LXXIV. Emris

It's quiet.

The kind of quiet that doesn't demand anything. The kind of quiet that just... is.

The blanket's barely clinging to us—draped across my hip and his lower back, leaving our skin bare against the cool air of the room. Bucky's head is resting on my chest, right over my heart, like he's listening to it, like it might tell him something I can't say out loud. His arms are looped loosely around my waist, warm and solid and grounding.

My fingers are tangled in his hair. I'm not even thinking about it—just absentmindedly running them through the soft strands, letting the rhythm of it soothe me. It's one of the few things in this world that doesn't feel like a mistake.

He hasn't moved in a while. Just breathes. Steady. Slow. Heavy, like he might be asleep, but I know better. Bucky doesn't sleep like this—he never fully lets go. He's just resting.

And I'm here, wide awake, drowning in thoughts I don't want.

It's been days since I completely shattered in his arms. Since I cried on the floor like a child and let someone else hold the weight for once. I should be ashamed. I am ashamed. I don't do that—I don't fall apart in front of people. I don't unravel. Not even in private.

And yet, I did. Right in front of him.

Bucky Barnes.

The same man I used to flinch from when his shadow passed mine. The same man whose voice once echoed in my nightmares, whose hands—gloved, metal, bloodied—were synonymous with pain.

And now... he's lying here, breathing against my skin, letting me play with his hair like it's the most natural thing in the world.

It should make me sick. Should make me hate myself.

But I don't hate him.

I try to remind myself of all the reasons I should. All the memories he brings back just by existing. Black Lotus. Hydra. The Red Room. The shadows. The cells. The mission.

But every time I think about it, I feel... tired. Like my body is done carrying the weight of it all. Like somewhere in the quiet moments between the blood and the banter, something shifted.

I don't hate him anymore.

Not even a little.

And that pisses me off more than anything.

He should still be the enemy. A walking trigger. A symbol of everything I survived and everything I've buried. But when I look at him now—when I touch him like this—I don't see Hydra. I don't see the Winter Soldier. I just see him. This man who is far too gentle with someone like me.

And that's what I don't understand.

Why is he so gentle?

Why does he touch me like I'm something fragile, not something broken?

Why does he look at me like I matter? Like I deserve softness?

Because I don't. I never have.

I was trained to take orders, to be useful, to endure pain in silence. Every touch I've known has been a means to an end—sharp, unfeeling, transactional. I don't know how to be handled like this, like I'm allowed to melt under someone's hands instead of brace for impact.

But Bucky... he touches me like he doesn't want anything from me. Like he wants me, not for what I can do, or what I've survived, but for who I am. Even when I don't know who that is.

I shift slightly, and his grip on my waist tightens, just a little.

Still here.

Still holding me.

I glance down, half-expecting him to be watching me already—but he's not. His eyes are closed, his mouth soft, his brow finally smooth. He looks younger like this. Unburdened.

That's when I realize... I haven't thought about my nightmares in days. Haven't woken up in a cold sweat or flinched at the creak of the floorboards. Somehow, somewhere in this freezing Russian hideout with the man I was supposed to hate, I've found something resembling peace.

He's helping me heal—without even trying to.

And maybe I'm helping him, too.

Maybe this strange, tangled thing between us isn't a mistake.

My fingers keep threading through his hair, slower now, more intentional. He murmurs something against my skin, too low to catch, and shifts just enough to press a kiss to the space between my ribs. My breath stutters at the contact.

He doesn't ask anything of me. Doesn't demand I talk. He just holds me, like he knows exactly what I need even when I don't.

And maybe that's what scares me most.

Because I've never needed anyone before.

And now... I think I need him.

Bucky's hair is soft between my fingers, and his breathing is steady against my skin. There's something comforting about the way he's draped over me like this—like I'm an anchor and he's finally allowed himself to rest.

But my mind is far from still.

It's strange, how the quiet can bring memories crawling out of places I thought I'd sealed shut. This one rises slowly, like a bruise surfacing under the skin—slow, dark, inevitable.

He doesn't know.

He has no idea.

Everyone knows Hydra used me to control him. My voice, my powers, my mind—molded into a leash for the Winter Soldier. I could make him stand down, stop remembering, stop fighting. I hated it. Hated myself for it. But what Bucky doesn't know is that they used him on me first.

The first time I met him, I wasn't an asset yet. I was just Emris, the Serpent-in-training, still resisting what they were trying to make me. I'd failed a mission. Not because I wasn't capable—no, because there had been a child.

A little boy, no older than six, hiding under his bed while I painted the walls with his father's blood. The boy had looked up at me with wide brown eyes and terror-stricken silence, and I... couldn't do it. Couldn't end him like they wanted.

So I left him.

And I failed.

They weren't going to kill me—not yet. No, Black Lotus didn't waste good assets. They repurposed them. Broke them further. Rewired the short-circuiting mind until it performed as expected.

That day... they chose him.

I remember it like a dream I can't quite wake from. I had been left kneeling on the cold concrete, bloodied, humiliated, hands bound behind my back. The scent of metal and sterilization in the air. My heartbeat thudded loud in my ears.

