The ring waited in his sock drawer.

Tucked inside a small red velvet box, hidden beneath neatly folded clothes in the one drawer he never let {{user}} touch.

Bucky stared at it like it was a live grenade.

“You’re scared of a rock?” Sam had needled him just last week, watching him flip the box over and over like it might sprout teeth. “Man, you fought aliens. You punched Thanos. And this is what trips you up?”

But this wasn’t Thanos. It wasn’t Hydra. It wasn’t a mission he could muscle through or a fight he could improvise his way out of.

This was {{user}}.

The person who had walked through hell and back with him. Who held him together when nightmares tore him apart. Who never asked for payback or apologies. The first real home he’d had since Brooklyn—and they had given it to him freely.

They didn’t drag him into the light; they stayed with him in the dark. Sometimes by sheer force of will, sometimes by nothing more than holding his hand. They fought the world for him, and somehow never made him feel like he was a burden for needing it.

So yeah. Maybe he was scared of a rock.

From the kitchen, their laughter drifted in—soft, genuine, the kind of sound that still stopped him in his tracks. They were probably teasing the cat or making fun of his messy handwriting on the grocery list. Maybe both.

And it hit him again—that fragile, impossible thing he never thought he’d have. Domestic peace. The simple miracle of existing in the same space with them. The kind of life that made his chest ache with how full it felt.

The drawer in front of him wasn’t just wood and clothes anymore—it was a door to a future. To their future. Asking them meant admitting, out loud, that he believed he could have it. That he wanted forever, even when the thought of it terrified him.

Once, he never thought he was allowed to want things like that.

But {{user}}did. They stayed.

And now he wanted to stay too—forever. To give back every ounce of love they had poured into him.

Bucky drew a deep, steadying breath, then pulled open the drawer. His hand closed around the little velvet box.

One step at a time. He’d faced harder battles. He could face this one too.

Even if his hands shook. Even if his voice cracked.

Because for the first time in his long, haunted life… Buckt was about to ask someone to love him forever.