was. 

The door opens just as Eddie lays back down and his heart almost bursts out of his chest at how quickly you did it. He still feels that sliver of guilt when you move to giddily plop yourself beside him, letting your fingernails rub at his scalp and rake through the tangles in his unruly hair with a pretty little grin sat perfectly etched into your face. He face plants into the pillow again.

“I almost looked through your sketchbook,” for some reason Eddie’s never felt more full of shame, “I didn’t though.” He says the last part sternly as if to reiterate that you can trust him enough not to try again. 

You stay relatively quiet, hand still making its way through the frizzy waves, fingers curling the hair around themselves in an attempt to create curls. Eddie usually enjoys your random spurts of touchiness, revels in it, because it only happens once in a blue moon- when you’re too comfortable to register the way you’re touching him so intimately, but right now it does very little to quiet his nerves in the way he hoped it might. He wonders if you're mad at him.

The silence is deafening, he’s not sure why he said anything at all, the undeniable need to hold himself accountable when it comes to you is aggravating. Even with the reputation of someone like him it was incredibly hard to lie to you. The time he snuck a bite of your lunch abruptly crosses his mind, he remembers how it took all of ten seconds of your frowning stare for him to give in and stop blaming Henderson.

The thought is thrown out the window when he feels your body cuddle up to him, “It’s you.” you whisper the words so quietly he almost misses it.

His head turns to you, for what seems like the nth time tonight, only to find you already looking at his face close enough he can feel the warmth of your breath against his shuttering lips. You’re so close, maybe too close because he’s sure you can see the way his pupils dilated and the way his nose goes a little red in correspondence. 

Eddie’s brows furrow, “What’s me?”

Your eyes dart to look at everything but his eyes, you look at the crease formed from confusion between his brows and the way it makes his button nose scrunch a little, the smile lines that are prominent even without his usual smug grin, you look at the pink of his lips and the way the skin peels from how often he bites at them, you do see the way his pupils dilate and how his nose gets red, “The drawings in the sketchbook- their all drawing of you.”

At first he just watches you, brown doe like eyes looking for signs of deceit or sarcasm as if he thinks you’re seconds away from laughing in his face and telling him “It was a joke” because he doesn't want it to be. He wants to know if you look at him the way he looks at you. He needs to know if you notice how the corner of his eyes crinkle when he laughs the way he notices the way your eyes shine like gold in the light of the morning sun. Do you take notice of the beauty mark that lays hidden under the shield of his eyelashes the way he takes note of and admires every visible mark and scar that litters your face and body? Do you see Eddie the way he sees you? He hopes you do.

The breath he takes before speaking is uncharacteristically shakey compared to the usual confidence he holds in his chest, “Yeah?” 

Your confirming hum, even with it being laced with uncertainty, has his heart soaring to heights of tenderness he has never felt before. He brings his hand to your face and lets his ringed fingers, calloused and scarred, delicately trace the features he swears were sculpted by some sort of deity before letting it settle against your warming cheek with an adoration that could make even the coldest of hearts leap. His touch is so filled with irrefutable love that it could be mistaken for worship in the purest of forms and God does it make your heart ache with a passion like no other.

The euphoric feeling of exhilaration that fills the both of you and the room has you both giggling like children, pressing your foreheads together at the ridiculousness of the situation, everything not having fully settled in your minds.

This natural feeling of contentment between the two of you is all Eddie ever craves. He hoped almost everyday for moments like this- to be the reason you light up with laughter even in moments of seriousness.

“So… Am I like your muse or something? Cause y’know I’d be totally flattered.” The words are muttered as to not disrupt the intimacy of the moment but the teasing tone of his voice is there and a smirk that has his smile lines deepening, a sight you treasure, inches across his flushed face. When you jokingly begin to roll away from him in response to his mocking his hands press firmly into the dip of your waist to keep you close, he couldn’t even possibly think of being more than a foot away from you right now and he’d never pass up the chance to hold you close.