And then the door hissed open.

Two soldiers marched in, standing at attention. Between them walked a man I'd only heard about in whispers. The Winter Soldier.

He didn't even look human.

Hair long and unkempt, jaw set in stone, eyes vacant but lethal—like something had carved out the soul inside and replaced it with silence and death. And yet, somehow, I saw a flicker of recognition behind his eyes, not of me, but of what he was feeling.

I'd seen that same look in the mirror when I was under Dragunov's control.

Gone. But still there.

He didn't hesitate.

He stepped forward like he'd been ordered to destroy, like my pain was just another mission on a long list of forgotten objectives. I hadn't even braced for it when he grabbed me by the collar and threw me—slamming my body against the concrete wall with enough force to rattle my teeth.

I remember the crack of my shoulder against brick. The taste of copper blooming in my mouth. I'd barely sucked in a breath before he was on me again.

He yanked me upright like I weighed nothing, and then his hand—cold and glinting with metal—pulled a knife from his belt. No words. No hesitation.

Just the blade.

He dragged it down the outside of my hip to my thigh, a long, precise slice. Shallow enough not to kill. Deep enough to punish. Deep enough to scar.

My body tenses at the memory, and without realizing it, my hand leaves his hair and slides down. Fingers ghost across the place on my hip, brushing the faint scar. Barely visible now. But still there. One of the few that ever stayed.

My breath catches.

That wasn't the worst of it.

I remember the way he lifted me again—this time by my throat. His metal arm tightened, cutting off my air. My feet kicked out, frantic, my hands scrabbling at his wrist. I could hear a high-pitched whine in my ears, stars blooming behind my eyelids.

I couldn't breathe.

I was going to die.

And then instinct took over. I reached for the only weapon I had. My mind.

I slipped into his thoughts.

Slipped into the cold, orderly prison of his consciousness. And it hit me like a wall—programming, repetition, numbers, darkness, pain. But somewhere, buried beneath it, I felt a tremor. A small, fractured shard of him.

I latched onto it.

Let go. I whispered into his mind. You don't want to hurt me.

His hand loosened.

He stepped back.

Not confused—just... still.

The handlers started yelling, shocked. Orders were barked, keys fumbled. He stood motionless, weapon in hand, until someone grabbed his arm and barked the codewords to bring him back into line.

After that, they realized what I could do. How I could control him. And from then on, every time he started to wake up, every time he resisted or questioned or remembered—they brought me in.

To shut him back down.

To put the Winter Soldier back in his cage.

It was my punishment. My job. My mission.

And now... he's sleeping on my chest, like he trusts me.

Like he doesn't remember any of it.

I swallow hard, eyes burning. Not from tears—I've shed enough of those. It's guilt. A deep, aching guilt that burrows into my ribs.

I should tell him.

But I can't.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

How do you look someone in the eyes and admit that before you became allies, before you became... whatever this is, he had almost killed you once? That the first time you met wasn't in some dramatic battle or tense briefing—it was in a cold, windowless cell, where he was sent to destroy you and when you messed with his head, you were from then on forced to puppet him like a marionette?

It would change something. Break something.

So I keep my fingers in his hair. Keep my breathing steady.

And I lie.

I lie with silence.

Because right now, he's here. Holding me like I'm worth something. Letting me hold him back.

And for just a moment, I pretend none of it happened.

The room is still quiet when I shift slightly, rolling my shoulder beneath him to ease the ache building there. The sheets rustle and before I can blink, Bucky stirs, his arms tightening instinctively around my waist.

His head lifts slightly from where it had rested on my chest. His eyes are heavy-lidded but alert, already searching mine as if I might disappear. And then—he exhales softly, one of those barely-there smiles tugging at the corner of his mouth as he presses himself closer again, lips grazing along the side of my throat.

His stubble scratches lightly against my skin, but his mouth is warm. Gentle. He doesn't say anything. He never really does when he touches me like this. It's not rushed or demanding—it's reverent.

His lips trail from my throat down to my collarbone, pausing there.

He presses a kiss over the gunshot scar, the faded one that still puckers near the bone.

Another to the curve of my ribs, and then lower. His hands shift under the blanket, firm but soft as they settle at my waist. I feel his mouth against the center of my chest next—then the edge of my sternum, just beside my heart. Like he's memorizing me all over again.

He kisses the edge of the old stab wound on my left hip, just below the curve of bone. His lips linger longer there. Then he shifts again, the blanket slipping slightly, exposing more of me to the morning air, and more of me to him.

A soft, slow kiss to the scar beneath my right breast. Burn mark. Small. Old. I'd barely remembered it until his mouth touched it.

It's not until he moves lower—tongue dragging down the line of my stomach, soft lips brushing the scar on my lower belly—that something inside me stirs. Not fear. Just awareness. Memory.

I swallow hard, body relaxing again under his mouth as he continues.

And then he finds it.

The faint scar from my hip to my thigh. One of the only marks on my body that time never fully erased.

His tongue brushes it before his lips do, and the moment he touches it, I flinch.

