✦Read on aO3! - Masterlist - Soldier Boy Masterlist✦
✦summary: ben starts acting rather strange. being quiet. hitting on you less. making sure you eat. you're worried, even though he doesn't want you to be. you never could've guessed the reason why.✦
✦warnings/tags: Soldier Boy x female!reader, no use of y/n, no description of reader, age gap (he's a hundred), light angst, softer!ben in a way (as soft as he can get lmao), canon divergance, pining, plot to earn the smut (panty stealing/kink, posessiveness, teasing, messy sex, size kink, dry humping, sex pollen, stripping, body worship, dom!Ben, blowjobs, finger sucking, masturbation, fingering, begging, nipple play, manhandling, oral f!reciving, pussy spanking, overstimulation, praise and degredation kink, clit abuse, creampie, monster dick ben, rough sex, this man is a sex god, just so many orgasms, dumbification, dacryphilia, hyperspermia, squirting), love confessions, fluff✦
✦wc: 10.3k✦
✦author's note: request! i dare to ask the question. can this man get hornier✦
Ben is being quiet. It’s incredibly worrying.
You’d been waiting for them to get back from the mission on the couch, and he’d stormed into the room like the world outside was on fire. You’d sat up with wide eyes, and he’d gone perfectly still. His face had been red, his eyes blown out, his attention almost burning through you.
“Ben?” You’d whispered, unsure if you should be running to him, or as far away as you could get. “Are you- Is there something wrong-“
He’d lurched back, blinking wildly. You’d sat up on your knees, ready to reach for him, and he’d taken a staggered step back.
“Ben-“
He’d marched into the meeting room like something was dragging him there. You’d sat on the couch for another minute, staring blankly after him until the rest of the team came up.
You sat next to him for the debrief. You always sat next to him, no matter how you protested. It didn’t matter how many times you asked not to play babysitter, you were the best at it.
It was a low bar. You just had to not egg him on like Butcher, or try to give him a free, unlicensed therapy session like Hughie. You just sat there, and glowered while he grinned, and everyone said you had Soldier Boy on a leash.
“What’s wrong with you,” you hiss during the meeting, and Ben shoots you a sideways glare.
He still doesn’t say anything. When you poke his arm, he recoils, flinching as if he’d been shot.
That’s what makes you freeze.
Ben doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t wince, and he doesn’t whine or bitch or moan. You’ve seen a rocket launcher slam into his chest, and he’d roared like an animal before throwing the thing back at the shooter. You’ve poked and slapped him almost every day for the past year. He’s only ever looked down at you with raised brows and a smirk, like you were a misbehaving bunny trying to eat his socks.
But this time, his eyes are black, and his brow is knit. There’s a tension in his jaw that makes your breath hitch, and his nostrils flare. The table whines under his grip. You’re rooted to your chair, unable to rip your gaze away. He grunts your name, low and rough, and you’re suddenly all too aware of it. The space between your bodies. Your knees aren’t pressed together under the table. His fingers aren’t grazing your arm every few moments, like they have every single day since Butcher tossed you into his den and told you to keep the old man from blowin’ something up.
There’s a heat radiating from his body that makes your head spin. It’s not the radiation or the bomb. His eyes aren’t empty and there’s no glow coming from his chest.
Ben runs warm. You’re more aware of it than he’s ever going to get to know. Ben’s always made of the kind of heat that pools between your thighs and makes your heart skip, even when you’re shoving his chest and flipping him off.
But this.
This feels like a fever.
Soldier Boy isn’t supposed to be able to get a fucking fever.
You open your mouth to ask what’s wrong again. Ben looks away, and leans back in his chair. His body is angled away from yours. Your feet bump, and he jerks away with a low, almost feral sound. You swallow, a bile rising from the back of your throat. He’s never passed up a chance to touch you.
Through the entire debrief, there wasn’t one word. He grunted in response to questions. Not an insult or crude joke, not a brag or boast about how much they’d needed him, not even an attempt to get into your pants. He’d sat, stiff and silent, then left the moment Butcher waved for everyone to fuck off.
You watch him go, your hands clasped under the table, worrying at the cuffs of your sleeves. You’re not worried about him. You don’t get worried about him. He’s an old ass with a pretty face, who spends more time trying to make you spread your legs than listening to plans for missions. But there’s an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach, and it feels like a ship, rocking back and forth in a storm.
“Butcher?” You call, still watching the door Ben vanished through.
Butcher turns back to the table with a groan, glaring at you in your chair. “Fuckin’- I was about to go get Waffle House, love, so if you’ll excuse me-“
“What happened?”
“What-“ Butcher cuts himself off, running a hand down his face. “You mean on that mission Ijust fuckin’ debriefed-“
“No, I mean with Soldier Boy-“
“Ah, your sweet lil Ben-“
“No- I mean- He’s not-“ You shake your head. “Butcher, I’m fucking serious, he’s being- He was quiet.”
Butcher shrugs. “So? Far as I can see, he’s learnin’ how to be a good boy.”
“But he’s not,” you say flatly. “He’s not a good boy, and- You fucking know that.”
“Maybe. But I don’t go ‘round lookin’ for holes in good things, Love-“
“Oh, fuck off, that’s all you do-“
“Well, I’m a changed man.” Butcher gives you a lazy grin. “You got anything else for me? Gonna whine about grandpa actin’ too polite?”
You narrow your eye, holding Butcher’s stare. His tone is indifferent. His posture is bored. “You know I’m right about this,” you say, cold and quiet. “Don’t try and- And fucking dance around this. Ben’s acting weird, and-“
“Ben,” Butcher coos, and you snap your mouth shut. “Ain’t that sweet-“
“Butcher, I swear to fucking God-“
“What? You’re gonna tattle on me to your Ben-“
You shoot to your feet. “I am worried about the safety of our team, you dipshit-“
“Then go talk to your sweet Benny Boo, and maybe he’ll let you tickle his balls for an answer-“
The door slams open, and you and Butcher both freeze.
You’ve never found Ben as scary as you maybe should. He’s all muscle and talk and bite, but the teeth don’t seem sharp when they’ve only ever been bared for you. He tells you he’s a breathing fucking weapon, so you should watch your mouth. You ask him why you should bother, when he’s watching it for you. He laughs in that way that only you ever get to hear, and tosses his arm around you on the couch. Not a danger. A mountain of a man, that you know better than to try and topple with nothing more than moral hands.
A mountain that you’re used to bowing down to your height. That usually looks at everyone else like he’s measuring the minimum amount of effort he can use to crush their skull, right before offering you a hand to climb. When you take it, his lips twitch. When you tell him you don’t need help, he stares at you like he’s still learning how to look.
You know what the team says about you. What they think about the peace you’ve found with Ben, and the way it lingers around him whenever you’re near. But that’s really all it is. An understanding. Something close to friendship that you’re not brave enough to name. You think about him in the dark. He tries to fuck you, and you turn him down because you know.
It would be easier to fall for him that it should be. Whatever things are broken inside of you, he’s made of a kind of gold that pours into the cracks and makes them shine. But it’s fool’s gold. It would crack under pressure, leaving you more hollow than before. He’s not the kind of man that would want to build something. You only want to build something. And so he gets nothing, and you remain empty in a way that still lets your heart beat.
And you never fear Ben.
Not until he’s looming in the doorway, glaring between you and Butcher with a white-knuckle grip on the door and a glint in his eyes.
Butcher takes a small step back. You can’t move. Ben makes a low, rumbling sound from his chest, and the air suddenly feels hot and wet. No one dares to move.
“Ben,” you breathe, and his gaze snaps to yours. “Wha- Are you okay-“
He vanishes. You feel the floor rumble, as he stomps away, leaving you and Butcher frozen in the room. You turn slowly, glaring at Butcher. He throws you a winning grin, and slips out the door before you can ask if that seemed normal. Your fingers curl on the table.
Something’s going on, and you’re going to figure out what the fuck it is.
In the days after the meeting, Ben seems to almost get better. He speaks again. He walks around and jokes and smokes on the couch like everything is normal. Butcher acts like nothing happened, but you catch MM and Hughie giving him cautious looks. Annie and Kimiko are hanging around you more, and Ben seems angrier about it than usual.
“I think we need a new dryer,” you mutter one morning, sighing when Hughie gives you a curious look. “It’s eating my underwear.”
“Eating your- What?”
“My underwear. Like- How washers eat socks.” You frown at your cereal, poking it with your spoon. “It’s all going missing, I think it’s the dryer-“
“The fuck is wrong with the dryer,” Ben grunts, dropping next to you at the table.
“She thinks it’s eating her underwear,” Hughie mumbles, watching you nervously. “Are you sure you’re not just like- Dropping it in the hall or something?”
“Yes, I- I’ve even gone back and checked, it’s all just- It’s getting eaten, I swear-“
“Well- Um-“ Hughie glances at Ben. “Has your underwear been eaten?”
“Fuck no,” Ben grunts, and you sigh.
“He doesn’t believe in the dryer.”
Hughie blinks. “What- What do you mean, doesn’t believe in it?”
“Too many fucking buttons,” Ben grumbles. “Never trust a fucking robot to do what you can do with your goddamn hands. I wash my shit in the sink.”
“Mhm,” you smile at your coffee. “And then I wash it with the machine.”
Ben glares at you. You smile in return, and his mouth twitches. You expect a smart little comment about whatever gets you touching his boxers. Instead his eyes dart to your cereal, then your mouth.
“What-“
“You’re not eating.”
You blink. “I- I was talking to Hughie-“
“Why.”
“Because- My underwear- And-“ You swallow. The room is getting hot again. Ben’s glare is almost like a laser, driving into your body. “Ben, I’m going to eat-“
He grunts, and pushes the food closer to your body. He doesn’t look satisfied until you’ve cleared the bowl. You glance at Hughie, who seems just as lost as you do.
“Um- The dryer-“
“I’ll look at it,” Ben stands up, his own coffee and bacon completely ignored. You and Hughie exchange another look.
“Ben,” you say gently. “You- You can’t even turn it on-“
“It’s just fucking buttons, I’ll figure it out-“
“But- Ben-“
He’s already walking away. You chase after him, and barely manage to stop him from ripping up the whole laundry room. You’re not sure if this is part of it. You’re not really sure of anything right now, except odd looks behind your back, and your increasingly declining supply of underwear.
You keep an eye on him, closer than you have to. You don’t want him exploding, or going feral, or getting sick. If he gets sick, you’re the one who’s going to have to deal with it.
If he gets sick, you’re going to have to watch him get pale and small, and the thought makes your gut turn into a tight, strangling fist that reaches your throat. You spend the night curled up, staring at the ceiling. You walk to Ben’s room and linger outside the door, then shake yourself and go back to your room. You’re not some foolish, doting nurse. You’re his friend, and he’s a grown man who can take care of himself.
“Are you feeling okay?” You ask him in the morning, because you can’t help it.
Ben laughs, rich and deep. “Feel like a million fucking dollars, doll.”
“Hm,” peer at him on the couch. He’s relaxed. The color on his face is back to normal, and his thigh is pressed against yours easily. Ben catches your gaze, and smirks.
“You got something you wanna say to me?”
“No,” you say quickly, and Ben laughs.
“You gonna take my fucking temperature? Ask about my sleep and my fucking smoking habits?”
Your nose twitches. “No, I’m just- You had a fever yesterday-“
Ben cuts you off with a grunt. “I don’t get fucking fevers.”
“You were sweating, Benjamin-“
“Room was hot,” he grumbles. “Don’t lose your damn head about it.”
You scowl, moving up to your knees. “I’m not- You were acting weird,” you hiss. “You weren’t talking, and you- You didn’t touch me once-“
You cut yourself off, face flooding with heat, and Ben’s smile becomes wolfish.
“Oh,” he drawls, turning in his seat. “You missed me touchin’ you?”
“I- That’s not what I said-“
“Isn’t it?” He leans forward, fingers brushing near the top of your thigh. “You want my touch, sweetheart, all you have to do is say please.”
You narrow your eyes, tipping your chin up like it can defend you. “Fuck you.”
“Don’t you want to,” he teases, and your jaw drops.
“I- You’re fucking- I hate you.”
He laughs. His fingers trace the hem of your shorts. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’re a shit fuckin’ liar-“
“You’re a shit fucking liar.” You spit, hoping he buys the false venom in your voice. “You were sick, Benjamin.”
Ben shrugs. “And you’re givin’ me the sex look.”
Goddamn him. Every, massive, cocky inch of him, and how you can’t seem to figure out how to stop him from affecting you. “I- I am not- There’s no- No-“ You look around the room, leaning forward to hiss low enough no one will hear. “There’s no fucking sex look.”
Ben hums, looking you up and down with that dragging gaze. The one that makes your body hum in excitement, that feels like more pressure than any other man’s hands.
“Stop doing that,” you snap, and he laughs.
“You’re real mouthy this morning, aren’t you.”
You scowl, sinking back into the cushions. “I’m hungry.”
Ben goes rigid. His hand fists on his knee, and his eyes lock on yours with that gleam again. You blink, leaning slightly back. Ben’s mouth presses in a thin line, and a low grumble rolls from his chest.
“Wha- What-“
He stands up, and marches away. You don’t move, too confused to remember how. Things hadn’t been back to normal, but they’d been a stilted version of it. Then he’s gone again, leaving you with too many fucking questions and an empty couch.
You’re seconds away from following him, when he stomps back into the room with a scowl.
“Ben, what’s- Shit-“
He tosses an apple straight into your lap. You fumble with it for a second, trying to figure out if a secret code or something, then look up at him with an openly confused expression.
“I- Um-“
“Eat that,” he grunts.
You blink. “What?”
“You said you’re fucking hungry, didn’t you?” He snaps, jerking his head to the apple. “Eat.”
You stare at each other for a long moment. The apple feels heavier than diamond in your hand, but Ben’s gaze is a burning, impossible pressure. It presses down against your core and makes your thighs ache. His eyes have gone almost wholly black. He’s back to that predatory stillness. You look at the apple, then him, and slowly raise it to your mouth.
Ben watches you take a large bite, and hums in satisfaction. You chew, and his eyes gleam. A little juice dribbles down your chin, and your tongue swipes out to catch it on instinct.
He moves back. You sit up, the apple tight in your fist, and Ben stumbles backwards like you’d punched him.
“Ben, what the fuck-“
He marches away again. You’re alone again, this time with an apple instead of Butcher.
At least the apple is less judgmental, while still offering the exact same amount of answers. You stare at it for twenty minutes, before you move. Ben doesn’t come out of his room for hours, and when he does, he won’t even look at you.
And that heat. The air-waving, mouth-watering heat is back, rolling off of him like an approaching storm. No one else seems to notice it. You’d think you were going insane, if you didn’t still have that apple, tight in your fist.
“You didn’t finish it,” Ben grunts from behind you, and you yelp in surprise.
“Jesus fucking- Ben-“
You whirl around, and cut yourself off. He’s right behind you. His legs are pressed to yours, his arms braced at his side, the weight of him almost locking you against the counter. Your hold on the apple goes slack, and it thuds to the floor. Ben’s glare deepens. His brow is beaded with sweat again.
“Hi,” you breathe, and he grunts.
“You were supposed to eat the fucking apple.”
“I- I had eggs,” you say, and Ben’s jaw locks.
He takes a long breath through his nose, leaning further down. This is the kind of thing that should make you want to run. It doesn’t.
“Who the fuck made you eggs,” Ben growls, and you blink.
“Me? I- I mean- I made me eggs- And- Um-“ You scan over his red face, his black eyes, and God, all that heat is so intoxicating you might be getting dizzy. “Be- Ben?”
He grunts your name. His arms brace on either side of your body. You might be about to melt.
“Can I please check your temperature?” You whisper. “I’m getting really worried. About-“ You take a deep breath, closing your eyes and forcing the words out. “About you.”
Ben doesn’t answer. You don’t dare to look. There’s something hard and thick, poking into your upper thigh. You grab Ben’s forearm for balance, and a low, dangerous sound rumbles from his chest.
Then, suddenly, the weight of him is gone. And when you open you’re eyes, it’s almost like he was never there at all.
Hughie coughs from the dining table, and you blink at him. You hadn’t even realized he was there.
“What- What the hell was that?”
You shake your head, staring blankly ahead at the wall. “I- I don’t-“ You cut yourself off, then look back to Hughie. “You were on the mission.”
Hughie swallows. “I- Um-“
“Hughie-“
“What mission?” He says, moving to his feet. “I mean- We go on so many, it’s easy to lose track-“
You block his path out of the kitchen, and he swallows.
“Please don’t-“
“Sit,” you point back to his chair, and he obeys.
“I- I really- I think Annie’s calling me-“
“Talk,” you hiss, and Hughie swallows. “Now.”
Ben got hit with a chemical. Hughie doesn’t know what—none of them do—but you’ve got a theory.
It’s a fragile thing. The way he’s acting, how you could possibly deal with it. You walk into the kitchen in the morning and find that he’s made you eggs. The plate gets shoved towards you with a grunt. Ben doesn’t stop staring until you’ve eaten every last bite, and then he stomps away without another word. You do your laundry and catch him staring at your clothing with twitching hands. You shower that night and open the door to find him standing in the hall, his whole body tense and his mouth hanging open.
“Ben,” you say gently, and he takes another one of those stumbling steps back.
You sigh, as he vanishes down the hallway. He hasn’t had a normal conversation with you in three days. The last time you bothered to try, he’d pinned you down on the couch and stared until you whispered his name, and he ran again.
He spends most days locked in his room. He comes out to make sure you’ve eaten or follow you to the grocery store, pressing behind you in the milk aisle and glaring at anyone who comes too close.