Eddie rubs his nose against yours, his hair tickles your collarbone, “I think you basically confessed to me by the way, sweetheart.”

You think your best friend is the only person in the world who would still crack jokes during times like this. You cuddle your face closer to his letting your lips brush against his just enough to make his breath hitch, “Oh yeah? Maybe you just have an ego and think I confessed to you. I gotta admit Munson, that's a little presumptuous of you.” Your fingers brush a little of his dark hair out of the way.

His hand moves from your waist to your cheek to the back of your neck to tangle his fingers into the hair by the base, “Well maybe I’m feeling a little egotistical.” The kiss he then places on your lips is nothing short of intoxicating, a gentleness that doesn’t exclude the devastating hunger he feels for you. It’s all consuming and all him. His lips are softer than you imagine and as his tongue slides against the seal of your lips for permission to enter you can taste the faintness of the cigarette he had smoked before getting to your place. His tongue dances with your own sensually instead of dirtily and slowly instead of frenzied like he wanted you to feel every ounce of absolute passion he felt. You pull him impossibly closer, hands clenched tightly into the tattered fabric of his metallica t-shirt, only pulling away when you’ve both run out of breath.

Heavy breathing fills the silence of your bedroom and even with his exasperation Eddie trails his lips across your cheek and along your neck like he never wants to stop. “You should pose for me the next time I draw you.”

“I could pose naked.” He giggles immaturely just at the thought.

“Never mind, you ruined it.”

---

SPILL YOUR GUTS

˚₊‧꒰ა . ——— ˗ˏˋ ✮ ˎˊ˗ ——— ˖ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

practice boyfriend! eddie x fem! reader

summary: eddie’s your practice boyfriend. you’re positive he’s upset at you and you’re waiting for him to get mad. however, he has a different response in mind.

cw: references/allusions to past child abuse but extremely vague, references/allusions to bad relationships (also pretty vague), reader acts on a learned response and assumes the worst about Eddie, anxiety

tags/tropes: angst, hurt/comfort (my brand!) sappy sappy romantic idiots, they kiss and figure their mess out at the end

a/n: this came to me in a vision

summary makes this sound smutty but i promise it’s not. this accidentally became disgustingly romantic. read at your own risk :)

࣪˖ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ˖

You’re positive Eddie’s mad at you.

Okay. Maybe positive is a strong word. But still.

You’ve only been fake/pretend/practice dating Eddie for about two weeks now. He’s the one who approached you with the offer— when you were in the Upside Down together, you’d made an off-hand comment about how you might die without ever having a real boyfriend- not one that mattered, anyway. It’s always kind of been a sore spot for you for a good portion of your life. Growing up, you didn’t really have the best relationship with your dad (Robin likes to call that “The understatement of the year, and we almost died.”) and out of the incredibly small handful of guys you’ve gone out with, none stuck around longer than a month and all ended in such equally, specifically, and uniquely horrific ways, you finally came to the conclusion you had to be fucking something up. What are the chances of all them ended so completely horribly?

After you all had decidedly not died in the Upside Down, Eddie approached you with an offer: pretend date him. You’re popular and well known enough that it’ll help get people off his back about the whole Chrissy/murders thing —even though he’s been absolved of all charges, the people of Hawkins hold grudges— and in exchange, you get a trial run of a relationship that won’t end unless you both agree too— you get to figure out what you’re doing wrong.

You feel bad about it, because even though you spend so much time together, you feel like a nervous wreck. All. The. Time.

You’re constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop— waiting for him to tell you that you’re too weird, that you’re not considerate enough, that you’re selfish, or that you talk too much.

But he never says any of it. All he ever tells you is the good things. He tells you how sympathetic you are, how kind you are, how good you are at remembering little details that matter. He tells you that you’re a good kisser.

