Summary - No one escapes a love triangle unscathed.
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i have an idea... a love triangle.
now, hear me out.
an actual love triangle. not the love corner disguised as a love triangle.
bucky loves you, you love steve, and steve loves bucky. imagine the angst. the pain.
after all, no one leaves a love triangle unscathed.
no one.
we'll start with bucky, self effacing, self sacrificing, noble, bucky barnes. he swore he loved you from the moment he saw you. the one and only person to welcome him to the compound after his stint in wakanda.
he remembers it perfectly. every detail of the moment he first laid eyes on you. but mostly, your smile. it was that damned smile. so warm. so genuine. from ear to ear, you greeted the both of them. you reached out a hand to him. it was so unexpected, he couldn't remember the last time someone voluntarily stood that close to him. he couldn't remember the last time he didn't see fear shining in a stranger's eyes. you reached out your hand to him, only for him to kiss the back of your hand. you blushed and a little chuckle bubbled from your lips, and he fell just a little more.
you showed him kindness he'd long forgotten. a warmth that almost thawed all his years as the winter soldier. you listened to him. held his hand as he told his story. how easily you slid past his walls. he loved you so much it hurt.
and that smile. that damned smile.
it didn't take very long for him to realize that smile wasn't for him.
he could pinpoint the exact moment he figured it out. a mission gone wrong. him and steve barely made it out with their lives. he limped off the quinjet with steve hobbling right behind him. the door slammed open and you skidded across the hangar. panic and tears welled in your eyes. that smile. that smile bloomed across your face at the sight of them. he smiled back. his heart warmed at the sight of someone actually caring about him.
bucky couldn't help but think that maybe this would all be worth it if you were always there to welcome him back.
you sprinted up the ramp. you and that smile blew right past him. right into steve's arms. bucky's heart broke as steve wrapped his arms around your waist. even more as you nestled your head against steve's chest, right over his beating heart. all he could hope was that you didn't hear the sound of his heart shattering.
he sees you walking past him in the compound and he wonders how he never noticed it. how after all this time watching you, pining for you, he never saw it. your eyes don't search for him, they search for steve. his heart beats for you. and still, your heart beats for steve. of course it does, why wouldn't it? steve is everything that bucky is and so much more. this only proves it.
you're friends. that much is true. but your eyes, your heart, that damned smile, it's all for steve. and there's nothing he can do about it.
he'd give you up in a hearbeat. bucky would hand over the dream of holding you in his arms. the hope that one day you would look at him like you look at steve. he would give it up to see you smile like that for the rest of your life. he would live his life on the outside looking in, watching steve live the life that bucky wanted. he could take another lifetime's worth of hurt if it meant that you would be happy.
and then there's steve, captain america himself, head held high, stoic and unflinching. a moral compass personified. the moment he came out of the ice, he pined for the man that he promised forever to, he longed for bucky.
