Words: 1.2K

Warnings: lots of fluff, nothing more

There's absolutely nothing in this world that Bucky Barnes loves more than you. He first saw your face sometime last spring when the months were warm and his mind freshly pieced back together. He'd spotted you from across the street on one of those nightly walks of his. He didn't want to scare you, so he vowed to leave you alone. You were sitting on a bench in the light rain. He wondered why you didn't look bothered by the weather, but then after watching you for a minute he realized that you were so completely engrossed with the ebook you were reading that you hadn't even noticed it was raining. He chuckled then—seeing someone so blissfully unaware of their surroundings made him happy in a strange way, as he'd been trained like a dog for so long to constantly be hyperaware.

Now it's late January of the next year and you're living together. It's a cute little home in upstate New York where the grass is cheerfully green and the air humid but blue. But to Bucky the location doesn't matter as long as he's there with you.

He's a healing, damaged man. Every day gets a little better, but sometimes the nights are hard. Like this one where Bucky wakes in a cold sweat with flashing images in his mind and nothing stable to hold onto. He's not confused when he wakes up; he knows what's real and what isn't. But that doesn't stop the bloodied images from churning his gut or clenching down on his heart.

The super soldier's first reaction to the nightmare is to reach out for you. But when his metal arm hits an empty sheet, his chest tightens.

Those blue eyes of his pop open wider. They scour your side of the bed to find nothing but muffled blankets and a lopsided pillow. The shape of your pretty body is still there.

"Y/N?" Bucky croaks your name. Is that a thunder storm he hears or his own savage heartbeat? "Y/N? Where are you?" His head swivels around to search the dark bedroom. The clock on the nightstand reads 4 AM: much too early for you to already be up. You went to bed with him after SNL hours ago.

"Y/N!" He's gone from calling your name to screaming. It doesn't make much sense looking back, but at this moment Bucky is terrified to where you've gone. If his past has taught him anything, it's that bad things always seem to happen to the people he loves.

Bucky flies up from the bed and starts his search of the house. He starts with the bathroom. The faucet is leaky, but there's no sight of you around. Then he goes across the hall to the study where you sometimes end up reading by the window. Still you're not in sight.

Bucky takes the stairs all the way down to the first floor—calling your name all the while. With each passing moment he becomes more and more desperate. Stressed and scared, truthfully, he stumbles into an empty kitchen. Any hopes of finding you eating a late-night snack are gone when all he sees is the stupid cat napping by the sink.

The living room, the foyer, the driveway, the garage, your stupid craft room, the basement, not even the backyard has a single sign of you. Running his hands through his hair he finds that he's trembling slightly. He tells himself to calm down—think logically. You wouldn't've just run away...

The front door has been left slightly ajar. Bucky hurries closer—eyes narrowing when he sees your keys and shoes are all still there. His heart beats faster.

He grabs a set of keys of his own. Bucky doesn't bother putting on any real clothes or hiding his arm like he often does in public as he goes to leave now. His heart hammers with the thought of needing you—needing you home and in his arms before he starts fearing the worst about wherever you could've gone.

Bucky's ready to leave the house and head for the car. But just as he's about to step onto the porch, your glossy hair pops into view. Waltzing up the drive, you carry the small golden retriever puppy in your arms and talk sternly to him in words that Bucky can just now hear.

"Bad boy, Roger. You're a bad, bad dog..."

Bucky stands rigid in the doorway. For some reason even though he sees you, he can't calm.

Your eyes lift up from the sweet puppy's head to where your boyfriend stands in the doorway. You stop at the start of the stairs and raise an eyebrow. "Buck? What are you doing?"

"Me?" Bucky touches his chest. Immediately you sense the anger in his voice and know something's wrong. It's not normal he gets angry, especially with you. "I was just on my way to look for you. You—you just disappeared!"

"Roger woke me up to use the bathroom," you begin to explain with a gesture to the pooch in your arms. You finish walking up the porch the rest of the way and then let the dog into the home. He hurries off to find his bed. "And we've been trying so hard to potty train him, so I didn't want to discourage him from wanting to go outside. So I took him out back but the side gate was left open so he got out. I ended up having to chase him down the street when I saw him through the kitchen window." You watch carefully as you tell Bucky your story. He's standing opposite of you in the foyer with his arms tensely crossed and a strange, distant look on his face. "Did I wake you? Or was it another dream?"

Bucky doesn't acknowledge your question. Instead he says, "I woke up and you were gone, Y/N. You scared the hell out of me."

You walk the rest of the way to Bucky. You rise up on your toes to get a better reach around his neck. He lets you cradle him in your arms before eventually wrapping his own limbs around your waist. His face buries itself into your neck where the hair falls and he can smell your sweet, floral shampoo.

"It's okay," you tell him in a soft voice. "I'm right here. Nothing happened to me." Your fingers stroke his soft chestnut hair. He's trimmed it recently. It's not as long as before, but still just as nice. You might even like it more this way.

"But what if something had happened to you, Y/N. I don't even know what I would do." He sighs deeply and his arms instinctively hold you tighter. "I don't think I could wake up without you beside me."

"Oh, Buck. You don't have to worry about that." You turn your face a bit to kiss his temple before settling slightly farther away. You hold him by both sides of the chiseled face. Peering into those pretty blue eyes, you say, "I'm not going anywhere. I'll always be right next to you."

Bucky's eyes flutter closed. His forehead dips to rest to yours. You smile dreamily at this; it's one of your favorite little things that he does.

"I love you more than anything; you know that, doll?" He kisses the corner of your mouth softly then adds, "More than absolutely anything and everything that I've ever known or had—I'll always love you more."

Another little smile pulls at your lips. "And I love you, James Buchanan Barnes."