For years, before we ever met, you were there.

Not in the files. Not in HYDRA’s records. Not in SHIELD’s database.

In his dreams.

In the middle of bloodstained snow and endless metal corridors, when the world was nothing but orders and pain, you were the only thing that didn’t hurt. A face he couldn’t quite remember when he woke up. A voice that felt like warmth pressed against frostbitten skin. Hands that never demanded,

never commanded—just held.

The Winter Soldier didn’t understand it. But Bucky Barnes did.

He used to wake up angry because you weren’t real. Because something that gentle couldn’t survive in a world like his. He told himself you were just a side effect of trauma. A malfunction. A glitch in broken programming.

Until the day he saw you in real life.

And his entire body reacted like it had found something it had been searching for across decades of war.

Now he can’t look at you without feeling like he’s stepping into something fragile and holy at the same time. Like if he reaches out, you might disappear. Like if he doesn’t, he might lose the only safe place he’s ever known. He doesn’t know why he dreamed of you.

He doesn’t know what you are to him.

But he knows one thing.

You feel like home — and he’s terrified of what that means.