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FLORENCE PUGH Annual Governors Awards, January 9, 2024.

temporal infinity

summary: you arrive at the Complex wounded and Bucky can't cope with the avalanche of feelings that come with the possible outcome of this situation.

pairing: bucky barnes x avenger!reader

words: +3k. i am TRULY sorry, this came out way too much longer than i expected, probably a lot of unnecessary words but i'm too sleepy to correct it. i'll see it tomorrow.

warnings: descriptions of injuries, blood and death. also A LOT of angst, i am sorry. i don't know what happened to me while writing this. English is not my native language so sorry for any mistake!

note: i just found it really funny and ironic that i'm listening to kiss me more while writing this, just fun facts.

Bucky felt his lungs fill with ice as he ran. The sound in the corridors was an annoying whistling in his ear, and the way his vision blurred every couple of minutes gave him a painful nauseating sensation that he knew he could only overcome by vomiting. His feet now moved on automatic, and his mind thought of nothing but getting there soon, getting there on time. His hands clutched at every structure he passed, steadying his body but shaking off the web of disjointed thoughts that barely allowed him to concentrate on what was happening.

That morning had started well. You were supposed to finally be back with the rest of the team -Steve, Nat and Clint- after two weeks since they'd left. Two weeks, fourteen days that had been tremendous torture for Bucky, because from the second day they had lost all communication with the team and had no idea what was going on. On the thirteenth day, Steve had managed to communicate with Maria Hill, telling her that he and Nat had been separated from you and Clint since the third day when they were ambushed. The building you were in collapsed and they had not heard from you for several days.

Bucky hadn't been able to sleep that night.

A rescue team went to the address Steve had told them they were at, with a medical unit on board. But Maria didn't say who needed that attention, though Bucky could sense it in a deep part of him. A part of him that refused to listen and that beat himself into silence at the thought of finally seeing you again after so many days and nights thinking about the endless possibilities; the myriad of endings.

He hadn't even noticed how dark the day had been since he woke up, or how everyone around him seemed so quiet. Or maybe it was him, who had drifted into his own world, the one where you came back from the mission and ran from the Quinjet to meet him, as you had hundreds of times before. Surely it was Bucky who was silent, and the rest of the world was running at a speed he refused to keep up with, because that part of him that didn't want to accept that small possibility kept nagging at his stability and the only way he found to quiet it was to walk at a slower pace. To reduce the odds to one: you had arrived safely. Everything was going to be all right.

But the moment FRIDAY announced to him in the training room that the rescue team had arrived, that small, demonic part of him had taken control of his body again. Now, Bucky was moving faster than the others, while they seemed to slow down as they accepted the truth that he'd been grimacing at and locking away in the back of his mind all day.

Now, Bucky was scared. He was scared to his bones.

As he turned the last corner of the hallway to get to the room he'd been directed to, he noticed Steve's body, sitting on one of the chairs in front of the door with the number he'd memorized in seconds, his head in his hands, his suit torn. His heart skipped a beat and, although he wanted to keep running, the pain in his chest and the uneasy tingling in his hands prevented him from hurrying any further. He felt he was reaching his limit.

Steve heard his footsteps and raised his head. Bucky quickly noticed the dried strands of blood, the bruises and the.... No. No.

"Bucky..."

The blond man stood up heavily, as if carrying his own body was too much at the moment. Bucky moved closer to him, but not too close, just close enough to shake his head. No. No.

"I'm sorry..."

He shook his head sharply. As more tears welled up in Steve's eyes after he uttered those words, Bucky hurried to open the door wide.

At that moment, he felt the blood rush to his feet. He had never felt fear as great as he felt at that moment, his body tense but light as a mountain of dry leaves, capable of collapsing in a mere autumn breeze.

You were lying on the stretcher. There were hundreds of machines around you, so many that Bucky could barely make out your body among them all. Your black suit was torn, there was blood everywhere, even on the floor under the stretcher, and soon Bucky had that vomiting feeling again.