“Do you want anything?” You ask him softly before you go to checkout, and he just stares at you. Some days he’s not even talking anymore. Last night Annie tried to walk past you both on the couch, and he snarled like a dog.
He leans down until his nose is pressed to your hairline. His lips drag over your brow, and you stare up at him, trying not to let your heart burst out of your chest. He inhales deeply, and a low rumble rolls through his chest. His hand finds your waist, massaging and kneading at the skin.
Your gaze drops down, and there it is again. The outline of his cock, tenting in his jeans. You bite the inside of your mouth. Your knees wobble, and your hand flies to Ben’s shoulder. He’s burning up, skin searing even through his shirt.
He yanks back again, eyes black and chest heaving. You sigh, and turn back to the grocery cart. You’re too used to it now. It makes you worry more.
You try to get a straight answer out of Butcher that night. It’s somehow more useless than last time.
“I know Hughie blabbed, ain’t no reason in tryin’ to talk to me-“
“You know what’s wrong with him,” you hiss, and Butcher shrugs.
“Maybe. Gonna make any fuckin’ difference to what you’re doin’?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m fucking asking-“
“Oh, like you ain’t figured it out yourself.”
You glare at him. He smirks back, challenge lining every inch of his expression.
“You gonna go put your money where your mouth is, doll?” Butcher mocks. “Or just keep whinin’ around about it?”
And you don’t have an answer. Because he’s right. You figured it out when Ben snarled at MM for offering you a cup of coffee, a boner pressing through his sweats that everyone pretended to ignore. It would take a true idiot, to not be able to figure it out.
“When did you know,” you mumble, leaning back against the counter. Butcher shrugs, watching you carefully.
“Moment it hit the fucker.”
“Where you there-“
“I was the only cunt in the room.” Butcher shudders. “He started moanin’ and gettin’ hard, it was the most disgustin’ thing I’d ever seen.”
You sigh, giving him an unimpressed look, and Butcher smirks.
“He was cryin’ for you, love. Almost had to put him back under to stop him just sprintin’ back to the house to take you. Like a fuckin’ dog.”
You blink. Your heart does a little flip that you refuse to acknowledge. “He hasn’t touched me-“
“Don’t know why,” Butcher mutters. “I thought I was gonna follow him inside and find him- Well, you know.” He winks, and you narrow your eyes.
“But he hasn’t. Which-“ You swallow, looking up to the ceiling and biting your tongue.
It’s fine. It’s fine if it’s not you he wants to do this with. Probably for the better. It helps you cling to that last shred of dignity. The sliver of an illusion, that you don’t think about him more than you think about yourself,.
“Do we think this- Can it hurt him?” Your voice is smaller than you want it to be. Butcher just shrugs.
“Ain’t gonna kill him. Probably hurts.” His lip curls. “Permanent fuckin’ blue balls. Hell don’t go deep enough.”
You sigh. “Well, what if we hire him like- a hooker-“
“Tried that,” Butcher dismisses. “Almost got punched through a damn wall.”
Your mouth opens, then closes. “What? That’s- Ben wouldn’t turn down a hooker-“
“He did,” Butcher gives you a pointed look. “And it ain’t a hooker he’s makin’ eggs for, genius.”
You blink at him. “No, that’s- That isn’t part of it-“
“You willin’ to bet his life on that?”
And you aren’t. You’re not willing to bet anything. Because it hasn’t just been boners and staring. Ben’s been feeding you, following you like all illusion of not being your personal guard doesn’t matter anymore, refusing to let you do anything that might get you hurt.
“But- If it’s just a sex chemical,” you say slowly, and he cuts you off with a raised hand.
“I ain’t holdin’ your hand through this,” he says. “You talk to him yourself, and-“ He looks you up and down, a smirk pulling at his lips. “Bring protection. We don’t need soldier tots runnin’ around the house now, do we.”
“Butcher-“
“Not just a sex chemical,” he shrugs. “And you know it.”
You do. You wish you didn’t but you do.
A sex chemical would be easier. You could climb into bed with Ben, get railed into oblivion, then collect your heart off the floor and move on. But this is more. This is possessive and targeted and that means something. Something you don’t want to know. Something you have to know.
Butcher leaves you in the kitchen to collect yourself. You close your eyes, and try to control your breath, but it’s useless against your pounding heart. He turned down hookers. He moaned your name.
If this means nothing, you’re going to fucking kill him.
If it means something, you’re ready to deal with it. You don’t think you really have any other choice.
“Ben?” You knock on the door once, forcing your voice to steady. “Ben, can you please- We need to talk.”
He doesn’t answer. You weren’t expecting him to. The knock was more of a polite courtesy, then a question. You steel yourself, holding the doorknob with shaking fingers, and push into his room.
You barely make it a step inside, before all the will is knocked out of your body. It’s as if you walked into a wet dream. One of the private, dirtiest ones that make you wake up with the sheets bunched between your legs, that make reality feel like a slap to the face.
The room reeks of sex. Salty and heady, sweat and something rich that just smells like Ben. The sheets have been ripped and tangled on the floor, the pillows tossed off the unimportant corners of the room with piles of boxer and shirt and panties.
Your panties.
Ben sits, silent and dark-eyed on the bed, completely naked. One hand is fisting on of your panties, the other is wrapped tight around his thick, red cock. It’s veiny and so big it makes you sore just to look at. It throbs in his grip, and your cunt pulses in return. White pre-cum leaking from under his thumb, and his balls sit heavy between his thighs.
Your tongue darts out over your lips, and you force your gaze to drag up. Ben’s staring at you with a vein in his brow and that same burning intensity. The heat lingers in the air, humid and electric. Sweat falls from his neck, over his broad, flushed chest. His thighs are locked, his lips parted and eyes narrowed.
You glance back to the panties in his hand and swallow. You suppose, at the very least, you were right.
“I lost those,” you breathe, and Ben grunts.
“I’ll give ‘em back later.”
You blink, then glance at the pile in the corner of the room. Ben doesn’t look away from you for a second, and a low chuckle rumbles from his chest. It sends a thrill up your spine, and you have to lean back against the door to stay upright.
“You here just to collect your panties, doll?”
You shake your head, looking back to him hopelessly. You’d had a whole speech, about how he needed you to fix this, how you knew it must hurt, how if he asks nicely, you’ll let him take what he wants. It’s misting into thin air, with every thin, fraying thread that had been holding your dignity. Ben doesn’t make it easy. His gaze rakes over your body, a strange, blurred line between worship and hunger etched over his handsome features.
You don’t know how you’re supposed to pretend like this. With all of him at your fingertips, only a few steps away. You’d prepared yourself to be a toy, but you’re a lamb to slaughter. An offering to a god who won’t take anything else, who holds your sanity like a delicate bird in his rough hands. He could destroy you, and you’re going to thank him. He could recreate you, and you’d never know a better blessing.
Ben leans back, something iron lining his words. “You should go.”
You shake your head, and his jaw ticks.
“Go.”
There’s a low, deep command in the word. You almost obey.
“Those are mine,” you breathe, nodding to the panties, and Ben sighs.
“Fuckin’ Christ- Go-“
“Why are they mine?”
The question is soft. You know he hears it, because he goes quiet again. You stare at each other for another long moment, and you take the smallest step forward. A low groan pulls from Ben’s throat. Your knees almost buckle.
“Don’t,” he gives you a look like it’s a command, but there’s something thinner under the word. Something soft.
“I- I know about the chemical,” you whisper, and Ben’s throat bobs. “You could’ve asked-“
“Ask what? For you to suck my cock? Like some limp-dick pussy who can’t handle his booze?”
Your lips twitch. “Your dick isn’t limp.”
Ben gapes at you. His cock jumps in his hand, and you take another step.
“You’re- Fucking unbelievable,” he grunts, and you laugh. “This shit ain’t funny, doll-“
“It’s a little funny,” you murmur, stopping right above him.
No part of you is touching. Every inch feels gravitational. He has to be the one to crash first.
“You turned down hookers for me,” you whisper, and Ben scowls.
“It doesn’t want hookers.”
You glance at his cock, then his tight face. “What does it want?”
He glares. You don’t back down. You never have before, and you’re not about to start now.
“Don’t be a fuckin’ tease-“
“Don’t be a dick,” you lean down. Ben’s legs part to make room for you. It’s an effort, not to just touch him. “What does it want, Ben.”
What do you want.
He hears the invisible question. His jaw works, and his eyes drop to your lips.
“I’ll fuckin’ break you,” he rasps, and you smile.
“No,” you say. “You like me too much.”
Ben’s gaze rips back up. You raise your brows, daring him to do it. To say it. To put you both out of your misery.
A low growl rips through his chest. “Go. Now.”
You don’t move, and watch as the last line of Ben’s control snaps.
He grabs you by the waist and drags you fully into his lap. You gasp as his lips smash against yours, the kiss rough and demanding. There’s so part of you that isn’t consumed by it, that doesn’t mold into his touch. Your legs spread so you can straddle his lap, and Ben grabs your ass with a grunt, forcing you up so his cock is pressed against your clothed cunt. You moan against his lips, and he presses his tongue into your mouth.
“Be- Ben-“ Your nails scrape at his shoulders, and he squeezes your ass with a grunt. “Fuck- Ben-“
“Already whining,” he mutters, dragging his free hand up to rest on the back of your neck. “Barely fuckin’ touched you are you’re already sayin’ my name like I fucked you.”
Your face burns, and Ben weaves his hand through your hair, gathering it in on fist and pushing it down to deepen the kiss. You almost don’t know what to do with yourself. His touch is hot and possessive, sending shivers through your whole body. His cock rubs against your underwear with every shift, and the pressure makes your legs spread wider. You start to grind down to chase the friction, and Ben moans, deep and low.
“That’s it,” he grunts, massaging your ass with shockingly gentle hands. “That’s a good girl. Show me what you’ve got, doll, prove that you’re gonna take this cock for me.”
You try to drag him closer, but he’s immovable. When you push, his hand moves from your ass to your lower back, pushing down so you can feel every inch of his dick, rubbing between your thighs. You make a strangled noise, and Ben chuckles. It’s an even rougher sound than before. His mouth has started to wander over your cheeks and jaw, pressing open, sloppy, kisses everywhere he can reach.
It’s almost like you’re being seduced into the same, sex-focused daze that’s taken a hold of him. The kisses light undying fires over your skin, spreading and spreading until you think you’ll die if he moves away. Ben’s started to lose focus himself, pawing at your ass like an animal and growling against your skin.
“Bennn,” you moan as his fingers graze on your inner thigh, turning your face to bury in his neck. “Mmmm- Ben- M- More-“
He growls again, and his hips slam up. It knocks the air from your lungs, and he’s not even inside you. Your arms wrap around his neck, trying to hold on as he starts to rut against your core, broken, desperate sounds falling from his lips.
You manage to lean back to look at him, and he’s thoroughly wrecked. He grabs your jaw, still rutting, and you try to smile. His nostrils flare and he kisses you again, the fervor only seeming to build as he chases his own orgasm. You hum against his lips, trying to make yourself pliant and soft, easy for him to use.
“Smell good,” he rasps against your skin, beard tickling against your neck. “Always smell so- So fuckin’ good-“
He cuts himself off with another groan, his cock twitching between your thighs. He shoves you further down, rocking his hips back and forth as he keeps trying to get there against your body.
“Gonna wreck you,” he mutters, mouthing at a pulse point. “Fuck you ‘till you can’t walk, fuck you stupid, fuck you mine.”
You moan happily, dragging your hands down his bare, thick back. The muscles ripple under your touch, and Ben moans like that touch is almost enough to set him off. You kiss over his cheekbone and beard, along his jaw, and slowly guide his mouth back to yours. He lets you lead this kiss, mindlessly focused on trying to fuck himself against your body. He’s panting so hard you’d be worried about anyone else.
He groans against your lips, clawing at your clothing with blunt nails. “Off- Get- Fuck- Get this shit off-“
He whines like a dog when you push on his chest, and you expect him not to let you up, but his grip loosens. You smile down at him, moving back to your feet, and he stares at you with a slack jaw.
“Get back here,” he growls, one hand still splayed on the back of your thigh. “Now.”
“I’m helping you,” you tease, slowly pulling down your shorts. “Say please.”
Ben’s eyes flash, and his jaw locks. You know he won’t beg. You don’t really want him to. This—the undivided, adoring attention, the way he’s staring at you like you’re the only thing he could ever possibly want in the world, when he’s spent a century of life indulging in sweet things and easier desires—is more than enough.
You sink to your knees, and he lets you. That hand on your thigh drags up to fist back in your hair, and he goes back to that predatory stillness as you rub his thighs with light hands.
“I ain’t beggin’,” he grunts, and you hum, letting your fingers brush against the base of his cock.
Ben’s hips jerk up, a moan ripping from his chest. You giggle, guiding his hand away, and he glares at you under hooded eyes.
“Something fuckin’ funny?”
“Mmm,” you shrug, wrapping your hand around his cock, and god, he’s even bigger than he looks. “I’m just… Learning.”
“Learning,” Ben echoes, the awe pushed through gritted teeth. “Jesus fuckin’- Christ-“
You lick a long, slow stripe up the length of Ben’s cock, and he tosses his head back like he’s praying.
“Holy- Fuckin’ hell-“ He tugs at your hair without actually trying to move it, biceps bulging as he tries not to overtake your mouth. “You’re- warm-“
You giggle again, pumping your fist as you kiss the tip. Ben makes a low, sinful sound, his free hand fisting at the sheets. You’ve never seen him in such control of himself. A living god that could skullfuck you until you sobbed, trying to let you lead your way. You think it’s something in the way he’s holding you like you’re made of lace instead of silicone. It makes an unbearable ache return to your core.
You take Ben in your mouth until he bumps against the back of your throat, and he groans your name so loud it must echo through the city. You work what you can’t fit in your mouth, sucking on his cock like it’s candy.
“Fuckin’- You can suck some fuckin’ cock, doll-“ He chokes out, hips bucking when you squeeze him near the base. “Best mouth I’ve ever felt- Son of a-“
His words turn to moans, and you look up at him under your lashes. He’s leaning back with a glazed eyes and veins pushing at his neck. His shoulders are tense, his abdomen flexing, and you can’t control your own hips as they start to chase relief against the air. Ben catches the movement, watching it as if he’s under a spell. His cock is heavy and pulsing in his mouth, and it just makes your cunt ache more, imagining the weight of him buried inside of you.
“Jesus, you’re a needy thing,” he mutters, his thumb dragging over the soft skin behind your ear. “You fuckin’ like this? Like choking on some proper dick?”
You whine, eyes rolling back as he presses back against your throat. You press your shoulder forward, forcing your tits further up for him to see. Ben jaw clenches, and you feel him try to not move. His pre-cum is getting thicker, and who knows how long he’d been going before you.
“Ben,” you pull off for a split second, dropping your hand to massage his balls as you kiss over the head of his dick. “Please.”
You drop back down, and he understands in a second. He uses you like a toy, pulling your head up before slamming it back down. You make your jaw slack, moaning around him with every single thrust. Your eyes roll back in your head, and the need builds and builds between your thighs.
You drag you’re hips forward shamelessly, grabbing Ben’s leg and angling your clit to rub against whatever it can reach. Ben groans at the sight, and the sound just floods between your legs.
“Shit, I can feel how fuckin’ wet you are,” he growls, and you whimper, watching him under glossy lashes. “Shit- Lookin’ at me like that, gonna make me-“
You moan eagerly, and Ben’s control snaps again.
It’s fun to see the edges of it. How the pit of his restraint is far deeper than you would’ve imagined a week ago. He tries to drag you off his cock as he cums, but you push yourself back down. It comes in thick, sticky ropes, shooting down your throat until you’re gagging and almost unable to breathe. You try to swallow, but there’s so much it falls out of your mouth like drool, dripping down your cheeks and onto your breasts.
“Jesus, thought you were gonna drown in it,” Ben pulls your dazed head off, grinning down at you. “Look at you, baby. Little fuckin’ trooper.”
You blink at him, still trying to lick the remains off your lips. You glance down to his cock, and it’s still hard. How the fuck is it still hard.
“Hasn’t been goin’ down since that shit hit me,” Ben mutters, dragging his thumb over your lower lip. “Needs it’s pussy.”
“It’s pussy?” You breathe out, and Ben sighs.
“Your pussy,” he mutters. “Needs you, smartass.”
“It needs me?”
You give him your best innocent look. He glares at you, and you just tilt your head, smiling like you’re made of honey. You sort of feel like you are. You’ve never been this gooey, just from sucking a guy off. You’ve never even liked sucking someone off.
But this is Ben. Rough everywhere, but made of tiny divets that go soft when pressed. The kind of man you can crawl into and never have a harsh hand find your body again.
He swallows, his thumb lingering on your lips. You kiss the pad of it, then the knuckle, before slowly wrapping your lips around him and sucking. Ben’s cock twitches, somehow getting harder. You don’t think you’re ever going to walk again.
Worth it.
“I need you,” he rasps, pulling his thumb away. “Feet. Now.”
He taps your nose, and you scramble up. You’ll fight him tooth and dirt when he’s fighting back. When he’s not, you can’t think of a single reason to deny him a thing.
Ben grabs the back of your thigh again, watching you with an expectant glint in his eyes. You swallow and pull your shorts down, trying not to fall over when he stares at your core like you’re showing him a treasure. His fingers dig into soft skin, and his free hand wraps around his cock, pumping slowly as you continue to strip in front of him.
You peel off your shirt, and Ben’s tongue darts over his lips. His grip on your thigh tightens, and he slowly coaxes you forward. You rest your hands on his shoulders, shoving down the bubbling, electric nerves in your chest.
