Fate
Pairings/Characters: Bucky Barnes x Reader (Female), Steve x Peggy makes a brief cameo
Prompt: Soulmate AU where a timer on your wrist counts down until the moment you meet your soulmate, then underneath appears the date and time that you met your soulmate and the initials of your soulmate written in their handwriting.
Summary: It didn't matter to Bucky that his timer was extremely long, or that it wasn't on his left wrist like everyone else's. No, he just lived his life to the fullest as per the words of his father. A soulmate didn't matter to Bucky. Until it did. Until a big buff Steve rescued him from the HYRDA base and he saw how happy they were together, Steve and his soulmate Peggy. Until he fell off that train and he realized, that he wouldn't live to see his own soulmate. Then he regained his memories and realized that he didn't deserve a soulmate. But then he found her.
Word Count:2286
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or any of its characters. Marvel belongs to Disney blah blah legal stuff, don't sue me I'm poor.
A/N: OMG I'm alive! My first Bucky x Reader fic I'm screaming internallyI have my laptop (YAY!) and I'm spending the night at my grandma's place so I have WiFi (double yay!) and I found this sitting in Docs from like, way back when I first joined tumblr and I haven't written anything soooooo long, so I cleaned it up and I thought why not? Feedback is always welcomed, it's not a suggestion, it's a command, you tell me what you think! jk. On with the story!
When he's in fourth grade the word 'soulmate' is one of the questions his teacher asks the class if they know the meaning of. Bucky does, but still he copies down the statement written on the board.
Soulmates – People that the universe destined to be together.
There's a box on the underneath, for him to draw a picture that represents the word. The girl and the boy in front of him try their best to draw pictures of themselves, writing their names underneath, their timers having stopped two weeks after the start of the initial school year when the girl transferred into their class. Bucky draws the best stick figure of himself, holding hands with another mystery figure, a question mark in the place of their head.
He doesn't understand that there are only three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, three hundred and sixty-six at most. It doesn't matter to him that his number is larger than the others, or that it's not on his left wrist like everyone else's, instead he counters it with the fact that his soulmate will just be better than theirs.
By the time he's an adult it doesn't matter anymore, for he's finally able to understand that by the time he meets his soulmate he'll be in his nineties, leaving him with only a short window of time to spend with them before either one of them dies, if he even lives that long.
Instead he lives per the words spoken to him by his drunkard of a father.
"Live your life while you can son, that soulmate thing's a big ole pile of crap, they tie you down, take away your freedom."
His first kiss isn't anything special, in fact, he has much more like it, all the same with a different pair of lips. All the girls are on the rebellious side like him. People with no hope, the idea of soulmates almost repelling to them, trying to prove it wrong with each other.
One of the girls - Dolores he believes is her name, Dot - her timer had already stopped. He lays beside her, and he tries his best not to stare but he can't help himself. 00:00:00:00 and the date, time and initials underneath: 27/10/1938 12:23 D.B.
Numbers and letters that Bucky may never live to see on his own wrist, but she doesn't give a damn. He's snapped back from his thoughts by her voice.
"He's doll dizzy even when we were together he couldn't seem to stop his eyes from drifting to them, we decided it was best to part ways. All those people who use broken can scram, we're broken, we're screwed up, who cares right?"
It's in that moment that he realizes that he – James Buchanan Barnes – does in fact care. Somewhere in his mind, all those elementary school teachings of fate and destiny emerges. Every time his mother assured him that there was nothing wrong with him, that it was all fate, that everything would be okay, and the moment would be magical no matter what their age was and it gives him hope.
But that hope disappeared a short while after, and he was back to living his life. Or so he thought.
He begins hoping again, when he sees Steve and Peggy, and while he's happy for his best friend he couldn't help but feel that twinge of jealousy deep down, that he may never get what they had.
Then he's falling off a train, in the back of his mind he can hear his mother's voice telling him not to breathe through his mouth because of the cold, but he can't help the screams ripping their way out of his throat as he watches Steve's silhouette and the train, disappearing in the distance. As he hit the cold ground there was an instant flash of pain before it all goes dark. He remembers being dragged away, leaving a trail of crimson in the sparkling white snow.
