A/N 1: So to start off with - if you are reading this and have not read Life After Death, then this oneshot may not make complete sense at first glance, but, you do not have to read that story to enjoy this one. Just to explain briefly should that be the case, in that story, my OC Summer wrote Bucky a story for his birthday that was inspired by her previous amusing drunken ramblings regarding a made-up scenario in which they met under much different circumstances, with Bucky as a troubled, mysterious, but playful farmhand, and she as a lonely and mistreated farmer's (estranged) wife. She takes that and turns it into a story, and since I couldn't resist, I wrote it out myself and am posting it here now as both a companion piece and a related sort of AU oneshot. So, please read and let me know what you think, good or bad! One more quick note at the bottom, and thanks for reading :D

There had once been a time when she had hated the sight currently before her and utterly dreaded it: her husband, Marshall, packing a suitcase on top of their bed in preparation of yet another trip away from home. Sometimes it was a few weeks, sometimes it was a whole month. In the beginning, she hated these trips and just wanted him to stay. But the beginning was a long time past, and now, she greeted the sight before her with a resigned but distinct sense of relief.

She leaned against the doorway, arms crossed as he zipped up the suitcase. "So how long this time?"

"Not sure," he replied without looking back at her. "Two weeks at least."

That meant at least a month, she knew. Since she was never invited along to these trips, she could only take his word for what he actually did on them and what took them so long. She had her suspicions, but the days where she actually cared were long over.

"You'll have to watch over things while I'm gone."

She rolled her eyes, biting her tongue before something sarcastic flew out. "I know. I haven't forgotten my 'farmer's wife' duties."

He straightened up and then turned around, suitcase in hand as he added, "Oh, and I want you to keep an eye on the new guy."

"What new guy?"

"I just hired him last week," he explained. "Just got out of the Army after doing two tours or something, or maybe it was three. I don't remember. Anyway, he just gives me a weird vibe. You know how vets can be kind of... off their rockers when they get back."

She raised her eyebrows a little but didn't say anything to the arguably rather offensive comment, nor did she point out the fact that Marshall apparently wasn't thinking twice about leaving her alone - minus the other farmhands - on the farm with a stranger who gave him "weird vibes".

"And his name is Bucky," Marshall added, using air quotes with his fingers. "What kind of name is that?"

"An old one," she shrugged. "You're probably overthinking it."

He shrugged. "Maybe. But I'll point him out to you and then I've gotta go."

She nodded, moving out of the way so that he could pass through the doorway. Then she followed him through the hallway, down the stairs and out the front door, into the rather stifling afternoon heat and oppressive rays of the sun that waited outside.

It was so hot that her sundress felt immediately like it was stuck to her skin, and she wished that she hadn't left her long, dark brown hair down, but she tried to ignore the uncomfortable heat as Marshall left his suitcase by the front door and led her towards a row of animal pins across the property. The farm had been inherited - begrudgingly - by Marshall five years earlier, and while she had taken to farm life like a fish to water, he hated it and delegated as much of the work as he could while focusing most of his time and energy on the sales business he'd had before. It was for the best, she thought, because he wasn't especially gifted at farming or caring for animals or growing anything, but he disagreed and thought five years of doing the bare minimum amount of farm work made him an expert.

"There he is, by the new sheep pin," Marshall said quietly, pointing briefly towards a half-built pin and a man hammering next to it. The first thing that she noticed about him was that he was wearing long sleeves and apparently gloves too, and in this heat, that did make him possibly quite insane. "And he's already screwing up."

Stifling a sigh, she kept following him until they reached the pin, and then she hung behind deliberately and tried not to cringe as Marshall didn't bother with a hello or even a polite tone as he immediately started in on the poor guy about how he was building the pin wrong and how he had just gone over this with him the day before and should have remembered. She wanted to laugh at the same time, because the last time Marshall had built something himself, it had lasted all of five days before it fell apart.

She didn't feel like watching more evidence of her husband's lack of decency, so she turned and stared out over the property and pulled her hair up into a ball at the back of her head and held it there with her hand to give her neck a chance to cool off. The other workers were toiling away, most of them guys who couldn't speak English and weren't exactly legal citizens, which made them prime opportunities for Marshall to get cheap labor. She hated how little he paid them, and when he was gone or otherwise engaged, she would slip them a little more cash or make them decent meals to help make up for it.

In fact, she had a small stash of cash that she planned on distributing as soon as Marshall was gone. She tried to hide her instant smile at the thought, getting way too much satisfaction out of knowing how pissed he'd be if he knew.

"Summer."

Smile gone at the sound of his voice, she turned around and looked at Marshall and the irritated look on his face as he told the worker, who still had his back to her, "This is my wife, Summer, and she'll be in charge for me while I'm gone." As soon as he finished his sentence, his phone rang, and he turned around to fish it out of his pocket and answer it.

She let go of her hair and straightened up a little, ready to paint a smile on her face and assure the guy that she wasn't the idiot douche that her husband was. Then he finally turned around, and instead of smiling, she simply stood there and used all of her self-control to keep her jaw from dropping.

It had been a long time since she'd seen a face that gorgeous anywhere except a TV screen. Blue eyes, dark hair that he reached a hand towards to push away from those blue eyes, and a strong, stubbled jawline that she might have stared at for longer than was acceptable. And his shirt, while ridiculously long-sleeved, was quite thin, and was clinging to his broad, perfect shape in a way that she did not need.

But the very worst part of it all was the fact that while she was staring in shock, he actually did a double take upon looking at her.

She had to say something - she should have said something ages ago, or at least what felt like ages ago.

Completely thrown and brain momentarily useless, she blurted out, "... You're hot."

While Marshall spoke obliviously into his phone a safe distance away, the man - Bucky, she reminded herself - snapped his eyes back up to hers from who knew where they had just been, and she almost gasped in horror when she realized what she had said.

She cleared her throat. "... Aren't you?" she asked, desperately trying to recover from the embarrassing blunder. "Because of the shirt. And the... gloves. Aren't you hot?"

He blinked a few times and shook his head slightly, looking down briefly before muttering, "Uh..."

Vaguely hoping that a sinkhole would open up for her to conveniently jump into, she was almost relieved then when Marshall got off his phone and turned around, effectively ending the moment. "All right, we good here?"

She nodded, Bucky muttered a quiet "Yes sir", and she fought the urge to look at him one more time before Marshall nodded and took her arm gently as he led her away. She forced herself to not turn around, despite the tickling feeling of being watched, and almost didn't hear Marshall when he started half-whispering to her.

"Like I said, just keep an eye on him. And if he ever does something weird or scares you, you know where the shotgun is. Don't hesitate to tell him to leave, do what you have to."

Pulling her arm away, she looked up at him and furrowed her brows. "He seems pretty normal to me."

"Well, I'm just saying."

She followed him until they reached his car, which is where she stopped and crossed her arms as he loaded his suitcase into his trunk. She continued to fight the urge to look back, and was subsequently a bit shocked when suddenly Marshall was hugging her goodbye.

She stiffened and didn't return the embrace, instead pushing him off the first chance that she got. He didn't seem to mind, but then again, he was used to this by now.

"I'll see you soon," he said, and then made her eyes widen as he leaned in for a kiss.

She ducked away long before the kiss could land even on her cheek, and after she stepped back to put some distance between them and make sure he couldn't try it again, she looked up to find an irritated expression on his face. She just stared back at him, a little bewildered as to why he would even try, considering how long it had been since she had been okay with really any degree of physical contact. The lack of a ring on her finger for over a year now was a symptom of that.

"Whatever," he muttered before turning and getting into his car without another word or look her way. She was fine with that, rolling her eyes and walking away as the engine rumbled to life.

She kept her eyes either forward or to the ground as she walked back to the front door, towards the air conditioning that awaited inside and away from her departing husband and even further away from the farmhand she wouldn't let herself sneak one more glance at.

What she didn't know was that the farmhand in question didn't have quite the same discipline as she did, and had indeed watched the entire exchange between herself and Marshall with a distinct sort of curiosity.

It was the start to an interesting month.

The first day wasn't nearly as awkward as she had feared it would be.

With Marshall gone, the whole farm felt more relaxed and pleasant within an instant. The workers were less stressed and Summer felt like a weight had lifted with his absence, but she thought she was nothing if not obedient - she did indeed "keep an eye" on the new farmhand, just as she had been told to do.

He was living on the edge of the property, in some small rooms that Marshall had had constructed for the essential workers, and his work mostly revolved around the livestock. She deduced this on her own, because she was intent on avoiding actual contact with him at all costs after making an idiot out of herself the day before.

But why did he wear such odd clothes? Most of the other guys wore as little as possible during these disgustingly hot months, and yet there he was, basically covered from head to toe and visibly sweating buckets. Not that she was staring or anything.

Then again, she thought as she worked on a giant pot of stew for that night's dinner that was for every worker there, he had been away at war, apparently, so maybe he wore stuff to cover up scars or something. Not that she was thinking about it too much or anything.

She didn't say a word to him or approach him all day until the stew was done. There was a big picnic table out back that she used to feed everybody when Marshall was gone, so as per the tradition, she took the pot out and set it down in the middle of the table, then almost laughed at how quickly the crowd of hungry dudes grew around her.

She couldn't actually speak to most to them, but they expressed their gratitude through gestures and smiles that she wholeheartedly returned. Some of them she wasn't sure were even old enough to be worked as hard as they were, which motivated her even more to help where she could. And they all seemed pretty fond of her in return.

Once everyone was sitting and eating as dusk slowly set in, she looked around and realized without the faintest bit of surprise that the newest guy wasn't there. He wouldn't be, though, because he didn't know the routine she had going with the others.

She would have to go and find him, and then tell him to go and eat. And she really didn't want to.

But she did anyway, because it was the right thing to do, and also because rationally, she knew she couldn't hide from him forever. It was far from the first time she'd ever embarrassed herself, and it wouldn't be the last.

She found him by the pin that he was still working on from the day before, most of which was built by now. It didn't pass her notice that he hadn't heeded Marshall's instructions and had kept on building it the way that he'd started.

She liked him already.

Like the day before, his back was to her, and she could hear music blasting into his ears from earbuds even from her distance behind him. Now wondering not only how he hadn't died from heat stroke as well as gone deaf, she realized as he hammered away that she had a new dilemma. He couldn't hear her, so she would have to get his attention another way. She couldn't exactly walk in front of him and get it that way, because she'd have to climb inside the pin first.

After stalling behind him way too long, she rolled her eyes and walked up to him, deciding to hurry up and tap his shoulder before she lost her nerve. She went with his left one, and as soon as she had tapped against it, her eyebrows furrowed a bit and she paused in confusion, because it did not feel like she had just tapped human flesh.

But before she could even register the thought, he had whipped around so quickly that she jumped back in surprise and almost squeaked. There was nothing threatening about it or his equally surprised expression as he took a step back and pulled the earbuds out of his ears, but her heart was still pounding just from being startled.

"Sorry," she smiled, looking up at him and feeling as instantly stupid as she had the day before. "I, uh... you couldn't hear me, so..."

"No, I'm sorry," he quickly said. "Is something wrong?"

"No," she shook her head, "not at all. Actually, I came to tell you that I, uh - when Marshall's gone, sometimes I make dinner for everybody. I wait until he's gone because he says we can't afford it, but we can, so... anyway, I made a giant pot of stew, so, if you want, you can come have some too."

He looked genuinely surprised by her words, which she noticed after inevitably cringing inside at her semi-rambling. At least she hadn't embarrassed herself yet.

"... Okay," he nodded. "Yeah, thanks."

She nodded, watching him brush his hair back from his eyes with a gloved hand before she realized she was on the verge of staring again. "Okay, so, um, if you want you can follow me, and I'll... show you where it is."

He nodded, and she smiled before pausing and then realizing he was waiting for her to start walking. She then turned around and got going, hearing his surprisingly light footsteps behind her and wondering why she was so incurably weird.