“Ben,” you whisper, and he hums, dragging a massive, rough hand up your side. “E- Easy-“
“Oh, doll,” he coos, pressing a soft kiss to the side of your breast. “This is easy.”
Your legs wobble, your confidence quickly waning. The doubts start to pool like rainwater in a gutter, as Ben takes in your naked body. Maybe you weren’t the dream doll he had in his head. Maybe you pushed it too far with the teasing. Maybe he doesn’t really want you in the same, volcanic kind of way you want him.
He drags two fingers along your inner thigh, teasing the sensitive skin as he mouths at your breast. You close your eyes, trying to just breathe, and Ben chuckles.
“And you wanted me to say please,” he drawls. “Look at you, all fuckin’ sweet for me. You gonna beg for me again, baby? Or that mouth only good for sucking my cock?”
You whimper, a gush of heat flooding between your thighs.
“Yeah, you like me talking,” Ben mutters, kissing over your sensitive nipple. “Like knowing you’ve got the only fuckin’ pussy in the world that makes me act like an idiot. Pretty girl, pretty fuckin’ tits,” he sucks a dark spot on your breast, his thumb slowly dragging between the lips of your cunt. “Pretty fuckin’ pussy, wet like a whore in the summer for me.”
Ben thumbs at your slit, wrapping his lips around your nipple and sucking hard. His thumb drags up in the exact same moment, finding your clit and rubbing tight, unrelenting circles. You vision blurs and you stumble forwards, wrapping your arms tight around his head.
“Be- Fuck- Bennnn-“
He hums around your nipple, grazing his teeth over the perked bud. His mouth is warm and wet, his tongue flicking back and forth until you’re in a sex-addled frenzy. You press your face into his hair, gasping his name as he drags his thumb back and forth across your clit.
He wraps a massive arm around your body, fingers splaying over your back and cradling you close to his body.
“Feel that fuckin’ mess,” he drawls, kissing over your breasts. “No one else gets you this wet, do they?”
You shake your head, and Ben leans back with narrowed eyes. He slaps your pussy with a harsh little tap, and a broken cry escapes your lips.
“Do they,” he growls, and you shake your head.
“No- No-“ You try to lean down, desperate to just kiss him, to get as close as he’ll allow. “Just you, Ben, just you-“
He smirks, slaps your cunt again, and goes back to making out with your nipples. You moan, slumping over his body as the tension becomes almost painful. You don’t know what he’s getting out of this until you feel his hips rocking beneath you. His cock rubs against his stomach and your thigh, already smeared with pre-cum again. You gasp and Ben moans around your nipple, the sensation vibrating through your whole body.
“Oh- Oh my god-“ You squirm, the pressure getting unbearable. “I- I’m- Oh my god-“
You’re babbling, but you’re not sure what else there is to do. You cunt his clenching around nothing, the thick scent of Ben clouding your head as he works you like a toy. Ben nips at your nipple and pushes his thumb down hard. Your knees buckle, almost making you fall back to your knees on the carpet.
Ben’s arm around your back tightens, and he rolls you both over, tossing you back onto the mattress without even a grunt. You almost cry out at the sudden cold, the lack of Ben all around you. It only lasts a second before he grabs your ankle and drags you forward.
You’re lain on the bed, staring at Ben with an open expression. His jaw clenches and he rubs your thighs, slowly pushing your knees up to your chest. Your cunt is on full, open display to him, and your breath catches as he drags his thumb between the swollen lips of your pussy.
“Look at that,” he almost purrs. “Mine.”
You whimper when he flicks your clit again, but it quickly falls into a moan as he leans down and presses an open mouth kiss to your pussy. Your eyes roll back in your head, your hips arching to meet his chapped, full lips. Ben groans against your cunt, his grip on your legs tightening.
You’ve had men eat you out before. You’ve had them be good at it, and horrible.
Ben does it like it’s a job, and he’s never hated work a day in his life. You were already on such a thin wire that the first press of his tongue against your clit makes you snap, a cry falling from your lips and your hands flying wildly to catch a hold of something. Ben grabs them and pins them against your stomach, forcing you down into the mattress as his mouth keeps working against your cunt.
He’s open with it, moaning and sucking and pushing his tongue into your fluttering cunt as he rocks his face back and forth, dragging your orgasm out until you’re almost floating. The heat hasn’t stopped building. Every time you think you’re going to come down, Ben kisses your clit, and darts his tongue back and forth like he’s trying to get a high score of most orgasms in an hour.
Maybe two hours. You can hear the bed creaking in a steady rhythm, as Ben’s fucks down into the mattress, but then he drags another orgasm out of you, and the only thing in the world is Ben’s mouth against your cunt. The sounds he makes, the way he’s watching you under hooded, smug eyes, the way his massive back forces your legs further apart whenever you try to close them and exposes you to him further.
You writhe when your third orgasm hits, shoving at his head with weak hands.
Ben draws back, pinning your legs down to the bed and fixing you with a stern glare.
“Stay still,” he grunts, and you swallow.
“Too- Too much-“
“You want cock?” He snaps, and you nod frantically. “Only good girls get cock, baby. You bein’ a good girl when you whine?”
Your lip wobbles. Your face burns. Ben raises his brows, daring you to be a brat, and any other day you would. You’d stick your tongue out and mock him, you’d test his buttons, you’d see just what you could say, to get bent over his lap or tossed around the bed.
But there are tears streaming down your cheeks, and you’ve never been so totally aware of how empty you are. You really think the chemicals might be contagious. You really don’t fucking care.
“No,” you whisper, shame burning at your cheek and between your thighs. “I’m not.”
Ben hums, spits on your clit, and starts to rub it with a fast thumb. “You gonna be a good girl?”
You nod, and Ben smirks.
“Yeah. I know.”
He dives back down, and stars burst behind your eyes as another orgasm overtakes your body. You’re trembling and gasping for air, pulling at his hair and only earning another moan that makes your back arch. Ben laps at you through the orgasm, hips still slamming against the bed.
Then, one second, his beard his grazing over your inner thigh and his lips are pressed against the over sensitive, pulsing bundle of nerves. The next you’re face down with a thick arm around your stomach, dragging you back against Ben’s chest like a ragdoll.
“Need to get in that pussy,” he growls, dragging his cock between the lips of your cunt. “Give you this cock real good, show you who the fuck you belong to, right now.”
Ben bites and sucks on your neck, the head of his dick bumping against your clit, but he still doesn’t push inside. Your nails dig into your forearm, the wet sound of him sliding against you filling the room, and you almost don’t know what the fuck he’s waiting for.
“Please,” you breathe out, dropping your head against his shoulder and giving him your best, sweetest eyes. “Please, Ben- Fuck me.”
Another one of those feral sounds rips from Ben’s chest, and his hand drags down to press two thick fingers against your clit as he slowly pushes himself inside. The breath is knocked from your lungs at the first inch, a broken sound escaping your lips.
Ben’s free arm wraps around your neck, the bulging bicep forcing your head back further so he can kiss over your open, drooling mouth.
“That’s it,” he coos, rubbing your clit back and forth as he presses deep into your cunt. “That’s a good little slut, takin’ just what I give you, come on-“
You whimper, and Ben deepens the kiss, pressing his tongue down your throat as he pushes another inch. You clench down around him and he groans, kissing you brutally as he bullies the last few inches inside of you.
He’s so big it makes sparks dance on the edge of your vision. You’ve never been this full, every single nerve in your body all too aware of the delicious split of Ben’s cock. Between the head lock and his mouth against yours, the tears can’t stop streaming down your face. Ben growls your name, kissing a stray one near your lips, his tone a warning you can barely hear.
“Christ- You’re fuckin’ tight- Gotta- Relax-“
You can’t. You’re overstimulated and so needy you can’t think, can’t move, can’t do anything but feel the smeared arousal between your thighs, the drag of Ben’s cock against your g-spot, the muscle and heat of his body wrapped all around you.
You clench down again, and the very last bit of Ben’s resolve snaps.
He cums inside of you suddenly, moaning down your throat as he ruts up in short, rough thrusts. The cum spills into your until you’re warm and stuffed, then runs down your ass and over your thighs. It’s so wet you think he’d slip right out of you, if it wasn’t for the headlock. You’re so full you don’t even remember how to breathe, until Ben squeezes just under your breast and groans your name.
“Don’t go out on me, doll, c’mon-“ He groans and kisses you again, his hand dropping back down to spread against your tummy. “Fuck- You feel so fuckin’ good- Better than coke, baby, Christ-“
You make another broken sound, your voice hoarse and small from the arm around your throat.
Then Ben starts to fuck you, and you think you might ascend.
He rolls his hips in long, deep thrusts, dragging in and out of your cunt like a machine. The sound of your cum mixing—sliding between your bodies with every single shift—is obscene. You’re being used like the most tended to, adored fuckdoll in the world. Ben cradles you like he thinks you’ll break, and fucking you like he’s trying to take you apart.
You feel him everywhere, with every single slam of his cock against your g-spot. Your vision swims, the tears falling freely, and Ben kisses every single one away with another, brutal thrust.
“Fuckin’ crying for me, babydoll?” He nips at your lower lip, and you whine a sound like his name. “Pretty girl can’t fuckin’ take it after begging? So sensitive you need to fuckin’ whine?”
You turn your cheek, giving him your best, pleading doe eyes. You can’t tell if his gaze sharpens or focuses. His thrusts become deeper, and his thumb finds your swollen, pulsing clit again. You sob, and he kisses the sound away with a hum.
“Bein’ such a good fuckin’ slut,” he mutters, pinching your clit and rolling it between his fingers. “Takin’ this cock like a pro, baby, like you were fucking made for me.
You babble his name again, and Ben smirks. This kiss is slower. Almost loving, and in a stark contrast with how he’s drilling into your gaping cunt.
The orgasm washes over you like a wave, and Ben moans your name as you squeeze down around him. Your vision goes white and you thrash, your body being wracked with so much pleasure you can only scream. Ben’s cock slams home against your g-spot, and rush of something wet and hot flood out of your pussy, and you think you might pass out.
At the least, you’re floating out of your body. Ben cums with rough, spat out praise, then slowly lowers you back down to the mattress. Weight shifts around. He rubs your back as you gasp for air, then slowly rolls you over and pushes your legs back open.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, the words far away, but his voice softer than you’ve ever heard it. “Didn’t know you could get this fuckin’ dumb and quiet. Should’ve been fucking you every day.”
He laughs to himself, and your hand flies up, unsure what it’s looking for.
Ben catches it, twines your fingers together, kisses your knuckles, and presses it back into the mattress.
“Need more, doll,” he rasps, and you whimper. “I’ll go easy. Not tryin’ to break my-“
He cuts himself off. You don’t have the words to push him. You don’t have the energy to do anything. Ben kisses your stomach, then lower, then lower. You gasp softly, when you feel his tongue lapping at your pussy. It’s gentler than before. Slower, almost careful. He works you open, mixing your releases together and tasting it almost for the sake of tasting it.
Your eyes cross, as the soft, tickling sensations. They’re strangely relaxing, even if they make your pussy flutter hopelessly.
“Easy,” Ben murmurs, kissing over your clit. “Nice and fuckin’ easy.”
It is. You go limp again, letting yourself get lost in the feeling of his tongue. He’s not trying to make you cum, or get you ready. God knows you could probably take a fist in there right now, with how he’s left you soaked and open. You can hear his fist working against his cock again, and find the energy to look up again.
He’s almost art, above you. Hair mussed and tangles, dominating your vision, whole face wet and eyes blown out. You squeeze his hand in yours and smile. He blinks, and his jaw sets as he understands.
This time, he doesn’t ask if you’re sure. He must understand by now, that you might be more depraved than even he can dream up. You’d sit on his cock for the rest of your life, if he let you. And there are worse ways to be worshipped, than with everything a man—a broken, titan of a man who’s made of more than he can understand—has to give.
You let yourself lose track of it all. Ben moves you into positions you didn’t know you could make, hauling you back into his lap, flipping you over and dragging your ass in the air, sitting you on top of him and guiding your hips back and forth until you’re mewling his name and shaking around his cock. The whole room might have to be burned, when this is over. There isn’t an inch of your body he hasn’t cum on, kissed, spanked, or grabbed.
He ends up on top of you again, holding your knees back against your chest with a single arm, fucking you slow enough to drag long, loud moans from your lips every time.
“That’s my girl,” he mutters, watching his thick, swollen cock slide in and out of your cunt, smearing and spreading hours of cum between your thighs. “My pretty fuckin’ doll.”
You moan, reaching up with shaking hands to cup the back of his neck. His gaze drags back to yours, and you smile. You don’t know where the delicate, flowering thing inside of you is coming from. You think it’s always been there, and Ben’s stripped you so bare there’s nowhere to hide it, no way to make it wither. With his hands so gentle on your hips and thighs, his gaze so clouded with adoration you think that—to anyone else—he wouldn’t look like the same man, there’s nothing left to do but let this bloom.
“I love you,” you breathe out, the first words you’ve said in hours. “I love you, Ben.”
His eyes go impossibly darker. His fingers dig into you, and he crashes forward with a groan.
Ben cums one last time, and you pass out at his kisses all over your face, murmuring words you feel more than hear.
He doesn’t say it back. You didn’t think he would. Ben coddles you like a child after, wrapping you in a shirt that somehow survived the damage and carrying out back to your room. You get a warm bath and glass of water. Your stomach rumbles, and suddenly there’s food in your hand. Ben rises you both off in the shower, his breathing heavy and his face pressed into the crook of your neck.
You can feel it with every single touch. That he’s trying to find a way to tell you. That it’s carving through his chest that he doesn’t know how.
And you’ll wait. Telling him he doesn’t have to will do nothing but make him more frustrated, and you’re happy to have whatever he can offer after… this.
He figures it out faster than you thought, though. He lays in bed with you, glaring at the ceiling and rubbing your side. You watch him, your head propped on his chest, and smile. You lean up and press a kiss to his jaw, and he grunts in surprise, his gaze dropping to yours.
You smile again. His throat bobs. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks back to the ceiling and lets out a slow, deep breath.
“Marry me.”
You blink at him. If you had an ounce of strength left in your body, you’d sit up. “What?”
“You heard me,” he grunts, glancing back down at you. “You mean what you said?”
“Of- Of course I meant it-“
“You sure?”
“Fuck you,” you shove his chest, and his mouth twitches. “I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t sure, asshole. But-“ You point a stern finger. “I’m not marrying you.”
That makes him really, deeply frown. “Why not.”
“Because I’m not crazy.”
“That ain’t crazy, doll, you love something, you fucking marry it-“
“Marry it?” You snort. “What, are you gonna marry the fucking TV?”
“No, you brat, I’m marrying you.”
Your mouth falls open. Ben glowers at you, his fingers digging on your hips again, like he’s worried you’re going to run. “Me?” You whisper, and Ben grunts.
“Don’t see me fuckin’ proposing to anyone else, do you.”
You laugh weakly. “But this is- Ben, this is a bad proposal-“
“It is not bad-“
“It’s horrible-“
“You’re going to say yes,” he snaps, and you sigh, tracing over the line of his pecs.
There’s something raw under that demand. Something you don’t want to mock or poke at. That you want to nurture, to get him to show without barbing it in a defensive wire.
But you’re also not marrying him after one sex marathon.
“I want dinner,” you say, and he frowns.
“I’ll get you a fucking ring-“
“No.” You lean down until your noses bump. “Dinner.”
Ben glares at you. You glare back, rubbing his chest, and he slowly relaxes under your touch.
“Dinner,” he mutters, and you beam, pressing a quick kiss to his lips.
He grabs the back of your neck, holding you above him. “You’d say yes, though,” he rasps, and god help you, you would.
You just kiss him instead. Long and slow and deep, telling him in a language you know he prefers to speak. And you can feel it, under every single touch. How much he really, truly means it.
Five dinners, you tell yourself, but if Ben keeps holding you like this, you know. You’ll only last until he asks you again, and then—just like before—you’ll all too happily give in.
✦End note: theory answered: yes he can ✦
✦If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3✦
summary : what if there was an extra set of hands the night zombies overran Sioux Falls? missing scene, takes place during the events of 5x15
CW : Canon-typical violence/gore. Zombies. Sexual content. (unrelated)
Word Count : 7.8k
a/n : This is my first time writing anything Sam-centric, as I am recently converted. Hopefully I've done him justice.
“Something's wrong.” Sam says it mostly to himself, but Sheriff Mills is close enough to hear him. So are you. He notices, elaborates. Barely. He looks at the Sheriff. “I need a car, I gotta find Bobby and my brother.”
“My cruiser’s out back.” Jody shifts enough to signal to one of her deputies, letting him know he should come take over her position covering the front door. “But you’re not going alone.”
“My Ranger's right there.” He flinches, just slightly, when you step closer, pointing to the bed of a truck just visible through the glass. “I know she looks a little rough, but we’ll get you there fast. Faster than she can.” Your voice is steady, sure. He’d think your thumb jutting out at Jody was a challenge if she wasn’t already agreeing with you, muttering something about your license, miracles, and an ungodly number of speeding tickets.
“I can’t just sit around doing nothing, scared shitless.” He remembers the fear he saw earlier when you shook your head, declining the rifle he offered, but he doesn’t hear it now. “I’m totally useless here anyway. Got that Stormtrooper aim.”
“Yeah. Okay.” He looks at Jody. Her jacket’s on, she’s waiting, her decision already made. “Let’s go.”
Sam moves fast, you move faster. You zip past Jody and when your truck is already in gear, passenger doors open wide, waiting, he decides he’s impressed. You've slid the back window of the cab all the way open, so when Jody climbs into the jump seat behind you, she can rest the barrel of her rifle out of it. You floor the gas and the door swings closed behind Sam almost before he’s even fully inside.
