Slipping
Type: some angst and some fluff
Bucky hears the barefooted steps padding down the hall as he’s cooking at the stove, and it doesn’t take much longer before a pair of arms wrap around his waist and a cheek presses into his back, a fond smile making its way onto his face, “Morning, Sunshine.”
The only response he receives is a grunt and a nose nuzzling further into his back, causing a light chuckle to leave his lips and it sends vibrations into your body. Bucky flicks off the stove and places the eggs on the plates before picking them up and attempting to move, only to be held back by you squeezing him tighter.
“Sweetheart, I’m just going to the table so we can eat,” He says and starts walking. Your arms are still wrapped around his waist and you shuffle with him while your face is still pressed into his back, refusing to let go.
“You’re warm,” you manage to mumble through a thick voice.
Bucky shakes his head with a smile while setting the plate on the table before turning in your arms to face you. You allow him to shift, but proceed to bury your face in his chest as his hands rest on your cheeks, pulling back, trying to get you to look up at him.
Eyes still closed, you tilt your head up, “And you—” he says and you feel him press a kiss on the ridge between your eyes, “Are adorable…and incredibly clingy.”
The soft morning smile painting your lips falters, but it isn’t seen as Bucky turns and sits in his seat. You shake the doubt from your mind as you slide into your own chair, gracing your lips with a smile as you both eat, going over the itinerary for the day. At first, it seems as though nothing is wrong, that you’ve successfully stopped the intruding memories from barging into your thoughts, but once Bucky kisses you goodbye and leaves for work, they come diving in headfirst—
“Can you not just give a man some space?”
“Just leave me alone, I can’t breathe when you’re like this…”
“You’re suffocating me with all your damn touching!”
“You’re so goddamn clingy, y/n!”
The same voice whispers in your ear the rest of the day, the one that caused aching pain in your heart a few years ago. It follows you as you drive, fades in the chaos as you busy yourself with work, then comes back when you arrive at home that evening. Upon hearing the running shower as you walk into your bedroom, you know where Bucky is, so you change out of your work clothes and into PJs before slipping into the kitchen and start cooking dinner. Both your work schedules are a little odd, most of the time you wake up before him, but there are times, like today, where you can get up together.
You’re lost in the patterns of cooking the asparagus when a pair of arms wrap around your waist and Bucky’s chin rests on your shoulder, “You’re home,” he says and places a peck on your cheek and you hum in response.
“How was your day?” you ask, attempting to rid your mind of the whispers of your ex slowly turning into screams the longer Bucky holds you, fighting the urge to move out of his hold that you love so much.
“Normal. Filed some reports and went to a meeting, trained with Steve, nothing crazy. How about you?”
“Same,” you say and something sparks in Bucky’s mind. You typically rant a minute or two about something, whether it be a co-worker or just frustrations in the work itself, you almost never give short responses like that…
“Everything okay?” he asks while running his hands up and down your sides.
You flick off the stove and grab a mitten as you answer, “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”
Twisting our of Bucky’s hold, you hate the relief it brings to the voices in your head because you love it when he holds you. It’s safety, home, and you crave it. It’s the way you express that you love him, the way you’ve always expressed it.
The wondrous smell of seasoned chicken fills the kitchen as you open the stove and check it, “It needs another twenty minutes, or so.”
A couple of hours later, you are laying in bed, Bucky has an arm draped over you as he sleeps soundly, but you are staring blankly at the wall, trying not to let the voices get to you. But maybe the voices are right…
You feel your heart sink in your chest as you remember all the times you cling to Bucky, and some of his reactions aren’t always the best, you suppose. What if that sigh of content was actually from the exhaustion of having you so close? The longer you think about it the more the memories twist and unsure you become. Is everything the way you think it is when it comes to your clingy behavior? You’ve been in a relationship with Bucky for a year now, you suppose that is enough time to grow weary of your touch. It’s happened before, it can happen again. The whispers of your past grow louder, telling you to be more careful: you lost someone because of your clinginess, you refuse to lose Bucky to it as well. He means too much to you, he’s sweet and kind, always treats you like you mean everything to him. He takes care of you on your hardest days, and even when you fight, there is always the reassurance that you love each other, no matter how bad it gets. You love him.
A chill runs down your spine and you curl yourself into Bucky’s embrace, his hold around you tightening slightly as you nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck. You allow the safety of his arms to quell your fear for the moment and cherish the relief his touch brings, even as he sleeps.
It starts slow, the gentle touches as you walk by, the fingers brushing through his hair when you sit next to him, the way you trace patterns on his hands when you’re watching a movie, they all start to fade away. Bucky can never pin what feels missing these days, but throws it into the back of his mind, guessing it is just something that will go away.