It was almost enough to distract her from the fact that tapping his shoulder had felt like tapping on metal, which she found very strange. But then she had a thought - having survived war and all, maybe he hadn't come back in one piece, and that was why he seemed to insist on dressing so fully even in the sweltering heat.

It made perfect sense, she decided as they walked towards the back of the house, but it was a shame - he'd end up getting sick one of these days or just end up needlessly miserably hot every single day.

"Do you... uh... do you need some clothes, maybe?" she asked when he had started to walk at her side rather than behind her. He briefly looked at her before turning his eyes back to the ground in front of him. "Like... lighter clothes? Because I could find you some. It's pretty hot and..."

"It's fine," he shrugged.

"Well, I'm just saying - if I was wearing long sleeves and gloves out here during the day, I would probably melt and die."

The corner of his lips quirked up a little, but he shook his head a bit and replied, "It's not so bad."

The picnic table now in sight, she glanced up at him and said, "Okay, well, don't take this the wrong way and I hope I'm not overstepping here, but Marshall told me you just got out of the Army, and... if it's got something to do with that or something that happened to you over there, then I get it but you don't have to make yourself miserable. Whatever it is, nobody here is gonna care or look or be rude."

Positive that she had overstepped, she looked at him cautiously as they stopped a bit closer to the table. To her relief, he didn't look offended or uncomfortable in the least. He just looked surprised, and pleasantly so. She had noticed that he usually had a sort of far-away, hardened look in his eye that wasn't uncommon for men like him, but for just a few seconds, his eyes softened just a little bit, and that was all the response she needed.

"Anyway," she smiled, "Go on and eat however much you like."

He returned her smile, then inclined his head. "Thank you, ma'am."

Coming from anyone else, the term "ma'am" would have made her exclaim in protest that she was only 26 and that term was for grannies, but coming from him, somehow, it was okay.

Once he was sitting down at the table and eating, she felt like she could then go on back inside and have dinner herself, now that everybody else was taken care of for once. She waved goodbye to the others, who all again began thanking her in their own language, and she smiled and nodded her acknowledgment before one set of blue eyes amongst the others caught hers as she was walking away.

She looked away quickly, a little too quickly, but she could tell that he did not, feeling his gaze all the way to the front door.

The second day, he finally took off his gloves. She was washing dishes in her kitchen sink and periodically glancing through the window above it when she saw him walking across the front of the property towards a shed. He was still in a long sleeved shirt, but the gloves were gone, evidenced by a flash of silvery metal where his left hand should have been. A closer look told her that it was his hand, however, and suddenly it made a lot more sense why his shoulder had felt like a toaster rather than a body part.

But that would mean the whole thing was metal, she realized, his whole arm, and was that even possible? She shook her head at herself, because of course it was possible. It was just highly unusual, and she was willing to bet there was quite the story behind it.

As she stared, she glanced up momentarily to find him looking in her direction. She quickly looked away, hoping he couldn't see her through the window, and then dropped the plate in her hands into the sink and cringed at the loud clanging sound that it made.

She rolled her eyes at herself and then dropped the blinds over the window, knowing she wouldn't get that flash of metal out of her head for longer than she cared to admit.

The first week was, all in all, rather uneventful. This time of the year was always busy, and there was no shortage of things to do, especially when Summer was the only one technically "running" the farm. Since she liked the life there - minus Marshall, who hadn't bothered to call her more than twice since he'd left - it was no burden, and she could get used to running it by herself. She could also get used to the generally more pleasant mood everybody was in now, though she knew it was all fleeting.

On the eighth day, she took a few hours' break in the late afternoon to spend time in one of her favorite places on the land, which was her garden. She had never so much as watered a plant before they moved here, but she had decided to give it a go and try her hand at it, then ended up having to fight with Marshall over the part of the land that she wanted to plant the garden in. He had wanted to use it for something else, and it had taken forever for him to finally give in and let her have it. Now, five years later, it was actually a pretty decent garden, divided into separate sections for herbs and flowers, and she was quite proud of it.

It was rather relaxing, the act of pruning, watering, harvesting, all of the things that came with tending to a garden, and until that day, it had also been a haven of solitude. Marshall had never even looked at the garden, let alone bothered her while she was in it, so it came as a shock when, as she was trimming one of her rose bushes, a shadow cast over her hands and she heard a familiar voice ask, "Need a hand?"

She looked up and was immediately at an utter loss. Today, for the first time, he was not wearing long sleeves, but rather a slightly more reasonable white r-shirt. Her brain screamed at her not to stare at his left arm, which was indeed all metal and proportionate to his other, so she quickly met his eyes and all but choked, "... Hi." When he didn't say anything, she added, "Um... what did you say?"

"Do you need a hand," he repeated, visibly trying not to smile.

"Oh... um... sure," she said, looking around the garden in slight panic. She had gotten used to communicating with him once or twice a day, and very briefly at that, which was easy. Sitting down right across from him in a place she wasn't used to having anybody in - and presumably having a conversation of some kind in the process - that was rather different.

She tried to calm down as he knelt down across from her, far enough away to be appropriate but close enough for conversation. She handed him an extra pair of pruning shears, and he took it with his right hand as he gestured to the garden and asked, "You do all this on your own?"

"Yep," she nodded. "After a lot of trial and error. Mostly error."

He grinned faintly and nodded, while she did her best to stare at her roses and not at him. "You don't seem like the gardening type. Or the farm type. No offense."

"Oh, not at all. I'm not," she replied with a chuckle. "I grew up in a suburb. I never stepped foot on a farm until Marshall inherited this place from his parents."

"Seems like you adjusted pretty well."

This was already more than he'd ever spoken to her before, and rather than feeling more at ease the more they spoke, she felt more and more nervous instead. "Yeah. I actually really like it. The smell doesn't even bother me anymore."

He chuckled quietly, and she snuck a glance at him. His hair was as messy as ever, jaw with its usual light layer of stubble, and his eyes were focused on the plant in front of him as he snipped away the dead parts.

"What about you?" she asked. "Are you used to farm life?"

"I used to be," he shrugged. "It's like riding a bike, I guess."

She nodded, focusing on her own section of the bush as she shook her head and said, "You know that you could make a lot more money on another farm. I don't know how much he's paying you but I'm sure it's insultingly low."

He shrugged again. "But not all farms offer lodging."

If she knew him a little better, she would feel more comfortable asking about the story behind that last comment, but for now, she kept it to herself. She could only surmise that he'd had a difficult life and was trying to get away from it all for awhile.

"You're the one that doesn't make sense."

She blinked out of her thoughts and looked at him, confused. "Huh?"

"Why do you stay?" he asked.

She wasn't sure that she'd ever been more speechless before in her life. Here was a guy who had probably spoken to her husband all of two or three times, and yet he acted as if he had the slightest clue about him or the dynamic of her relationship with him.

Never mind that it was a question she had asked herself more times than she could count.

When she did nothing but stare ahead and gape as she failed to form an answer, Bucky said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked that."

"Probably not," she agreed. "But," she then conceded, "I guess it's pretty obvious."

"You don't wear a ring. And I hear the others talk," he explained. "I speak a little Spanish. They love you to death but they hate him. They all talk about how they want you to kick him out and take the farm over for good."

She smiled a little, still keeping her eyes on the roses. "If only it was that simple." Then she glanced at him and said, "Now that I know you speak Spanish I might ask you to translate for me every once in awhile so I can finally really talk to everybody."

"I'm not fluent," he replied. "But I pick up things here and there. Like your apple pie. They talk about it almost as much as they talk about how much they hate the boss."

She smiled a little wider at that. "Well. I do make a pretty dang good pie."

She looked his way just in time to watch him grin faintly, so faintly she could wonder if she was imagining it, just before he asked, "Will I get to try it?"

Now she knew that she was imagining things, and taking things wildly the wrong way, because she could have sworn then that he was using the topic of food to flirt with her. But no, that couldn't be right, because the little spark in his eye and that tiny grin was surely all in her head, and besides, they were only talking about apple pie.

"Maybe," she managed to reply. "You'd have to pick some of my apples first."

And then, he really did grin, and there was no convincing herself that she was imagining it. She just didn't understand why talking about picking apples made him grin like that. She felt vaguely like she had stumbled unknowingly into an inside joke without being let in on the secret.

"I can do that," he finally replied, turning his eyes back to the rose bush as he resumed helping her prune. She stared at him for a moment, wondering what she had missed, because she had obviously missed something.

Not too long later, the sun was starting to set, and that meant that it was time for her to do her rounds in checking the animals. Two goats were due to have babies any day, and she was keeping an especially close eye on them, which gave her the perfect excuse to get away. She only wanted to get away as badly as she did because she truly did not want to, but she really needed to.

"Well, I think this is enough pruning for one day," she said, setting her shears down and shaking her hands free of any stray dirt or anything else. She was about to get up when she noticed that he had stood up rather quickly and was now holding out his right hand to her. She froze for a moment, staring at his hand long enough to make herself feel like an idiot before she took it for the offer of help that it was, regardless of how unnecessary. But necessity wasn't the point, clearly.

She placed her hand in his and as he helped pull her to her feet, she tried to ignore the instant jolt of something that shot through her fingertips and ended up settling in her stomach, which flipped in a way that it had not done in a very, very long time. She did her best to hide it though, smiling politely and then pulling her hand away once she was standing. He then drew both of his hands behind his back, not going anywhere, and she stared for one second too long before saying, "Okay, well... see you later."

He nodded, small but distinct smile on his lips, and when she finally turned around and started walking away, she briefly closed her eyes and cursed how apparently easy it was to make her feel so... out of her element these days.

Because that was surely all it was. Anything else would be ridiculous.

This time, she glanced back at him as she continued walking towards the animals. He was walking away in the opposite direction, hands in his pockets and smile lingering on his face as his eyes watched the ground.

And that made her more nervous than anything else.

The basket of apples that showed up on her doorstep the next day wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise was how much, with each passing day, she seemed to accidentally and completely unintentionally draw Bucky further out of his shell, and he in turn reminded her of how pleasant she could be when she was around people that she could actually enjoy being around.

It was more sad than anything, she thought, because until now, she hadn't really noticed how forcing herself to live with Marshall had begun to change her for the worse. She had begun to become bitter, easily angered and short tempered, and in truth, she had never been any of those things. Now, with him gone and a new person around who seemed to enjoy her company, she could feel her real personality starting to peek out again, with all of its awkwardness and lack of social skills. As frustrated as she could be with what flew out of her mouth, it didn't matter, because she noticed something else even more striking - she was starting to laugh again.

He liked to seek her out once or twice a day, usually around lunchtime, and at the start of the third week, it had started to become a part of her daily routine. She would eat out on the porch, under the shade, and he'd sit across from her and talk about all sorts of things from the animals and other stuff on the farm to anything else that came up in the conversation. He was never anything but respectful, and he stayed away from the invasive questions now, but there were times when he'd say something seemingly harmless with that look in his eye and that grin on his face, and she would again find herself in a state of bewildered confusion.

Odd moments aside, she was enjoying waking up genuinely cheerful for the first time in a long time. Her moods were so improved that she even found herself drawn to something that she hadn't done in months - horseback riding, on one of the horses that Marshall had once bought for her during what she termed as one of his "suck-up phases".

It was one of the cooler days that they'd had in recent weeks, which made the day even nicer as she set out on her ride. She followed a trail that wound off of her land and through a few nearby hills, circling back and giving her a wonderful view of the entire farm. She couldn't help but smile with pride, because she really did love the place and had invested so much of herself and her time and energy into it since coming here. Life here could be so good, so much better, with just a few strategic changes - one, really.

