verb.
To come or go back to a place or person.
noun.
The firing of a weapon to counter a shooter's shot.
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They recoiled from their pasts, and in doing so found each other.
But the universe isn't kind enough to let a moment of peace last.
It took se...
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She couldn't clasp him tightly enough. Not tightly enough to truly let herself believe he was here. That this was real.
The ache of battle didn't matter. The bruising that marked the weight of a literal building pressing down on her shoulders, the scrapes of creatures from far-off planets, the burns of enemy fire – none of it mattered. The searing agony of loss that promised to carve out a fresh home in her chest the moment she paused to think about it could wait. She couldn't let it sink its claws into her in this moment. The emotions that came in the wake of the battle could be squeezed into some dark, silent place. She could examine them when she had finally let herself believe this was real. Nothing else in the universe was important right now.
But he was important.
James Buchanan Barnes mattered.
The way he held her mattered, now that they had closed a door between themselves and the devastation of the day that lay behind them. The contrasting warmth of his hand of flesh and the cool, unyielding vibranium only anchored her in this moment. This oasis where nothing else was permitted to touch her. Where no other thought was allowed to enter her head, save for thoughts of him. Thoughts of the heat of his lips on her skin, thoughts of the taste that hadn't danced on her tongue for five long years. Thoughts of the way her heart pounded against her ribs in a way it hadn't done for half a decade. The way it only did when Bucky Barnes touched her. The way it finally felt like she could draw a full breath into her brittle lungs, as if she hadn't been able to since the last time he had kissed her. Perhaps she hadn't been able to. Perhaps her lungs had been half-filled with dust all this time. Perhaps he was the air she had been craving, the reason she hadn't been able to breathe for five years.
Perhaps he knew. Perhaps he knew without her needing to explain. How badly she needed this. Needed to be utterly encompassed by him and only him. How badly she needed to feel him, taste him, hold him. To desperately clutch at every ounce of burning intimacy passed on searing touches; on tangled limbs and rolling rhythms, on the blinding peaks he carried her to and the safe, close spaces of shared heartbeats and merged exhales. How badly she needed to breathe now that she had expelled the dust of five stagnant years through heady gasps of his name.
Because there were no other words she could say. No other words mattered, apart from his name. Bucky. James.
She formed it like a prayer. An oath. A battle cry. Each movement of her lips a reassurance that he was here. Each breath of her own name that fell from his tongue a promise of the same. He was here.
He was here, and for the first time in five years, she was home.
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