You drive so differently from how Dean does. Sure, you both seem basically one with your vehicles, and God knows Dean’s taken that car to the limit more times than Sam can count, but Dean pushes. Like everything he does. He can drive with the force of his will alone, when the need arises, and the world lays down in front of him. One never ending stretch of blacktop at his disposal.
You drive like it’s a reflex, inherent to your body. Fast. Fearless. Pure instinct. Your face is intent, intense, but the rest of you is so relaxed it’s eerie. There's a threshold at around eighty where the engine pushes back, resists you. Sam feels it. You mutter something he can’t hear as you palm the wheel, easing up just enough to tilt the truck around another corner, keeping it tight, gunning the engine into another few blocks of straightaway. You glance past him, no, at him, grin and go a little faster.
It seems the road is at your disposal tonight, too, like it would be for Dean if it were him behind the wheel. You run stop signs, red lights, it doesn't matter. The Sheriff of Sioux Falls has a rifle on your six and everyone in town is either dead or hiding, anyway. The cab fills with the sound of rushing wind, the Ranger's engine, the creak and groan of its body as you dance on the edge of what it can give you.
You plot your route by rote. He bets you’ve lived here most, if not all, of your life. Sam pictures you learning to drive on these streets, riding bikes on them before that. He squints, doesn’t quite smile. It’s funny how these wistful musings hit him just before he runs into the thick of things. Little moments of insight before the adrenaline, the cortisol and, usually, the blood.
You're getting close now and he has to stop thinking about where you learned to drive like this or whether your features are soft, striking, or both. There’s work to do. He cocks his pistol, tucks it into the back of his jeans, pumps the rifle so it's ready too.
“Open the doors as soon as you can see the yard.” Jody is out of the jump seat, coiled like a spring. Both passenger doors swing open as you careen past the gate of the salvage yard, the darkness yawns into the dim light of the cab’s interior.
You brake hard and crank the wheel, Sam’s insides lurch with the force of it. The Ranger skids up alongside the house, as close as you can get them without driving up the steps. He and Jody spill out onto the gravel, half-door of the cab slamming shut. Sam's still hangs open, creaks on its hinge when you yell at them to go.
The dead are a swarm of fever, memory and decay. You reverse, the door swinging as you use the body of the truck to cover them as best you can. Something thuds and crunches, wet and squelching, beneath your tires.
Sam thinks he sees you reaching across the bench to pull the door shut as he reaches the house. He hopes you thought to close the window behind you, just in case. He realizes, even though you said you couldn’t aim for shit, they never wound up giving you a gun.
Bobby’s house is an all out shooting gallery and Sam’s reflexes kick in. He goes to work. Blood and brain matter spray a path to Bobby and his brother. He doesn’t think of you again until it’s over.
You have a gash on your forehead, you hit it on the steering wheel at some point, it doesn’t really hurt but you let Sam splash whiskey over and dab it with a cleanish looking rag. You're trembling a little, your blood vessels blown too wide, your body overloaded with that good ol’ fight or flight response.
Bodies are piling up in the bed of your truck. You and Jody haul them out of the yard while Sam and Dean drag out the ones from the house. When you try to go inside yourself, Dean blocks your way with a rough hand on your shoulder, shaking his head and giving you a little shove back into the darkness.
“Look, I know him. Kinda.” You protest. “I just wanna check–”
“Well I know him for real.” Dean counters, and when his arms cross over his chest he looks impenetrable. Domineering. “And I’m saying he doesn’t want you to.”
You rummage around the yard for a tarp, find another body, someone you recognize. The concavity of your fourth grade teacher’s skull, blown out into the dirt, makes you fold over your knees. You hope nobody can hear it when you start puking your guts out.
You feel crazy for being here but it’s your own damn fault. You move too fast, don’t think enough about anything. Reckless. Impulsive. It gets you into all sorts of trouble. The worst part, you don’t realize it until your brain catches up and your body revolts against you. You’re shaking by the time you’re down to dry heaves, kicking gravel and junkyard dirt over your sick and wiping your mouth with the back of your sleeve. You stop short when you see Sam not far off, pretending he wasn’t watching you retch. You grab an ankle and start dragging, looking sheepish when he comes to help you.
“You ok?” Sam asks, once you think you’ve found all the bodies. You’re doing a final lap with him to make sure nothing, no one, was missed. It feels like he’s studying you, cataloguing you. It makes you twitchy.
“Sure.” You shrug, heading back to your truck, Sam trailing behind. Someone else, probably Dean, has tarped the bodies and secured your tailgate already. The yard is empty, it’s time to go. You nod towards the house, the light is on in the kitchen. “Is he?”
“Yeah.” Sam doesn’t sound sure, a shadow draws over his face. He brings his big hands up to scrub it away. “Yeah, he’ll be fine.” You both just sit, watching the house, until you coax the Ranger back to life. He brings his attention back to you, spreading himself out across the seat, fitting his long legs wherever he can. “You said you know him?”
“Mhm. Yeah, he found a new box for the Ranger a couple years back. Hooked me up with a couple beaters when I was a kid.” Christ, he doesn’t want to hear your life story, but you’re still nodding, remembering. You fuss with the mirrors, you don’t need to see the tarpaulin shrouded cairn behind you. “I work at the hospital.” This is the real reason you wanted to go inside and check on him, this cranky old guy you grab coffee for sometimes when you see him waiting on your floor. PT, OT, they’re always running late. Surgeons are the worst for it. “He’s been around a lot since his accident. Nice guy, I like him.”
There’s only the sound of your tires crunching over gravel as you pull out of the yard and onto the street.
“You’re sure you’re talking about Bobby Singer?” It startles you, head snapping up to fix him with a puzzled look. A wry smile greets you, it lights up Sam’s eyes with a playfulness that might be inappropriate. “Nice guy isn’t exactly the term I’d use for him.”
You blink, and then snort. You feel your whole body relax. “Fair, but whatever. Nobody wants to be nice, anyway.” You turn a little so you can see him better while still watching the road. “He shoots straight and makes me laugh. I think that’s better.”
“Yeah. It is.” His cheeks dimple and it’s almost bashful, the way he looks away for a moment. “I get why. You’ve got a good laugh.”
You flush from your chest up to your ears and you have to forcibly snap your mouth shut. It’s suddenly a million degrees inside your truck. Your hands aren’t working and you fumble the crank on the door, rolling down your window in staccato. Cool air fills your lungs. It calms you, but you have to change the subject. “So is this, like, your whole deal?”
“Yeah, kinda.” Sam does a piss poor job of hiding the fact that he’s laughing at you when gesture to the bed of the truck and then at him in general. You can’t blame him, for how awkward you’re being. “This was actually a pretty easy day at the office. Relatively speaking.”
“Woof.” In this moment, you cannot imagine a more fucked up day, week, than this one. Nobody should have to live this horror day in and day out. “You’d sound like someone who should think about changing gigs.”
“God, I wish.” His tone makes you go soft, tilting your head to really look at him for the first time. It’s like you’re trying to see, just from his face, what he’d do instead. You wonder if he’d just live here. Work at the salvage yard, maybe even take it over. Then the three of them, him, his brother, and old man Singer, could all just chill. You’re probably being way too intense because he fidgets for a while, rests his chin on the back of the bench so he’s not looking right at you. “It’s more of a calling than a job.”
“Like fate?” He nods but that’s all you get. Dawn is edging its way up on the horizon. “Dude, block the number.”
“It’s not that kind of call.”
You finally kill the engine, parking the Ranger up on a clearing in the back forty of the cemetery, and Sam can’t get out fast enough. Something about how you look at him sucks up the air around you, even with the windows open. His strides are long, circling to the back of your Ranger, the tarp crinkling as he pulls it free.
He starts pulling out the scavenged wood, pressure treated or half rotting, it’ll smell like shit when it burns. You’re following him like a little shadow, a busted pallet in one hand. The corner of his mouth twitches and he moves to show you what to do with it.
“We want bigger stuff on the bottom, so it’ll burn hot for long enough, then we’ll stack more vertically around…everyone.”
“Half cabin, half teepee kinda thing.” It’s really cute, the way your face scrunches up as you think about this, somehow confident and unsure at the same time. “Right? Like six-by-eight, six-by-ten if we have the wood for it?”
“Yeah. You got it.” An incredulous little laugh escapes him. It’s not crazy to think you might know how to build a bonfire. You seem like the type to go to bush parties but, then, how would he know? You’re both sweating lightly by the time the base is stacked up to your knees.
“You good?” There’s a pair of work gloves you’re tugging on and you’re standing ramrod straight next to him, he can feel the tension coming off you in waves. “I’m sorry. Normally we wrap them first, like a shroud, but...” It’s not much by way of an apology for what comes next. It’s not exactly an explanation either.
“I know.” There’s almost no colour left in your eyes and they’re wide, glassy, and your face has gone pale. You’re in shock, he’s sure of it. “There’s too many of ‘em for that, huh?”
Burning bodies isn’t exactly a chatty sort of chore when he does it with Dean, but you somehow make the quiet feel unnatural. It's calculated. Mechanical. It concerns him. What if you had someone close to you come back? Like Jody did. Like Bobby did. He can’t imagine grieving someone you’d already lost once, especially not while doing this besides.
A pang of something sharp, deep, nauseating twists in his gut as he thinks about Dean coming back from Hell. Sam doesn’t think he’d have survived if it was like this, fleeting and corrupted. It feels perverse.
The thought of it knots his stomach up with guilt, so he sends you to the stand of trees nearby to collect kindling. You bring back pine and cedar, sticky with sap, that pops and crackles in the flames. You even find some fatwood, brought back in a separate bundle you tie up in your shirt.
Now that the grim part of your task is finished, Sam lets himself notice how good you look stripped down to a tank top. Sitting on the tailgate of your truck, holding your chin in both hands, sticky, dirty and smelling of conifers, you look human again. Relief washes over him and he leans himself up next to you, closer than he needs to be but not as close as he wants.
His skin itches, the space between you polarized, magnetic. He’s sure you feel it too because suddenly you’re scooting over, leaning in, letting his sturdiness support you. He slips his arm around your waist, fingers splaying across the curve of your hip, to pull you closer still. Sam folds himself around you.
Your cheek is warm, the smell of your sweat mixed with pine tar suddenly pervasive, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. You could track his heart rate with how close your lips are, softly parted just over his hammering carotid. It makes him shiver.
For a moment he worries that he’s pressing you into him, that he’s taking advantage. Maybe you don’t want this type of comfort. Blunted teeth graze along the angle of his jaw, moving with tantalizing slowness, your hand curls at the nape of his neck and tangles in his hair. Maybe you’re fine with this, after all.
You are making space for him, thighs wide and welcoming, knees bracketing his hips to bring him closer. He’s not thinking about anything else now, only your touch, your smell, your parted lips panting hot breath across his. Then you kiss him and his mind’s reduced to nothing but more, more, more.
The pads of his fingers leave divots in your hips, drag up your neck to cup your jaw. Sam is enveloping you and you are letting him, gladly even. Catching your bottom lip between his, drawing it into the damp heat beyond, grazing his teeth across it. It pulls your body taut, like a readied bowstring, his fingers at the draw. God, he’s missed this feeling.
The last person he fucked was Ruby, a fever dream defined by it’s wrongness. He buried himself in the depravity she offered because it felt so good. Good to be wanted. Good to have purpose. To have anything after the last vestige of his life was, literally, torn to shreds. Delirium, delusion. Sam should have known better.
Now he knows the difference though. He thinks. He hopes. It’s not enough to just feel good. He wants, needs desperately, to be good. Damn the cost.
He’s pretty sure you are good, but it’s hard to tell when you keep straining to offer more of your neck to him. Sure, everything about you feels good and, since nothing about you has proven to be hateful or cruel, it feels safe to chase that while he figures things out. You’re not too sweet, too nice, either, which he likes. He likes the way you’re pressing his mouth against you, too. Like an offering of flesh. You taste salty and astringent on his tongue. He wants to devour you.
Yeah, you are good. The longer you’re in his arms the more he knows it. Nobody wants to be nice, anyway. He could reassure you that the way you’re pulling at him, like you’re trying to claw your way inside his body, is anything but nice. It’s needy, desperate. Maybe he’ll let you in, hollow himself out, carve a space just for you. Take your goodness with him everywhere until he becomes good himself.
“Not here.” You’re fisting his hair, pulling him away from you, tilting his head to take him. He knows he’s flushed, can feel his chest heave as he sucks in air, and just your eyes on him sends another wave of molten desire through him. “Gonna have to pressure wash this thing before I can fuck anyone in it again.”
Your legs are a vice around his waist and you hoist yourself up into his arms, climbing him. Like this, he barely has to hold you, can carry you easily with one arm. “You’re so fucking sexy.”
You’ve got his shirt up over his head, trying to pull it off him while his arm is still wrapped around you, leaving him to blindly fumble for the handle of the door. The giggle that escapes you as he emerges from beneath the fabric is intoxicating, bubbling out of you like a shaken up soda, no, champagne. It sounds like a celebration.
He pulls his one arm free of his sleeve, reaching up to palm your face, looking up in wonder at the mirth there. He doesn’t want you to stop laughing, it makes him feel like you are pouring light inside him, but they way you sober under his gaze, lip colourless between your teeth and legs tight around his waist, feels just as good. You are so beautiful and your body and your eyes and the roll of your hips are all telling him you want him.
He tosses you onto the seat, too frantic to be gentle. Knees wide, pressed up on your elbow, one palm resting open on your inner thigh, you don’t seem to mind. You stretch your hand out to him, skimming along his side as he drapes his body over yours.
There is a slick and sticky secret between your thighs, it whispers to him as he curls his long, thick digits into you. He wants to know all of them, your secrets. Perfect little sounds you’re making just for him. When your eyes start fluttering in the same rhythm as the depths of your core, you almost look surprised. Eyebrows draw up, mouth dropping open, one hushed, high note escaping you. The most precious sound of all.
Sam.
He realizes that, until then, he wasn’t sure you even knew his name.
Sam’s wrist is the only thing tethering you to the earth. He has tuned your body to resonate at some mystic, arcane frequency. The tips of his fingers have transported you to otherworldly planes and your delirium suggests that this magic might be his true calling. Anyone who can make you feel like this shouldn’t be wasted on the dead and damned.
White, creamy arousal coats his fingers when he pulls them free, glistening webs of it connecting his knuckles even when he spreads them apart. You are mesmerized. His tongue flashes across his lip, but you take his wrist first, hiding those fingers in the warm wet cavern of your mouth.
Tasting yourself on someone else’s fingers is a sensual delicacy you're reluctant to share. Sam has a salty bitterness to him that compliments your essence, earthy, sweet, slightly sour. Savoring the way he fucks his fingers into your mouth, you're rewarded with a groan as you swallow around them, amplifying the deepening, aching, emptiness inside you.
“Need you.” It’s barely coherent with your mouth full but Sam seems to understand, rutting down into you as he slips his fingers from between your lips. His mouth hangs open and you crane your neck up to capture it with yours, sweeping your tongue over his before falling back to the bench.
“Wanna ride you.” You’d think you cast a spell on him, the way his eyes glaze over. Enchanted or just dazed, it allows you to press him back up so he sits sprawling across the passenger seat. Transfixed, he stares at you as you start to wiggle out of your pants. It’s awkward, you fumble to unlace your sneakers and you nearly fall over, laughing at yourself as you reach for him.
The spell breaks. Sam springs to life again, catching you before you slide off the seat and into the steering column. He drags you, still tangled in your clothes, into his lap. His chest is hot, firm, and you get an intimate moment with his tattoo when you land against him.
He grins as he helps finish undressing you, right up until he’s pressing your naked ass against the rough denim covering his hardness. The buckle of his belt is hard and cold against you and you squirm against him so you can free him of it.
Sam’s only letting out stuttering little pants and you can’t tell whether he’s trying to keep his eyes on or off you. He’s trying to control himself. His restraint, as much as the thought of him abandoning it, is so intoxicating you have to ask again. You sound sultry, seductive even to your own ears. It surprises you.
“Let me ride you, Sam.”
“Fuck. I’ll let you do anything to me.”
He helps you, unbuckling, unbuttoning, unzipping. He shoves everything down around his ankles as you steady yourself in his shoulders and straddle him. It gives him an eyeful of your tits, and he has to tip you forward so he can catch one of them with his mouth.
When you finally get to look at him, he is breathtaking. Not just his penis, which rests thick and heavy above a patch of dark curls, but all of him. His abs ripple as he flexes, making his cock jump, drawn to your pussy instinctively.
You reach down to wrap your fist around him, squeezing first, then stroking, delighting in the feel of his skin. His hands are callused, rough against your skin, but his cock feels like velvet. You tell him so, whispering it like a secret against the shell of his ear.
“You like that?” It’s ragged, deeper than before. His voice breaks into a guttural moan when you twist your wrist as you continue to work his shaft. He drags himself away, hands falling to your hips, head dropping back to look at you. “Go on. Take me for a ride.”
Another tide of arousal collects between your lips, smearing his tip as you circle your clit with it. Nestling his length between your folds, you start to move over him, base to tip and back, until you’ve coated him in enough of your desire to glide along him easily, rolling your hips so his tip barely catches at your entrance. You can smell your cunt, can hear it too, and you hope he can smell and hear the exact same thing. You hope it drives him crazy.
He almost snarls, grabbing hold of you the next time you tease him with your slit, snapping his hips up. Everything stops. Planets halt their orbits, the entire universe contracts, or maybe it’s just you, around the feeling of impossible fullness inside you as he starts to rock you down on him. Your pussy is becoming a singularity, it contains multitudes, transcends space and time.