As she made her way back to the stables, she remained focused on her thoughts and barely even noticed the loud, grinding blast of a nearby tractor engine dying a rather sudden and noisy death. By the time she had registered what it was, her horse had already reared back on its hind legs, and her tight gripping of the reins and frantic calls for him to calm down were both useless - the horse threw her off almost immediately, and she hit the ground with a pained and shocked cry that she didn't even hear.

Someone else heard her, however, and the sound of heavy footsteps rushing her way vaguely reached her ears as she began to comprehend what happened. She tried to lift off from her sprawled position on the ground with her right arm, only to be met by a sharp pain that made her gasp in shock as two arms suddenly picked her up and brought her against something hard, which turned out to be Bucky's chest.

"Are you okay? Summer, answer me," Bucky demanded softly but urgently, looking her over as she squinted up at him.

"Ow... I'm okay, I think, but - my arm," she said, moving her right arm for emphasis and then hissing at the immediate burst of pain.

Behind them, one of the other farmhands were leading her horse back into the stables after having coaxed it back to down on all four legs, but she didn't notice this, because Bucky nodded at her before standing up, carrying her over to a nearby tree. He asked her first if she was okay to sit up, and after she nodded that she was, he set her down against the tree and then knelt in front of her.

She was certainly in pain, but definitely not to the point of delirium, and even in this situation, she couldn't help but be taken aback and briefly stunned by his hands on her. They were clinical touches and nothing that wasn't necessary, but just the contrast of warm flesh and cold metal checking her for broken bones left her even more dazed than she already was. She looked up in his eyes, which were narrowed and focused entirely on the task at hand, and since it was much nicer to focus on how dark and long his eyelashes were rather than how much her arm and shoulder hurt, she stared them until he looked up at her and started talking.

"You look okay, but your shoulder's dislocated," he said, and she let out a sigh. Well, at least that explained the pain that she was in. "I'm gonna fix it, but it's probably gonna hurt."

She nodded, having seen it done in movies before, though she really hoped that the real thing ended up being different. "Just... do it."

"You sure?"

She nodded, taking a deep breath. "Yep."

"Okay."

She closed her eyes and felt one very cold and hard hand on her elbow, while a warm one wrapped gently around her forearm.

"Summer. Look at me."

She opened her eyes and met his gaze, and just after her breath left her lungs, he jerked forward a little bit, and with one more burst of pain, her bones popped back into place.

The relief was immediate, and she let out a deep breath as she closed her eyes again, immensely grateful that it was over. "Thank you."

She opened her eyes and he nodded, his right hand still lingering on her forearm. "You're lucky a dislocated shoulder was all you got."

She nodded in agreement, his hand leaving her arm as she moved it out and around, testing her range of movement. "I know. I've never been thrown off a horse before. I can't believe it actually happened."

"Well... don't do it again," he said with a slight smile, and she chuckled with a small shake of her head.

"I'll try not," she replied, letting her fixed arm hang comfortably at her side as he continued to kneel in front of her, like the thought hadn't even crossed his mind to get up or move anywhere. Her eyes moved to his metal hand, which she hadn't felt or touched once until a few moments ago, and on what she would later call a horse-thrown whim, she asked, "Can you... feel with that arm?"

He looked surprised at the question, and maybe a little uncomfortable, but not offended, to her relief. "Yeah."

"Really?" she asked, sitting up a little straighter. "How?" When his silence told her that he likely had no idea how science made such a thing possible, she placed her hand over the back of his and asked, "So you can feel that?"

He looked down at their hands, his pause giving away his surprise at her unexpected touch. "I... yeah, I mean... it doesn't feel like my other hand does, but..."

She moved her hand away a few inches, and he shifted his arm so that his hand was palm-up as he looked down at it. Then, surprising herself as much as him, she gently ran two of her fingers down his palm and asked, "So what's that feel like?"

He eyes shot up to hers one more time, and this time, she knew that she had done something that she shouldn't have. But her fingertips were still on the edge of his palm, and though all of her instincts yelled at her to run and hide just to escape his gaze, she couldn't look away.

He stared at her while he formulated an answer, and she could see the words on the tip of his tongue, but before she could hear them, there was another loud bang from where the first one had come from, and Summer nearly jumped out of her skin.

Bucky blinked and looked down, and her hand had shot away at the loud sound, leaving the moment quite decisively ruined. She was glad for it though, at least on a level that surpassed the ones currently very mad with how it had ended. It was for the best. She didn't need that question answered.

"I'd better go check out that tractor before it blows up," she said, and Bucky nodded, quickly getting to his feet so he could help her get to hers.

"Careful with your arm," he reminded her.

She nodded, straightening out her clothes and replying, "Thank you again. Seriously. I owe you now."

He just shook his head. "Nah."

"Well... I can at least make you another pie or something," she shrugged.

"You don't have to -"

"And you didn't have to help me," she pointed out with a smile, starting to walk towards the tractor. "That's the idea."

He smiled back, but something in it was a little bit forced. She tried not to think about it, or about his hands and how they had felt on her, or his eyes and the story they told through his silence.

The more time that passed and the more things like this that happened, the harder certain things were to ignore and pretend were nonexistent. Things like how it was hard to breathe when he looked at her sometimes, or how her insides did gymnastics when he touched her, and how a nagging sense of loss prickled at the back of her mind when she walked away from him like this.

Even harder to ignore was the way that he watched her every time she left. Though she never saw it, she could always feel it, and it felt like something she wasn't sure that she could handle.

It could almost make her grateful to have a broken tractor, just for the excuse to run away and think about something else, which her inner cowardice was very thankful for.

To her relief, Bucky wasn't the sort to let a potent moment here and there color his every interaction with her. The next day, everything seemed back to normal, with him sitting on her porch and scarfing down a sandwich while describing to her how insanely cute one of the new baby goats were, despite the fact that it had tried to chew his ear off of his head.

Everything was easy with him, she thought, and it was a far cry from the sort of thing that she was used to from any man, friend or otherwise. She'd spent so long with Marshall and dealing with his moods and long, never-ending grudges and delicate state of mind that she had forgotten what it was like to not have to tiptoe or be afraid to ask a question, or ask for help with something. Now that she had remembered, going back to that life when he returned felt... utterly and inconceivably miserable.

And that was the catch, she supposed.

"Heard from him lately?" Bucky asked during one of their times on the porch, when Marshall's name had come up in conversation.

She shook her head. "Not since last weekend."

"Still don't know when he's coming back?"

She shook her head again. "Too soon."

She meant it as a joke, but Bucky didn't smile. She didn't either.

"I haven't asked, but..."

She sighed, sitting up straighter in her chair and muttering, "I know, I know. And thank you, by the way. But everybody else knows, so you may as well know too."

She then launched into the whole story of exactly how she had ended up where she currently was. She had been very young and naive and he had seemed like everything she had ever dreamed of, so they got married almost shockingly quickly on a high based on what turned out to be lies. Marshall was not what he seemed, suffered from various addictions, was a compulsive liar, and had even hit her once with a book during an argument. She had tried to leave more times than she could count, even filed for divorce once, but one way or another, she could never seem to get away for good. It was usually because of money or a lack of support, and more than once, because of his threats. She left out the worst part of it all, which was the loss of an unborn baby, the only time she had ever been pregnant, and his cold and careless treatment of her during the ordeal. She didn't want Bucky to look at her the way everybody else did when they heard that part.

"... So, now I'm kind of just... waiting," she said at the end of the story. "I love this place and I know he won't last much longer here. He's gonna get sick of it and get sick of me eventually and he'll leave. I know he will. And then it'll be mine and we can just be divorced and done with it all." She paused and took a drink of the iced tea clutched in her hand, then added, "I hope."

He took a minute to soak that story in, and after a momentary silence, he asked, "So you're not actually together?"

She shrugged. "On paper, yeah, but in reality, no not really. The thing is, we were separated legally for awhile, and then because of the farm and the business we changed that because it was just easier. And after that happened he said he wanted to 'try again'," she said with air quotes. "That's why I have my horses. And sometimes he'll buy me random stuff or try to take me out somewhere. That's him 'trying'. He's on his own with that one and he knows it."

"... He sounds like an idiot," Bucky said after a moment.

She chuckled. "That he is." Then she cringed and leaned her head back against her seat and muttered, "I shouldn't be talking to you about this. He's your boss. I am being horribly unprofessional."

"I won't tell," he replied playfully, and she just shook her head. In reality, she was pretty sure she had crossed the line of professionalism from her first idiotic two words to him the day they'd met, so really, she wasn't sure it even mattered anymore.

"It's gonna suck when he comes back. And you won't be able to do this with me anymore."

"Do what?"

"This," she gestured to the porch.

"Talk to you?" he asked with slight concern.

"Well, definitely not like this, during your lunch break on my porch with me," she explained. "He might know that I don't give a crap about him anymore, but he'll fire you in a heartbeat if he thinks..."

"Thinks what?"

She paused and muttered, "You know."

"That... what?" he pressed, a glimmer in his eyes giving away his sudden amusement at the turn the conversation had taken, even leaning forward in his seat some.

"You know," she smiled nervously, suddenly trying to think of a way to change the subject but failing.

"You mean that he'll think that we're... lovers?"

She wanted to throw her glass at his head, but she controlled her urges and instead just melted a little inside from the way that he had said lovers, like it was a teasing caress rolling off his tongue. And to make matters so much worse, the moment he had said it, her face had flared up in a blush that she could feel, and if she could feel it, he could certainly see it. And judging by the amused grin on his face, he not only saw it, but he was thoroughly enjoying it.

"Right," she finally replied. "So... when he's back, keep your distance."

"And if I don't want to keep my distance?" he asked, surprising her for a moment. It took her a few seconds to figure out how to answer that.

"Well, then he could fire you," she said, though she felt like she was stating the obvious. "And he would, trust me."

He shrugged, leaning back in his seat a bit. "I'll take my chances." Then after a pause, he added, "Unless he would hurt you again."

"... He only hit me the one time," she replied quietly. "And it was a long time ago."

"I don't think that really matters."

Of course it didn't matter, but that was beside the point. Now she felt a familiar sense of stupidity and maybe even shame setting in, but it wasn't Bucky's fault. This is was just why she didn't share her story with anyone if she could help it - she came out looking like the idiot who stuck with the scumbag instead of being strong and leaving and making it on her own. And him stating simple truths like the lack of a difference between being hit once or fifty times had made it all the worse.

She sat up in her chair and then began to get up, unaware of the expression etched on her face until she heard Bucky say, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"No, it's fine," she shrugged a little bitterly, avoiding eye contact. "It's not you. I just remembered why I hate telling people that story."

She couldn't believe it, but she felt actual tears start prickling at her eyes as she stood up and started heading for the door. She couldn't remember the last time she had actually cried, and now she wanted to get away from him as fast as she could in case the tears actually made their way out. But he was close behind, as always.

"Summer, please, I really am sorry -"

She opened the front door and then turned around, smiling without humor. "Don't be. You can't possibly be more sorry than I am."

Then she threw herself inside the house and shut the door in his face, and to her utter dismay, she really did start crying.

It took her awhile to finally grasp what she was feeling and why. It was more than just the usual self-ridicule or even self-hate for having gotten herself into this situation in the first place. Now there was an extra component, added on like an unwanted bow on the top of the world's worst and most unwelcome gift.

It was easier to ignore it all when each day was the same as the next, when she was used to Marshall and was resigned to her reality. But now, that resignation was slipping, and the more that she talked to Bucky, the more that she laughed and began to feel like her old self, the more everything began to hurt all over again.

But it was still better than feeling nothing at all. How could she go back to that?

Though she still did not have a set date for Marshall's return, the general feelings on the farm were beginning to shift as the month's end drew near. Summer could tell that everyone was trying to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere while they still could, and when she heard music playing and loud, cheerful voices outside of her bedroom window one night, she smiled faintly and kept reading the book in her lap, surprised that they'd waited this long to throw a party.

