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Everything she did reminded him of music. Of instruments and symphonies and rumbling base lines. Whether she was dancing in the kitchen in his shirt or if she was lightheartedly strolling down a sidewalk. The slow stretch of her arms above her head in the morning always sounded like a long pull of a bow on a cello in his head. The way she flipped her hair when she sat on his hips was the swell of a full orchestra. When her eyes would slip shut with a breathy moan… that sounded like a damn gospel choir. Her laugh was a base drop that rumbled his bones and he couldn’t help but dance to. Her fingers on his skin played him like a grand piano in an empty concert hall. Her sleepy eyes and slow kiss in the morning were chimes blowing in the breeze. Holding her hand was like a jazz band playing full force. And when she took her clothes off, each new inch of skin was another instrument joining into the ensemble that was trapped in her soul.
After the battle in New York, Tony started an organization dedicated to the mental and physical rehabilitation of agents and civilians that became involved in Avengers missions. That’s where Bucky met her… sort of. It took him a long time to bring himself to talk to her. She was injured in the battle in DC. He already felt guilty enough about all of his involvement… but the knowledge that he helped hurt someone as lovely as her really destroyed him. He learned she wasn’t a SHIELD agent, just a natural leader and incredibly brave. She was responsible for evacuating more people than most of the SHIELD agents. She was a dancer. Any form she could learn, she tried. Until the battle. She had been shot a few times, in unthreatening places, but it was the jagged metal shrapnel that nicked her lower spine… that’s how she ended up there, at Starks rehab facility.
Bucky worked out there because he could blend in better. A high-tech prosthetic wasn’t out of place in a facility like that. He still wore a sweatshirt, though. He watched her recovery from afar. Since her spine wasn’t severed completely, they had hope she would regain most of the use of her legs; and he’d never seen someone work so hard. After almost a year of physical therapy she was allowed to start using the dance room; a room cut off from the rest of the gym with a glass wall that was across from a mirrored wall with a solid hardwood floor. The room was normally used for group physical therapies, but they allowed her to work alone, or with a nurse in the room with her. When he figured out what times she would practice, he started using weights and machines with a better view into the dance room.
Watching her was like watching music come to life. After a few weeks of basic re-learning how to use her body, he came in one day to see something different in the dance room. There were two long strips of flowing white fabric hanging from where it was attached to the rafters. He started his workout before she showed up. When he turned to look into the room again he found her stretching, a black sports bra and black spandex pants hugged her body tightly. She reached up as high as she could, wrapping the silk around each arm as she pulled herself up, higher and higher. After hoisting herself into it like a swing, she swayed for a while, shifting the fabric around. She twisted around carefully looping each ankle in the fabric, suspending herself in the air, legs in the splits. He was mesmerized and curious as to what would happen next.
Suddenly, she flipped upside-down, but with her legs still spread perfectly flat. She pulled one leg in and started spinning slowly. As he watched her move he realized she was dancing… suspended in air. She would twist herself up in the fabric, far above the ground, then letting it unravel, sending her spinning downward before she would stop a few feet from the floor and in a dainty twist she would be climbing up again.
She flew around the room like an angel. He couldn’t hear the music she was dancing to, but he could feel it in his heartbeat that rang in his ears. Maybe that’s what made his need to meet her so much stronger. They finally met that day, on accident. They ran into each other as they left the building… meaning he literally ran into her. He wasn’t paying attention, lost in his thoughts, and bumped into her as she was leaving. Everything she had been carrying toppled onto the ground as she started apologizing to him, even though he was the careless one. He picked up her things and instead of handing them back to her he carried them, asking if she needed a ride.
“No,” she tried to hide her excitement for a moment before it came bubbling out, “I was finally cleared to drive again about a month ago!”
“Then let me walk you to your car,” he smiled.
She had parked almost as far as she could, to remind herself that she could walk again, she said. She was very pleased with all of her hard work. She talked a lot on the walk to the car; small talk, but in an upbeat and positive voice that he wouldn’t have expected from someone who had been through so much trouble. She loaded her things into the back seat and when she leaned upright again she grimaced and pressed a hand to her lower back.
“Still gets sore sometimes,” she muttered as she looked up at him, catching his look of guilt.
She sighed, leaning against her open car door and turning to him, “It’s not your fault, you know?” her voice was gentle and she frowned when he shook his head against her words, “It’s not. Whether they used you or used someone else in your place all these years… it would have happened either way. It was out of your hands,”
“But I could have… I don’t know. I could have done something. Anything,” he mumbled.
Her sigh was laced with a warm smile, “I’ll show you. Somehow, I’ll make sure you know that it was never your fault… none of it,”
Looking back later, that was probably the first time he really fell for her.
When she invited him over to her apartment, he wandered down the hallway to find one of the two bedrooms had been transformed into a dance and exercise room. With machines and weights, it had the same wall of mirrors and silk fabric from the ceiling and…
“Is that a stripper pole?” he asked raising one eyebrow.
“Yes it is,” she said confidently, “it’s fun and it’s a great workout. A lot harder than it looks,”
“Now, I’ll believe that second part when you prove it to me,” he laughed.
She rolled her eyes with a smirk as she went back up the hall toward the living room, “Only if you’re lucky, Barnes,” she called over her shoulder.
She did eventually show him, even made him try and she laughed until there were tears streaming down her cheeks when he fell on his ass. That’s when he officially and definitively decided to leave the dancing to her.
That was the 45th time he fell for her.