Bucky is drowned in his book on the living room couch when he hears you coming down the hall. He uncrosses his legs and opens his arms a bit, getting settled in a comfortable spot all while continuing to reading, but when the familiar weight doesn’t come, he lifts his eyes and finds you curled up on the single-seat across the room, blankets wrapped around your legs as they swing over the armrest, nose buried in the story of the night. He chews the inside of his cheek a second before brushing it off and continuing to read, guessing he is overthinking.
You, however, can hardly focus on the book due to how wrong it feels to be sitting in the chair instead of with Bucky. Your arms feel cold despite the blanket and the seat is uncomfortable, unlike when Bucky would wrap his arms around you and you would rest your head on his shoulder as you both read, his body heat keeping you warm and the way his fingers would mindlessly trace along your collarbone. The memory sends an ache in your chest and all you want is to sit next to him, but you can’t…
The vibration of your wrist wakes you from your sleep, and you begrudgingly sit up on the bed, turning off the silent alarm, not even having to slip out of Bucky’s hold because you’ve avoided forcing him to cuddle you for the last few weeks. You lean over him to kiss his temple like you do every morning you have to leave before him, but stop, hovering just above his head and squeeze your eyes shut, biting your lip as you move away and carefully raise off the bed…It’s too much, just leave the poor man alone.
After getting ready for work, you stare at Bucky willing yourself to leave without kissing him, watching as his chest rises and falls, the slight part in his lips, his hair sprawled out on the pillow and some over his face. You love it when he is like this, so calm and relaxed, perfect. You chew the inside of your lip and walk out of the bedroom without a sound, trying to ignore the aching in your chest as you grab your coat and leave for work. Touch is something you’ve always needed, it relaxes you, de-stresses you, makes you feel safe, and living without it for the last month and a half has taken a serious toll on you. You know you’ve become a bit quieter, a little more distant, but it is for the better, it is better to be like this than to lose Bucky. You will get used to it eventually.
The sunlight flickers through the bedroom window, gently waking Bucky out of his sleep. His eyes flutter open and his brows furrow when he realizes the other side of the bed is empty, no noise throughout the apartment. The warm light coming through the curtains does nothing to stop the sinking of his heart or the dim of his eyes when he realizes that you’ve left for work…without kissing him goodbye. You always do it, when you wake up to get ready for the day you always kiss his forehead or cheek, tell him you love him. Of course, you always think he stays asleep when you do this, but in reality, the second your lips touch him in the morning, he wakes up and his heart swells in his chest as he knows you do those things when you think he can’t hear you. But you didn’t do it this morning, and he can’t stop the fear that has been growing over the last month from bursting.
You stir the goulash one more time before turning off the stove just as you hear the doors of the apartment unlock and Bucky walk inside, “You’re home!” you say as a large smile makes its way onto your face.
Bucky makes his way into the kitchen, his smile slightly heavy as he looks at you, “I’m home,” he says and there is something in his voice telling you he’s got something on his mind. He leans down and you give him a quick peck on the lips, Bucky barely even feeling it before you spin around and start grabbing bowls from the cabinet. His heart sinks at the ghost of your lips on his, not there long enough for him to recognize it, and he can’t take the distance anymore.
He grabs your wrist and spins you around to face him, and before you can even ask what is happening, he crashes his lips against yours, kissing you deep and sweet, but it is gone in a second when you pull away, “Buck—” Your words are halted when Bucky presses his lips against yours again, “What?” Another kiss and now he has backed you into the counter, “Bucky, what’s going—”
“Stop pulling away from me…” Bucky says as he rests his forehead against yours, his voice shaky and pleading. His eyes flutter open to see yours staring at him confused, “Please stop pulling away from me.”
“Baby, what are you talking about?” You ask, your hand begging to cup the side of his face, to pull him close and do anything to remove that scared look in his eyes.
“I miss you…” he says and your eyes widen, but before you get to say anything, he pulls back a little, his hand coming to rest on your cheek as he keeps you pressed against the counter, his eyes flicking between yours, “It’s been two months…I-I thought I was overthinking, then that maybe you just needed some space, o-or maybe you just—I don’t know, but baby, I can’t take this anymore. Why don’t you touch me anymore?”