When she heard what sounded like a rock hit her window, she thought she must have imagined it. But then there was another, and then another, and with a confused chuckle, she set her book aside and went to the window, moving the curtains aside and then pushing it up.

Bucky was standing in the middle of a large handful of the other farmhands, a grin on his face and a beer bottle in one hand, a handful of rocks in the other.

"Did you seriously just throw rocks at my window?" she asked with an incredulous smile.

"Are you gonna stay holed up in your room all night?" he retorted, letting the rest of the rocks fall to the ground.

"I'm not in much of a party mood," she called back.

"Then how about a drinking mood?" he asked, and she rolled her eyes with a smile. "Come on. Don't make me come up there."

She unconsciously bit her lip, not at all opposed to the idea of him letting himself into her home and physically dragging her outside.

Then she mentally slapped herself in the face. She was opposed to that. Very opposed. So opposed that she could start a political party devoted to her opposition.

"Am I gonna have to come up there?"

She sighed, shaking her head at his shameless grin, then feeling her breath hitch a little when he raised the bottle in his hand and took a drink, watching her all the while.

"Fine," she finally conceded. "Give me a minute."

She then smiled and closed the window, and the very moment she walked away, Bucky was immediately pushed good-naturedly on the shoulder by a few of the other workers, all of whom were quite aware of what Summer was still intent on denying. He just pushed them back and grinned as he took another drink, while Summer dug through her closet to find a dress light enough to throw on and not suffocate in outside.

Once she was outside, she was greeted with a chorus of Spanish terms of endearment, none of which she could understand, by the already slightly drunk workers who were apparently thrilled to have her among them. She just smiled and accepted the beer bottle that was shoved into her own hand, though she didn't particularly enjoy the drink and knew full well that she had no business drinking around Bucky, because reasons.

She ended up taking a seat on the lowest step on her porch, content to just sit there and enjoy the warm night and south-of-the-border music being played on a giant stereo that looked like it was from the late 1980s. Bucky, for all of his coaxing to get her to come down, kept his distance at first, but she didn't mind. It gave her a chance to watch him speak to the others in his sort-of-okay Spanish and laugh at himself when he would say something ridiculously incorrect and make the others roar with laughter. Then they would try to teach him new words, acting out their meanings with often hilarious gestures, and she found it all ridiculously entertaining.

At least until one of the guys offered him a cigarette, which he accepted. It was all fun and games until she had watch him light it up and inhale, then lazily exhale, making something she had always considered to be rather gross and not attractive in the least suddenly... very, very attractive.

Then he caught her staring, and she looked away so fast she almost gave herself a case of whiplash. She fought the embarrassed flush creeping up on her neck, trying to ignore it and force the blood to rush back out of her face back to the rest of her where it belonged.

She didn't dare chance another glance at him, at least not until he decided that he had kept his distance long enough and made his way over, sitting down next to her on the porch step.

"You haven't touched your drink," he noted, still nursing his own, cigarette long gone by now.

"Yeah... not big on beer," she shrugged, looking up at him and reminding herself that he was her friend, and talking to him was not as big of a deal as her brain was currently making it out to be.

"I figured," he replied. "If I had to guess, I'd say you're more of a... red wine kind of girl."

She looked at him curiously and asked, "Really? Why?"

"It's richer than white wine," he replied. "More of an acquired taste. More complex. Seems more suited to you. Am I right?" Then he narrowed his eyes and asked, "Or am I completely off and you don't like wine at all? Maybe whiskey's more your thing."

"Whiskey?" she repeated, enjoying this current conversation thoroughly and almost forgetting her anxiety of a few moments earlier.

He nodded. "Yeah. I'm sticking with that. Rum is too... common. Tequila's too cheap. Vodka too... Russian, too obvious," he chuckled. "No... you're a shot of whiskey."

"Wait," she laughed, "I thought you were guessing what I liked. Now you're saying what kind of alcohol describes me?"

He nodded, grinning and leaning in closer without even realizing it, or at least she didn't think he realized it. "First I thought the red wine, because of the complexity and all, but... the acquired taste didn't fit," he explained, and she listened intently, unknowingly hanging on his every word. Then he made shamelessly direct eye contact that was almost just too much as he added more quietly, "It's more of an instant thing. That immediate burn in your throat that almost hurts but makes you want more, even though you know you shouldn't want it." His lips quirked in a smile, and he glanced down at her mouth that she was trying very hard to keep from falling open to the ground because of his words before looking back to her eyes. "That's you."

How she kept breathing, she would never really know. Of all of the questionable things that he had ever said to her, little things that could be interpreted as innocent or not so innocent, he had never said anything so clear and plain in its meaning before. She couldn't explain it away in her head, pretend that he had meant something else, or just ignore it.

He thought she was potent, strong, something that burned him. Something that he wanted. Apparently something he craved.

And if there had been the slightest ambiguity in his words, the way that he looked at her after he spoke them shattered it.

Unable to think, let alone speak, she looked away and was about three seconds from bolting inside the house so that she could process the last few moments, but then there was one of the workers, Arturo, in front of them, swiping Bucky on the shoulder and gesturing to the stereo. He was saying something over and over with a big smile on his face, and Summer was oblivious to any of it until Bucky's shoulder bumped hers and made her look up at him.

"They're all saying we should dance," he explained.

She was fairly sure that this night could not possibly get any worse. "Uh..."

"What do you say?" he asked, obviously rather taken with the idea himself.

"I... don't dance," she choked out. "Seriously, I don't. Not a good idea." A horrible idea.

"Well," he said, standing up, "luckily, I do, so I can show you how." Then he held out his hand. "Come on. Just once."

She gaped at him with wide eyes, as if he'd just asked her to help him rob a bank rather than dance in front of her house. "But..."

"Do you really want to disappoint Arturo?"

She laughed despite herself, but she still wouldn't budge.

Finally, he just grabbed her hand himself and pulled her up to her feet, making her squeak in surprise as he dragged her away from the porch. She suddenly wished that she could teleport, so that she could vanish away to some distant mountaintop somewhere so that she could scream at the top of her lungs because this could not be happening.

But it was, and it was happening rather quickly. Someone turned the music up and then Bucky's left arm was suddenly around her waist, pulling her closer to him, and she knew that her face was already a blushing mess.

"Just follow my lead," he said, like it was the easiest thing in the world, all while keeping that stupid grin on his face that she was starting to hate. Before she could say a word, he brought her a bit closer and then spun her out, and she squealed a little bit, nearly tripping on her feet, but he pulled her back against his chest before she could fall. She looked up at him breathlessly, unprepared for being this close and this surrounded by him, and he smiled a little more gently at her before drawing back a few inches and looking down at her feet as he told her how to move them, what to do, and though she could only half-comprehend what he was saying, she did her very best.

He danced her around her front yard to a song that, to her addled brain, reminded her vaguely of the theme song to Puss in Boots, though that was the very last thing on her mind. He twirled her around, practiced a few steps with her, and once made her heart fall into her stomach by unexpectedly dipping her low towards the ground, his metal arm holding her to him while his flesh hand gripped hers. She could hear little clicking and whirring sounds despite the music, growing louder the more that the arm moved and quieter when it was still.

She had almost begun to catch her breath towards the end of the song, which was when he spun her one more time, but instead of pulling her back the way that he did before, he drew her in so that her back was to his chest and his hand, still joined with hers, was over her stomach. The fact that she couldn't see him now made her anxiety spike a bit, but it was nothing compared to feeling the distinct sensation of lips brushing against her hair.

It could have been accidental. It probably wasn't. Either way, it was the thing that made her finally snap and run.

She let go of his hand and jerked away from him so fast that she felt a little dizzy, though that could have been attributed to other things. She turned and looked at him, finding that playful expression from a few moments ago gone and replaced with something a lot heavier and a lot harder to deal with.

"Sorry, I'll... uh... I'll be right back," she said before her feet took off seemingly all on their own, propelling her past him and towards the safety of her house. She kept her eyes fixed forward to avoid his, but she didn't miss the look that he had on his face. She couldn't tell if it was disappointment, frustration, or something else, but whatever it was, it didn't stop her from simply needing to just get away.

Once she got inside and had the door shut behind her, she lingered against the door and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to calm down her breathing and convince herself that she was overreacting. The problem was, however, that she wasn't, and she very well knew it.

She ended up retreating to her sink and grabbing a glass out of a cabinet, filling it with cold water and drinking it in the hopes that it would help clear her head, but it didn't. Maybe she needed a shot of whiskey instead.

Except that thought just made her groan a little and slump towards the sink. She could never think of whiskey the same ever again.

She refilled the glass and then decided to go and hide in her room just as the sound of the door opening quietly hit her ears. Right away, she nearly stopped breathing, knowing only one person on the farm had the nerve to even consider just walking inside. She didn't move or turn around, not even when she heard footsteps slowly getting closer. She missed her chance to run, and she suspected it was due to how badly she was sick of running.

The footsteps stopped before she had thought they would. As soon as they did, she finally heard him speak.

"Summer..."

Just the sound of her name being spoken by him right now made her insides leap. Taking a breath, she set down her glass on the counter and then turned around, trying to be brave as she met Bucky's gaze.

There was a safe distance between them, but nothing felt safe at that moment.

"I'm sorry if I..." he trailed off, and she wondered if he even knew what to apologize for.

When he seemed at a loss, she muttered quietly, "You should... go."

He nodded. "I know."

Then he took a step forward, and she gave up on trying to breathe.

"You're not going," she observed, stating the obvious as he kept coming closer, so slowly that it was almost too much.

He shook his head. "No."

Once he was close, too close, she looked away, down at the floor, at anything that wasn't him. The room felt hotter than it had outside, like all the air was being sucked into some invisible vacuum, and she wasn't expecting the finger that gently touched under her chin and lifted her face up towards his.

"Look at me."

He made it sound so easy, but it wasn't. Not when he was this close, and not when his fingers left her chin to brush over her cheek and gently move her hair behind her ear, all while he stared at her in a way that nearly caused her physical pain.

His face inched closer to hers excruciatingly slowly, and she knew why he was doing it. He was giving her time to push him away, tell him no, maybe slap him and then immediately fire him if the advance was really unwanted.

But her voice was stuck uselessly in her throat, and she couldn't have said no even if she had wanted to. She held her breath as he drew closer, hearing her own heart pounding in her ears as what felt like an eternity passed between them. His eyes fluttered shut when the tip of his nose just grazed hers, and that was when she let her eyes close as well.

The first brush of his lips against hers was so gentle it almost hurt, barely enough to be called a kiss. It was experimental, and maybe her last chance to make him stop. But, far from it, she instead let out the faint, shaky breath she had been holding, and he opened his eyes just slightly as it washed over his lips.

Then she felt his hand slide fully into her hair, cradling her head as he really kissed her. It wasn't the cautious brushing of a moment before, but instead a firm, even consuming kiss, one like nothing she had ever experienced before, from anyone. Her brain became mush and it felt like a firework had gone off in the middle of her chest, all of it utterly mesmerizing her as he angled her head further and then deepened the kiss. She was woefully out of practice when it came to this, but like when they had danced, she followed his lead.

Her hands had first flown to his forearms, and then as the kiss had grown into more, she cautiously slipped her hand up his arm and over his shoulder, going to his hair just above his neck, where her fingers gripped and held on as the moment of pure, complete bliss dragged on.

His left hand moved up her back and under her hair, to her upper back which was exposed by her dress, and she shivered from the coolness as he finally broke the kiss to suck in a breath. As soon as he had, he resumed his increasingly ravaging kiss, this time with a rough and yet also faint moan against her lips, and the sound and the feeling of it was a shock to every nerve ending in her body.

It was such a shock, in fact, that it shocked her right out of her daze, and she pulled away from him with a sudden quiet gasp. She stared up at him with wide eyes, and he stared back with new panic mixed with the smoldering heat within his own eyes. Her hand left his hair and hovered in midair for a moment as she panted, in shock that that had just happened, and in real life, not just in her head.