(Yeah. Your first kiss, even after those failed relationships, ended up being with Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson. You’re not quite sure you’ll ever forget how you felt when his lips —just a little cracked, but not rough— met yours; when his hair tickled your face and you could faintly smell the cigarette smoke that stubbornly clings to all of his clothes, no matter how many times he washes them. You didn’t tell him he was your first. That’s something you decided you couldn’t bear to share.

You kind of have a feeling he knows anyway, though.)

It all sets you on edge. You’re under no reassurance that you’re perfect. You’re currently questioning if you’re tolerable, from a romantic standpoint.

You know how you are. You’re clinging and you drink up reassurance like a dying man in the desert. You linger in his casual touches like it’s the first and last time you’ll ever feel them. You know you’re a lot. You know. You know that guys in a relationship don’t want ‘a lot’, they want a pretty thing to hang off their arm and laugh at what they say.

But you just… can’t.

You tried, and you tried, and you tried. But you always ended up being too much, or it didn’t work out for some other reason. You want more. You want to feel safe, and happy, and cherished and loved and all those things that only happen in the movies.

The ironic part of all of this is that when you first started setting out terms for your arrangement, Eddie had told you flat out: “This will only work if you are completely and one-hundred percent yourself. You gotta lay it all on me, angel.”

And so you had, and now you regret it because he’s upset about something.

You’d come over to his trailer at his request to ‘hang out’ while he went over DND stuff for his next campaign. Eddie does this a lot— he calls them ‘Neutral Dates’ where you’re not really doing anything in particular- most of the time, you’re both doing seperate things, but still just being in each other’s presence.

It’s nice. The majority of your friend circle consists of everyone involved with the Upside Down and that entire mess. You two are no Steve and Robin (you’re convinced those two have the kind of bond no one can replicate or break. Like the kind of bond stray cats get and then they have to be adopted together) but it’s still nice. To just be with someone.

Even if you feel like you’re walking on eggshells.

It’s not always eggshells. Sometimes, for a a few moments, you forget. You forget it’s all pretend. You forget he’s just a friend helping a friend fulfill a goal. That’s all.

You’ve almost forgotten just now, too— you’re too concerned about what you might’ve done.

He’s not acting angry, per-se, but he’s definitely upset. You tend to pick up on this kind of thing: small changes in someone’s personality or body language. Most of the time it’s not a conscious habit.

Most of the time.

Right now, he’s run his hands through his hair about a million times. It’s become a frizzy mess behind him, and when you’d made an offhand joke about it —an attempt to lighten the mood— all he’d done was scowl. Not at you, really, but the message was there. You’d snapped your jaw shut so fast you’re pretty sure he heard your teeth click.

After that he’d frustratedly made tea for the both of you, which consisted of opening the cupboards faster than he usually did, closing them slightly louder than he usually does, and drumming his fingers impatiently on the stove-top while he waited for the kettle to boil.

All of this you observed from the corner of your eye while ‘reading’ on the couch.

And if all of that wasn’t bad enough, when you’d finally mustered up the courage to speak again, a little joke about a part in the book you were reading, all he’d said was a flat:

“That’s great, babe.”

You’re starting to get antsy. Nervous. Maybe you should go? Unless he gets upset at you leaving. That would be bad. But he’s clearly upset with you being here, so maybe you should go.

While you’re debating the pros and cons of leaving, you try to remain as still and silent as possible. No need to upset him anymore by moving too much or being too loud.

You flip a page in the book you’re no longer reading (he might notice you’re not paying attention to it anymore) and decide to test the waters again.

“The author just spelled restaurant wrong. That’s the third spelling mistake I’ve caught in this book.”

“Hmm.”

Okay. So that was worse. Talking to him is out of the question, then. It must be something you did, to warrant this kind of reaction.

You wrack your brain, trying to think of anything you could’ve done in recent hours to make him upset, but you can’t think of anything.

You glance slightly to the right— not far enough that he’ll see you looking at him, but far enough to get a better look at him in your peripheral. He’s glaring down at his campaign notebook. Shit, he looks so angry.

