Better Love || A Bucky Barnes Fanfiction

- A New Beginning -

He had never felt safer than he had in those four weeks since Elena had learnt the truth. 

The walls, the layers, that Elena had stripped away left him open to a new beginning, to healing, and to her love. Waking up in his bed with her lying beside him that first morning had filled him up with emotions he could not put into words. Instead, he had turned them into action, one arm wrapping around her sleeping form, lips placing kisses against her bare shoulder until - with a soft murmuring - she had woken up, rolled over, and met his kisses with her own. That day, they had moved Elena's things out of her room and into his, allowing a new person from the sreet to take up her old room. It didn't matter that the room was made smaller with the addition of a new person; they were almost always in each others space in that room. They didn't care, though. All they wanted was each other, as close as they could be. 

Delilah hadn't been surpised when the pair had come downstairs the next morning hand in hand. She had only looked in their direction while she was serving breakfast to others and smiled happily at Elena, a laugh leaving her lips when the younger woman blushed. That had made Bucky chuckle softly, his hand squeezing hers gently as they found themselves a table. He was certain that this was how teenagers felt in the beginning of a relationship that was going to change their lives forever. He didn't want to ever let Elena go.

Sometimes he had to, though. Sometimes she would be working downstairs in the library, showing Gideon the reins of which he would be picking up very soon, while he immersed himself in information stretching past the War and Steve. Other times he wouldn't be there at all, either making himself useful at the shelter with Delilah or picking up odd jobs signposted around the city to bring in some money too. So far, he had a regular clientel when it came to dog walking, which he found theraputic as he led the pack down the waterfront of the city. In the end, though, he knew that he and Elena would be together again. He was able to fall asleep in bliss with a smile on his face every night and wake up the same every morning just because she was lying by his side. 

Bucky wasn't the only person who felt that way, though. Elena could not remember a time she had felt so happy, free, and safe with a person. She was unsure if she had ever felt that way in her entire life at all. Maybe when I was a little girl and living with my family, she thought as she stacked books. Not since then, I think. Because she knew, deep down, that the love she had for Thomas had never been born out of friendship that had blossomed into a relationship built on trust. There had been something else, something sinister in its motives, warped by her own young ideas as to what a relationship was supposed to be and Thomas' older, more experienced mind and what he wanted and eventually got. She was never an equal with him like she was with Bucky. She smirked to herself as she made her way back downstairs. "Fucking the homeless man." Why, Thomas, you make it sound like a bad thing. 

"Um, Elena? I think I screwed up."

Elena smiled at Gideon who stared at her with furrowed eyebrows, glancing down at the computer. She approached the desk, walking around to examine what was causing the man such grief.

"Half of the books in this category have disappeared. I - I don't know what's happened to them," he admitted sheepishly, running a hand through his blonde hair. It didn't take Elena long to correct the fault, though, and after another run through Gideon was back on track.

"So, a bit different from the system I'm used to at my old place," he said with a chuckle that Elena joined, going over to shelve the books that belonged behind their desks.

"It gets easier. Soon you'll be running this place just as smoothly as I have," she replied, making him laugh.

"Please, it'll take me years to get onto your level, Elena," he said, looking over to where she was. "So, are you nervous?"