His fingers were trembling, too weak to clasp his hands and have the strength to approach without collapsing. The pain in his chest had been replaced by a noisy emptiness; a silence so loud that for a moment he thought a bomb had exploded right next to him. When he felt his eyes water, he ran the back of his hand under them in an automatic action. Seconds later he didn't even remember doing it.

His steps forward, slow and fearful, felt numb, light and unsteady, as if you were trying to sink an empty bottle into the water, trying fiercely to return to the surface.

Clint was facing you, on the other side of the stretcher. His hands were resting on the metal edge and he hadn't left your side since you'd been brought back. Bucky barely glanced at him for a second, but Clint averted his gaze to look at the man with the metal arm, lost in a sense of unease like a castaway at sea, scared shitless but hoping to find land. To steady himself.

Bucky murmured your name, in a broken, strained sigh, like a prayer to an unknown god. Like a prayer to whoever was listening. He was already too close to the stretcher and too deep in pain to turn back and pretend that nothing had happened, that he would come back when all was well.

He watched you with eyes shining and abounding with a sense of brokenness. Your eyes weren't watching him, fixed on the ceiling as silent tears slipped away from you and got lost in the strands of your hair.

Bucky's hands burned to touch you, to squeeze your hand and pull you to his chest; his heart shrank with the need to make the pain go away, to take you and make the wounds in your body simply disappear to give way to the tranquillity of a secure future. The future you had promised him.

No, that couldn't be happening to him.

"Bucky," you whispered, barely on a breath.

He snapped out of it, a rush running down his back and the desire, the need, to care for you emerging from his chest with overwhelming force.

A few seconds passed as he made his way towards you, trying not to touch the machines too much.

Watching your face, after days of despair and worry, did nothing to change the drain on his hope. It slipped through his fingers like sand.

Your eyes moved from the ceiling, searching for his as you felt him move beside you. Finding them unleashed a joy in your chest despite the immeasurable pain you were going through, like the sip of cool water after hours of aimless running; like finding your home in a person's arms after years of running alone.

"Hi," you said, holding back a sob. You knew you couldn't hide the agony you were feeling, let alone the agony he would feel later, but you wanted to feel, even for a moment, as if everything was perfect.

As if you weren't really dying.

"Hello," he replied in a whisper, his eyes fixed on yours as one of his hands would have moved to cradle one of your cheeks, careful not to graze the small cuts you had on it.

"You know something? I thought a lot about what you said to me," you began, your voice breaking between words but trying to remain as steady as possible.

Bucky moved his hip closer to the edge of the gurney, watching you as if in that moment nothing else mattered; as if after that moment nothing ever ever mattered again.

"Which of all the things I said, sweetheart?"

His thumb stroked you gently, and the finesse courtesy of his touch sent shivers through the parts of your body that weren't numb from anesthesia, or the parts that didn't hurt. God, how you loved when he did that.

"If we had a daughter, I think I'd like her name to be Betty."

The lump in his throat became unbearable, and the first tears that escaped his pain-contracted face fell on your torn clothes. He watched you, and his gaze said a million things at once, while the hand that was on your cheek shook hard.

No, you couldn't say those things to him. Not at that time. Not ever.

Your left hand rested on his hand, and the ring on your ring finger glowed as if the promise of that future was taunting him; as if the universe had played a joke on him from the beginning, making him believe he could have it all only to have it all snatched away. How could he have hope after this? How could he go on living with your memories together haunting him, taunting his fateful destiny?

"You said- you said that was the name you liked best."

Your voice was a whisper, but Bucky could tell how hard you were trying to speak as steadily as possible. And he couldn't handle it, he just couldn't.

His eyes closed tightly and more tears rolled down his cheeks. With his head bowed, he sobbed loudly and the image broke your soul into a thousand pieces. You hated that this was happening, you hated that you were to blame for this suffering and you hated that you couldn't do anything to fix it. To help him. To stay with him.

"Yes," Bucky whispered, lifting his head to look at you again, though the mere image contracted his heart in pangs of genuine torment, "But you had told me you liked Victoria too."