As her physical therapy at the facility dwindled down to only once or twice a month, they were seeing each other more often than they had when they were working every weekday. They would spend the night at each other’s apartments and spend long lazy days off tangled in blankets and limbs.
One lazy Sunday filled with naked couch cuddles and Netflix, she laid curled into his warmth with her nose pressed to his throat as she sighed happily.
“You,” she whispered against his skin as he rubbed his hands up and down her back, “Are a great, and wonderful man,”
“What makes you say that?” he grunted.
“It’s the truth,” she shrugged.
He smiled against the top of her hair and kissed her forehead, “Whatever you say, darlin’,”
“No argument today?” she laughed, “Is my persistence working?”
He laughed and she liked the feel of his laugh echoing through her chest that was pressed to his, “Maybe… but,” he shrugged and kissed her forehead again.
“But what?”
Bucky sighed, pressing his forehead to hers and looking into her eyes, “But…” he said slowly and quietly, “I think it’s having you that reminds me what it’s like to be a good man,”
“Great man,” she corrected.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t go that far yet,” he laughed kissing her nose.
She moved even closer to him, pressed together from head to toe as he tightened his arms around her. She made him feel alive again, and he’d gone so long without telling her that. Touching his cheek, she pulled his lips to hers and kissed him slowly and softly. After sensual kisses got more heated, he kissed her neck and she sighed his name.
And that was the 243rd time he fell for her.
They had been together two years before he moved into the Avengers building. After living there for a year, he finally convinced her to come live with him. That had been three years ago. Now, every morning she made breakfast for anyone who wanted to come over (and after only a week of the offer the whole team had rearranged their schedules so they could be there. ‘She makes the best damn pancakes! I think she puts some sort of magical delicious crack in them,’ Tony had said.).
Making breakfast one morning, she found herself at the stove with James’ arms around her waist as he mumbled in her ear. He spoke Russian, French, Italian, Spanish, and a handful of other languages she didn’t understand but loved to hear him speak. She never knew what he said but it sounded sweet and made her warm when the foreign words brushed along her skin with his lips. Natasha strolled in that morning, sipping her coffee and leaning her elbows on the breakfast bar.
“Any special requests?” She asked the assassin brightly.
Natasha scoffed, “Looks like you have the bases covered; pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage… better make a few French toast or Barton will whine,”
“Will do,” she giggled.
James never moved from his spot wrapped around her. His fingers stroked lovingly at her stomach and he nuzzled into her hair.
“Really, Barnes? Some deadly assassin you are…” Natasha joked, but then Clint came up behind her and kissed her cheek. She pursed her lips and blushed.
Everyone was quiet for a while, except Bucky who kept whispering in languages alien to her. Soon Natasha was choking on her coffee as she gasped at something.
“What did you just say?!” she wheezed to Bucky, “Do you know what he’s saying?” she redirected the question to the woman in James’ arms.
“No, what?” she looked between the assassins, “Is it something bad?”
The warning look James gave Natasha was fierce so she held her hands up in surrender, “Guess he’ll have to tell you,”
“What?” she turned in his arms, “James, what is it?”
“It’s nothin’ sweetheart, I’ll tell you after breakfast,” he kissed her softly and she frowned but agreed.
After a few quiet moments Clint spoke up from Natasha’s side, “Oh, Buck, Tony wanted to see you… something about the arm and the something… I don’t know, just relaying a message,”
James sighed and unraveled himself from the girl he clung to. Giving Nat a glare he walked out of the room slowly. It wasn’t long before he strolled back in, more than a little frustrated.
“Stark isn’t even here, Barton,” James grumbled as he eyed the close proximity of the giggling women.
“If you told a word…” he growled in Russian.
“What would you do?” Natasha scoffed in the same language, “I didn’t, that would ruin the fun of watching you squirm for excuses… since we all know you’ll never man up and…”
“Enough!” James hissed, back in English again.
“Don’t worry,” she turned off the stove and hugged him, “We were just laughing over Clint’s recent sleep-walking incident,”
“I didn’t pee on anything!” he yelled, slamming his hand down on the counter dramatically, and the girls giggled, “It was Stark! He’s framing me!”
She set the table with Bucky’s help just in time for Steve to return from an early morning run and for the rest to shuffle in tiredly.
After breakfast everyone seemed to go their own ways again. Once they were in the kitchen alone again, James had her pinned between his body and the wall as he whispered seemingly filthy foreign words against her skin. With her in his arms and her lips on his, he lifted her up and used one hand against the wall to guide them down the hallway to their room. At the door she grabbed the doorframe to stop their progress.
“Tell me,” she panted, “Tell me what you said,”
He groaned and pressed his forehead to hers with his eyes closed, “Can’t I tell you after?”
“No,” she held his face to make him look at her, “No words equals no sex,”
“That’s just mean,” he complained while he turned his head to kiss her palm. With her hands off the doorway he carried her into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. He turned to sit on the bed with her in his lap and looked up at her. She saw something in his eyes, the usual adoration that she loved and something else… something nervous.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered. He took her hands in his and kissed along her knuckles as he sighed.
“I wanna marry you,” Bucky whispered so softly she wasn’t sure she heard right, “I wanna be yours forever. Just you. I want you to know without doubt that you are the greatest thing to ever happen to me,”
When she was quiet he looked up to see her smiling, “You asking? Or just telling me what you said?”
He laughed a deep relieved sound and he wrapped his arms behind her back, “Will you marry me?”
“Took you long enough,” she whispered before kissing him with more passion than ever.
That was the 964th time he fell for her.