Not violently. Not even visibly, really. But enough.

I freeze.

And he feels it.

Bucky stops instantly. Pulls back just enough to look up at me, his eyes dark and wide with concern, like I've just shattered beneath him and he doesn't know how.

We don't speak.

Not at first.

I hold his gaze for a moment too long, then give the smallest nod—permission, or something like it.

I can feel the question burning in him, but he doesn't ask.

He just lowers his mouth again.

He kisses it. Once. Slow. Then again, more tenderly.

My whole body loosens under him, and I feel something inside me melt, ache, soften.

He moves down my thigh, kissing each faded scrape, every little blemish left behind by a war no one saw but me. His hands follow the curve of my legs like he's tracing a map, like I'm something ancient and sacred he's rediscovering.

It's disarming—how he touches me.

I've been with people before. I've had lovers who were rough, fast, impatient. I've been handled like a weapon, a prize, a liability, even a ticking bomb. But never like this.

Bucky handles me like I'm glass.

Or maybe not glass. Maybe something already broken, but worth holding anyway.

Something cracked, but still here.

I rest my head back against the pillow and watch him. The furrow between his brows as he focuses on every inch of me, the way he smooths his palms over my skin to feel for hidden hurts, the reverence in each kiss like he's trying to undo a lifetime of pain.

It's too much.

It's not enough.

My hand finds his hair again, fingers tangling lightly. He glances up, eyes catching mine, and I see it—every unspoken word between us.

He doesn't ask about the scar.

And I don't offer.

Because I'm not ready.

Not yet.

But maybe soon.

Maybe when I can look at it and not see his metal hand around my throat. Maybe when I can hold that memory and this moment in the same breath without shattering.

For now, I let him kiss me.

Let him trace the past written across my body and offer comfort where none was ever given.

And for the first time in a very long time...

I feel safe.

His mouth is a fire I never want to put out.

Every inch of me, he touches like it matters. Like I matter. His lips, soft and deliberate, drag over my skin with aching care. The sharp contrast of his stubble only makes his gentleness more obvious. And the worst part—the best part—is that he's not trying to get something from me. He's not trying to use me, tame me, break me.

He's just here.

With me.

His hands slide down my thighs, parting them slightly, but his mouth stays at my hip, at that damn scar. The one I've avoided mirrors for. The one I can't think about too long without feeling sick. And yet, here he is—tongue brushing it like it's holy, lips tracing it like it's art.

My fingers tighten in his hair.

And something shifts in me.

Not lust. Not need.

It's deeper than that. Scarier.

His mouth moves to the inside of my thigh, then back up to my stomach, retracing his path with more tenderness than I thought he was capable of. And as he does, I realize something terrifying:

I'm falling for him.

Not just in the heat-of-the-moment kind of way. Not in the sex and adrenaline and shared trauma kind of way.

I'm really falling for him.

For James Buchanan Barnes. The man whose face haunted my nightmares. The man who was used as a weapon against me. The man I was supposed to hate. The man I did hate.

The man who is currently kissing the inside of my wrist like it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

My chest constricts.

I should be panicking.

But instead, I feel calm.

Still.

Safe.

That's the part that shakes me the most. The safety. The stillness. I've lived my life in chaos. I've built my armor from it. Pain, betrayal, fear—that's my foundation. That's what I know. Not this. Not him.

Not the way he holds my body like it's sacred. Not the way he licks over each scar like he's erasing old ghosts. Not the way he lets me touch him with reverence too, like he wants to be known.

And God, I do know him.

The broken boy who lost his name.

The soldier who came back wrong.

The man who hides his softness behind sarcasm and silence but lets me see it anyway.

He's mapped into my muscle memory now, the way his mouth finds mine, the way his hands guide me without force. He's in my head, my chest, my bloodstream—and no amount of denial is going to change that.

I let out a slow breath, threading both hands through his thick hair now, pulling gently as his mouth kisses the underside of my breast. He hums in response, low and pleased, and the sound makes my stomach twist in the most unbearable way.

I don't deserve this.

That thought slams into me, hard and cold. But Bucky doesn't give me time to spiral. His hand strokes down my side, grounding me, reminding me that I'm here. That this is real.

That he's real.

And somehow, he's mine.

At least for now.

My heart aches with it.

I arch slightly under him, not to invite more—but just to feel him. All of him. His weight, his heat, his presence. He lifts his head at the motion, and our eyes meet. For a second, neither of us moves. Neither of us speaks.

And in that silence, I swear he sees everything.

The panic.

The affection.

The confusion.

The ache.

His hand cups my cheek like I'm breakable, like I haven't killed men with a flick of my wrist. His thumb brushes over my bottom lip, and then he leans down, kissing me again.

Slow.

Sure.

Steady.

And just like that, I'm gone.

Falling.

Hard.

And I'm terrified... but I don't want to stop.

Because this—the warmth of his breath, the tenderness in his eyes, the ache he soothes without even trying—this is the happiest I've ever felt.

And I don't know what that says about me.

Or what it'll cost.

But right now, I don't care.

Right now, I just kiss him back.