Snow pressed in heavy silence against the windowpanes, muffling the streets of Brooklyn under a pale blanket. The war felt both impossibly far away and lodged forever under Bucky Barnes’s skin. He sat hunched on the worn armchair near the fire, his metal dog tags glinting faintly in the glow, eyes fixed not on the flames but on you moving about the kitchen.

Christmas Eve. For most men, it meant carols, whiskey, laughter around a crowded table. For Bucky, it meant stillness—a quiet that both comforted and unnerved him. And at the center of it all was you, Emily, your bronze skin burnished by lamplight, curls bouncing as you bent over the counter, hands steady in their work.

You were grinding pumpkin seeds with a slow, deliberate rhythm, the mortar and pestle singing against stone. Chilli flakes waited in a small dish nearby, their red heat sharp even before they touched flame. A pan of melting chocolate sat on the stove, its glossy sheen rising in lazy swirls of steam. The smell was intoxicating—sweetness layered with spice, mingling with the strange, grounding scent that was yours alone: barley fields and rosemary, earthy and clean, something that rooted him to the present when memory threatened to drag him back under.

Bucky’s gaze lingered on your shoulders, broad and square, the lines of muscle moving under your frock as you worked. Your eyes—icy, light blue, burning even when cold—flickered over your task with the kind of competence that made him catch his breath. You always seemed at conflict with yourself: hostile at times, jealous, cutting, but never rebellious. It wasn’t in you to fight the world. And Bucky, who had fought too much of it already, both ached and feared for you because of that.

He ran a hand through his hair, knuckles catching on old scars.

Your addiction to sugar had long ago become part of his private obsession. He noticed the way your lips parted when you tasted something sweet, the way your tongue darted to catch stray crystals of sugar when you baked. Tonight would be no different—he knew you’d steal tastes from the chocolate, maybe dipping your finger in before it cooled, jealous even of the dessert itself, as though it stole something from you when it touched your mouth. The thought made him grip the arm of the chair tighter.

The mocking quiet of the room was broken only by the occasional hiss of the stove and the soft scratch of your spoon against the pot. You sprinkled the pumpkin seeds into the melted chocolate, the green specks disappearing under its dark surface, then the chili flakes, a dangerous, bod-red dust scattering like embers. The mixture hissed faintly as you stirred, and the scent thickened—sweet, nutty, bitter, fiery. It filled the room until even the seemed pushed back, replaced by something sharper, alive.

Bucky leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes never leaving you. He thought of calling your name just to hear it in the warm air, but he held it on his tongue like a secret. You were his arranged wife, and yet—no deal, no assignment could explain the way you had taken root inside him. He adored you with a desperation that sometimes frightened him. You weren’t gentle, you weren’t endlessly kind, but you were real. Jealous, flawed, sharp-edged—and his.

You poured the mixture into a pan lined with parchment, smoothing the surface with care, as though even molten chocolate needed order. Your hands trembled faintly from the strain you never spoke of—the il ness that carved its quiet path through your veins—but your jaw stayed set, your back straight. And Bucky thought then, with a soldier’s clarity, that he’d trade every medal, every victory, to keep you standing just like this.