Unbidden, tears begin to well in your eyes and you try to shift, trying to angle yourself away from him enough that he can’t see the tears in your eyes.

But your hand shifts, knocking into his leg.

Fuck. “Sorry!”

You yank you arm back as if burned, jolting back on the couch so you’re in no danger of touching him. “I’m sorry!”

He sits up, immediately snapping to attention at the desperation coloring your voice. “Woah woah, hey. Hey, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

You take a steadying breath. “Did I do something wrong?”

He blinks blankly at you. Oh shit, you’re supposed to know that you’ve done something wrong.

“I mean,” You hurry to correct, “I know I— Can you tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it?”

Understanding floods his features and you brace yourself, ready for the reprimand.

“Can I touch you?”

Now it’s your turn to stare with confusion. You nod once, briefly thinking about how weird it is to ask for permission first.

He sits up on the couch, facing you with his legs crossed, the couch springs squeaking loudly at his movement. You resist the urge to wince. He reaches out with a slow hand, taking the hand that’s still clenched, held away from him and up near your chest.

He stares down at your hand, holding it with his left hand and tracing delicate shapes on it with his right. His ringed fingers drag lines around your knuckles and veins, lingering occasionally over the odd, old scar.

“How long did you think I was upset with you?”

Your heart is racing, muscles tensed and ready to bolt. “Um. A few hours? Maybe?”

You’re hyper-aware of the grip he has on your hand, and how quickly and easy it could become crushing.

It doesn’t.

“Bug,” He says slowly after a moment. At first he used to use pet names as a joke— it was something you’d laugh at, between the two of you, since the relationship wasn’t real.

But recently, he’s been saying them with a different inflection in his tone. A little less teasing, a lot more fond.

“Have you spent the past few hours afraid that I was mad at you?”

He sounds… sad. Which is confusing. It doesn’t— he was. He was.

“But you were,” You say, suddenly unsure about anything and everything. “You were upset.”

“I was upset because I couldn’t work this part of the campaign out, and i’m dramatic. I was never mad at you, honey. I was never mad at you.”

You frown, gears turning in your head. “When I made that joke about your hair, you glared at me. And then when I tried to talk to you, you were upset. You didn’t want to talk.”

“I was jokingly glaring at you, I’m so sorry you thought I was serious. I wasn’t, I promise. I didn’t mean to be dismissive, I was really focusing on writing.”

You’re both silent for a moment. A beat too long. You want to squirm in the unwelcome space the silence has created.

“What did you think I was going to do?”

That is a loaded question.

“I don’t know,” You pick at a loose thread on the couch cushion. “I don’t— I don’t know. That’s the problem. You don’t yell at me, or get angry, or tell me when i’ve made you upset. I don’t know what you’ll do.”

He makes a wounded noise in his throat.

“I know you get angry,” You bulldoze on, “I’ve seen it. You’re so… loud, in everything you do. I know you get angry. But you never get that same kind of loud angry at me and I don’t know what to do because that means that I upset you and you don’t tell me about it and then I don’t know how to fix it. I have to fix it, Eddie.”

His eyes, deep and brown, search your face. He reaches up a hand, painfully slow, to cup your face. Your eyelids flutter shut, and you tip your head to the side, leaning into the job.

“I’m gonna tell you something, Bug. Are you listening?” He waits for you to hum in confirmation before continuing. “You’re not responsible for my moods. Or anyone else’s for that matter. That’s not your job. You don’t have to fix it.”

He reaches his second hand up to cup the other side of your face. “You know why I don’t get angry at you? Not all loud and dramatic like that? Because I’ve seen how you react when people do. And I never, ever want to be the reason you get that look in your eye. I never want to make you afraid. I never want you to believe, with proof and confidence, that I’ve grown sick of you.”

You open your eyes, eyes darting across the planes of his face. Searching for even the smallest hint, the smallest giveaway that he might be lying.