When he wakes again he's strapped to a table, his vision is blurry but he can make out the myriad of people in white lab coats and black uniforms with guns and clipboards, speaking in a different language that he can't comprehend, in the distance he sees the familiar logo, the skull with the tentacles, HYRDA had gotten hold of him. Again.
Then he notices the numbness in his left shoulder, and then there's no feeling in the rest of his left arm, he doesn't want to look down, but he did, and he saw it, his entire left arm was made of metal. He feels a searing pain in his right arm, a needle, and then like fire, burning through his veins before all fades to black once more.
When he's awake once more and fully conscious of himself with some of his memories again is in Washington DC. He's heading to a museum called the Smithsonian. His hair is pulled back in a bun, stubble lining his chin, his face hidden under a baseball cap and a hoodie, as he navigates the streets with tense shoulders, hoping no one notices him. He's all over the news – The infamous Winter Soldier that almost killed Captain America, nowhere to be found - Thankfully everyone is either preoccupied or doesn't care to even glance his way.
He purchases his ticket with the least amount of words possible and heads inside, ignoring the glances and stares children send his way, praying that they don't recognize him and tell their parents who are occupied observing the artifacts from his army days.
The exhibit isn't hard to find, it's the largest one there. He heads straight past everything on the Captain himself and gets to his part. He stands in front of a mirror of himself, looking at the man he used to be, cropped hair and less blood on his hands. He reads the unbearably short biography of himself, watches the small documentary that they had, catching a glimpse of the old Bucky, the happy one and then he heads over to the glass case where a preserved page from a notebook is displayed. It's a journal entry from his high school days written by one of his old classmates.
A journal entry written by a classmate of Barnes claims that his timer was unusually long and unlike everyone else's was not on his left wrist, but his right.
19/09/1933
It's a new school year, there are new kids in our class, a fella named Bucky and his best friend Steve, Steve's small and scrawny and Bucky, the days on his timer are tens of thousands, and it's not on his left wrist like everybody else it's on his right wrist. They're both weirdos, maybe that's why they hang out together. Anyway in other news Johnny
The rest was cut off from there. Bucky reads the page once more, fighting the urge to glance down at his wrist, until someone clears their throat behind him. He leaves shortly after, and DC is oblivious to everything he's going through.
The noise of the city becomes insufferable so he slips away to a park, he finds himself sitting on an isolated bench in a quiet area, his head in his hands, a cluster of trees keeping him company. Everything is coming back to him slowly, but the image of that page keeps flashing in his mind, the taunting words become too much and he can no longer resist the urge.
He yanks up the sleeve of both his hoodie and the long-sleeved shirt he wore underneath and stared at the numbers on his wrist, 731:09:12:12. Seven hundred and thirty-one days - two years, nine hours, twelve minutes and twelve...eleven…ten seconds and counting until he met his soulmate.
They were here. Bucky stares down at his hands again, stained red with the blood of everyone he had ever killed. It was in that moment that he convinces himself that he doesn't deserve them. A monster, a murderer like him doesn't deserve love.
After that Bucky moves to Romania. He knows he can't outrun it, he can't cheat destiny, but he sure as hell could try.
His memories are coming back to him slowly but surely, he remembers one time in a lab, after he was sent out to commit another murder.
"Will you make me kill them?" he asks staring down at his wrist, watching as time ticks by slowly.
"What?" the doctor quips as he gets the machine ready.
"If I find my soulmate, will you make me kill them?" he replies as the guard pushes him back into the chair and the helmet is positioned on his head, "I won't kill them! I'll know who they are! I WON'T KILL THEM!" he screams before the rubber is shoved into his mouth muffling his cries and the machine is turned on, making waves of pain pulse through his body. Before everything fades he sees a man coming into the room and hears them speaking.
"What happened?"
"He was asking questions again, I just wish the timer was on his left arm like everyone else's, it's like fate knew what was going to happen," he manages a small, lopsided smile which they miss before the pain begins once more and he blacks out.
He spends every waking moment he can watching the clock tick down, he lays in his bed after every nightmare, watching the numbers until his eyes drift shut again only to be ripped open once more by the horrible images of what he'd done, of all the pain and suffering he'd caused.
