Hello everyone! This is my first one shot basically ever, and I've never written for the MCU before, so I'm sorry if it seems a little unorganized and like a bit of a stretch. It takes place in a weird place after Avengers: AoU and as if Civil War was never destined to happen. Like I said, this is my first one shot and it's a bit of a test, so I don't have a good explanation of how Bucky was found. Hope that doesn't ruin it for anybody. :)

Natasha found her way into the main room in which you were sitting by the unlit fireplace, looking at what remained of the wood from the winter prior. You had taken to wondering when and if somebody was going to clean up the ash in a desperate attempt to get your mind off your actual troubles. Seeing your unusually focused stare on practically nothing, Nat chimed in.

"Something wrong?" She asked, taking a seat on the couch a few feet away from you. Your first response was a sigh and a shrug, which prompted the redhead to roll her eyes. "Oh, come on." She said teasingly, scooting closer to you and nudging your shoulder. "You know that attitude isn't going to last long in this place. You better tell me before you're stuck being pestered by everybody else for the next few hours."

That realization brought slight disgust to your features. You didn't want everybody else breathing down your neck until you were forced to give in. Choosing between telling your private feelings to one person you trusted rather than multiple people was an easy task. Natasha was right, so you took in a deep breath that suggested you were ready to speak, but you held it at the end as you thought of how to start.

"Steve…" The name said in the begrudging tone brought a grumble from Natasha, who was sure to express intrigue with peaked eyebrows afterwards.

"What'd he do now?"

"I don't think he means harm. He's just clueless sometimes." You tried to defend him, shaking your head and staring down at your twiddling thumbs.

"He's an idiot." Nat said bluntly, only to quickly retort, also somewhat in his defense. "I love him like a brother, but he's an idiot." Your continued pause in speech had Natasha reaching out to push a lock of hair out of your eyes and pull your chin up with a friendly hand. "Tell me what he did. Maybe I can whip him into shape for you."

"No!" You responded immediately to the offer. "I am not going to have somebody else taking care of my issues. Besides, it's like I said, I don't think he realizes he's doing harm." You sighed again, resisting the urge to look down again. "We're still… I like him." Natasha was already aware of your general feelings towards 'Captain America', so she was unfazed by your words. "I think he likes me, but at the same time, he doesn't seem interested half the time."

"What's new?" Natasha asked plainly, knowing you were beating around the bush around something. "What'd he do to put you in a bad mood?"

The specific question had you rolling your eyes at how dumb you felt. "I saw him… kissing another girl." You head dropped again without your noticing. "Some old neighbor of his, I don't know. Sharon, I think her name is."

Natasha nodded, "Sharon Carter."

You nodded at the confirmation. "It's like I said, I like him, but there's so much grey area between us. Half the time, I wouldn't care if he got married and had kids with somebody else. The other half I'm just… well, like this." You sighed again. "I think I'm just desperate to be with somebody, and since Steve was the first person I met after the falling of S.H.I.E.L.D. , I've latched myself onto him."

The usually wise and supportive Natasha was forced to think about her response. The confusion of your's and Steve's relationship wasn't just in your own head. "It's easy to be confused like that, and I want to wish you the best and say everything will work out in your favor, but…"

"But it doesn't always work out that way, and I know that my own confusion in this makes a good outcome with him unlikely." You spoke plainly with another shrug. You scolded yourself as you felt grogginess begin to fill your head, signaling you were ready to cry. You fought back even tearing up. Something as silly as liking someone you work with was nothing to cry over.

Natasha opened her mouth to speak but approaching footsteps stopped her. She pursed his lips and the both of you looked back over the couch. Fear filled you up as you worried Steve might've been hiding around the corner this entire time, despite knowing he was on a mission. You were relieved for a moment to see Bucky before realization told you that if he had heard anything, the likelihood of him telling Steve was higher than if most of the Avengers had been listening.

"Hey, James." You were so accustomed to calling people by their first names, and Bucky was no different.

"How long were you around that corner?" Natasha got straight to the point, making Bucky's features turn to that of slight shock.

"What do you mean?" He asked innocently, looking genuinely confused.

"You were you listening in on our conversation." She accused.

"No, I wasn't." He grumbled in defense.

Natasha squinted at him and you avoided his gaze. After an antagonizing long moment of silence, Nat turned her stare to you and sighed. You were thankful the argument didn't go on for as long as it could've, knowing the both of them.

