It starts in the quiet.
Melany is still asleep when Bucky wakes.
For a second, he doesn't remember where he is.
Then he feels her.
Warm. Solid. Real.
Morning light spills across the bed in soft gold bands, catching in her hair where it fans over his shoulder. It's tangled from sleep, softer than it ever looks during the day. One strand is caught against his dog tags, rising and falling with each breath he takes.
She's half-curled into him, one leg hooked over his thigh, her hand resting over his metal fingers like she claimed them sometime in the night.
Like she forgot they were different.
Like they're just his.
He flexes his hand carefully, testing the weight of her palm. She doesn't flinch. Doesn't stir. Her fingers tighten faintly in reflex, anchoring him there.
He stills.
There was a time when waking up like this would have made him tense.
Bodies that close meant vulnerability.
Vulnerability meant risk.
Risk meant loss.
But there's no edge under his skin now.
No instinct scanning the room.
No quiet mental map of exits.
The room is still.
The compound is quiet.
And she's breathing against him like she belongs there.
Just warmth.
Weight.
Home.
He studies her face the way he would study blueprints — carefully, reverently. The faint crease between her brows. The softness in her mouth when she's not guarded. The way she sleeps like she trusts the world not to end while she rests.
That does something to him.
Because she didn't always.
And neither did he.
His thumb brushes lightly over her knuckles — the smallest movement — just to feel that she's real.
The thought comes slowly. Not impulsive. Not overwhelming.
I want this when we're older.
He lets himself imagine it for a second.
Her hair longer. Maybe shorter.
Different apartment. Different city.
Light filtering through different curtains.
But the shape of it is the same.
Her curled into him.
His arm around her.
No panic.
Not just next mission.
Not just next month.
Not just until something goes wrong.
Years.
The word doesn't make his chest tighten the way it used to.
It doesn't feel like a trap.
It feels earned.
He brushes a strand of hair from her cheek, slow enough that he won't wake her unless she wants to wake.
YOU ARE READING
Doll. // Bucky Barnes X OC
Fiksi PenggemarMelany Banner has spent her entire life being watched, protected, and managed - all because of who her father is. When a classified S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol forces her into close quarters with James Buchanan Barnes, she expects another soldier followin...