Then Steve showed up in his apartment, he was accused of the bombing in Vienna, and the whole drama with the Accords, and Stark, one of his many victims.
He's now in a high-tech research lab in Wakanda, he doesn't know why the king is helping them, especially after they tried to kill each other, but he's grateful that they're trying to fix him, to rid his brain of whatever HYDRA put inside him.
Until they could, he made the decision to go back under, he couldn't trust his own mind so why should they. Maybe it would help him escape the clock too.
Before his body is completely iced over, Bucky takes one last look at his wrist, the timer is still ticking away, hopefully it will be done by the time he's back out.
And though his body was frozen, the timer never stilled.
When he was back out it was a year later, he had a new arm and after researching for hours on end the scientists finally found a way to get the trigger words out of his head.
Although they got rid of the words that made him a killer in the first place, they couldn't get rid of the guilt that haunted Bucky every breathing second. They couldn't get rid of the images that flashed behind his eyes every time he closed them. They couldn't get rid of the fact that he was a monster that didn't deserve love.
That's the philosophy Bucky Barnes lived by until the day he met her. The ambitious, bright eyed girl who would change his life, and his view on things forever.
It's his birthday for the first time in seventy seven years, if he (Or I) calculated correctly. It wasn't anything special, millions of other people had their birthdays on the same day, some of them didn't even get to celebrate it. A lifetime ago Steve would use some of the money he saved to buy him a candy bar, but that was during a war, now was the future, people had money and though he asked for them to treat it as any other day, he still finds himself slipping away from a huge party at Stark Tower courtesy of Tony Stark himself as Steve shoots him a small smile and a knowing nod.
He now finds himself standing in a small, homey coffee shop, looking over the sweet treats in the display case, barely hearing the bell ring behind him as he tapped away at the counter waiting on his drink. After collecting it he turns around and takes a single step before he crashes into someone, effectively spilling the coffee all over them.
"Oh God, I'm so sorry,"
"It's my fault I should have been looking where I was going," she replies and when his eyes meet hers for the first time he feels it, even before the timers on both their wrists ding and is followed shortly by a burning sensation. He feels it, and he knows it's her.
She drops the wallet in her hand, clutching her wrist and muttering profanities under her breath. But he barely feels it, he's endured worse pain than that. He slowly brings his hand up and looks at the way they form on his wrist, first the date, straight across under the timer, then under that the time and next to it, her initials in a beautiful cursive writing before it all fades to a numb, barely noticeable feeling.
When he drops his hand, he bends down and picks up the wallet to see her looking from her wrist to him and back again with wide eyes. He looks down and sees the exact same thing on her wrist but instead of her initials in pretty handwriting it's his, in his own handwriting.
She accepts the wallet from him, making him wince as he realizes that it's his metal hand that's holding it. He looks back at her, expecting her to pull back in disgust but she only gives him a timid smile before speaking.
"I'm Emily, Emily Ross,"
"Bucky Barnes," he smiles
"I would hug you or something but…" she trails off gesturing to her shirt.
"It's okay, I'm sorry about that,"
"Nah, it's fine, I probably would've wound up with something spilled on me anyway, I'm probably the clumsiest person on Earth. And this is probably the most cliché way to meet someone," she chuckles looking at him.
"So, uh, can I get you anything? I'm not sure how this whole soulmate thing works, or the dating thing in general," he tells her
"Uh well, we could always go back to my apartment up the street, and I could make us some coffee, I actually came here for some *insert favourite baked snack* they have the best ones," she explains glancing back at where the barista was looking at them with an amused smirk.
"I already bagged them up for you," he calls placing the paper bag on the counter
"Thanks Kev," she smiles handing him money for them and placing a ten-dollar bill in his tip jar, "So what do you say?" she asks, pursing her lips.
"Sounds great,"
"Great," she repeats already heading for the door, she glances back to see if he's following, but she misses him smiling to himself, because her, she probably had a family, friends, a happy life but to him this - this means so much. Because three months later Bucky now has a pair of arms to hold him and comfort him through nightmares, a soothing voice to remind him that everything will be okay and to scold him along with Steve when he does something stupid, a pair of lips that he missed when he was on missions and that he kissed when he returned. What they have means everything, she means everything.