"I have to go prep for my next mission with Stark." She reached over to grab your hand comfortingly. "I'll get back to you later." She promised before uncrossing her legs and stepping off the couch. She eyed Bucky suspiciously as she exited the room, his brown eyes following her.

Once you two were left alone, you felt a tightness in your throat. Just being in the presence of Steve's best friend had you getting a little too emotional over everything. You swallowed hard and shot a forced but polite smile up to the super soldier. "Hey." You reiterated, this time more genuinely, pushing some hair behind your ear.

"Hey," Bucky said back, a little awkwardly. You were expecting—no, hoping—the conversation ended there. That the man would lose interest in the quiet, nerdy girl on the couch.

In the long moment of silence that followed your guy's greetings, you found yourself reverting back to bad thoughts, now without a useless distraction. Why would Steve, or anybody living with you for that matter, ever show interest in you, let alone date you? With beautiful, skinnier, more powerful women like Wanda and Natasha running around, it left nearly every guy you knew out of your league. Everyone had a special gift that made them useful, on top of being amazingly attractive. Fuck. How did you get a job as a medic there in the first place?

All the self-doubting thoughts circling in your head made you nearly forget about the other presence in the room. Thankfully your head was turned away from Bucky, because you could feel yourself tearing up. Like you didn't want to.

You held back tears, scrunching your nose and taking in a deep breath that ended in the tiniest of whimpers. Almost immediately after, a voice brought you back to reality. "My name is Bucky." Even though he spoke softly, the noise was ridiculously loud compared to your quiet surroundings. You flinched and looked back over your shoulder at him without thinking.

"Right. I'm sorry." It was a belated reaction, you realized, considering you had said his name incorrectly at least a minute or so ago. "Bucky." You confirmed, turning your stare back. Okay, now you were desperate for him to leave. Why the hell was he lingering for so long, just standing behind the couch, staring at you.

You were now sat there awkwardly, thinking over and over about how you'd wish to be alone, or with Natasha. Hell, even Wanda would do that this point. Maybe Vision? You just didn't want to be in the presence of men, excluding the artificial one, let alone someone so close to Steve.

It was as if Bucky read your thoughts and kept up his usual stubborn behavior, because you soon heard him moving. But it wasn't away from you. Instead the footsteps were approaching the back of the couch. A moment later, you felt two strong hands on your shoulders. You instinctively looked to your left as if you weren't expecting to see that signature metal arm there. It was.

"Yes, Bucky?" You managed out after having a mini panic attack at the surprising touch.

"Steve's done this before." He said lowly after a moment. It was obvious he was holding back from saying anything.

"What?"

"He told me..." He tried to explain, but quickly realized you likely needed more elaboration. "Back in the forties. He got so caught up in all the girl's flinging themselves at him. He ended up showing affection to the wrong one. He got caught by the person he actually liked back then, too."

The words honestly didn't make you feel much better. IF anything it made you feel more like the person he showed affection to on the side of the woman he actually loved, even though your physical contact with him extended to brief hugs and one kiss to the cheek. "I think he likes Sharon more than that." Surprisingly enough, you had managed to keep a stern tone, which might've made it more convincing for the man still grasping your shoulders.

"Maybe." Bucky admitted. After another long moment of silence, you were itching to escape the awkward situation again but were too polite to pull away from the other's touch. You thought you were in the clear when he pulled away, and were ready to spring up until you heard him walking around the couch instead of out of the room.

You sighed softly, looking at him as he sat a good few feet away from you. He leaned back slowly and nervously against the cushions—he was still hesitating to say something, you could see it on his features. Intrigued, you kept your intent stare on him. Watching, waiting for something, anything…

"I think you're more self-conscious than you need to be." The soldier managed out, and you could see him gulp right afterwards.

"What?" You couldn't recall saying anything to Nat that might've iterated how you actually felt about yourself. That was the moment you realized that everything Bucky had said so far made it obvious he was listening. How the hell had you missed it? "Wait, what the fuck? You were listening, asshole!" Now you were the one giving belated reactions.

Bucky's eyes widened at your sudden change in attitude, the man shaking his head. "I didn't mean to. I just started walking in and I heard Steve mentioned so I just kind of listened." He admitted. "I'm sorry, Y/N, but he's my friend. And I figured you were probably feeling down on yourself. Again."

"Okay, what? Why are you assuming I feel bad about myself?" He grumbled. You were the quiet type and kept to yourself most of the time. It was only by other people's insistence that you actually made friends.