And now she couldn't take it back or undo it.

"Summer -"

"No," she shook her head, pushing him off of her. He didn't fight her in the least, stumbling back a little bit as she started visibly panicking herself. "No, I can't."

She looked at him and saw his expression become pained, possibly regretful, like her distress was hurting him as much as it was her. She could process none of it, however, and it was all she could do to force her shaking legs to start moving and run her out of the kitchen and up the staircase to her room. He let her go, and she didn't stop until she was safe in her room, sliding down to the floor against the closed door and still trying to breathe through her racing heart.

One thought kept racing through her head, over and over, cutting through the haze and the panic and the warmth that still tingling in her lips and fingertips, making her feel more drunken than she ever had without taking a single drink. This single thought, a solitary question, stayed with her the rest of the night, and when she eventually dragged herself to bed and fell into an uneasy sleep, nagged at her dreams. And the question, despite its simplicity, was not so easily answered.

What have I done?

This time, she was sure that she had royally screwed things up. There would surely be no going back to normal after what had happened. Summer awoke the next morning convinced of what lied ahead: a day spent avoiding Bucky, bolting at the first sign of him, and in general, acting like a guilty, freaked out, awkward mess.

The worst part of it all, she thought, was the fact that she had finally made a friend whose company she genuinely enjoyed and had gotten used to, and now that was probably ruined too. That was far worse than the nagging sense of guilt that wouldn't leave her head.

To her everlasting surprise, however, none of her predictions turned out to be true.

He ended up seeking her out on her morning checkup of the farm, catching up with her as she checked on the new litter of baby goats. They really were adorable, so much so that they had actually distracted her for a minute and paved the way for her to jump in surprise when she heard Bucky quietly greet from behind her, "Hey."

Straightening up from the pin, where she had been petting one of the goats, she looked behind her and felt the urge to panic immediately set in, but she controlled herself and quietly replied, "Hi."

He had his hands in the pockets of his jeans and a serious expression on his face as he regarded her, and she continued to fight the urge to flee as he gathered his words.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," he finally said, and by his tone and the way he said it, she couldn't doubt his sincerity.

She shook her head and muttered, "I really don't want to do this, so can we just..."

"No," he replied, "because if we don't, it'll never be the same and I don't want that."

"Don't you think we kind of crossed that bridge already?" she asked.

He paused and glanced down for a moment before saying, "What I'm saying is, I don't want to lose you as a friend because of one kiss."

"It wasn't exactly just one kiss," she blurted before she could think better of it. "I mean, it was..." She trailed off, eyes dropping and her cheeks heating up again as the memory of him moaning against her mouth made her very bones shudder.

"But you weren't ready for it," he said quietly. "And I should have known that. It was my fault."

"You didn't exactly force me," she muttered.

"Doesn't matter," he insisted.

She gave up trying to argue that point, then crossed her arms as she sighed and said, "So... what, now we just... act like it didn't happen and... move on?"

He shrugged a little and then admitted, "I won't forget it. I don't think you will either."

She blushed again, knowing that he was very right about that.

"But," he added, "that doesn't mean we can't move on."

She doubted that, but he sounded so sure of himself that she wondered if maybe they really could. They were both adults, both people who had seen a lot in their lifetimes - he more than her, she suspected - and in the grand scheme of things, maybe it really could be just one kiss.

She had been so sure that everything was ruined that now she could almost leap for joy at the thought that all may not be lost after all.

"Okay," she said, nodding. "Then... let's do that."

He smiled, and she let her crossed arms drop to her sides, hoping that he was right about all of this. She felt better now, though, and she would give going back to normal her best shot.

"To kind of start things off... mind giving me a hand with the horses before you get back to your normal stuff?"

He nodded, smile still on his face, and she took a deep breath before starting to walk towards the stables. Then one pressing thought popped into her head, and she decided to turn around and blurt it out before sticking to the whole "normal" thing.

"Was I okay at it?" she asked, watching confusion instantly bloom across his face.

"Okay at... kissing?" he asked, brows furrowed like her question was utterly bizarre.

"Yeah. Just because... it's been awhile, and I never really... anyway," she shrugged. "I'm just... curious."

He gave her a look and then asked, "Did someone ever tell you were bad at it?"

She didn't know why she was surprised. He knew how to read between the lines. "Well..."

"You weren't bad at it," he assured her. "You felt kind of... shy at first. Then you started kissing me back and I..."

As he trailed off, she fought another blush uselessly and eventually replied, "... Oh. Okay. Um... thanks. For answering me, I mean."

He grinned when she flinched at her own rambling, and then she turned around, resuming her walk towards the stables and taking a deep breath, unsure of what now laid ahead.

Back to normal, she reminded herself. Only time would tell.

Time indeed passed, and with it, so did the lingering awkwardness that Summer was so hyperaware of. As the farm entered its second month without Marshall, she found herself in an immense state of relief due to how well she and Bucky really did seem to be moving on and getting back to normal. It was a weight off of her shoulders, and she fell happily back into the routine that they had created before. Her only source of stress continued to be Marshall and his impending return, knowing things would change again when he finally came back, and not for the better.

She pushed those thoughts away, though, and enjoyed what she had while it lasted. Despite the fact that both she and Bucky had agreed to leave the kiss behind them, that didn't mean that their sometimes very mild and other times not so mild flirtatious banter ceased to exist. He still said things that made her want to slam her head into a wall, and she still made his entire day with her reactions to those things. But even more than that, he was easy to talk to and even to confide in, and he had begun to open up more about his own life and stories. The more that she knew about him, and the more that she understood, the more that she cared about him in a way that made her worry greatly for the future.

Regardless of what he was to her, friend or maybe something more, if Marshall came back and fired Bucky for any of the myriad of reasons that he could pull out of the air, she'd lose the one light, the one real friend, that she had in her life. It seemed like she had only met him yesterday, but so much had happened in just over a month, and now she couldn't imagine going back to life without him there in some capacity.

And that terrified her, because it seemed like the one thing that she could count on was having to go back to life without him at some point or another.

Two things happened when Marshall called one month and two weeks after his initial departure: he told Summer that he would be back within the week, and after an unexpected and bitter and utterly ridiculous fight over her purchase of a new tractor following the old one giving out, she threw her phone at the wall and shattered it.

Not one single previous fight had ever encompassed so much of what was wrong with Marshall and what was wrong with being married to him. He thought that she was stupid, beneath himself, incapable of being trusted to make even basic purchases for a farm that he claimed that he had invested his time and energy into rather than her. Everything was his - his farm, his money, his wife who should do what he said and never so much as lift a finger without asking him first if it was okay. She was just an extension of the property, and that was all she had ever been, all she would ever be until she could finally break free - if she ever truly could.

And he would be back in a matter of days, ruining the break of actual happiness that she'd had while he had been gone.

She almost wished that he'd never left, that she hadn't had a taste of a better life, because now rather than be safe under the numbness that she was used to, life would be unbearable.

Far from numb, her veins coursed with anger focused mostly at Marshall but also, to a large degree, herself. She was the one dumb enough to marry him, dumb enough to still be married to him, still be here, still letting him get to her like this. It would never matter how fully she knew that he was wrong about her, and wrong about everything - he still knew the weaknesses in her armor, the places he could hit that would always hurt her on some level. He could still get in her head, and having this happen now, having him come back in a few days and inevitably put her one source of happiness in jeopardy - it utterly enraged her.

And so, she tore out of her room, ignoring the broken phone on the floor near the doorway, and she simply kept walking. She stomped down the stairs, through the hallway and out the door, into the cool night. It was nearly midnight, but she didn't think twice about her destination. She needed a place to break things, to scream with anger if she needed to, and that place was the barn.

Once she got there, she went inside, slammed the door, and then proceeded to rip the place apart as good as she could possibly hope to. She smashed some empty mason jars against the wall, imagining that the wall was Marshall, and when she ran out of those, she opted for grabbing a shovel and trying to destroy random things with it. She didn't stop until she heard a voice ask in a highly concerned tone, "What the hell are you doing?"

Lowering the shovel, which she had been whacking against a 2x4, she turned around and wanted to curse the very universe itself. Of course he would come out here, looking like he had just rolled out bed and came to investigate the weird sounds coming from the barn - which was probably exactly what had occurred. Whatever the case, his messy hair, white tank top and probably hastily-thrown on jeans were not helping anything.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" she shot back. "And what's your problem? It's my farm. I can do what I want."

His mouth opened but nothing came out, and she took the opportunity to throw the shovel across the barn and ask as it fell with a loud clatter, "Or are you gonna tell me that it's not really my farm either? You've been here a whole five minutes, so you know everything about the place, right? You can be honest. I won't fire you. Apparently I can't fire you, because it wasn't my douchebag dad who croaked and left me the place!"

He furrowed his brows in confusion, but she stepped closer to him and kept right on ranting. "Seriously, tell me. Tell me everything you really think of me, because I know you haven't yet. Tell me I'm stupid and pathetic for staying here, for being married to that piece of garbage in the first place, because it's true. I know it is."

"Summer, stop," Bucky said quietly, frowning at her self-harmful outbursts.

"No," she shook her head. "No, I'm not gonna stop. I want to hear you say it. I know you have to think it."

"I don't," he replied.

"Oh, sure you don't. But you know, maybe I shouldn't expect an honest answer out of a guy who would corner a married woman in her own kitchen, the wife of his freaking boss, and kiss her, and get so deep into her head that she can't think straight half the time."

And thus, in one spectacularly poorly dreamed up sentence, Summer brought up the past that they had both agreed to let go of, insulted Bucky, essentially call him a loser and a home wrecker, and as the finishing touch, accidentally confessed the degree to which he and that kiss had utterly consumed her.

She suddenly fell silent, mild horror overcoming her. Bucky, for his part, had not believed a word out of her mouth until the last few words had left her lips. Her jabs had all gone right through him, as he knew that she was angry and using him as little more than target practice in lieu of the real source of her anger. But that little bit of truth amidst the verbal waste had clearly not gone unheeded, and the look in his eyes made her have to look away.

When she did, she saw the extent of the damage that she had inflicted on the barn. It wasn't anything even halfway substantial - if anything, it looked sort of like some idiot drunken teenager had wandered in and decided to commit some very poorly conceived vandalism and property damage.

She couldn't even properly angrily tear up a barn, she thought miserably, shoulders slumping as she trudged over to a wall clear of shattered glass. She leaned against it and then slid down to the hay-covered floor, leaning her head against her raised knees and muttering, "God, I am an idiot."

Only a moment passed before he came over and sat next to her, staying silent as she tried to finish calming down. Eventually she relaxed her knees and raised her head back up, muttering, "He'll be back in a few days."

"Is that what caused... all of this?"

She shook her head. "No. He chewed me out because I bought a new tractor with 'his' money. So I got pissed and it blew up into this big stupid fight and..." she blew out a breath and dropped her head back against the wall. "After all this time and everything he's done to me, I still let him get to me."

Bucky didn't say anything, and he didn't have to. His simple presence was enough, at least for now.

"I did ask you if I was bad at kissing because of him," she admitted, her skin crawling at the unpleasant truth. "He used to tell me I was doing it wrong if I wasn't doing it the way that he did. God forbid I try to mix it up sometimes." Then she swallowed her discomfort at her next words and added, "And he was the same way with... other things. Everything was always my fault. His lack of... success with... getting things to... happen. Wasn't his fault, of course. It was mine."

"You mean..."

She nodded hastily, wishing she hadn't brought it up at all, but she needed to get all of this out of her system. "Yeah. Same thing with everything else in life. He hit me that one time because I 'pushed' him to do it. Counseling never worked for us because I wasn't really trying. I lost our baby because I obviously hadn't been eating good and wasn't healthy enough."

