soulmate au, Bucky Barnes x reader.
where the clock starts at 00:00:00:00 from the moment you're born and stops counting the moment you meet your soulmate, so it's like a reminder that "It took me 19 years, 11 months, 20 hours, and 13 seconds to meet you, you fuck, and you do it by spilling coffee on me, thanks, now my laptop's broken—what, you're buying me a new one? Okay." (from this post)
I may have edited the prompt a little...
I wrote a thing, hope you enjoy?
25:07:19:04:54:47. 25 years, 7 months, 19 days, 4 hours, 54 minutes and 47 seconds. That's how long you had been alive. That's also how long you had been waiting for your soulmate. The black ink-like tattoo that everyone was born with stood stark against the skin on the left side of your collar-bone. Soulmate clock. That's what everyone called them. They start counting from the moment you are born, and only stop when you met your soulmate. If you meet your soulmate, if you're that lucky.
Everyone you knew had found their soulmate within the first 20 years of their lives, their clocks frozen at the exact minute they'd found their soulmate. You were an anomaly; living past the age of 20 without finding the one who you were destined to be with.
You didn't care, you told yourself. If it is supposed to happen, it will. If not, then you're not supposed to have a soulmate. That's okay. It happens.
You were just going to get yourself a mango smoothie from the new juice bar downtown, as your best friend couldn't stop going on about it and, it was so damn hot that you wanted a cold drink to cool you down. You were wearing a yellow tank top, so your 'soulmate clock' was on full display; you didn't care, it was too hot to wear anything less revealing. The server smiled pityingly at you, having noticed that the seconds were still ticking along, and handed you your smoothie. You rolled your eyes, feeling extremely annoyed that people valued this so-called perfect soulmate relationships over everything else in the world that you just wanted to go home and drink your smoothie in peace.
Apparently, the universe had other ideas.
As you turned to walked through the door, someone walked right into you, almost making you spill the smoothie that you had suffered many pitying looks to obtain. Almost. You have good balance and so it wasn't hard to stay on your feet and keep hold of your drink. You glared up at the person who had walked into you, fully intent on giving them a piece of your mind. But he was staring at your chest.
Or, more accurately, your collar-bone.
With your soulmate clock. That was no longer counting.
25:07:29:11:38:16.
You glanced up at the stranger, your mouth and eyes wide in surprise, then glanced back down at your collar bone.
25:07:29:11:38:16.
It hadn't moved. You knew that seconds had gone by, but they weren't registering on your skin.
Slowly, the stranger pulled down his t-shirt so that his left collar-bone was visible, and you belatedly realised that this stranger had a metal arm. Then you gazed at his soulmate clock. Which had also stopped.
99:05:15:14:58:32.
Wait, 99 years? This guy looks like he's in his early thirties.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Is he...? Is he your soulmate?
"Hi, I'm Bucky. Bucky Barnes. Well my friend Steve calls me Bucky, my real name is James, James Buchanan Barnes, but I don't know anyone who calls me that, not anymore, Steve's got everyone calling me Bucky..." The handsome stranger was rambling, his dark brown locks getting in his gorgeous eyes as he ducked his head shyly.
"I'm [y/n]. How 'bout you get yourself a smoothie then we can get to know each other?" You were never usually this bold, but damn it, he was hot and he was your soulmate. And the never-ending grin that lit up his face was totally worth it.
"Sure thing, doll. Lead the way."