"Don't act like it isn't obvious. Nearly everyone here can tell you don't feel good about yourself. Except for maybe the very dull ones." He turned his body more towards you. "You're always covering up, even in the summer, and you're too modest to ask for rides anywhere. Remember that time I had to force you to get on my bike?"

"I was fine walking." You interrupted, going over the scenario in your head again.

"It was pouring down rain."

"I like the rain."

"You looked miserable." Bucky grumbled softly at your arguing.

"It's not like riding on an uncovered motorcycle is much better."

Bucky rolled his eyes, dropping that particular fight there. You two had had that fit before, and he wasn't about to relive it. "You just always need convincing to do anything. You even say you don't want to be a bother ninety percent of the time."

You remained quiet, arms now crossed over your chest as you tried to not find truth in Bucky's words. You knew everything he was saying was right, but you didn't like it when it was coming from somebody else's mouth. "I get busy." You said as a last defense.

"Y/N…" Bucky saw your irritated expression and sighed, slowly scooting closer. You wanted to lean away, but couldn't bring yourself to do it, even as the large man's presence got dangerously close.

When you felt his breath on your shoulder, you immediately loosened your posture, barely turning your head to look at him out of curiosity. Just as you looked, Bucky had resituated himself to sitting directly next to you, his surprisingly friendly hand going to land on your wrist comfortingly.

Your head dropped so you could look at the touch, your eyes scanning over his calloused fingers and up his arm. You didn't know why, but your heartrate had quickened with initial contact. "Bucky?"

"Hm?"

"What are you doing?"

"Comforting you."

You gave a small snort for a laugh at that. It was almost cute that this was his form of comforting. You had been expecting him to say something to accompany the near hand holding, but he didn't.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Why are you concerned about it?" You quipped, already feeling just that much better. "I thought you were trying to make me feel better? And if you're friends with Steve, shouldn't you be on his side?"

Bucky growled softly at your retort, rolling his eyes and going quiet again, thoughtful for a moment. "I am on his side, but that doesn't mean I can't be supportive of other people, too." He shook his head, features bitter he thought about his own words. You had no idea what prompted the Winter Soldier to start being so sweet. Was he always like this and only recently able to show it, given his slow but sure healing process? You weren't sure.

"Ja-I mean—Bucky?" You questioned his name again, prompting another curious grunt form him. "Do people here… l-like me? I mean, do they actually consider me their friend?" You inquired. He had basically forced you to open up with his lecture.

The man turned his body even more towards you, now facing you fully. "I'm sure they do. I mean, I know I do. Just because Steve isn't falling all over you doesn't mean people don't like you. Hell, even he values your friendship as he does everybody else's."

That comment, despite some of its uncertainty made you smile. "Thanks, Bucky. That means a lot to hear you say that. You always act so mean. I thought you didn't like anybody except Steve."

"It can be hard to relate to people, but I still like everyone, including you." Even though you weren't looking in his direction, you felt him leaning in closer again. This time when you turned your head you were instantly greeted by a pair of hot lips against your's. Your instant reaction was the push the man off and gasp.

"Bucky!" Your eyes were wide in shock and you were baffled, to say the least. You were now stuck looking into his eyes, which were filled with confusion and doubt. You tried to think of a reasonable explanation. "Why… why'd you do that?"

"I thought it'd make you feel better about him." Bucky admitted, voice even quitter than usual. The comment would've made you smile if it hadn't been preceded by a kiss.

The more you thought about it, the more you wondered why you had pulled away in the first place; if Steve was obviously interested in somebody else, why couldn't you try to broaden your horizons? You had told Natasha that you were sure you were just desperate for somebody, which Bucky likely heard. Maybe this was your opportunity—you knew Bucky well enough, and he wasn't at all an unattractive person. He may have had a bad past, but he hadn't had an incident in over a month and a half.

With all this thought whirring around your head, you found yourself slowly leaning back into him for another kiss. You hadn't realized how much you longed for romantic affection until you felt his lips against your's again.

After a moment, you pulled him in just a little closer to deepend the soft kiss, your hands going to his neck. When you two had ran out of breath, you pulled away, panting softly but pressing your forehead against his.

"Tell me… what else can you do to make me feel better?" It was a very risqué question, but part of you knew, or atleast hoped, Bucky wasn't going to oppose it. You didn't perceive being like the sweet, innocent virgin Steve was. And what could be so wrong with a little bit of extra fun?

The question made Bucky smirk, and he reached down to hook your hips with his arms and pull you onto his lap. "Let me show you."