Always Meant To Be (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

FOUR

I do not own these characters, I just write them as a way to love and care for them.

Italic parts are the reader narrating.

———STORY WILL BE UPDATED FRIDAYS @ 9PM EST———

FOUR

Y/N stared straight at his face for a few seconds before blinking and taking a breath. Her insides were tensed up and aching now.

"Say something..." he whispered.

"Did you just say... did you say you're going to Vietnam?" Her mouth fell back into an open position as her eyes started to get watery.

"Y/N..."

She pulled her legs up onto the dock closer to her, anticipating the need to remove herself from the conversation and run to Natasha who was only 100 or so yards away.

"Please," he said softly, followed by a hard swallow, "just let me say this." Bucky blinked away a tear and quickly removed it with his thumb. "It's somethin' I have to do, doll. I need to do the right thing and serve my country. I love you more than you know but this is just somethin' I need to do. I signed up for the Army. I ship out in July." He could barely get the words out.

She shook her head slowly as she inched away from him. The fire in her chest made her want to run.

"I can't promise you I'll make it back," his voice strained, the tears falling again, his breath caught in his throat. His shoulders jerked and he looked up at the sky. His voice filled with emotion as he said, "And I don't want to, but..."

Bucky's palms went to his eyes and he was racked with a sob. He finally took a breath and started speaking more clearly. "I don't want to, but I have to let you go." His wet blue-gray eyes bore a hole straight through her.

My world spun. It was like a merry-go-round I couldn't get off of. I choked on my tears and struggled to get up as he reached out for me. He may have already regretted it but I couldn't stay just then. I ran that dock in seconds although it felt like years and at the end, waiting by the grass, Natasha held me in her arms. Natasha and I stood there crying and holding onto each other until I can't remember. Until I'd soaked her shirt straight through and stained it with mascara.

She borrowed Steve's car and took me home. I sat in that car with a tear streaked face, staring out the front window like a zombie. He'd just told me he loved me.

Natasha already knew he did.

And she knew what happened, I didn't have to say. Steve had already told the rest of them the news, at Bucky's request. He and Bucky knew how I'd take it and they needed everyone else to know so they could be there for me.

Didn't make it much better that Steve was going with him to Vietnam. He'd talked about joining the Army for as long as I'd known him and as scrawny as he was, he somehow pulled it off.

My heart left that day at the lake and didn't come back.

Natasha and I didn't see too much of the rest of the gang that summer. Wanda and Victor were off doing their own thing. Sam was still working. Natasha and I hauled ourselves to the pool on many of those summer days and I hid behind my sunglasses. But not much else changed as Steve and Bucky were the only two of us graduating. Whenever I saw Sam in the Five & Dime, he always spoke softly to me as if I was so fragile. And he was right, I really was.

Somehow I managed to not see Bucky more than once that summer. Daddy was disappointed that I didn't work at the store that summer but I didn't see fit to make it an awkward situation every day when I would have to see Bucky there. I was dead inside anyway and customers don't take too kindly to that anyhow. They like a smilin' girl waiting on them.