☾𝓒

After a mission, the Avengers head out for a rare night of drinking and dancing in New York. Bucky, predictably, keeps mostly to himself. While the others disappear onto the dance floor, he watches from the edge of the club—and notices a beautiful woman tangled up with a man amongst the crowd. At first, he assumes they’re kissing. Until you lift your head from the man’s neck. There’s blood on your lips. For the briefest second, he sees elongated canines before they disappear back into your gums. And then your eyes meet his. You’ve been caught. Humans aren’t supposed to know that vampires exist, and ordinarily dealing with a witness would be simple: compel them to forget and move on. Except Bucky Barnes isn’t an ordinary human. His altered physiology makes compulsion unreliable. His blood is different. His instincts make him difficult to frighten, and instead of running from what he’s discovered, Bucky does something considerably more troublesome: He starts asking questions. His accidental discovery pulls him into a supernatural underworld that has existed beneath New York for centuries—territorial Hives, ancient rivalries, protected humans, feeding grounds and creatures who quickly take an interest in the enhanced soldier who stumbled into their world. Some want to feed from him. Some want to understand what he is. Some would rather keep him for themselves. And increasingly, keeping Bucky alive means keeping him close to you. What begins as reluctant protection slowly becomes fascination, attachment and something far more dangerous. Because Bucky doesn’t romanticise what you are. He sees the blood, the violence and the monster everyone else fears. He simply begins to see the woman beneath it, too. And for someone accustomed to taking whatever she wants, wanting something that must be freely given may prove more dangerous than any enemy lurking in the dark.