Little Secrets, Little Bucky

Much Needed Comfort

TW: There is a conversation about implied SA in the beginning of this chapter. The abuse itself is not described and the word 'r***' is not used, but it is heavily implied. The chapter after this will be 100% possible to read without reading this one, so you can absolutely skip this one if you need to.

When Jarvis alerted Y/n that Bucky was waking up, she made her way over to his bedroom. As she watched him begin to stir she saw a bruise that had appeared on his cheek and couldn't avoid the surge of emotion that ran through her. Hadn't he been through enough?

"I'm guessing you want to talk about what happened," Bucky said once he had woken up all the way and Y/n had checked him over for worse injuries, refusing to make eye contact with her. He never wanted her to find out about this side of the abuse, knowing that once she did she'd want nothing to do with him.

"She was saying awful things," Y/n hesitated, hoping with everything in her that she had just misinterpreted the other woman's words, "Were they true? Did she-"

"Please don't say it," Bucky whimpered, and Y/n felt tears welling up in her own eyes at his unspoken confirmation.

"Okay, Buck, I won't," she whispered, unable to trust her voice not to crack. A few tears escaped her despite her best efforts and she felt them run down her cheeks, falling onto the bed sheets below after a few moments.

Bucky was so confused. Wasn't she disgusted with him? Were those angry tears? "Are you crying, M-" Wait no, not Mama. Not anymore. He was supposed to be big right now. "Y/n?"

"A little," she said, fighting to keep her voice steady.

"Why?"

That one word question broke Y/n's heart even more. Did he really not know? "Because someone hurt my baby," she carefully explained, "And that makes me sad. You didn't deserve to go through that pain."

"But it didn't always hurt," Bucky said shamefully, staring down at her hands as tears welled up in his eyes. He didn't deserve to be called her baby. He was tainted, ruined by what was done to him.

"It doesn't matter," Y/n said gently, "you can't consent while you're little. No matter what the circumstances, if you are little you cannot consent." She purposely said it twice hoping that the message would fully sink in. "It wasn't your fault that she took advantage of how scared you were and the fact that she had power over you. No half decent caregiver in their right mind would ever do something like that, me included."

Wait. Did that mean what he thought it meant? "You still want to be my caregiver?" He asked in a small voice. He sounded so scared but so hopeful, and Y/n almost started crying all over again.

"Oh, sweetheart, of course I do," she said, reaching over to take his hand in hers. "You're my baby, how could this ever change that?"

"You still want me? Even though I'm ruined?"

Y/n's heart shattered in her chest. "You're not ruined, Bucky. I'll always want you." She reached for him, intending on pulling him close and he shied away with a pained look on his face.

"Don't," he said softly. "I'll go little." As much as he wanted to curl up in her arms, getting the proof that she would still take care of him, he knew that if she held him like that he'd slip all the way into his headspace. He was already barely holding it together, he didn't want to drive her away. After what had happened he wouldn't be able to be away from her if he went little.

"Okay, I won't touch you if you don't want me to," she said, looking at him with so much understanding and love that Bucky had trouble believing it was there. "But you can be little if you want to, I'll take care of you."