She froze when she realized what she had said, and she closed her eyes in dismay. She had done a very good job of keeping that last bit to herself, and now here she went and just blurted it out.

She was afraid to look at Bucky, because the last thing she wanted to see on his face, or anyone's face, was pity, but it would hurt even more coming from him. But, when she did manage to glance his way, she was surprised to see anger as the dominant emotion on his face. He looked a bit horrified as well, in addition to being angry as hell on her behalf, but there wasn't a trace of pity. She let out a breath of relief.

The relief was short lived, however. She looked away from him and shook her head, muttering, "And this why I'm an idiot for still being here. What kind of woman would stay after all of that? Even if I'm not with him, I'm still... here. I still have his last name."

"... It's not always that simple," he said quietly. "I haven't been in your shoes, but... I think that you've done the best you can with what you had." Then he added after she looked at him, "And you're not stupid. You're nothing he says you are."

She smiled a little and asked, "He's known me for seven years. You've known me for about seven weeks."

"I knew he was bad when I saw the way he grabbed your arm to walk you away after you met me," he said quietly. "He grabbed you the way I grab cattle. Then he tried to force a kiss on you when even I could tell that you wanted nothing to do with him."

Her eyes widened and she nearly gasped, "You... saw that?"

He nodded. "Maybe you can't see it because you've been in the middle of this for so long, but to me, and everybody else here, it's obvious."

"What is?"

He looked down at his hands in his lap, clearly trying to figure out how to say the words right. "You're this... bubbly, happy, funny person underneath what he's tried to turn you into, but it's like you're afraid to be yourself. You walk around with your guard up and it's almost like you're afraid to laugh or... feel anything."

Disheartened, she looked away and leaned her head back again as she muttered, "That's because I am. It's easier not to feel anything. That way when nothing changes and everything's still miserable, it doesn't hurt. It's just another day."

"That's not living," he said.

She turned towards him again, curiosity overtaking her as she asked, "What is?"

He stared at her a moment, silence passing by before he replied, "I'm still figuring that out."

"Aren't we all," she sighed. Then after a moment, she muttered, "My problems must seem so... small to someone like you. You've been at war and have a freaking metal arm, and here I am whining about my own stupid mistakes."

"Do you hear yourself when you talk like that?"

"I mean yeah, I do, but it's true, and -"

"No," he shook his head, "I mean do you hear yourself or do you hear him?"

Suddenly understanding his meaning, it clicked in her head and she felt another wave of melancholy threaten to wash over her. "Oh." Then she stared ahead of them, towards the glass shattered on the other side of the barn. "My God. You're right."

Then she sat there, working through the horror settling into her head as she realized that it was really was true, that all of the nitpicking and self-criticism she subjected herself to could all pass for quotes from Marshall himself. She might have never noticed if Bucky had not shared his insight, and it was a remarkable thing, considering how he didn't even know Marshall and had not even known her for two months.

"It's... hard," he said quietly, a little while later, and she turned to watch him as he spoke. "When someone gets inside your head and... changes you. Makes it hard to remember who you are, what's them and what's you. Takes time to get them out."

The way that he said those words belied a dark past, and she could only imagine what that meant for a man with his history. But then he turned and met her eyes, saying, "So no. I don't think your problems are small."

She nodded slightly, then felt a herself smile genuinely for the first time since Marshall had called, though it was a small smile. "Thank you for listening. And for getting me to stop freaking out and trying to break things."

He nodded, faint smile touching his lips as he replied, "I thought one of the animals had gotten loose or there was a thief or something."

She chuckled. "No, just me taking out my rage on the poor barn. I'm gonna have to clean up that glass in a few minutes."

"I'll get it," he shook his head. "You should go and try to sleep." Then the faintest of smirks quirked his lips and he added, "Might help you think straighter."

God, how she regretted that comment. Nothing good could come of him knowing. It was one thing for her never-ending blushes to give away some of his effect on her, but saying it out loud... now she really had gone and changed things.

But it didn't matter. Pretty soon his visits to her porch would have to stop, and there could be very few future heart to hearts on the barn floor. Maybe she could get away with a few brief conversations when they were both working, but if Marshall caught even a glimpse of the friendship and the banter that they had established, Bucky would be gone within the day, and she could not let that happen.

"You're gonna stay away when he comes back, right?" she asked quietly. "You're gonna... be smart about it?"

The previously slightly playful expression on his face fell a little, and he frowned as he looked down and muttered, "... I don't know if I can."

"But... I mean... we'll still be able to talk, and there's certain parts of the property he never goes to, like my garden. We can go there and talk when he's busy. And he leaves a lot during the day because of his business. We can figure it out. Be smart about it."

"If I didn't know better," he said with a certain glimmer in his eye, "it almost sounds like you plan on sneaking me around like some kind of... secret lover."

She wished he would just stop saying that word, lover. It was only the second time, but the shiver that shot down her spine was as immediate as it had been the first time. "Well... regardless of what we do or... don't do... that's how he'll see you if he catches us. So just... please be careful."

He nodded, eyes locking with hers. "I will."

She smiled again, quietly saying, "Thank you again."

His smile mirrored hers, but his eyes flickering to her lips for a fraction of a second made her heart skip a beat. She was suddenly aware of how close they were, his shoulder nearly resting against hers and both of them leaned in one another's direction. Everything was quiet aside from the sound of crickets and the occasional noise from an animal that wasn't quite asleep yet, and she knew that she really should get up and go, but she simply had no motivation to move an inch, let alone break the eye contact that he had locked her into.

She couldn't shake the sense of impending loss, of the looming downward turn that life was taking again in a few days. Now that there was so little time left, the desire to make the most of it was suddenly overwhelming, but the problem was, she didn't know where to even start.

It didn't help that she really couldn't think straight when he was looking at her like that.

The one thing that came to mind, the one thing that she couldn't get out of her mind, was the one thing that she knew she shouldn't do. But sitting here this close to him, the memory of their only kiss at the forefront of her mind alongside that nagging sense of coming loss, she was helpless to fight it or even think about coming to her senses.

She leaned in closer, timidly and slowly, and there was no mistaking the surprise on his face as she did. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she could tell that he was holding his breath, just like she had in that moment before he had kissed her in her kitchen.

She couldn't bear to stop herself. Just one more time, she reasoned, one more and then she would never do it again.

She closed her eyes, and she kissed him. It was soft and small and far from confident, nothing near the kind of consuming fire that he had thrust upon her before, but it was honest, and it was from a place that had been dead for so long that she had forgotten what it was like to want nothing more than to feel someone else's lips on your own. It was almost innocent, both the way she kissed him and why she did, while feeling like a stolen taste of forbidden fruit at the very same time.

When she pulled away, she opened her eyes and found him staring at her with darker, surprised, heavier eyes, his lips parted following her kiss, and her face heated up so quickly it almost made it hard to breathe.

"I'm sorry," she half-whispered. "I shouldn't have done that. I just wanted to... one more time, just to..."

Before she could continue to struggle for words, he leaned forward and grabbed her face with both hands, pulling her back to him and kissing her with a gentle fury. It felt like something between getting hit by a train and taking a potent hit of the best drug in existence. It was like the first time but somehow even better, and she lost what little control she had over herself as she kissed him back, hands going to his chest as one of his moved into her hair, the other one sliding down over her shoulder to her side, where it curled and pulled her even closer.

If she was his shot of whiskey, then he was the match that set it on fire and burned everything around it.

He broke away first, sucking in a breath of air as his hand in her hair gently restrained her from attacking him again. He looked into her eyes, then the flushed state of her cheeks, her parted lips that she was already panting through, and then he asked in a low voice laced with obvious desire, "Summer, are you... are you sure?"

She wasn't entirely sure all that his question encompassed, but she also didn't think it really mattered at that current moment. She could only move her hands up over his shoulders and neck, tangling her fingers in his mess of short dark hair as she replied, "Please don't stop."

His jaw clenched at her words, eyes darkening even more just before he pulled her close again, kissing her an even greater vengeance that she returned with every fiber of her being. She wasn't expecting it when he then tightened his arm around her waist and pulled her snugly into his lap, the loose skirt of her dress rising and pooling over them as she let out a surprised moan at the movement. The sound made him open his eyes and draw back by a fraction, and when she saw the predatory, hungry look in his eye as both hands went to her hips and pushed them down against his, she realized the extent of what she had just gotten herself into.

"Oh my God," she gasped a little, feeling him so incredibly hard underneath her, which was something that must have happened incredibly quickly, and the grin that he shot her made her blush harder than she possibly ever had before. Then his lips were at her neck, kissing and suckling gently as she gripped his hair and tried not to lose it as his hands continued to move her hips slowly against him. Then her eyes shot open amidst the firestorm of unfamiliar sensations and she pulled on his hair a little as she exclaimed, "Don't leave any marks!"

He groaned, panting against the curve of her neck as he said, "I want to." Then he raised his head and killed her a little more with the way that he looked into her eyes. "I... you have... no idea what it's been like."

"I might," she replied, swallowing hard now that they were still for a moment, though his hands never stopped moving - through her hair, down her back, on her waist, and now, one on her leg, moving painfully slowly up the hem of her dress.

He shook his head, kissing her lips again and then murmuring as he dragged his lips across her cheek, towards her ear, "Every day, watching you, knowing I couldn't have you..."

Her insides flipped and she couldn't breathe, closing her eyes as he kissed under her ear and hissed into it, "You torture me and you don't even know it."

His teeth tugged at her ear lobe, and her jaw dropped as her hand in his hair tightened. She tortured him?! "I... what?"

The hand under her skirt had stopped when it brushed against lace on her hip, and now it gripped her gently there as his metal fingers made her shiver as they brushed her cheek. He drew back, locking eyes with her again as he said, "You might not think straight but I can't think at all."

Mouth now perpetually open thanks to what he was telling her, she just stared at him and found herself utterly speechless.

Past the point of being overwhelmed already, she buried her fingers in his hair and crashed her lips to his, stunned that he could feel that way about her and apparently had for awhile now. She knocked his head back against the wall with her fervor, and he groaned in a way that made her burn even more than she already was. She didn't care if she was doing it "right" or if she lacked skill, because none of that mattered at the moment and whatever she was doing, she had ample evidence that it was working extremely well.

When she came up for air, he panted against her lips with his forehead against hers and said in a breathless, rough voice, "If you don't make me stop, I won't. I can't."

Now she understood what he had probably meant when this had first started.

"But I will if you tell me to."

Heart pounding in her ears, breath nearly nonexistent and senses already on overload, she realized that this was likely the fabled "point of no return", her chance to stop and realize what she was about to do it she went on, and alternatively, what she would miss if she did not.

But there had never been a choice to make, not really. For all of her bad decisions, this somehow felt like the best one that she had made in years.

She shook her head. "I won't tell you to stop."

"You have to be sure," he said, and she could almost see him hanging on to his last fraying bit of self control.

"I'm sure," she assured him sincerely. When he still hesitated, she leaned in and placed another soft, sweet kiss on his lips, and nearly whined, "Please..."

The frayed bit snapped, and he groaned as he kissed her almost desperately. Her heart swelled and her mind went blank despite how nervous she was deep down about what she had just asked for, but none of that touched her thoughts as she felt his metal arm slide around her waist and then pull her unbearably tight against them as he effortlessly stood them both up. Her legs automatically went around his waist, and he stumbled back against the wall briefly as they refused to break their kiss, but not because of a balance issue or a lack of strength. No, he was just that affected, and he pushed off of the wall with a slight growl and then started walking them across the barn.

She paid no attention to where they were going, so when he stopped and continued to kiss her thoroughly as he laid her down on a soft, loose pile of hay, it came as a slight surprise. He finally broke away from her lips as he gently lowered himself on top of her, looking her in the eyes as he did. He eased one of her legs further from the other so he could lay between them, and then he was kissing her neck again, careful to remember her admonishment not to leave marks where others could see.

