Marvel One-Shots

Leave a Light On (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

It had been twenty days. Twenty days. Steve said the comms had gone out and that's why there was no word from your team. The mission was supposed to be simple. So why weren't you back yet? Two days you said. Only two and then you would be back. But it had been twenty and you and your team weren't back yet. No one could get into contact with you or Natasha or any of your squad mates.

Everyone was worried, no one wanted to think that the worst had happened. Three days after your team had left Steve said there must have been a hold up. Then the fourth day came, and the fifth, and the sixth, and so on. If there was a hold up why weren't you back yet? Why were your signals completely offline?

Bucky was checking in with Steve nearly every hour trying to get updates but every time there was nothing new. On the sixth day the atmosphere at the base was somber. Steve didn't want to think that your group was dead. Bucky wouldn't accept it at all. The very idea of living on without you was tearing him apart.

Steve did his best to make Bucky feel better, but unless he had news of your comms coming back online or them finding you he didn't want to hear it. He blamed himself for not going on the mission with you. He thought that if he was there maybe you would have come back.

Bucky went to the base everyday to get updates. But after two weeks it was like every single person there had given up faith. Bucky would sit alone for hours at the base. He didn't care about the downcast faces that passed him. They all felt bad, they all wanted to console him, but there wasn't anything they could do to make him feel better.

He had dug himself into a hole of despair and pain that he wouldn't let himself leave. He had locked himself into his own personal prison that only you had the ability to get him out of. Being without you was worse than being under the serum. He would rather have his memory wiped clean than have to live while you weren't there. And the worst part was that no one knew what had happened.

No one knew where you were, no one could find you. In Bucky's mind he thought they could be doing more. They should be doing more. Sending out search teams, scouring the area. If he could he would search until he found you, dead or alive.

He wouldn't leave the base until it closed. Every night he would return home to your shared apartment. He wanted to stay away, or possibly sleep at Steve's but he wouldn't let Bucky stay there. Living in your shared apartment that housed all your belongings and so many beautiful memories of the two of you together was painful. It was a reminder of what was missing, you.

A part of him wouldn't give up hope. Bucky wasn't going to believe that you were dead until he saw it with his own two eyes. Until then there would always be hope in Bucky's mind.

Before he went to bed he would turn on the light that was outside next to the apartment door just in case you came home. He prayed that maybe one day you would. It didn't matter how long it took as long as you came back to him. He would stay awake and lie in bed scrolling through the endless amount of photos you took together, most he tried to hide or cover his face in. An endless stream of tears would roll down his face and sobs would rack his body.

The most prominent emotion Bucky felt was regret. He regretted not smiling in those photos, not telling you how much he loved you, and not enjoying the time you had together. Every mistake he ever made replayed in his head. It was his own form of grief, though he wouldn't accept it as such.

On the twentieth day he carried on with his routine. He ate a bowl of cereal and then went to the compound to sit around for hours. Steve took a seat next to Bucky in the empty conference room.

"Buck... you gotta stop this."

Bucky didn't reply, just kept his eyes trained forward at the blank wall across from him.