You’re sure that it’s Sam splitting you open with such agonizing slowness, but then you realize that he’s busy with the rest of your body, running his hands over every inch of skin he can reach, and still your slow descent continues. You choke on your own laughter as you realize, of course, it isn’t him at all.
He looks at you, curious, but you just sink your hips down a little further. Something between a chuckle and a gasp escapes you and, even though you feel like your soul might leave your body at any moment, you loop your arms around his neck, grinning dopily. Your nose wrinkles as he brushes his against yours, sharing in your playfulness. When you kiss him through your smile, you can feel that he’s smiling too.
“You feel like heaven.”
The tenderness of it, that he’s making you feel celestial while telling you you’re divine, makes you want to cling to him. Your chest tightens, your pussy does too. Your legs spread wider across his lap, your thighs almost meeting his. Oh yeah, you’re definitely the one doing that, the stretch of him is too perfect not to chase.
You are holding onto his shoulders but your eyes flutter and roll back so you don’t see the way he’s looking at you now completely still in his lap, save for how you’re clenching and unclenching around him. You try to relax, breathing deeply, and take his face in your hands, press your mouth to his again.
“I can feel you everywhere, Sam.” He flexes inside you when you say his name, groans into your mouth. His hips beneath yours press up, searching for friction, for more. You grind down, deliciously slow, refuse to give it to him. Not yet.
This is one of those once in a lifetime fucks, you don’t want to waste it.
Sam is so hard he can’t tell pleasure from pain, buried to the hilt inside you. Your tongue sliding against his, hands tangled in his hair, pulling on it just right. The need for you to start moving makes him feel like his life is at stake but he remembers the way you asked him, so sincerely, to let you ride him. Finding out what that’s like, well, he needs it more than anything.
“I know you drive like a maniac.” Every cell in his body wants but isn’t being allowed to have, screams in protest when you forget yourself, start to actually fuck him and then, catching yourself, still your hips against him once more. Maybe he can goad you into it, giving him relief. “Thought you’d fuck the same way.”
“I’m getting to it.” There’s no way you aren’t as good as his body is telling him, because it feels like you’re looking into all the horrible nooks and crannies of his soul and he’s not seeing disappointment on your face. You don’t look disgusted or afraid at all, in fact you look quite the opposite. “You just feel so good, Sam. Fill me up better than anything.”
The sound he makes when you lift your hips and glide back down is pornographic, it’s almost embarrassing. He would do it over and over just to feel you grip him tighter whenever you hear it. He means to say your name but it just comes out an incoherent, wanting groan.
“Never gonna feel this full again, Sam, I know it. Wanna make it last forever.” You’re leaning back, a panorama of flesh stretched out in his lap, watching his reaction to you from under your lashes. “Make it a fuck to remember.”
It breaks him.
”Remember. How could I forget?” It’s so cliche he’s sure it sounds like as much of a lie to you as it does to him, but he thinks he means it. He takes a fistful of your ass in each hand, kneading the perfectly soft firmness there as he pulls you off him. You whine in protest, helpless, or at least pretending to be. He buries his length inside you again, buries his nose behind your ear, grunting as he starts to find a rhythm. “You think I’d forget this pussy, so tight, dripping all over me?” He tugs at your earlobe with his teeth. “The way you’re teasing me, shit, you’re gonna drive me crazy.”
Your body locks down around him. He keeps his strokes slow, deliberate.
“C’mon, Sam. Big, strong guy like you?” Feinted admiration barely tries to conceal the challenge in your tone. “You can take it. Aren’t you some kind of hero or something?”
It takes him by surprise, what it does when he hears you say that. Sam pulls you down on him hard, his pained grunt harmonizing with the sharp cry he punches out of you. His back arches, face twisting into a grimace, his grip steely on your hips, caught between holding you still or fucking you with abandon.
“That it, Sam?” You grab hold of his shoulders to steady yourself and study him. It feels dangerous. His hold on you goes slack, you keep the slow, deep rhythm he’s set on your own. “You a hero?”
Yes! God. Yes. He wants to be. He’s been trying to claim that mantle his whole life, not that he could ever earn it now. Not after everything. Even Dean’s said as much, in not so many words.
“You were pretty brave back there. Impressive.” His body loves what you’re saying, that’s abundantly clear from how he’s starting to stutter under you. He can’t let you keep saying it, though, he hasn’t earned it. Nothing he does is heroism. It’s penance. “I think you deserve a reward, don’t you?”
“No.” It's so strangled and desperate it makes you freeze, he tries to maintain the rhythm you had found, still rolling his hips up into yours. “Fuck, no way. I’m not.” He can’t even say it. Your hands go to his face, yours fraught with deep lines of concern. “Don’t deserve this. Don’t deserve you.” He can’t believe what he’s saying, blinking up at you stupidly as he holds out this broken piece of himself for you to see, to hold. “If you knew even half the things I’ve done.”
“Sam.” His heart almost stops but he can feel yours thundering away against his chest, your whole body pressed against him. Your faces almost touch and he can’t escape the raw intensity of your gaze. He assumes it’s pitying, that’s what he feels for himself, but then you whisper, just for him. “You’re a hero to me.”
When you start to move again you stay close enough that he can feel your nipples graze his chest. He’s still shaking his head, even when it drops onto the back of the seat. You grind on him slowly, deliberately, punctuating everything you’re saying with this hot, wet, ecstasy.
“You fight monsters. Fuck. You save people. You’re one of the good guys.” God, why does it feel so fucking good to hear you say that? He fights against it but knows he’ll tuck that away for long and lonely nights. “I feel so safe with you. So wet. So full.”
You’re riding him faster now, gasping from the effort, from the pleasure. He doesn’t want to move, let alone breathe, for fear you’ll stop what you’re doing.
“Of course you deserve. Ngh. Everything.” He wants to believe you so badly, wants to live in the world of your truth instead of his. “Sam. Ah, Sam.” You’re leaning in to kiss him like you really, really mean it. He palms your ass, bucking up into you, almost convinced. He’s punching your breath out of you, leaving you incoherent. “Fuck. You’re. Mmh. Her-oh.”
You said he saves people, but you’ve got it backwards. It feels like you’re saving him. He fucks into you as if that’s all it takes to make it true. You keep dripping goodness all over him, making him feel things that are dangerous for a guy like him to feel.
Dean would laugh at him, then again maybe he wouldn’t, thinking he could find salvation in the sacrament between your thighs. So, he stops thinking altogether. Surrenders to the wet sound of your cunt getting pounded, your whimpers, his grunts. It sounds like fucking in the best way possible and he can feel himself getting close just listening to it.
“Christ, you feel so good.” He is lost, stuttering, you take the wheel and ride him. You ride him like he’s part of your body, not just inside it. You’re chasing pleasure, wringing it out of him so you can soak it up yourself. Your ass slaps against his thighs. Your whines are sharp, high notes.
“God you’re sexy.” There’s barely space between you for his fingers to find your clit, try to coax you to a finish with him. The white of euphoria entreats on his vision, trying to force his eyes closed. He resists, still watching you. “Wanna watch you come again.”
The faces you are making are exquisite, the way you’re fucking each other ripples through your whole body, making your ass and tits dance for him. He tries desperately to hold on, fighting tooth and nail to just stay here on the edge long enough for you to come again.
“Come for me.” You’re panting, he barely hears it until you say it again, like a carnal incantation. “Come for me, Sam. I wanna feel all of you inside me. Fill me up. Be my hero.”
He doesn’t hear the rest. His body wants and you are letting him have, telling him to take.
He does, and it feels like it lasts forever because you just keep riding him.
You’re in a fugue state, so close to the edge when Sam goes over it first. His spendings already leaking out of you, white, almost frothing around the base of him from how you’re riding him now. It's frantic, you’ve smeared it everywhere, even feeling it working its way between your ass cheeks. You look down your body, lean back so you can see your hips snapping back and forth through all that Sam.
The high whine that comes out of you is so needy, it electrifies him. His mouth is on your nipple, your hand over his squeezing and kneading at your breast. His fingers are still working your clit for you, harder and faster now, more urgent. Everything goes white, your body pulling apart before it clamps down, hard. The only thing you’re aware of are the fingers stroking you through the pulsating wave of pleasure that consumes you.
You’re boneless after, and he cradles you against him, mumbling something into your hair. It’s the gentlest he’s been since you’ve met him and you don’t want to rush this part, either.
He might just be the human embodiment of safety. You weren’t lying about that, about any of it. Fucktalk doesn’t need to be hollow bullshit if you do it right. You sigh into him, nuzzling closer, and it occurs to you that there must be others just like you, who’ve sought comfort in him. It might make someone else feel cheap, maybe jealous, but somehow it makes you feel better that he’s been out there. Not just saving lives, but tending to them. What a gift he has. No, is.
There is a moment, fleeting, where you imagine him again with Dean and Bobby, just scrappers. No shrouded bodies, no funeral pyres, no whatever else makes up the worse days they face. On the other side of everything, thinking about all the other people who’ve felt as safe with him as you do now, you think you understand why that could never happen.
“You know, I think I get it.” You rest a hand on his chest, close to that tattoo. You wonder what it means. “The calling. Fate, whatever.”
“Yeah?”
“I think so.” You press a little kiss over his heart and he drops one to the top of your head. “Must be hard, though. Lonely.”
“It can be.” It feels indulgent to think maybe he’s as reluctant to let you go as you are to pull away. “I’m not lonely right now, if it means anything.”
“It does. Thank you.” If you could burrow inside of him at this moment, you would. “You make me feel safe.”
He doesn’t say anything, but he holds you tighter for a little while, his face still pressed to the crown of your head. You can feel it, even in his arms, that your worlds are drifting apart again, the night’s bizarre convergence coming to an end.
You’re both dressed, having cleaned yourselves up as best you can, lingering in the last vestiges of afterglow. Sam seems relaxed, unguarded, and his smile is bright and genuine when he looks at you.
“God, you’re sexy.” Your shoulders shake and your tits bounce a little under your shirt as you laugh. You hadn’t bothered to put your bra back on and Sam keeps looking down, which is funny. You didn’t notice him paying so much attention to them before. “You good?”
“How am I supposed to answer that?” You ask. There’s still corpses you can see burning away not twenty feet past your truck, and even the out of body orgasms you just had can’t wipe away the messed up shit you’ve seen and done in the past 24-48 hours.
“Honestly, I guess.” Sam shrugs, and you worry that something is starting to close off in his face.
“This was good.” You’re still craving his touch, offer a light, barely-there caress. He’s smiling that bashful smile again. “Bucket list kinda stuff.”
He startles you with a kiss, so chaste and earnest it makes you feel gooey.
“Really, really good.” He whispers against your lips, and then drops back onto the seat. “And everything else?”
“Well, you might’ve ruined me for other men.” You wink at him, reach out for a fleeting squeeze of his thigh. “So, y’know, thanks for that.”
“Sorry.” But he isn’t, and neither are you. It’s like your bodies are repolarizing, sometimes still drawing close but now also feeling pushed apart with equal strength. It’s bittersweet. “And everything else?”
“You taking my statement, officer?” Why does he keep asking? The bodies are still burning. People will be going home, cleaning up gore from their houses. They will be grieving, for many a repeat performance. “I dunno. I’ll probably repress it all, write it off as some fucked up nightmare. Aren’t you the expert?” You look to him for something, maybe guidance? “You tell me.”
“I guess a lot of people do that.” He sighs, shrugs, stretches as much as he can in the small space and tucks his hands behind his head. “Therapy’s probably healthy, but I don’t know how well it works when you’re dealing with literal demons.” You chuckle and he gives you a wry smile. “I’ve never really tried it so I wouldn’t know.”
“That’s it?” You nod, biting your thumbnail, a nervous habit. He reaches out and pulls your hand into his, running his thumb over your knuckles. “Those are my options?”
“Sometimes we fuck up and the monsters come back and kill everyone.” It’s a dark joke, and you’re sure it's not untrue, but you throw your head back and laugh. “Some people become hunters. That’s what we do.” It feels like he’s deciding whether to tell you something real. “Don’t do that. Please. It’s not a very nice life.”
“I bet.” How can you convey the softness he makes you feel you can’t bring yourself to even reach over and squeeze his hand. “Nice is boring anyway. Right?” You look at him again, trying to really see him one more time before this is over, and his brows are drawn together, furrowing deeply with concern. It’s clear as day what he wants to tell you, that he would take nice and boring in a heartbeat. “I won’t, ok. You don’t have to worry about me, I’ll figure it out.”
“Okay.”
“What about you?” You both retreat a little further to the opposite sides of the cab, hyper aware of the space growing between you.
“What about me?” He drums his hands on his thighs, thinks about it for a second. It seems as though everything he says now has to be so carefully considered. You suppose there’s so much of himself he can’t share. It makes sense. “Dean and I are working on something.” He sounds weary, resigned. “Big. It’s…”
“Scary?” You offer when he doesn’t say anything more. He nods. You’re not sure if he’s unwilling or unable to meet your gaze. Whatever he’s sharing with you feels precious and rare, it feels imperative that it matters to someone. You decide it will matter to you.
“You’ll take care of it.” But you can’t know that, not really, and it sounds cheesy, so awfully banal, it makes you cringe. “That’s what heroes do.” You wince down at your hands. He must think you’re so naive. “I believe in you.”
“That makes one of us.” You wish you could hear him laugh for real again instead of this haunted chuckle.
“So, I’ll believe for both of us.”
The honk of a horn startles both of you into the present. Part of you hopes Sam will steal another chaste little kiss, but he just gives you a nod before popping open the door and unfolding himself into the sunlight. He waves at Dean and walks around to slam your tailgate closed for you. He doesn’t even look back, focused on his work and his brother.
You feel a pang of emptiness. It’s not a bad feeling, just the kind that lets you know something good is coming to an end. You stay in your truck for a moment, letting yourself feel it, then letting it go.
You do a quick walkaround to make sure you haven’t left anything, you find your jacket and your work gloves, toss them behind your seat. You don’t bother keeping your shirt when you find it, caked in resin, and toss it into the fire. Sam is talking to Dean and Jody in a furtive kind of way. It feels weird as hell to just stand there, waiting for them to be done but you’re not about to join the conversation either.
How do you say goodbye to someone after all of this, anyway? Maybe you’re not supposed to.
You haul yourself into your truck, taking more time than you need to readjust the seat, check the dash, and eventually you fire up the ignition. You look out the back to see the three of them have turned, Dean’s hand held up in parting. Jody gives you a nod, you’ll see her around.
You smile, wave back and holler a weak thanks at them. It’s half hearted. Sam’s got a stunned look on his face, and you regret that now you’ve made this your goodbye forever. You wonder if you’ll see him again. If you’ll remember each other. Is this his life, just fleeting comforts and shitty, awkward goodbyes? It makes you so sad you can’t quite look at him and you drop your gaze to your dash. You don’t think of yourself as a coward, but when you shift into drive and ease on the gas, it feels a bit like running away.
You stop when you hear your name, look up to see him jog to close the short distance, and then he’s leaning in through your window. You shift into park but don’t turn the engine off.
“Hey.” He must be rocking on his heels or something because it feels like you’re swaying inside your truck.
“Hi.” He’s just looking at you, and you decide to wait him out. You catch a glimpse of Dean and Jody in your rearview, very obviously watching.
“Thank you.” He says at last, and it catches you off guard.
“For the lift? Not a problem.” You joke and he smiles, laughing a little. “You owe me a twin for gas.”
“Not for that.” He leans in like he’s telling you a secret. “For what you said.“ He picks at something on your sleeve, like he wants an excuse to touch you. “All of it. It doesn’t even matter if—”
“If I meant it?” You cut him off, lean into your small conspiracy. “It does, and I did. Every word.”
The kiss is less chaste than the last one, his tongue slipping over yours, your teeth catching his lip and then letting it go. He grins at you, stealing one more. “God, you’re sexy.”
“You keep saying that.” You sit up, wink at him, shift back into drive. You kiss him a final time, not having the words for a real goodbye. He steps back, smiles for real and you feel better about this than you would have just driving away with a half hearted wave.
The junkyard is on your way home and you idle for a minute by the gate. You hope, every once in a while, Sam gets to sit on that porch, have a cold one with his brother and that crotchety old drunk.
You hope it’s peaceful.
Sam is back in Sioux Falls. He is making a decision. That he can say Yes and still beat the devil.
Sam is terrified. This year has beaten him and, while courage is in short supply, his strength of will is almost non-existent.
This feels like his last chance to really be good again, if he ever was before.
He thinks of you, asking him to be your hero. Thanking him for making you feel safe.
He wants to do that again, even if you’ll never know about it.
He wishes he could see you again, wrap himself in the goodness of you and tell you he doesn’t believe he can pull it off.
He wants to hear you say it again, “I’ll believe for both of us.”
Oh my god, diva, it’s poetry. You did so good both portraying a civilian coming into this situation and also writing AMAZING smut!! I saw the part 1 so excuse me while I scour your page for the part 2 to this 🤭
15/10, no notes other than I beg of you to keep writing you literary genius
GODS, GORE & GROPING
cosmic entity!bucky barnes x human!reader [15.2k]
— ⟢ SUMMARY: your habit of talking to yourself inadvertently catches the attention of something ancient lurking in the shadows.
— ⟢ WARNINGS: 18+ MDNI; non-canon; dark themes (I swear there is also comedy); it/its pronouns for bucky (the character is inspired by cthulhu); mention of gore, violence & death threats; angst; one (1) brief description of a nightmare; discussions about stress & anxiety; psychological horror elements; bickering (their dynamic is loosely inspired by eddie and venom in the movies); dark!bucky; overprotective!bucky; obsession; jealousy; possessive behavior; social exclusion; emotional dependency; unhealthy attachment; stalker-ish behavior; boundary violation; mourning; self-doubt; emotional withdrawal; denial as a coping mechanism; smut; mention of sex toys; monsterfucking; tentacle sex; pussy inspection; nipple play; restraints & gags; multiple orgasms; overstimulation; sort of mind break; creampie.