Her hands became more courageous the lower his mouth crept along her neck, leaving his hair to run along his shoulders and then down his arms, and when she did, his metal one grew louder in its clicks and soft sounds. It was fascinating, and while her other hand went to his back, she kept one on that arm, dragging her fingers up and down, making it almost purr.

When two of her fingers ghosted down his forearm, he smiled and chuckled against her collarbone, and she immediately asked, "What?"

"It tickles," he replied, peeking up at her with that maddening grin on his face. She smiled back and then did it again, and this time he jerked the arm back and halfheartedly protested, "Stop..."

"Okay," she conceded, biting her lip as the playful grin shrunk into something more threatening as he kissed along the neckline of her dress, looking up at her as he did. Then, as his chin brushed the fabric of the dress, that metal hand moved from where it was planted next to her head and ran over the right strap of her dress. He peeked up again as it moved further down, and he maintained searing eye contact with her as the hand brushed over her breast through the fabric. Her breath hitched, and then when he squeezed, her eyes closed all on their own, that simple, indirect touch making her have to bite back an embarrassingly loud moan.

Then, unexpectedly, his lips were on hers again, and both of his hands were on her chest, still only through the dress, as his tongue tangled maddeningly with hers. Once it became impossible to breathe again, he broke away and murmured in a gravelly voice, "You're not wearing a bra."

She merely made an incoherent sound in reply, and one of his hands moved up to slowly pull one of the straps down as he kissed her again and then said, "You didn't wear one that day it rained, either..." She opened her eyes and took a steadying breath as he kissed his way to her ear, adding, "You were wearing the white dress with the flowers on it, and you were in your garden when it started pouring. And I had to stand there and watch you run inside - run - in a dress that was wet and see through..."

"... I had really hoped that you didn't see that," she squeaked, looking up at him shyly as he looked down at her, pure, liquid, unbearable lust in his eyes.

"I did," he said, other hand pulling down her other strap as he spoke. "I saw everything. And then I went back to my room to wait for the rain to stop, and I..."

"... Took a cold shower?" she guessed, not sure if she could handle it if he said something else.

He smiled down at her like he found her adorable and completely maddening at the same time. Then he shook his head. "No." Then his right hand took her left one from its current place on his upper arm, and she held her breath as he guided it down between them, placing it somewhere she'd never touched before and nearly making her pass out before they had even taken off a single article of clothing. "No, not a cold shower."

"... Oh," she said dumbly, knowing that as long as she lived, she would never forget the images that he had just put in her head.

"I told you you torture me," he rasped before he kissed her, his hand letting go of hers to resume his task of slowly peeling the top of her dress down. She gulped and let her hand move to his side, closing her eyes as he gently pulled the fabric down and kissed his way there, though he stopped just before he reached the newly exposed mounds of flesh. She cracked open her eyes and found him staring down as his hands slowly took them in their gentle grasps, and between that and the way that he licked his lips as he watched his own hands squeeze and caress, she couldn't help it - her nails bit into his side through his shirt, and she let out a moan that she wasn't even coherent enough to find humiliating.

Then what she felt was utterly eclipsed by the addition of his mouth to his hands, and her hands shot to his hair where they held on like her life depended on it. She was utterly bewildered, at a loss for how just this could drive her this crazy, make her feel so close to a brink that nobody other than herself had ever brought her to before. This was so beyond anything else she had ever experienced, from the gentle but intense passion of his touch to the sounds escaping his throat as he kissed and licked his way from one breast to the other, the vibrations of his voice making everything even better, she thought she just might combust into flames and burn down the whole barn before he even got her dress all the way off.

By the time that he had begun to move back up her body, he had left marks along each breast, from the tops to the sides and even along her ribs beneath, and it had been obvious what he was doing, even to her short-circuiting brain, and after he had kissed her lips again, he murmured, "You didn't say I couldn't mark you where only I'll see."

She shivered, taking a deep breath, that one single sentence meaning far more to her than it did on the surface. Not only was it slightly possessive and entirely sexy, but it was a promise that this wasn't a one time thing, and that he planned on seeing her like this again and again. It made her heart swell with a sudden burst of elation, and at that moment, nothing else mattered but the two of them, and these moments together.

She pulled him down and kissed him harder than she had dared to until now, matching his fervor and wrapping a leg over his hip as he ground against her, gasping into her mouth with every new motion of their hips, and finally it all became too much. She broke away from the kiss and managed to flip them over, rolling him on his back in the hay and taking her place on top of him. As his head fell back and his eyes drank her in, her long hair already a mess and dress bunched at her hips, hands planted on his chest, she felt a surge of something within that she couldn't comprehend quite yet.

The first thing she did was push up the bottom of his white tank top, then grip it as he showed off his upper body strength by lifting up from the hay and holding his arms up so she could tear it off of him. She tossed it aside as he laid back down, and her plans to devour him were abruptly delayed as her gaze went to his left shoulder, marking the first time she had ever seen where metal met flesh.

For some reason, she had never wondered about how it must look there, or what kind of scarring that he had, because it didn't matter to her. But, seeing it now, the raised white lines and violent evidence of what looked like it had been a horrible operation, it mattered, because the thought of him enduring whatever had happened to make him like this...

"Summer?"

His voice was small, suddenly uncertain, more so than she had ever heard it before, and she met his gaze and blinked. There were tears prickling at the back of her eyes, but she wouldn't let them fall, not now. She blinked them away, then brought a few of her fingertips to the scars, where she gently traced them. He shivered and watched her fingers, his expression giving away his insecurity. In an effort to erase it, she leaned down and pressed her lips to the marks, all while she slid her fingers down his metal arm the way that she had earlier, and just like then, as she touched it more, its noises slowly grew louder and faster.

Her mouth followed the scars to where they ended on his chest, and she felt his shudders grow along with the shakiness of his breaths as she kissed and nipped her way down. She had never touched a man who was as toned and broad as he, so she took her time in getting familiar with what his muscles felt like under her fingertips and lips. She had reached his belt and reached her hands to undo it, but then his hand gripped a handful of her hair and pulled her back up, pulling her down so that his mouth could ravage hers once more.

When his hands went to her hips, she grabbed them and pulled them away, placing them down on either side of his head as she held them there. He opened his eyes and broke the kiss, looking up at her with an even greater heat in his eyes than before, and she suddenly understood what it was that she had felt when she first got on top of him.

She had spent years doing the same thing with the same man in the exact same way, sometimes even on the same days of the week, and none of them involved her having even a semblance of control over what they did, what she felt, and if it was worth her while. But now, straddling a man who was looking up at her like she was nothing short of a goddess, and feeling how wholly and desperately he wanted her, needed her, she had the chance to do something she had never done before, and reclaim a sense of power that she had never really realized had been taken from her.

Slowly, she rolled her hips against his, still holding his hands down, and his sharp hiss of a breath that he took and slight rolling of his eyes spurred her on and helped her tentative confidence grow. She lowered herself down, kissing his neck and letting go of his hands so he could roam them all over her, all while she moved against him harder, faster, making noises she could only describe as completely sinful pour from his open mouth.

Then, suddenly, right as his noises had begun to reach a fever pitch and nearly make her fall apart just from the sound of them, his hands seized her hips, making them stop, and he gasped, "Stop, stop, stop."

Momentarily thinking automatically that she had done something wrong, her head shot up and she looked down at his face, only to find his eyes squeezed shut and eyebrows furrowed as he breathed deeply, as if to steady himself and to not...

Oh.

She grinned and blushed, just in time for his eyes to open and see the shyly satisfied look on her face. He then let out a deep breath and sat up, pressing himself against her chest to chest. "You're even more perfect than I imagined."

Her shy smile grew, and his metal hand lifted to her face to brush her hair behind her ear before he kissed her. After, his fingertips lingered on her jaw, and as he began kissing her neck, she closed her eyes and thought of all the things she had never gotten to do before, all of the times she had been left frustrated and unsatisfied and unable to try anything that she wanted to, even if it wasn't for her own benefit. His tongue flicked against her pulse, and his metal thumb grazed over her bottom lip, and with her eyes still closed, she kissed the tip of it. His teeth nipped at her, before his tongue soothed it over, and she gasped, her lips parting, and before she could think about it, she closed her lips around his thumb and sucked it into her mouth.

Slowly, he stopped what he was doing and raised his head, and she didn't stop. As her tongue played with the thumb in between her lips sucking on it, the noises from his arm steadily increased. Then he pulled the thumb away, and her eyes popped open to look at him questioningly, but then his middle and index finger were there on her bottom lip, and she understood. She drew those fingers into her mouth, this time maintaining eye contact with him as she licked and suckled, and as satisfying as it was to watch his mouth drop open further and eyes greedily take in the sight, it might have been even better to listen to his arm go crazy. She just hadn't anticipated how crazy it would go.

The first thrum of vibration she felt against her lips made her stop almost immediately, widening her eyes but not releasing his fingers. She looked at him in alarm, but he just looked at his own hand and grinned as the vibration grew stronger.

Then he gently drew his hand away, and she half-gasped, "Your arm... it can... it vibrates? But how is that - oh..."

His hand now between them, somewhere that the vibration could be put to much better use, she gasped and let her head fall back. He dropped his own head down, kissing along her neck and then back down to her chest, the combined and partially entirely unexpected sensations making her moan shamelessly up towards the rafters.

And so, it was a shock to them both when Summer put her hand on his arm and made him stop, pulling his head back as well as she gasped, "Hold on, I don't... I don't know if I can... do this."

She had never seen someone's face fall so completely and wholly. Bucky stared at her in absolute horror for a moment before choking out, "But I thought... you said you were sure, and I -"

"No, no, I don't mean that," she clarified, panting still from everything they had done together. "I meant... this. I don't know if it'll... work. It never did before and I don't... I don't know. I don't want to disappoint you, or..."

Realization dawned on his face, and the horror that had been there before faded in an instant. "Summer," he said with a breathless chuckle, "I don't think you could disappoint me."

"But... if... if because of me you can't get it to work, then..."

Suddenly he seized her chin, grabbing her attention as he said, "I'll get it to work, I promise. I'll make you work." Then he kissed her lips and murmured, "More than once."

She looked up at him, biting her lip, desperately wanting that to be true. "But -"

"Shhh," he murmured against her lips, his arms enclosing around her and shifting them, laying her back down in the hay as his hands went to drag her dress off of her completely, all while she looked up him with slightly wide, mildly anxious, eyes. Once her dress was off, he lowered himself on top of her, briefly biting his own lip as he once again drank in the sight of her before he locked eyes with her and said in a voice dripping with purpose and pent up desire, "The first thing that I'm gonna do is something I get the feeling nobody's ever done for you before."

Her eyes widened slightly, and she stuttered, "You mean... your mouth on my..."

He nodded, sparing her from having to say anything else. "Yes. Am I right?"

She nodded, a blush on her cheeks blooming already, well in advance of the fruition of his words.

"All you have to do is relax," he said, fingers running sweetly through her hair, "and trust me. Can you do that?"

She nodded, though her cheeks were still aflame and even her ears were burning.

"Good," he said, kissing her lips softly. "And then after that..." he trailed down her neck, kissing and touching as he went, "after you catch your breath... you'll be ready for what I'll do next."

"What's... what's next?" she asked breathlessly, his mouth back on her beast, teasing and making her thighs clench while his hand equally teased the other.

"Next," he murmured between kisses, moving down over her ribs, "next you'll finish undressing me. You can do whatever you want to me... I only need one thing before the night is over."

"Which is?" she asked in too-high of a pitch as he drove her crazy with anticipation, kissing under her navel and moving lower painstakingly slowly.

She felt him smile against her skin, and then he turned on his cheek and looked up at her as he replied, "You're gonna ride me, as slow and easy or as hard and fast as you like." His hands then gently pulled her underwear from her hips, and he added, "I know you want to, from the way you were moving on me before. You never got to do it much, did you?"