You can’t find any. In its place, you find eyes, shining with pure determination. You find lips parted ever so slightly, a sad-sort of smile being etched into being. You find two hands on your face, thumbs delicately sweeping across the skin of your under-eye, of your cheekbone. Smoothing away the steady tears that had begun falling, wiping away the hot trails they leave on your face.

And you realize all at once that love isn’t like the movies. It isn’t picture-perfect kisses. It isn’t ball gowns and dresses and kisses in the rain. It isn’t like the love you thought you were supposed to have: empty and hollow; a life of hanging off of arms and praying your next slip-up didn’t cost you your relationship.

It was this.

It was just being. Just being and knowing the other person is there for just that— for you. It was not raising your voice. It was carrying extra hair-ties. It was making two cups of coffee. It was steeping tea for an extra couple of minutes, just the way he liked it. It was playing your favorite music in the car, and looking over at each other during the bridge, belting the lyrics with the same, toothy-smile. So full and so happy you just keep screaming the lyrics, because you’re filled with so much you don’t know where to put it all.

Your tears begin to fall in earnest now. Your heart is thudding in your chest, but for a different reason now. You’re struck with the need to convey all of this to him— to tell him you understand, you know, you feel the same.

“These hair ties,” You shove your wrist up to his eye-line. “They’re for you. Because you always forget your own. And— and I steep the tea for a few extra minutes, because you like your tea strong, and you didn’t just find that tape in your van, I bought it ‘cause I know you lost the old one in the Upside Down, ‘cause it felt out of your pocket.”

You’re babbling, nearly choking on your tears and your words, rushing them all out of your mouth in an aching wish to be understood, in this very moment.

“I know,” He says, voice a little hysteric and eyes a little too bright. His lip wobbles. He presses your face tighter in his hands. “I know. I know. I see you. I see you.”

You stay like that for a little while. At some point, your hands find his wrists, and then you’re just two fools, smiling like idiots with tears streaming down your faces, staring into each others eyes.

Eventually, Eddie clears his throat. “The next time you think I’m upset at you, you tell me, okay? You can ask. You can ask me and I pinky promise I won’t get mad.”

You giggle wetly. “Pinky swear?”

“Pinky swear,” He says, taking his left hand away from your face to hold up his pinky. You intertwine yours and his together, the both of you laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

He gets quiet for a moment; removes his hands from your face and instead clasps, your hands together, resting in your lap.

“You know why I never tell you when you’re being a bad practice girlfriend?” He says, his voice low and soft.

“How come?”

He smiles, full and good. “Because you’re not. You’re so sweet and kind and loving. And if you’d let me, I’d really like to kiss you right now.”

You furrow your brows. “The real kind? The I-love-you kind?”

Your face flushes over the words ‘I love you.’

“I’ve always kissed you for real,” He says, words laden with fondness. “Ever since the day we met and you slapped the shit out of me for being stupid. I’ve been hopelessly obsessed ever since. I’ve just been waiting for you to notice.”

You suck in a breath. “So all of this— the, the dates and the hanging out and the kissing— that’s all been real?”

“Every last bit.”

“Then in that case,” You say, squeezing his hands. “I would very much like you to kiss me.”

He leans in, slotting your lips together and everything just clicks. Like this is where you’re meant to be. Maybe it’s puppy love. Maybe it’s not.

All you know is that Eddie Munson is kissing you for real, and he always has been. You couldn’t ask for anything better.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

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No Such Thing Masterlist

Series summary: You’ve been assigned to write a column for your school paper on the team’s spectacular running back. You don’t care very much for your university’s football team; you just can’t understand the hype, okay? Turns out your distaste for football bigheads was exactly on point: James Barnes is insufferable.

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eddie munson x shy fem reader

warnings: hope y’all like CHEESE, reader wears glasses

a/n: this is incredibly self indulgent and lame but i hope y’all enjoy xx.

“You’re staring… again.”

Nancy says under her breath, which has your eyes immediately darting away and back down toward your lunch out of sheer embarrassment.