A/N: so, this is my ticket to hell. I posted this back in october as part of my halloween series trick or tease, which I will continue here. anyway, I wanted to give this one-shot an actual plot, so there have been some important changes since it was pretty much pwp before. disclaimer: this story contains monsterfucking, so please avoid sending weird inbox/comments (yes, it already happened). if you follow me, know that this is a recurring theme, as a matter of fact I already have two stories about orc!bucky. it's very simple: if you don't like it, don't read it. hope you'll enjoy 🖤
trick or tease masterlist
You love your apartment in a way that would probably sound ridiculous if you ever tried to explain it, because it’s not particularly beautiful, nor does it sit in some idealized neighborhood where everything feels arranged for aesthetic approval.
The building is old, long past charming. The pipes occasionally groan through the walls as though protesting against their own existence, and the floors remember every step, even when you try your best to be quiet. The kitchen is too small to ever feel fully practical, the bathroom is always slightly colder than the rest of the apartment no matter the season, and the elevator has broken down often enough that you have stopped trusting it entirely.
Objectively, there are better places to live.
And yet every evening, after a day spent among crowded sidewalks, half-finished conversations, and obligations that somehow leave you far more exhausted than they should, the knot in your stomach begins to loosen the moment the front door closes behind you.
Nobody interrupts you here. Nobody watches you with critical eyes. Nobody tries to dictate the way you exist. It’s just you.
Which is probably why you develop the habit of talking to yourself once you step inside.
It’s not something you ever decided to do, it simply followed you from earlier versions of your life. At first it was practical, a way of sorting out stress and untangling thoughts that felt too messy to leave trapped in your head, but over time it became part of who you are.
“Stark scheduled five meetings today.” You drop your keys on the counter. “New record.”
You kick off your shoes, already moving towards the fridge for some water.
“I swear he finds some sick pleasure in wasting everyone’s time.”
You never expect a response, of course, but carry on with the small rituals of the evening while the walls quietly absorb your voice.
Ultimately, you stop keeping tabs of how often it happens, because you talk while cooking, cleaning, and taking showers. You comment out loud while scrolling through your phone and revisit past conversations while folding laundry. Even when sitting on the couch at the end of a long day, you debate whether you’re too tired to start anything meaningful or too restless to do nothing at all, as if the pillows could answer back.
Still, there are moments—usually late at night—when the absence of another human being becomes harder to ignore. A small ache settles in your chest at the realization that entire days can pass without anyone else seeing them. Your thoughts, your victories, the countless insignificant moments that make up a life... all of them exist only inside your own memory.
The feeling never stays for long though: somewhere along the way, you just learned how to be content with your own company.
Most of your friends live hours away now, scattered across different cities and different lives, and trying to keep those connections alive feels mortifying when it becomes clear you’re not worth the effort.
Making new ones has never been any easier. Too many people seem worn down by disappointment, and retreating into themselves feels safer than risking another let-down. The rest treat every relationship like a negotiation, weighing what can be gained from it before deciding how much of themselves they are willing to offer.
So you fall back into your routine, and the apartment remains your favorite place, where you spend most of your time.
However, the feeling is not one-sided, because somewhere within the walls and foundations, something has begun, very slowly, to consider you a constant.
It has occupied the building for longer than any human memory can account for.
Long before you arrived. Long before the current structure of rooms and hallways. Not trapped within it, or bound in any conventional sense, but present like a memory inside a familiar object, woven through walls and doorframes and the quiet space between moments.
For centuries, humans were irrelevant.
They came and went, briefly altering the surface of things without ever touching what lay beneath. The Entity never thought of them as individuals, but as noise. Temporary disturbance that always faded back into silence.
Until you.
At first, you are nothing exceptional. Just another tenant. A fragile arrangement of blood and flesh moving through a structure that has already forgotten most of what it has held. You unpack and settle into your routines.
And then you start talking.
Constantly.
As though silence is something you have to keep at bay to stay sane.
And that’s what catches its attention. At first, it assumes you are speaking to someone outside its perception, but there is no other presence, no other voice.
Only you.
So it begins to assume the words are meant for the space itself, for the apartment as a whole—for the being that chose its shadows as a place to rest.
The conclusion is obvious.
You are talking to it.
The Entity initially listens passively. Your voice is just another sound among many, no more important than the groan of old pipes or the distant hum of traffic beyond the windows.
But as you keep talking, your voice stops blending into the background.
It learns your rhythms before it understands why they matter: the time you come home; the way your footsteps change depending on fatigue; the subtle differences between your frustrated sighs and your tired one. The melody of your happiness and the miserable sound of your sorrow.
The details gather one by one without purpose.
And somewhere along the way, it stops thinking of you as transient.
The first changes are small. A temperature fluctuation in your room settles earlier in the evening than it used to. A recurring fault in the elevator that keeps waking you up in the middle of the night doesn’t return. A light that hesitated before turning on now responds immediately.
None of it is noticeable enough to make you suspicious. Until the reason behind these adjustments changes drastically.
In its memory, humans have always approached beings like it through extremes.
They arrive trembling with desperation that melts into obsession, or rigid with fear that collapses into obedience. Their speech grows cautious, as though a single wrong word might invite disaster. Even when they pretend otherwise, there is always an ugly tilt beneath their requests: ambition, hunger, greed.
But you only fill rooms with thoughts that have nowhere else to go.
You complain about a man named Tony scheduling meetings throughout the day as though he has personal authority over the calendar. You debate dinner choices—usually pizza or sushi—because the outcome might alter your mood for the rest of the night. You spend an entire evening trying to figure out why a couple from your hometown broke up after everyone swore they’d end up married.
And throughout your little monologues, your voice never once bends toward reverence. It never tightens into fear.
And that becomes difficult to grasp.
Over time, those small routines become expected. And expectation creates its own kind of absence.
The first few times you leave for longer than usual, the apartment feels incomplete. Not empty, exactly, but quieter. The space remains the same, yet something about it feels wrong without you.
The conclusion it reaches is simple: if you are choosing to spend more time elsewhere, then the apartment must be failing you in some way. From that point on, every imperfection becomes unacceptable, and small inconsistencies are often corrected before they even have the chance to become problems at all.
Since you are completely unaware that something has started arranging the world around you, the changes continue without question.
You keep talking the way you always do, filling the apartment with things that would seem insignificant to anyone else, but not to the creature listening. You never thank it. Never ask for anything specific, or demand more. You simply exist inside a space that now quietly takes care of itself according to your comfort.
The simplicity of that still confuses it. The Entity has been worshipped before, feared, sought out for power... But no one has ever treated it like part of their daily life. Like an equal.
Your voice is familiar and reliable as you become its Polaris, the fixed point by which the rest of the world is measured.
The Entity has never concerned itself with anything beyond its own existence, most things are allowed to fade.
Anything connected to you is not.
When you come back that evening, something is different.
You move through your usual routine after stepping inside, loosening your shoulders and mumbling softly under your breath. Yet there is something unfamiliar that clings to the edges of your presence. It doesn’t belong to the apartment, and because of that, it draws its curiosity at once.
Humans carry traces of the outside world with them all the time: scents, particles, remnants of places and people. Most disappear quickly enough to be forgotten.
But this one doesn’t leave. It stays attached to you in a way that makes it hard to dismiss, fixed on a specific point of contact. Still, you hang up your coat, set down your bag, and slip off your heels with a relieved sigh. There is no hesitation in your movements.
Something outside its space touched you and was allowed to settle. And it doesn’t seem to bother you at all.
That unpleasant realization manifests like the first thunder announcing an imminent storm.
The air changes, pressure building ominously through the room enough to alter the flow of oxygen.
You notice it a few seconds later, your breathing feeling slightly more restricted, your chest tightening in a way that is easy to misread as fatigue from the day. You pause, one hand briefly touching your chest as if checking whether something inside your body isn’t working properly.
Frowning in confusion, you glance around the apartment before sprinting to the window to push it open, letting the crisp night air spill inside.
The suffocating feeling eases a little, but the Entity’s rage doesn’t.
The air turns clammy enough to make your skin prickle. Out of the corner of your eye, the shadows along the edges of the room grow longer, creeping farther than they should. The impression vanishes as soon as your head makes a sharp turn toward the wall, leaving you with a kind of discomfort that will haunt your sleep for the rest of the night.
You were still its when you left this space, but something else got close enough to interfere with that.
Whatever that presence was, it shouldn’t have been near you at all.
The changes start revealing themselves later, in moments that seem insignificant at the time.
You take a shower every morning—it automatically folds into your routine without much attention, the same way you sit on the edge of the bed with a towel around your body and half-awake eyes, letting the day assemble itself around you in slow pieces.
You turn on the tap and let the water warm up while you brush your teeth and check your phone. Sometimes you even have time to tidy up your room a little.
But one day you find yourself rinsing your face while the mirror is already beginning to fog. You dismiss it as temporary luck and keep going through the same motions the next day.
And still, it keeps happening.
A few days later, you’re standing in your bedroom half-dressed and with an unexpected ten extra minutes before work, trying and failing to understand where they came from.
Other weird things follow, like the bedroom door no longer sticking when it’s too humid. Then, the kitchen cabinet that always needed an extra push starts closing smoothly, and the draft from the living room window stops bothering you entirely.
There is an accumulation of small inconsistencies that leaves you with the subtle impression that the apartment and your recollection of it are no longer perfectly aligned, to the point that you start wondering if the problem is you.
Maybe you’re becoming forgetful, distracted... The thought never settles into genuine panic, but it lingers just long enough to leave a sour taste behind.
A quiet Friday night finds you stretched on the couch with the television murmuring in the background, when an email from Tony lands in your inbox. It marks yet another round of revisions of your presentation despite the fact that this is already the fourth time you have edited it.
For a moment you simply stare deadpan at the screen, the frustration that has been building all week finally manifesting with a sharp exhale.
“For fuck’s sake, Tony.”
“I could ensure he never troubles you again.”
The voice comes so quickly after your words that your brain just accepts it without question. Then, your limbs still at once at the realization. Slowly, you lift your head and look around the apartment.
The television still works. The kitchen is empty. The hallway is exactly where it should be.
You frown at it for another moment before forcing yourself to exhale.
Stress.
You imagined it.
Shaking your head, you turn your attention back to the show.
“Well?”
This time you sit up abruptly, confusion sharpening into alarm.
“What the fuck?” You mumble, because whatever fragile explanation you were building in your head collapses at once.
You nearly trip over your own feet as you scramble to stand, your heart hammering against your ribs while your gaze darts frantically around the open space.
“Is someone here?”
There is a pause before the voice answers—calm, almost unaffected by your agitation.
“I am not visible at the moment.”
Your breath catches slightly.
“What does that even mean?”
“I am in the shadows,” it continues. “I am everywhere.”
You let out a short, disbelieving laugh, but it comes out strangled.
“Yeah, okay.” You mutter. “Sure.”
You quickly check the hallway and then turn back again, trying to locate any possible source that could explain the voice seemingly coming from the inside of the apartment. When you can’t find anything out of the ordinary, your body instantly angles towards the couch, one of your arms already stretched out to get your phone and call someone.
Police. Your neighbor. Anyone...
But your fingers barely brush the object before it slides out of reach.
You freeze.
“No.” You whisper, because now your brain is splitting between panic and denial.
You glance at the device like it has personally betrayed you.
“This is insane,” you say, unconsciously backing up, your chest heaving dangerously fast. “This is fucking insane.”
“He can be removed.” The voice states with confidence.
You shake your head sharply.
“What does that even mean? And what the fuck are you doing in my apartment?”
“I have been here for a long time.”
“What?” Your stomach tightens as you take another step back, shaking your head again like that will be enough to reset reality.
“Get the fuck out or I’m calling the police.” You threaten more firmly this time, even if the trembling in your voice refuses to fade.
The air shifts at once, suffocating in its heaviness.
“Do not dare to call me an intruder.”
Until now, despite everything, some stubborn part of your brain had been trying to force this situation into a shape that made sense—a prank, a squatter, even a neighbor with far too much free time.
Something explainable.
Human.
“I have always been here.”
The words settle like a boulder on your chest.
A chill crawls down your spine.
Nothing around you changes: the walls are still standing, the lights are still on, and the floor is not splitting open beneath your feet. Yet your attention is obsessing over every neglected corner. On the narrow seam where two walls meet. On the vent above the kitchen doorway. On the faint cracks hidden beneath layers of paint.
Places you have never paid attention to before.
Places that now feel claimed.
You have lived here for years, slept, eaten, cried... Spent entire weekends doing absolutely nothing. And the thought that something might have been present through all of it sends a fresh wave of nausea through your body.
That’s enough for you to notice the change in your breathing. Each raise of your chest feels slightly shallower than the last, your lungs stinging as they instinctively prepare for a danger your eyes cannot see.
“Reality parts for me. I have drifted through the birth of galaxies, swallowed storms of time, watched empires swell and rot. Your world? An insignificant speck in the vastness of the universe. Your species? Flimsier than smoke. You puny humans only know how to crawl from the mud to devour each other over shallow trinkets and territory.”
You swallow thickly, flinching hard as your back brushes against the wall close to the front door.
You don’t even remember moving.
“Okay,” you mumble, your voice still uneven. “Someone’s a little too full of themself.”
A thunderous roar crashes through your skull, pain exploding behind your eyes so suddenly that your vision blurs around the edges.
A sharp gasp tears from your throat as you double over, your body folding in on itself before you can stop it. Your hands fly to your head, fingers digging into the skin of your temples as your eyes squeeze shut against the pounding agony.
“I only speak the truth. I am eternal, and your defiance is inconvenient. Remember, human: if I wish to, I could bend you into nothingness before your heart finishes its next beat.”
The temperature of the room drops below zero. Biting cold wraps around you so viciously that it feels as though warmth has been erased from existence.
A violent shiver runs through you, and your arms promptly wrap around your torso in a futile attempt to make yourself smaller, safer, somehow less exposed to its wrath.
The threat itself should sound ridiculous, the sort of thing a comic book villain would say before getting punched through a building. Yet what’s frightening is the certainty burning beneath its voice.
An uncomfortable, deafening silence settles over the room, before the voice comes back quieter—almost timid.
“I have frightened you.” It sighs wearily. “Your fear is bitter. Forgive me. I often forget how small your hearts are, how fragile your existence can be.”
The cold begins to retreat, slowly loosening its grip on your body until you can feel your fingers again. The pressure squeezing your throat eases with it, and you quickly draw in a breath, gasping as if you have been forced under water.
You don’t answer. Instead your eyes close briefly, and inside your head you keep repeating that this is only a dream.
It has to be.
Dreams can be terrifying.
Dreams can feel real.
Dreams can make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
“I apologize. I am not used to... converse with humans.”
The explanation is absurd. Completely ridiculous. Sure, people do that too. They make themselves louder and hostile, more intimidating. They show their teeth because they are afraid to get bitten first.
But it’s difficult to be terrified of something while simultaneously understanding it.
“I would not harm another being, unless strictly necessary. Like Tony.”
There is a beat of silence after that, the kind that feels like waiting for a clarification.
Your eyelids slowly flutter open.
“Tony?” Your brows furrow in confusion.
“Yes.”
Your stomach drops. “I—Tony is my boss.”
“I am aware.”
That answer does absolutely nothing to make you feel better. Still, a weak, tired chuckle falls from your lips, the sound still sitting on the edge of disbelief.
“Well,” your voice wavers. “Next time you want to show off, try to be a little less... intense.”
There is a pause that lasts just long enough to feel like the conversation might actually end there.
“I will…” It rumbles. “Little star.”
You blink.
For a moment you genuinely wonder whether you heard it correctly. Of all the things it could have said, that had not even crossed your mind as a possibility.
“What?” You ask uncertainly.
“You are smaller than me,” it starts calmly. “And you shine the brightest when surrounded by darkness.”
The words hit you like a punch in the stomach, because that name feels like it was always meant for you—like this weird creature has spent some unknowable amount of time observing the universe until it reached the conclusion that you deserved your own little place inside it.
“And so you just… decided to call me that?” You say slowly, staring blankly at the wall.
“Yes.”
The answer arrives with complete confidence.
Your eyes scan the space again: the walls are still up, the furniture remains exactly where you left it, the front door is only a few feet away if you decide to make a run for it. However, now they all sit beside the crushing knowledge that you have never been truly alone in what you considered your safe haven.
And yet, despite the trembling in your hands and the excruciating headache, the apartment has never felt this warm.
After that night, the voice doesn’t appear on a schedule you can trace, and it doesn’t behave like something that interrupts your life so much as something that exists alongside you, its presence filling the apartment as naturally as sunlight through an open window.
Eventually you resign yourself to the fact that if this is real, then it has always been real. The Entity has existed beyond the edges of your perception all along, tucked into the shadows while you moved through your life unaware.
You are not discovering something new. You are simply learning how to share your home with a creature whose ego is, unfortunately, backed by evidence.
Strangely, that realization no longer feels like you’re losing your sanity. Every appearance still sends a jolt through you though, even when you start anticipating it. The jolts finally become sighs, the sighs fade into pauses... And then, somehow, they turn into full conversations.
“Allow me to intervene.”
The words emerge from nowhere and everywhere at once, threading through the sound of running water.
Your reaction is calmer than it would have been a month ago.
Pausing with a glass still slippery beneath layers of soap, you glance at the counter.