"Never," she gasped out as his fingers slid up her inner thighs.

"Never," he scoffed quietly, like it was a shame, inching his face down slowly. "Well, you're going to now. And I'm gonna show you how good it can be for you."

About to lose her mind from the waiting and the slight anxiety of the unknown and all of these new things that were coming her way, she shakily asked, "And - and then what?"

"After you catch your breath again," he chuckled, "then it's my turn, and I'm gonna take you the way I imagined it in my head after I saw you in that wet see through dress."

She was going to die, pure and simple. But it was going to be the best death in the history of all humanity.

As he parted her legs and started kissing a trail up her thigh, she dropped an arm over her eyes and asked, "... What way is that?"

He chuckled, and she jumped from the vibration of his voice, which made him chuckle even more. "I've seen you stretch outside, sometimes before you go riding. You can almost lift your foot over your head - I'd bet that you can," he said, kisses growing more and more open mouthed on her in between his words and noisy intakes of breath. "I couldn't stop thinking about you under me, your leg over my shoulder, nails scratching down my back and your other hand grabbing the sheet while you try not to scream my name..."

"... You walked around thinking about that," she said in a strangled, tortured voice, shocked that she could even speak at all, in the process of completely losing her mind.

"No," came his amused reply as he looked up and grinned at how she was covering her eyes and squirming beyond control. "I laid in my bed thinking about that, and you have no idea how fast thinking about you like that made me come."

She wasn't sure that there was a word in the English language that could adequately the sort of sound that came out of her mouth, and if there was such a thing as a full-bodied blush, she had just achieved it. Nobody had ever spoken to her like this before, or to the best of her knowledge, thought of her like that either, at least to that degree. Just the slightest suggestion of the visual that he had put in her head, of him in his room across the property, lying on his bed with his eyes shut tight and mouth slightly open as he breathed heavily, maybe with one hand gripping his own hair while the other...

She was suddenly lost to the thought, at least until she felt a gentle but sharp bite on the very top of her inner thigh. "Watch me, Summer."

She moaned shamelessly at just his words, face erupting in a blush of epic proportions as she did as he said, already on the brink just from the sheer, shameless hunger in his eyes and the utterly predatory smile on his face, not to mention his words and the effect they had on her.

"Don't take your eyes off me," he added. She nodded, breathing in short bursts, flushed all over, utterly at his mercy, and yet feeling safer than she had in years.

The first touch saw stars burst behind her eyes. She tried to keep her promise to watch him, but the best kept promises ended up being the ones that he had made. Not only did he keep them, but he exceeded them, shattered her previous experiences and left her hanging on to reality by a thread, over and over again. He was danger and safety and trust and the unknown all in one, everything she had ever thought he was and so much more.

In one night, he helped her overcome years' worth of self doubt and insecurities, just by showing her that she wasn't strange or abnormal or otherwise at fault for other people's failures. It would take much more than one night to rid her mind of the negative and critical voice that took up residence within it, but it was a stunning, incredibly significant start, and it was also the best night that she'd ever had in her twenty six years.

He knew, somehow, how to push her and yet make her feel safe and secure enough to do it. He let her take control when she wanted it, took it back when she didn't, and he showed her what made intimacy actually intimate, as opposed all she had ever known before.

It was perfection, and it was only over when she could not physically handle anymore. Everything happened just as he said it would, except she had to catch her breath quite a bit more than one or two times. She had lost count, and numbers were the last thing from her mind as she laid collapsed in the hay after what had felt like an eternity of maddening, beautiful, perfect pleasure.

In her delirium after, she noticed that he had left her side, but he came back almost as soon as she had noticed his absence. She peered up at him with heavy, exhausted eyes, then chuckled when she saw him carrying over a black sheet that had been covering up a piece of equipment in the corner. It was old but it would do, especially since she physically could not move from her place sprawled out in the hay.

She groaned sleepily as he took his place beside her again, casting the sheet over both of them before drawing her close, cradling her to his side with his right arm supporting her head. He kissed her forehead and she looked up at him, a hint of shyness there lingering even after all that they had done to each other.

"Sleep," he said softly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"What if someone comes in here?" she asked, snuggling in closer and closing her eyes anyway.

"Nobody will. Even if they did," he chuckled, "nobody would be surprised."

"Right," she muttered. Then, after a moment or two of silence, as both of their breaths evened out slowly, she half-whispered, "Thank you for not leaving me."

He looked down at her, his eyes as soft and sleepy as hers as he nodded. "I'm not going anywhere."

She smiled, knowing that those words carried a double meaning. He didn't just mean tonight, she could not doubt that in the slightest.

And so she slept, under the shelter of the barn and in the safety of Bucky's arms, refusing to think about what challenges lay ahead and how everything had just gotten even harder now that they had taken this step. It could all wait until morning, until the dawn made them both face it. For now, she enjoyed how it felt to sleep in arms that she truly, wholly trusted, for the first time in her life.

Dawn, and its unforgiving, unrepentant brightness, had a habit of changing everything. But when Summer awoke to soft rather than glaring light filtering gently into the barn, coaxing her towards a new day, and the aftermath of what she had done, it soon became clear that dawn had changed nothing.

Bucky was still there, still sleeping beside her. She had slept on his chest, her hair a tangled, giant mess of knots and hay spilling over his flesh arm and shoulder that still held her against him. Afraid to wake him, she moved as slowly as she could to peek up at him, and as soon as she saw the peaceful, content look on a face that rarely looked so carefree or at ease, she was grateful that she had.

As the memories flooded her brain, she was surprised to find that a wave of guilt didn't follow right behind. She expected the morning after to be full of misery on her end, of self-criticism and an endless amount of angst, but instead... she felt almost peaceful.

She was still fearful of what would happen next. She knew that there was a huge chance that this wouldn't end well, just as she knew that there was surely no going back. The night before had been life-changing, mind-altering, and so much more than a simple, and literal, roll in the hay with a guy who happened to show up and say the right things to her.

It was more. It was substantial. It was unforgettable. She could never be the same.

It was so huge, such an overwhelming thing despite her inner peace about it, that she couldn't help but wonder in those quiet, early morning moments if she would find herself alone in this one he awoke. His words from the night before were branded on her mind, the ones about how he had watched her and wanted her for so long and how she tortured him, but maybe now that he'd had her... maybe things would change. She had read a double meaning in his words when he had told her that he wasn't going anywhere, but maybe that had been wishful thinking. Maybe he'd slip through her fingers and she would be alone again, left with the true torture of having a taste of something only to have it taken away.

It was while her mind raced through these thoughts that he stirred beneath her, slowly waking up from his slumber as she began to hold her breath. Now that she had gone and made herself nervous instead of relishing the peace of a few moments before, she didn't dare move as he woke up, and she even began to consider pretending to still be asleep just to stall the impending rejection that she had convinced herself was coming.

The arm that had been loosely still holding her to him tightened a bit, and his legs slid with hers as took a deep breath that she felt as his chest rose and fell under her cheek. Then his hand moved up, fingertips playing gently with the ends of her hair before starting to brush through it, moving her hair away from her face and making her eyelids flutter shut with the comforting motion.

As her lashes tickled his skin, she felt him chuckle a little. "How long have you been awake?"

Now that she was caught, she let him shift her so that leaned back in his arms, her eyes meeting his sleepy ones as he smiled softly down at her. "A few minutes," she answered, searching his face for clues as to what would happen next.

He nodded, his free left hand taking the task of running his fingertips through her hair so the other arm could hold her closer to his side. "I'm... surprised."

She furrowed her brows. "Surprised at what?"

"I almost expected to wake up and find you gone," he said quietly, looking her over as his cool thumb brushed her cheek.

"Me?" she asked in disbelief.

"The only thing I was scared of last night," he said, "was you running away today."

She shook her head. "Well... the thing is, I don't think I physically even could run right now if I wanted to."

He chuckled, and it was a deep, comforting rumble from his chest against hers, and she closed her eyes when he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Sorry about that."

"No you're not."

"... You're right," he replied, shifting so that his face was more level with hers. He seemed to search her face the way she searched his before he asked quietly, "So... what now?"

She stared at him, mind blank for a moment before she blinked and replied, "I... well... are you hungry?"

He smiled warmly before shaking his head and replying, "I meant next."

She paused, anxiety suddenly back as she realized that this was the moment that she had been so terrified of. "... What do you want to happen next?" she asked quietly, almost timidly.

"The thing is," he began, and she held her breath. "I'm leaving this up to you."

"Why?" she asked, stomach in knots, thinking the worst.

"Because nothing ever is," he replied. "And you deserve better than that. So I want you to choose. If you want me, you'll have me. If you don't, if the timing scares you, if he scares you - then I won't chase you and..."

"You'll leave?"

He looked at her for a moment and then shook his head. "No. I won't leave, but I can't go back to the way it was before."

"Why?" she pressed, needing something, some kind of affirmation out of him.

"Because it'll never be enough,"'he admitted. "Especially now."

She swallowed, almost gulping a little, and asked, "So this... this wasn't a thing that just... happened, and now that it has, you'll just... move on? You care about me?"

"You know I care about you," he half-whispered, a quiet fierceness in his tone.

She breathed a sigh of relief, closing her eyes and leaning her head forward as her anxiety dissipated. His hand in her hair guided her into a warmer embrace, her breath on his neck as she made peace inside and let go of her intrinsic doubts.

Then, after a few quiet, content moments had passed, she lifted her head and looked him in the eye as she said, "It'll take time, and I don't know how exactly I'm gonna do it, but... I can't live like this, with him, anymore. I can't, and after last night... I just can't. But I don't want to leave this place either. It's home and I love everything about it except him."

"Then we'll figure it out," he replied. "You're not alone anymore. There's a way out for you. We'll find it."

She could have dissolved into tears at those words, and she very nearly did. This was exactly what she had been waiting so long for, the kind of support she had never had, and it had come from a most welcome, if entirely unexpected source. And she wouldn't change a thing.

"You sure?" she asked, letting one last doubt float to the surface.

He smiled and touched her face, reducing the doubt to a pile of ash, forgotten and gone. "I told you I'm not going anywhere." She smiled contentedly, just as he added, "But... there's something we need to do first."

"What's that?" she asked, though she had an idea of what might come next.

He grinned faintly and answered by kissing her, softly at first and then more insistent as his fingers threaded into her hair and hers pressed against his chest. She breathlessly kissed him back, feeling herself get caught up all over again, the butterflies and jolts even more powerful today, now that she knew that he wasn't leaving. Suddenly, everything seemed a lot less unsure and a whole lot more hopeful. She would find out soon if that hope was justified or doomed, but until then, she enjoyed what she had while it was hers.

A/N 2: So first let me thank those of you who read this monster of a story and made it all the way through - I love you lol. Secondly, to those reading this after having read this week's update to Life After Death, yes, this story is not as graphic as what I described Bucky as reading (and a few of the quotes I wrote him as reading there do not appear here), and I do apologize for the slight inconsistency there, but since Summer does not theoretically have my same issues with writing smut... I had to make up for that lol. So, just imagine what Bucky read as this, only without the skimming of details once things got really started and instead, all of it in painstaking detail that caused his... erm... reactions lol. I did write about 5,000 words here of almost-smut and did my best to achieve the same sort of effect that a full-sex scene would have had, but you'll have to let me know in the reviews how well that worked *fingers crossed*. In any case, as one last note here, I do plan on writing a second part to this and finishing it up because I have MANY ideas for it, and since I left it here quite unresolved, I think it definitely needs a conclusion. So, if you want to read what happens next, put this story on alert, and I would imagine that in the next couple of months, I'll have the next part up. I enjoyed writing this so much and love this little random AU lol, so I will definitely finish it :D

Thank you all again so much for reading! :D