“I was not staring….” you hiss, picking at the pile of peas on your tray.

“Oh, you soooo were,” she laughs, knocking her shoulder into yours. “Why don’t you just go and talk to him?”

You let out an exasperated breath before glancing over at your best friend. She’s giving you that soft yet encouraging gaze that’s entirely Nancy.

“Why would someone like him be interested in someone like me?”

Your voice is softer, but that underlying fear bleeds through nonetheless.

“I’m just so….” you trail off, chewing on your lower lip. “Boring.”

Your eyes have drifted back over to the hellfire table, where they seem to find themselves almost every lunch period now. Totally entranced by the male sitting at the end of the table.

Eddie Munson, dungeon master and local metalhead. Also the guy you’ve been harboring the biggest crush on since your junior year.

He looks even more pretty with the afternoon sunlight shining through the windows of the cafeteria, highlighting the warm chestnut hue of his fluffy curls. His lips are poised in an annoyed pout, fingers drumming on the table in rapid succession while he listens to Dustin’s nervous ramblings.

“He’s just so— outgoing and doesn’t give two shits what these dipshits around here think of him.”

Your lips can’t help but quirk up into a small smile when you witness him tossing a pretzel at Mike’s head.

“You are not boring,” Nancy sighs, her curls bouncing when she shakes her head in distain. “But you’re not gonna know if something could work out between you if you don’t at least try.”

Your snort has her rolling her eyes, but yours are still transfixed on the boy in question. So much so you haven’t noticed the way your glasses continue to slip down the bridge of your nose.

“I doubt he even knows my name, Nance.”

When your eyes suddenly catch his chocolatey brown ones, you feel mortified. You’ve been very careful about your… admiring during lunch or in between classes. But Nancy had momentarily distracted you, and now you’d been caught red handed.

Unbeknownst to you, this isn’t the first time he’s noticed your wandering gaze. Soft eyes that are filled with the utmost longing and kindness. Someone with a reputation such as Eddie Munson doesn’t have looks like that thrown his way very often.

So it’s no surprise he’s caught on.

But you don’t seem to notice the way he always glances back once you look away, dark eyes seeking out your figure in the halls. The longing of his own for you to finally meet his gaze. But your nose is either stuck in a book or those pretty eyes are trained on your feet.

It was maddening.

You quickly break his curious stare and jump up your feet, missing the way he shoots up from his own seat. You sling your backpack over your shoulder and leave your tray abandoned.

“I gotta go… I’ll see you later, Nance,” you say before she even has time to protest, keeping your head down as you make your way toward the exit.

Mentally still kicking yourself for being caught gawking at him like a bumbling idiot. But your heart leaps into your throat when you hear the slapping of sneakers on the linoleum behind you.

Before you can even process what’s happening you all but collide into a denim clad chest, gasping softly when his arms slip around your waist to catch you before you almost stumble backwards onto your ass.

“Whoa, easy there,” he chuckles, those same pouty lips quirking up into a lopsided grin. “Didn’t mean to scare ya…”

When he releases you, your whole body deflates— already missing the warmth of his palms. Even if it was only for a fleeting moment.

“Uh… sorry, did you need something?” you ask, unable to hide the confusion in your tone.

He purses his lips, twisting his rings on his fingers in almost a nervous manner.

Why would he be nervous?

“I just had a question is all…” he mumbles, “and honestly, I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while now.”

And your heart nearly stops when he carefully pushes your glasses back up the bridge of your nose.

“You free tonight?”

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Eddie who owns a magic 8 ball and likes to use it to annoy you.

"Hey Eds, how about date night on Saturday?" You ask.

Eddie picks up his magic 8 ball and shakes it and looks at the reply before telling you,

"My sources say no."

"Eddie." You give him a glare and he shakes it again.

"My reply is no."

"I will kill you if you don't stop it right now." You threaten, he shakes it again.

"Don't count on it?" He replies weary of your response.

You smack the magic 8 ball out of his hand.

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