A deep exhale escapes your nose. “That’s not what I meant when I said Pierce should stop being an asshole.”
The silence that follows feels thoughtful.
“He deserves it.”
The certainty in its tone immediately tells you that this conversation is going to leave you with a migraine.
You slowly set the glass aside and reach for another.
“No, he doesn’t.”
“He repeatedly enters the apartments without warning despite causing distress to their occupants. He ignores maintenance requests. He raises the rent while refusing to fix anything. He is unpleasant.” It growls at last.
You stare at the sink deadpan, because the worst part is that none of those observations are technically wrong.
“You still don’t get to decide what happens to my landlord.”
“You have developed a habit of assuming the worst about me, little star.” The response almost sounds offended.
“Last week you wanted to fold the mail carrier into another dimension because he bent one of my packages.”
“He damaged your property.”
“He dropped it because he nearly tripped carrying three other boxes.” You remark tiredly.
“Then he accepted more than he was capable of transporting!” It snaps.
Your eyes close, and for a moment you simply stand there with your hands submerged in warm water, wondering whether anyone else in human history has ever had to explain proportional responses to a cosmic entity living inside their apartment walls.
“You can’t solve everything with violence.”
“At least my ways are effective.”
The tone is so childish that something dangerously close to a laugh threatens to escape you. You barely suppress it, unwilling to give the Entity the satisfaction.
The last thing you want is to encourage it.
“You’re missing the point.” You sigh.
“And your landlord is disruptive.” It retorts, returning to the original topic with persistence. “I remove disruption.”
A month ago, that statement would have sent ice flooding through your veins, now it makes you tired. Concerned, certainly; still mildly horrified. But mostly tired.
You noticed pretty quickly that the creature inhabiting the darkness has apparently divided existence into two simple categories: things that bring you comfort, and things that do not.
And whenever something falls into the second category, it immediately begins offering solutions.
Usually terrible ones.
You still can’t fully comprehend what it is and what it wants from you, yet you don’t reject it anymore, choosing instead to adjust yourself around it the same way people learn to coexist with eccentric roommates, noisy plumbing, or old neighbors with weird habits. But speaking more carefully than you used to has become necessary. Not because you are afraid of being overheard—you passed that stage weeks ago—but because the Entity is always listening, hungrily waiting for the slightest excuse to make itself useful.
The first time you muttered that a coworker was making you want to disappear, it was so concerned that it spent thirty minutes trying to understand whether your desire to “cease existing” was literal. Then you made the mistake of joking about your neighbor’s barking dog, and it calmly informed you that silence could be arranged...
Spending hours explaining hyperbole to a being older than galaxies had not gone particularly well, so now you think twice before speaking. You also avoid idle threats and clarify complains before they can be interpreted as instructions.
In addition to not knowing how human language works, it becomes clear that the Entity also doesn’t understand the concept of privacy. Or perhaps it understands it perfectly well and simply sees no reason to respect it.
You are still trying to determine which possibility is worse.
Thursday has been peaceful so far. Tony hasn’t started any new scandal that requires damage control, and Pierce hasn’t called asking for more money to deal with the umpteenth gas leak.
Yet by the time you finally make it home, exhaustion sits heavily in your muscles—the kind that accumulates steadily over hours spent hunched over a desk, attending meetings that should not exist and dealing with your boss’ particular talent for creating problems out of nothing.
The apartment is quiet when you step inside.
After abandoning your heels somewhere near the entrance, you drag yourself to the bedroom with the same determination of someone whose social battery has been completely annihilated. All you want is to change into something comfortable, eat whatever requires the least amount of effort to prepare, and spend the rest of the evening watching some trashy reality show.
The peaceful silence follows you as you set your bag on the floor and begin pulling your blouse over your head.
“This level of exhaustion is unacceptable.”
A startled yelp escapes your lips as you jerk backwards, immediately yanking the blouse back down.
For one humiliating moment, you are left standing in the middle of the room, tangled in fabric.
“Jesus Christ.” Your hand presses against your sternum.
The apartment remains perfectly calm.
“You scared me.”
“I did not intend to.”
“Yeah, I know.” You let out a weary sigh. “You never intend to.”
Finally pulling the blouse off, you throw it toward the laundry basket with significantly more force than necessary.
The Entity says nothing for what feels like forever, so your eyes narrow at a random corner.
“Were you just... watching me?”
The question leaves your mouth before you can stop it, and the silence that follows stretches long enough to make you squirm uncomfortably.
“You returned home forty-three minutes later than usual. You removed your shoes after entering, yet consumed no food despite having done so at the same time during the last three days. And your shoulders have remained incredibly tense since you arrived.”
You promptly let them relax, suddenly self-conscious of your posture.
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It was.” The creature sounds genuinely puzzled. “You asked whether I was observing you.”
Technically, that’s a logical answer, but it doesn’t make having a pair of monstrous eyes tracking your every movement with unwavering attention any less unsettling.
“You really keep track of all that?” You eventually ask, almost shyly.
“My attention is always upon you.”
The response arrives with such simple certainty that it makes the next words die on your tongue, leaving you frozen in the middle of your bedroom.
This thing has existed for an amount of time you cannot begin to comprehend. It notices things. It remembers things. It pays attention in a way that humans generally do not. And the reminder sends a strange heat crawling beneath your skin.
Suddenly, you are being hit with a feeling of disquiet at being so exposed.
“He should not be allowed to exhaust you like this.”
“No.” It falls from your lips before the conversation can continue.
“No?”
“No. Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.”
“You cannot know what I am thinking.”
“Oh yeah? So it has nothing to do with taking care of Tony?” You mock its gravelly voice.
Another pause.
“You know me so well.” It sounds almost pleased.
Sinking onto the edge of the bed, you rub a hand over your face.
“Please, stop trying to find a reason to kill my boss.”
“I was not offering to kill him.”
Relief immediately floods your chest.
“Oh.” You tilt your head, positively surprised.
Maybe all those evenings spent teaching the Entity how to behave more like a human and less like one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are finally paying off.
“I would only harm him.”
Your face falls instantly.
“God, can you just stop talking?”
“It is significantly better.”
“No.”
“It is objectively better.”
You let out a long groan, covering your face with both hands.
“Why do you always bring him up?”
“I was simply stating an observation.”
You scoff, removing your jewelry with far more energy than the action itself requires. “You always make observations right before suggesting violence.”
“I do not always suggest violence.”
The statement is delivered with enough dignity that you almost believe it.
“You suggested throwing an officer into the ocean because he gave me a ticket.”
“He was incorrect.”
Your eyes close in irritation. “You suggested relocating my upstairs neighbor because she vacuumed once at six in the morning.”
“Sunday is the only day you are permitted to sleep in.”
“You spent three days trying to convince me my internet provider is a hostile entity.” Your voice gradually rises, and the apartment slips into complete silence.
“Little star,” the Entity starts slowly. “The service they provide is unacceptable.”
You curse the day you decided to explain how technology and the internet work to this relentless, stubborn creature.
“That’s not the point.” You say through clenched teeth.
The room grows quiet again and you know it is genuinely attempting to understand something that refuses to fit within its understanding of reality.
When it speaks again, the question sounds sincere.
“Why is Tony different?”
You let your head fall back with a sigh.
As much as its insistence and anger management issues drive you insane, you always need to remind yourself it is truly interested in how your mind works.
“He isn’t different,” the words are no louder than a murmur, your body sagging slightly as irritation drains away. “People are just allowed to be annoying. That’s part of the human experience.”
You can practically feel the disagreement radiating off the walls.
“That seems inefficient.” It frets.
A chuckle escapes you before you can stop it, still low but entirely genuine.
“Maybe it is.” You shrug.
“You dedicate a surprising degree of creativity to insulting him.”
“Because he frustrates me.”
“He makes you unhappy.”
“Hm, sometimes.” You nod.
“He increases your stress.”
“Yes.”
“You dread interacting with him.”
You hesitate for a second. “Well, only when he sends me to drag angry women out of his penthouse at nine in the morning.”
“Then I fail to understand why removing the problem is unacceptable.”
There it is—the same impossible logic it always returns to.
Everything else stops mattering the moment it involves you, so when something upsets you, it should be immediately addressed. The conclusion is predictable by now: anything causing you discomfort simply shouldn’t be allowed to continue existing. That’s the entire structure of its reasoning, there is no room for improvement or compromise.
For a few seconds neither of you speaks.
Then, very carefully, as though explaining something to a particularly intelligent but catastrophically misguided dog, “Harming my boss won’t fix my anxiety. And you really need to stop with the whole splitting people into categories based on whether they annoy me or not.”
The silence lingers, but you have learned enough about the creature by now to recognize when it is really considering your words.
“There are additional categories?”
This time you cannot help it—you burst out laughing, the sound brightening the room, loud and alive.
“Yes, you silly creature.” You breathe out, still smiling. “There are additional categories.”
Somewhere within the walls, the Entity appears to spend the rest of the night reevaluating its understanding of interpersonal conflict. You are not entirely sure the lesson will stick. Still, it feels like progress.
When your eyes snap open, the frantic pounding of your heartbeat is the only thing you can hear. You find yourself disoriented, small but stubborn fragments of the nightmare still clinging to you.
There was a corridor that seemed to stretch forever, doors opening one after another into empty darkness, and the overwhelming certainty that something was following just out of sight. The details fade almost immediately, but the fear lingers heavy in your chest.
“You are not alone.”
The rumbling voice cuts through the eerie silence out of nowhere, nearly making you jump out of your skin.
Your body goes completely still as for one awful second, fantasy and reality blur together. Then, fear shifts into exasperation so quickly it makes you faintly nauseous.
“It was a dream.” You whisper to yourself, pressing a hand over your eyes.
“Yes.” The answer comes immediately.
You let out a long breath, instinctively reaching for the lamp on your nightstand. Light has always helped after bad dreams. It gives your eyes something solid to land on so you can breathe a little easier; something ordinary enough to remind you that whatever was haunting you belonged to the deepest pits of your unconsciousness.
Before your fingers can touch the switch though, the temperature in the room drops slightly and the lamp clicks on by itself. You stare at it blankly, before glancing up at the ceiling.
“Have you been in my bedroom this whole time?”
When the answer arrives, it carries a note of confusion.
“I am always with you.”
You instinctively pull the sheets closer around yourself.
“Hm, not really comforting.”
“I simply illuminated the room.”
“That’s not what I was talking about.” The words come out feebly, as though they were meant just for you.
The pensive silence that follows suggests it is trying to work out what you meant anyway. Eventually, it steers the conversation towards something it deems far more important than your discomfort at its incessant hovering.
“You were in distress.”
A chill crawls across your skin despite the warmth of the blankets.
“It was just a dream.” You dismiss as your eyes drop to your quilt.
“You have experienced similar dreams repeatedly.”
“What do you mean repeatedly?” You instantly look up.
“You have experienced seven variations of the same fear pattern within the last month.”
You frown at the wall in front of you.
“You remember them all?”
“Of course.”
You are not entirely sure what unsettles you more: the fact that the Entity has somehow found its way into your dreams, or the fact that it has categorized them so analytically.
“It was a nightmare.” You swallow eventually.
“Yes.”
“But you don’t have to do anything about it.”
“I disagree.”
Of course it does.
You rub your eyes in exhaustion. “Everyone has nightmares once in a while.”
“You are not everyone. I do not care about everyone.” The word is thrown out in disgust. “And you were terrified, that’s enough for me to intervene.”
Your head falls back against the headrest with a dull noise. “It wasn’t real.”
“It still scared you.” It insists.
The simple logic behind its reasoning is incredibly annoying, because there is no easy way to argue with it. The distinction between reality and dreams seems irrelevant to a higher entity—fear is still fear.
“What was chasing you?”
You immediately regret answering any questions at all, hoping that lying on your side will implicitly communicate the conversation is over.
“Nothing.”
“What was behind the door?”
“Nothing.”
“Your heartbeat was dangerously fast when you remembered.”
You pull the blanket higher and settle deeper into the mattress, ready to ignore it.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
The response is so quick your eyelids flutter open again.
The Entity releases a sigh. “You return home exhausted. You experience distress during sleep, and it lingers long after you wake up. I do not understand why you insist these things are insignificant.”
The sincerity behind its words makes it unexpectedly difficult to swallow.
You know it’s not asking out of mere curiosity, or to eventually use your own fears against you for some hidden purpose. It genuinely cares about you, but not in any way that gives you space from it. Its attention doesn’t arrive and withdraw; it persists, clinging to you with a kind of obsessive inevitability. It feels less like being observed and more like being suffocated—a desperate grip around your throat that won’t loosen even when you need oxygen.
That attention has begun to register as pressure inside your nervous system, a second current running beneath your own reactions. As though it is already anticipating where you will move, what you will feel, what will unsettle you... and meeting you halfway.
Under the apparent reverence lies something far more obstinate: a deep, unwavering hunger to possess you. It craves to reach past what you can recognize as yourself, following you beneath language, control, and into the parts of you where emotion arises before it becomes yours to name—until even the boundary between what you truly feel and what you want to show is blurred.
“Because not everything needs to be fixed.” You ultimately sigh.
“Why?”
Your eyes close in resignation at the question that the Entity keeps asking since manifesting itself to you. It sounds so plain and obvious until you try to look for an answer that actually makes sense, devoid of useless excuses.
“Because sometimes people are just tired, and that can cause bad dreams. It’s called stress and it’s normal.”
The quiet that follows stretches long enough that you hope the conversation has finally reached an end.
“What was behind the door?”
You let out a groan. “Jesus Christ.”
“Little star—”
“Goodnight.” You exclaim loudly enough to cut directly across whatever question was coming next.
Several seconds pass and your body gradually melts against the mattress, your chest finally deflating with a relieved sigh.
“Goodnight.”
A pause follows.
“I am always here. You may inform me if the dream returns.”
You bury your face deeper into the pillow.
“I won’t.” It comes out muffled.
“I would still like to know.”
You gesture blindly toward the ceiling.
“Goodnight.”
The lamp switches itself off.
Several days pass after the nightmare conversation without incident, which should probably be reassuring. Instead, it leaves you vaguely suspicious, because you have already learned that silence doesn’t necessarily mean absence. More often than not, it simply means the Entity has decided to not comment on whatever it is currently observing.
You are cooking dinner when it manifests. Or well, attempting to cook dinner, which is definitely not the same thing. The recipe is open on your phone, and the ingredients are technically correct. Whether the final result will be edible remains to be seen.
The water has finally begun to boil and you are standing in front of the stove trying to remember whether the smoked salmon goes in before or after the tomato sauce, when the familiar baritone drifts through the kitchen as if commenting on the weather.
“You should not consume that.” It throws off-handedly.
You stop stirring altogether, your eyes still fixed on the sauce before slowly turning to the empty kitchen.
“What?”
“The nutritional value is poor.”
You can only blink. Being criticized by an ancient being for your dinner choices... Not everyone gets to put that on their résumé.
“You don’t even eat.”
“Correct.”
“Then how do you know what’s good for me?” You squint accusingly.
“I have observed your species.”
The spoon returns to the pan and you continue stirring, determined to not encourage it. Unfortunately, that strategy stopped working after the third day.
“You consume insufficient vegetables.”
A sigh escapes you. “Stop.”
“It is the truth.”
“We’re not having this discussion now.”
“You purchased zucchini and carrots three days ago and have yet to consume them.”
Your wrist stills. Scarily slowly, you lower the utensil onto the spoon rest, and look at the wall with challenge burning hot in your eyes.
“You know what’s concerning about that sentence?” You cross your arms to your chest.
“The fact that you know when I bought them.”
“You not consuming the vegetables.” It speaks over you.
“Oh my God,” you snap as you sharply turn toward the empty kitchen. “Are you my roommate and nutritionist now?”
Silence follows, and you hope it has finally run out of opinions.
“Roommate is… acceptable classification.”
You freeze at its reply, because it suddenly dawns on you the mistake you just made. You decide to play it cool though, and turn back to the pan to resume stirring, your movements now a little more sluggish than before.
“That wasn’t an invitation, by the way.” You clear your throat awkwardly after a while.
No response comes. At least, not verbally. The flame beneath the pan flares a little higher before settling again, not enough to affect the cooking but just enough to feel deliberate.
You frown at it, annoyed at the fact that this Lord of the Darkness-wannabe officially considers itself a member of the household now, and you are the only one to blame for that.
“You should also sleep more.”
Your shoulders slump in defeat.
The conversation had been going so well.
“I sleep plenty.” You argue.
“You averaged five hours and forty-one minutes over the last seven days.”
The spoon nearly slips from your hand.
“Can you stop tracking my sleeping habits?” Your voice drips with indignation.
“You are tired.” It retorts at once. “Tired humans make poorer dietary decisions.”
“Who isn’t in this day and age?”
“Well, you are more tired than most people.” It barks back, agitated.
You are beginning to suspect that the Entity’s only hobby is monitoring your wellbeing with a level of dedication that borders on the absurd—and absolutely no sense of when to mind its own business.
Maybe you should introduce it to birdwatching next.
It becomes obvious that it also reacts to the people surrounding you. Not in anything you could immediately point to as proof, but small inconveniences cluster around certain names, voices, intrusions that are not physically present in the apartment and yet somehow seem to have been catalogued all the same.
At first you tell yourself it must be a series of coincidences.
A delayed train to go back home for Thanksgiving, forcing you to text your family that you won’t make it. A rooftop bar reservation that gets cancelled just as you’re getting ready to leave—the kind of place you were going to with old friends who insisted it was “important to catch up properly.” Plans with people you actually like quietly unraveling at the edges, and conversations turning into vague reschedules that never settle into anything concrete, leaving your evenings empty at home.
The pattern becomes harder to ignore.