You smiled at him as best you could, your hand tightening on his.

"I had considerable time to think about it. Victoria was my great-grandmother's name. The one who left me the typewriter, remember?"

Bucky nodded, his eyes never leaving yours.

"There was a time when I thought about naming my first daughter after her, but you captivated me from the moment you said Betty. I just wanted to play hard to get," you blurted out the last between a laugh and a wince, to which Bucky frowned, but said nothing about it.

"First? So you had time to consider having more?"

"Yeah, totally. I want a boy too."

Bucky smiled slightly at you, but without reaching his eyes fully, which were still awash with that agony and anticipated suffering he was not yet ready to endure.

"And what name would you give our son, love?"

"James."

Bucky frowned.

"James?"

"Yes," you replied with a slightly bigger smile, "It's a nice name, don't you think?"

Bucky just nodded, agreeing with you without hesitation. He finished settling his weight on the gurney, very careful not to brush against you, and lifted his other hand to accommodate your damp hair that was spilling over your face.

"I had also thought of another name for a girl, since we didn't agree on one last time."

You looked at him expectantly.

"Inez."

"I love it," you said without hesitation, your corners lifting, adorning your eyes bright with anticipation and missed possibilities, "It could be our third daughter's name."

Bucky let out a laugh, choking back a whimper in the back of his throat.

"How many of our children did you project?"

"Just those three. There could always be more."

"Yes," Bucky smiled ruefully, new tears gathering behind his eyes, "Maybe one will sneak in before the wedding."

"Oh, yeah. The wedding, right. I haven't finished arranging the invitations yet."

Your voice broke again, the feeling of the inevitable shaking your chest hard. You watched Bucky's contracted face, and you didn't want to suppress the urge to move your hands up to cradle his drenched face.

You smiled at him again, still mustering what strength you could to hold on for a few more seconds.

"I can't do this," he murmured, tears escaping once more.

"You'll be fine, Bucky," you assured him, wiping his cheeks with your thumbs. He shook his head frantically at your words, "Yes, Bucky. You're going to be fine, you're going to get through this, my love. And you're going to heal. You're going to be fine."

"No..." he sobbed.

Suddenly, you felt a stab of pain jolt through your body. You had to bite your tongue to keep from screaming in shock and to keep from scaring Bucky. The burning in the left side of your abdomen was becoming more and more present, the anaesthetic finally wearing off.

"I can't do this without you. Please, don't leave me."

"Yes, you can. You're strong, love. You're going to make it without me."

Bucky continued to deny, and pulled his head close to your chest to cry loudly. His shoulders shook violently and you felt the ravages of his suffering slowly shattering what tiny strength you had left.

"I'm going to miss you. Every damn day."

"I know, I'm sorry," you whispered, choking back tears just like him.

"This isn't fair," he mumbled through his teeth, his hands coming down to your shoulders, groping carefully not to hurt you, "It's not fair."

"I'm sorry."

Bucky lifted his head, and with tear-filled eyes watched you. Your body filled with a feeling of helplessness, your will to go on more alive than ever but a little strength couldn't change what was already written for your future. No matter how much you wanted, longed, wished or prayed, nothing was going to change that at that moment you were going to die and you were going to leave this man mourning your loss in life, empty and automaton-like for the rest of his days.

The pangs became more and more present, and you remembered the doctor's words, a few minutes before Bucky arrived: when the anaesthetic begins to wear off, there will be little time left.

You moved your hands over his cheeks, over his eyebrows, along his forehead and jawline, until you reached the curve of his lips. You didn't know where you were going after this, whether to heaven, to a new life or to absolute nothingness, but what you did know was that there was no place in this vast universe you wanted to be without remembering every millimetre and faction of his face. There was no place you wanted to be without remembering the colour of his irises and the way his eyes would close and his brow would relax every time you stroked his temples, as you were doing at that moment.