“I miss when you would sit next to me every night and we’d talk and you’d fall asleep on my shoulder. I miss having you in my lap whenever you read a book, now you just sit in that single-seat. I-I miss the way you would casually touch me if you were walking by, and-and the way you would play with my hair,” Bucky says as his voice thickens with the lump in his throat, and you are staring at him in shock as tears well in your eyes, “I miss the way you’d randomly walk up behind me and hug me, I miss the feeling of your arms around me. You don’t let me hold you anymore…Whenever I try to hug you, you pull away. You don’t let me cuddle you when we sleep, you stay on the other side of the bed. I miss having you close to me, having your head tucked under my chin as we talk until we pass out. I miss running my fingers through your hair and whispering in your ear. The way you nuzzle your face into my neck,” by now, tears are streaming down both your faces, Bucky staying as close to you as possible as he speaks, “I miss you kissing me before you left for work in the mornings, even though you thought I was sleeping, it made me feel loved. A-And I miss the way you used to kiss me…like you meant it, like I was everything to you. Now, I can barely feel you on my lips before you pull away, it’s like you’re not there. I miss you…I miss you…Am I losing you?” Bucky finishes as he buries his face in the crook of your neck and you can’t help the sob that heaves your chest.
You wrap your arms around him, one around his back and the other allows you to rest your hand on the back of his neck, playing with the hair on the base of his head, “Bucky,” you say and try to pull him up, but he nuzzles further into your neck and his arms around your waist tighten, “James, look at me.”
He lifts his head and the second you can, you crash your lips against his in a desperate but sweet kiss, pushing all the love and the heartache of being away from him into it. Bucky groans at the contact and deepens the kiss, lifting you up and setting you on the countertop before sliding his hands to the base of your neck and lower back. You run your hands up his neck and card your fingers through his hair, pulling him closer, and you swear you felt him tremble slightly. This time, when you pull away, it is only for oxygen and you rest your forehead against his as you both catch your breath, occasionally pecking each other’s lips.
“James, you’ll never lose me, not if I can help it, I love you,” you say and open your eyes, finding Bucky’s deep blue ones staring at you with a new sense of hope in them, “I love you so much, Baby.”
Bucky kisses you again softly, “I love you too, Sweetheart, please come back to me.”
You place your hands on each side of his face and his own wrap around your wrists, keeping you there and his eyes flutter closed when you press a kiss on the ridge between his eyes, “I’m right here, I’m back.”
After a moment of staying there, relaxing in the presence of each other, “What happened? What made you pull away?” Bucky asks, looking up at you expectantly.
You bite your lip and look down, but Bucky tilts your chin up, eyes pleading to understand, “You remember when I talked about my ex?” you ask and Bucky nods, “It was a pretty bad relationship to start with, but one of the things he absolutely hated was how much I touch. I-It’s always been something that calms me down, helps me get through the days, especially the hard ones, but he couldn’t stand it. Called me a ‘clingy little bitch’, and when you called me clingy once, i-it made me realize how much I actually touch you and I-I couldn’t lose you like I did him, I didn’t want you to hate it and end up leaving me,” you continue and Bucky starts shaking his head, “S-So I forced myself to stop, I thought I was forcing you to do all those things and I got really scared…”
“You’re not losing me, not now, not ever, and sure as hell not because you’re clingy. I love how you need touch so much, it helps me relax and touching you helps me know you’re actually here, that you’re not going anywhere. I love all the little things you do, and your ex was an idiot to ever treat you like you say.”
You smile and for the first time in a while, there isn’t a weight behind it, no voices whispering in your ear, just Bucky. Well, that and the sound of your stomach growling.
Bucky laughs lightly, “C’mon,” he says and helps you off the counter, sticking close to you as he scoops some of the goulash you made into a couple of bowls, handing one to you and grabbing forks before guiding you to the living room and sitting on the couch. You attempt to sit next to him, but he shakes his head an pulls you sideways into his lap between his legs while yours drape over one of his, “Sorry, you’re not leaving my arms for the next week.”
“There are worse things that could happen,” you say as you smile, digging into your food as Bucky does the same.
You walk out of the bathroom in a pair of underwear and one of Bucky’s shirts, the hem falling on your upper thighs, the collar slipping off your shoulder slightly and Bucky watches you from the bed as you run a quick comb through your hair, “I’ve missed seeing you in my shirts.”
“I’ve missed wearing them,” you admit as you finish and pad your way over to the bed, flicking off the lamp and slipping under the covers, Bucky instantly pulling you close to him and kissing you. You hum at the feeling and run your fingers through his hair.
He pulls away and buries his face in your neck, humming in content, “Keep doing that,” he mumbles as he pulls you closer, his flesh arm under your head as his metal one drapes over your hips and waist, keeping you pressed against him. You laugh lightly and nuzzle your face into him.
After a little while, Bucky’s groggy voice breaks the silence, “Y/n?” he asks and you hum in response, “Promise me you’ll talk to me next time, if you’re worried or scared or the voices get too loud, just—please talk to me.”
“I promise,” you assure and you feel him kiss your collar bone as you hold his head against your chest and play with his hair. Before long, the moonlight finds you both sleeping in each other’s arms, faint smiles and content hearts, just as it should be.