A mission goes wrong and Bucky saves everyone, getting them out of danger and starting to fly them home, before he finally collapses, due to the severity of his injuries.
When he wakes up in the Avengers medical unit, he's no longer the Bucky they a...
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Most of this chapter is a flashback of the first day after Bucky and Noelle met.
When Bucky awakened in his hotel room that morning and saw the tousled blonde hair of Noelle nestled against his shoulder his first reaction was one of relief. She didn't leave at first light. It meant he likely didn't have a nightmare and must have slept through the night after what had been an incredible experience with this beautiful woman. Breathing in the essence of her hair, he closed his eyes, savouring her presence while resisting the urge to run his hand through her tresses, and indulging himself in the touching of her.
In his journey of learning to be human again he had read a lot of different self-help and psychology books, as well as writings on relationships. One of his favourites; The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate had posited that five actions would determine how a person shared love with another; compliments, quality time, gifts, acts of service and physical touch. For Bucky, he strived for a combination of all of them, but he also acknowledged a marked preference for physical touch, both giving and receiving. Considering the years of physical abuse he received, and the amount of death he inflicted using his own hands it was both an effort to rewrite the programming which conditioned him to accept the abuse, but also to counter that abuse in the form of offering gentleness instead.
During his time in Wakanda he barely had the opportunity to put it into practice before they battled Thanos, and he became one of the decimated. After his return to the United States, there were more important things to take care of, his arrest, plea deal, and court ordered therapy, a process that was almost more regressive than helpful. Getting used to living in Brooklyn again had taken much of his energy and the fast-paced world of dating left him confused at best. Moving to Delacroix and living with Sam had been a way to step back and re-evaluate how he wanted to proceed with his life. Then, with the call to restart the Avengers, it seemed that fate was bringing him back to the New York area once more, even though it was just a short visit.
Noelle sighed in her sleep, and he hesitated for a moment, his fingertips poised beside that soft hair that beckoned to him. God, he wanted to touch it, wanted to see her eyes flutter open and the intake of breath she would make when she focused on him. He fantasized about her smile, as she realized that he had kept his word, pleasuring her and pleasing her in the several rounds of lovemaking they had indulged in, while always checking in on whether any of it made her uncomfortable. For a moment, he smiled, remembering how surprised Noelle had been when he drew her a bath, putting in lavender scented epsom salts, then offering to wait in the bedroom area until she was done. Instead, she had invited him to share the tub and showed her trust by leaning back on his chest, as he used the store-bought sea sponge to gently squeeze the warm soothing waters over them.
Their conversation during that downtime was quiet and contemplative but also informative. He learned her full name, Noelle Émilie Belanger, born in Paris to a French restauranteur couple who relocated to New York when she was five. She spoke fluent French and was pleased to learn that he did as well. Although she grew up in the restaurant business, she was more interested in science and medicine, choosing to go into nursing, now working as an ER nurse. Her older brother André took over the restaurant after her parents retired and moved back to France. After telling Bucky that much she caressed his left hand.