A feeling of despair began to emerge from your chest, so strongly that for a moment it took your breath away. More tears rolled down your face as you watched him, for a moment quiet under the effect of your caresses on him, surely thinking for a minute that you were somewhere else, doing something else instead of agonising over a premature goodbye. Perhaps you were at your wedding, after your vows, kissing, or perhaps on your way to your honeymoon destination.

Your hands moved to intertwine behind his neck, and before he could open his eyes to return to this reality, you pulled him forward and joined your lips with his. Strong, clumsy and desperate, but with a need to let him know that you were still there, that you were doing your best even when you knew it wouldn't do any good, and that even if you weren't around afterwards, you would always be with him. A part of you would always be with him.

Bucky was so desperate too, so anxious for the touch, that he couldn't even coordinate his movements properly. He just wanted to feel you, wanted to know that you were still there, that he still had seconds to lose himself in his temporal infinity.

His lips on yours, probably for the last time, were like a balm. A warm sensation and a burning feeling of tranquility and peace was what overwhelmed you as Bucky, desperately, clung to your body to try to keep the life inside you; to try to lengthen the thread of destiny that had already been cut.

No one had ever spoken to him about death, even though he carried it on his shoulders. No one had ever told him what it would feel like to lose the one he loved. No one had told him that he would be in so much pain that he would tear out his heart with his metal hand so that he would never feel it again, so that he would never feel it again for the rest of his life, so that he could go with her because he would not be able to bear her loss.

No one ever told Bucky how he would know when death would come knocking at his door, taking away the only good thing he had in his life, the only good thing he had ever managed to keep with him even though he didn't deserve it. No one told him that death would be so vicious, so ruthless and brazen as to attack him from behind while he was unsuspecting.

No one ever warned Bucky that death is unexpected and knows no boundaries.

And he didn't need to hear someone's words to know that, if he took his lips away from yours, he would no longer meet your eyes gazing adoringly at him. It had already happened. Just like that. You were gone.

He hadn't even said goodbye, and the last thing you had done was apologise to him. And for what? For the unholy, sadistic act of chance? Or maybe because of the divine punishment you had been the victim of for all the atrocious deeds that filled his hands with blood.

Maybe it was his fault. Maybe he had caused all this.

"Y/N..." he murmured against your lips, unable to pull away any further to confirm what his bruised heart already knew, "Don't leave me."

One of his hands went around the back of your neck and the other around your waist to pull you as close to his body as possible, even ignoring the sticky feel of your shirt on his right arm.

"Please, wake up. Look at me. Y/N. Please ,don't leave me. I can't do it, I need- I need you to be with me. Please. I love you. Don't leave me."

His shoulders shook, like that moment when he had hidden in the crook of your neck to cry vehemently, but even then it was worse. Because your hands didn't caress his hair, and he didn't feel your breath on his neck.

You just weren't there.

"No, no, no. Please. Please!"

You weren't there, and it was his fault.

"Y/N."

No answer.

"You're my life. I can't..."

His grip on your body tightened.

"Stay with me, please..."

Hearing his broken voice was agonizing, and no one inside the room dared approach to pull him away from your lifeless body. He just rocked back and forth, clinging as tightly as it could to the possibility of seeing you again just to beg someone, anything, for mercy.

But that wasn't going to happen. Because deep inside him, in the place he hadn't been since you came into his life, he knew he didn't deserve that pity. He didn't deserve that pity. Years of killing proved it.

And he also knew that this was the beginning of endless misfortunes that would follow him until his last breath.

Because the only thing that gave him hope that everything would be all right was you. And now you were gone.

Now there was nothing. There was no one. He was alone.

There was nothing left. There was nothing left to fight for. There was only a deep darkness, an empty and eternal hole of suffering.

The only light that came, that brightened his days and made him bloom was gone. His sun had gone out, and with it had taken everything with it.

There was nothing left.

He was alone.

-----

i am sorry.

and i did use the names of taylor swift's album folklore, i'm not the least bit surprised.

'Fantastic Four' Sigue con su Baile de Nombres. Javier Bardem podría ser Galactus...

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