You finally connect the dots thanks to Steve.
You’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks, nothing serious yet, though that feels less and less accurate when your evenings keep turning into phone calls that stretch far longer than either of you originally intended.
It’s late in the afternoon and you are talking to him while tidying the living room, the conversation drifting effortlessly as you gradually stop dusting and end up leaning against the couch, your cheeks hurting from how much you have been smiling.
Dating comes easy with someone as sweet and kind as Steve. You always feel a little lighter after spending time with him.
Perhaps that’s why he becomes an obstacle to remove.
“... and then she told me I should apologize to her cat.”
You chuckle. “What? Why?”
“Apparently me stating I have a dog offended him.”
After your laugh fades, your mouth parts to answer with a story of your own about disastrous first dates, when the call abruptly ends.
It doesn’t crackle, it simply cuts off. One moment Steve is speaking, the next there is silence.
You check the screen with astonishment written all over your face, and sure enough there is only your wallpaper staring back at you.
Your stomach twists with a familiar, uncomfortable feeling.
Slowly, you lower the phone, and that’s when it registers that the apartment has been quiet for a while.
Too quiet.
“That puny boy is annoying.”
Your brow lifts skeptically. Steve Rogers is many things, but “puny boy” is definitely not the first word that comes to mind when talking about him. The man has shoulders that deserve their own zip code.
You huff out a weary breath. “What did you do this time?”
“I ended the interaction.”
The answer is tinted with poorly concealed smugness, not a single attempt to hide what it has done—and it’s that stupid brashness wrapped in the arrogant conviction of always being right, that makes fury flare in your chest.
Your grip tightens around your phone.
“I noticed.” You smile caustically. “Care are to explain why?”
“The call had continued long beyond necessity.”
The scoff leaves your mouth before you can stop it. “Since when do you decide what is necessary in my relationships?”
“The puny human was occupying your attention.”
“We were having a conversation.” You state tartly.
“You have many conversations.”
“So what?”
“They occur too frequently.”
You blink at the wall, utterly flabbergasted by its impudence.
“Are you kidding me?” You chuckle drily, no traces of humor in it. “You were jealous of Steve and—and your solution was to violate my privacy and go through my fucking phone?”
Your arms rise in a gesture of helpless disbelief, only to drop again by your sides a second later. “What are you? Six?”
“He occupies a disproportionate amount of your time.”
“I like him.” You fire back.
“He is temporary.”
The answer comes out as a roar that makes you flinch instantly. Anger evaporates, leaving behind a cold, hollow feeling beneath your ribs.
“He is temporary.” The Entity repeats calmly this time, as if the statement has already been settled rather than offered for discussion. “You have known him for weeks.”
There is a brief pause before it continues—still unhurried, still confident in its presumption.
“I have known you longer.”
The words are final in a way that doesn’t invite contradiction.
The dreadful realization that this fragile boundary between you had been crumbling day after day without you noticing makes it impossible to keep your voice steady.
“You don’t get to decide who matters to me.”
The apartment shifts—not physically, or visibly—but it feels like the air has suddenly reoriented toward the sound of your voice.
“I do not decide who matters to you.”
A pause follows, strategic.
“I only decide what enters my domain.”
The apartment is not a place it inhabits, but a condition that defines what can be present within it. And for the first time, the implication is not about Steve at all, or any of the other people the Entity has quietly pushed to the edges of your life.
It’s about you.
“This apartment is not your domain.” You swallow, forcing the trembling out of your words.
“It contains you.”
Your stomach churns so harshly you feel like vomiting at how completely unremarkable the Entity seems to find its reasoning.
There is something profoundly unsettling about its inability to separate you from the spaces you occupy, the people you interact with, or the things that demand your attention. Everything collapses into the same category, tied together by the simple fact that it exists in relation to you, and therefore falls under the quiet assumption that it has the right to interfere.
And judging by the calm confidence in its voice, it’s a belief that has been festering in the background for a very long time, undisturbed. As though the boundary between what it assumes and what you are has never been particularly solid to begin with.
Your grip on the phone hardens until your fingers ache against its hard edges.
“You can’t sabotage every relationship I have.”
“That assumes they were ever stable to begin with.”
There was never anything meaningful enough to protect in the first place, only shifting connections that held for a while or failed on their own terms. And yet your life has been reshaped so nothing ever keeps you away for long, every little detail arranged so the roots of its sick devotion can sink deeper and deeper into your existence until eventually you’ll stop leaving.
You are living your days bounded by a mere, temporary concession of freedom, because the Entity has already gathered what serves its purpose.
The rest is nothing but a speck of dust meant to aimlessly wander across the vastness of the universe.
It’s a system that you reject but now find yourself placed inside regardless. The center of it all.
It’s the day you meet with Wanda that you really understand how deep the Entity’s visceral attachment to you goes.
Your friend comes over on a Saturday afternoon after several weeks of failed attempts to meet up. The visit is long overdue, and you spend most of it moving between rooms while talking about work, mutual friends’ life updates, and whatever gossip has accumulated since the last time you saw each other.
For the first hour everything feels normal enough that you almost forget about the presence woven through the concrete. You are halfway through making coffee when the conversation stops abruptly. At first you assume Wanda is checking her phone, but the silence feels unnatural.
When you step out of the kitchen, you find her standing near the entrance with an expression you cannot immediately identify.
She is confused, almost distracted—the way people look when they walk into a room with purpose only to forget why.
“Wanda?”
She blinks as if woken up by a dream, instantly meeting your worried gaze.
“Hm?”
You frown. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” The answer comes a little too quickly as she nods frantically.
Her gaze then drifts upward again, lingering on the ceiling for a moment before returning to you.
She titters as she lightly shakes her head. “This is going to sound stupid.”
An unpleasant sensation tugs at your chest.
“What is?” You ask thinly.
Wanda’s lips open and close once, as if something is holding her back.
“Do you ever feel like someone’s… watching you?”
For a second your heart forgets how to beat, but you eventually manage a strangled laugh.
“No?” The word sounds more like a question than an answer.
“It’s not bad,” she clarifies apprehensively. “I don’t know how to explain it. It just feels like…” She trails off, shrugging at last. “Like there’s someone else here.”
You stare at her and Wanda stares back for a quiet, uncomfortable minute, before her eyes briefly land on the cups waiting on the table, and everything is forgotten.
But your friend’s laugh is less loud, shorter. Her attention keeps wandering, and more than once you catch her glancing at empty corners as though she expects something to be standing there.
She leaves nearly an hour earlier than planned.
The excuse she gives you sounds legitimate. The timing does not.
You stand on the threshold long after she disappears down the hallway before slowly closing the door, your forehead briefly resting on the wooden surface as you let out a tired sigh.
“You dislike her.”
You roll your eyes, straightening up. “You’re slipping. Wanda is one of my closest friends.”
“Your interactions are infrequent.”
“We’ve known each other for eight years,” you reply promptly, a faint edge to your voice now. “We don’t need to talk every day for our friendship to be real.”
The Entity’s voice is pensive. “She occupies little of your time.”
“Again, that’s not how friendship works.” You huff, busying yourself with the dirty cups on the table.
“Proximity is important.”
You let out a short, disbelieving breath.
“Friendship isn’t defined by how often someone is physically or temporally close to me.”
“Yours is an inconsistent system, then.” It concludes and you let the cups fall into the sink with a loud clank.
“What exactly is your criteria for liking people?” This time the question is not tinted with accusation so much as worn down into something closer to fatigue. You turn around, this time directly staring at the wall.
Arguing definitions with something that doesn’t operate like a human being is starting to feel pointless.
The answer takes longer this time.
“Not believing in the arrogant presumption that they could take you away from me. The delusion that something so small, so transient, could ever lay claim to what is mine is preposterous.” It states at last.
In some distant, irrational corner of your mind, the words feel familiar enough to not shock you anymore. But the clinical insolence, and how strongly it believes it has the right to make such a claim, is revolting.
It simply exists in it the way breath exists in you, natural and unquestioned.
You exhale sharply, jaw tightening as your teeth press hard enough to ache.
“And what makes you think you have any claim over me at all?” The words come out strained, held together by effort rather than control.
The silence that follows presses into your skin like the walls have leaned in a fraction closer.
The answer has always been in front of you, it’s only a matter of when you will surrender to it.
Some tv series you picked up days ago and barely remember choosing plays at low volume on the television. The voices rising and falling should be comforting, but their rhythm isn’t quite landing anywhere inside you. You still keep your gaze on the scene out of habit, hoping that alone might eventually turn into genuine engagement.
You have been repeating that to yourself for almost two hours.
You shift on the couch once, then again almost immediately after. Your shoulders settle, then lift. Your back presses into the cushions and then pulls away, searching for a version of contact that actually feels like it belongs to you.
Everything is technically fine—the room is warm, the couch is comfortable, the apartment quiet except for the show—but your skin feels strangely hot, too aware of itself, like it can’t stop registering the absence of something your brain refuses to name directly.
You cross your arms loosely, then uncross them again just to feel something brush against your hardened nipples under your camisole. The strong urge to have something hard and definite pressed against your body instead of this drifting tension that never fully resolves, is driving you mad.
Your thighs press together without much thought—a slow, instinctive squeeze that makes your breath hitch when you remember you haven’t worn anything underneath in hopes of getting some sort of stimulation against your clit.
It ends up being a useless attempt to soothe the arousal, because it only sharpens the need to take care of the ache in your core.
You let your leg bounce once against the couch cushion, then still it, then start again a moment later.
The Entity has altered your life completely. Privacy is no longer a clean boundary, but something porous that breathes back. It has turned upside-down the way you exist inside your own space, despite your earlier belief that you could simply ignore it and carry on as usual.
Some nights the fire licking at your insides becomes too unbearable, but a part of you keeps pulling back at the last second—the sole idea of being fully exposed to its monstrous eyes while having a dildo plunging in and out of your pussy makes your guts contort with shame.
Your mental health is on the line, because it leaves you suspended in this strange, unnerving state—restless, alert, never fully grounded in anything else.
So your body keeps searching for relief in innocent motions.
You shift again, sinking deeper into the couch, then slide slightly forward. One arm presses into your side and your breath catches once, shallow and unexpected.
The television continues without caring whether you’re following it or not. A scene changes. A line of dialogue lands but leaves no imprint.
After a while, you stop trying.
Your attention slips away from the screen entirely as your hand instinctively reaches for your phone on the coffee table. The cushions dip as you shift your weight again, abandoning any effort at sitting properly.
You lie down, hoping to find a little comfort in a less rigid position. One leg lifts and settles over the back of the couch while the other bends a little, enough to plant your foot securely on the soft cushions.
Instagram feeds you fragments of other people’s lives: house tours, obnoxious laughter, delicious recipes, cleaning reels, captions you don’t read all the way through. Your thumb moves automatically, pulling you further down the stream.
It seems to work, finally granting you some sort of reprieve, until a sharp gasp claws out of your throat.
The room sinks into darkness as the TV screen goes black, but the shock is soon replaced by a thrill of fear as something brushes your ankle. It’s a slick, cold contact that makes you flinch violently. When you look down, your vision catches on movement that doesn’t belong in the geometry of the room, emerging from beneath the couch as if the floor itself has opened to grant it access.
Your limbs stay frozen as oxygen gets stuck in your throat. Your eyes lock on the tentacle, wide and unblinking, because looking away means potentially giving it the chance to attack you.
Your voice is shaking with worry when you decide to ask for help.
“Please tell me this your doing.”
The Entity answers immediately, the sound not arriving from any clear direction.
“Yes, that is mine. You do not need to worry.”
Your shoulders relax at once.
“What the hell happened to you?” You frown, because your brain reaches for the closest thing it can tolerate. “Did you turn into the kraken all of a sudden?”
The subtle recoil from the tentacle somehow reads as disdain.
“That insignificant squid with delusions of grandeur?” It growls, voice dripping with contempt. “Don’t lump me with that drooling, crude imitation ever again.”
Despite the shock still lingering, you snicker at the pure pique in its words.
You hum, shaking your head slightly. “My bad, Squidward.”
With a loud squeal, you find yourself dragged down until you’re fully lying on your back again, this time both of your thighs bent and spread open by two tentacles tightly wrapped around your ankles that keep you still and exposed.
“Quiet.”
Your heartbeat rings loudly in your ears. “Not my fault you decided to go all octopus on me.” You choke out, a mix of excitement and anticipation swirling wildly in your lower belly.
“That is because I know you enjoy it.”
Oh, you knew that tentacle-shaped dildo in the back of your closet would come back to bite you in the ass some day.
“Okay!” You loudly draw the word out, already feeling a familiar heat crawl up your neck. “Care to explain what exactly is going on?”
“You are not stable.”
Your left eyebrow lifts in perplexity at the ceiling. “Excuse me?”
“I feel your restlessness.” It hums. “It gets stronger day after day. Something is bothering you.”
You frown. “So?”
“I know what it is that makes you fidget like a little, frightened bunny.” Your eyes widen. “And I can help you.”
That earns it a short, disbelieving chortle.
“Jesus Christ,” you drag a hand over your face. “Okay, I—I can’t believe I’m really going to say it.” You mutter to yourself.
“Whatever, okay. Let’s see what you got, big guy, since you apparently have all the answers—oh.”
Two other tentacles peek out from under the couch, thicker than the ones wrapped around your ankles. You can’t really tell their color—perhaps a shade close to dark teal, bordering on black—the only source of light being the moon shining through the open curtains and the weak glow of the city lights in the distance.
Surely, being spread open by your filthiest fantasy is not helping you keep a clear head.
The two curious appendages stop by your stomach to kiss the soft skin with gentle caresses through the flimsy fabric of your camisole. Your breath catches in your throat when the tips teasingly graze your turgid nubs, but before a pathetic plea can fall from your lips, they wrap around your wrists to slowly guide both arms over your head.
Their hold is firm but not brutish as they keep them anchored against the cushion.
“What—” The word fades into a soft gasp as two thinner tentacles slide up your legs before trailing under the hem of your camisole.
“You constantly squeeze your thighs. I am simply helping you soothe the ache.”
Your eyes roll back at the simple yet suggestive explanation, your mouth forming a perfect circle as each one of the appendages finally takes hold of your breasts, their tips flicking your erected nipples with slow, sensual motions.
“You are… delightful to touch.”
“Thanks?” You frown in mild confusion, already panting from the playful touches against your tits.
“And beautiful.” It contemplates almost absently. “For a puny human, you have a stunning body.”
“You sure know how to woo a girl.” You answer drily, huffing out a strained chuckle.
“I apologize. I am not quite acquainted with this.”
“This as in… ?”
“Sex.”
Your eyes widen, before a sly smirk brightens your features. “Are you saying that me—a lowly, puny human—is going to take the big, mean kraken’s virginity?”
“Stop associating me with that unintelligent abomination!” The voice roars disgusted, a new tentacle lightly smacking your thigh. “I am a cosmic entity. And sex is a foreign concept to us: we do not reproduce, nor feel the need to pleasure ourselves.”
Your witty answer falls short when small, hard suction cups graze your clit through the light fabric of your shorts. The movement prompts you to thrust your hips up, and the tentacle responds in earnest, steadying itself to allow you to hump its surface as more tentacles slither up to rub your hips.
It exhales shakily. “I would like to see it.”
“Hm?” You moan quietly, too lost into the heavenly, throbbing sensation in your core to pay attention.
“This curious, warm spot.” The tentacle against your clit twitches. “Your hidden treasure. Its smell is celestial whenever you wake up sweaty and whimpering in the middle of the night, my little star. Did you know that? Did you know how hard it is to ignore your pretty, little cries?”
You whimper at the raw need in its voice. “You mean my pussy? I’m all yours, honey.”
It seems to appreciate your answer since the tentacles restraining your limbs immediately tighten their hold on you.
“Your clothes are in the way.”
“Let go of my wrists for a s—” The sound of fabric tearing leaves you gaping.
When you glance down, you immediately catch two thick tentacles releasing the ruined fabric of your camisole. It now hangs pathetically by the short sleeves around your shoulders. The appendages already teasing your breasts can finally move across your naked chest, patiently yet freely. You can’t prevent the loud moan that claws out of your throat at the lewd sight of those two slimy limbs wrapped around your tits, prompting you to push your chest into their touch.
You toss your head back when the suction cups finally attach themselves to your nubs, steadily sucking on it. It’s not entirely similar to a human mouth, not only because of the texture borders on rubbery, but also because of their colder temperature that feels surprisingly pleasant against your stiff nipples.
A string of wanton sounds falls from your parted lips as they alternate gentle strokes to playful, harsher tugs that leave you gasping for more.
“May I?” It strains out, two tentacles slightly pulling at the hem of your shorts.
“Please.” You moan.
With a mere tug, the sides of your bottoms rip into two perfect halves, and the fabric is abandoned under your ass.
The tentacles holding your ankles finally spread your legs wider with an enthusiastic pull as every limit has finally been annihilated.
“Oh.”
You giggle at the amazed tilt in its voice.
“I have never seen anything like this before.”
You jolt as the cold tips of two thin, smaller tentacles unexpectedly brush against your inner thighs, lazily sliding forward until they take hold of your folds, parting them delicately as if afraid you might break.
“Your pussy is very pretty” It hums. “It is glistening.”
“Thank you.” You breathe out, still squirming at the stinging sensation of the tentacles playing with your chest.
Silence engulfs the space as the Entity stills you completely, admiring the way your core shines beautifully with the mess you made with your slick. The tentacles still trace your folds leisurely, enjoying the smooth, wet texture.
At some point, they start toying with your hole, letting their tip slowly breach it only for the creature to marvel at how it flutters in response. Furthering its inspection, the tip of an appendage kisses your clit, using some of your slick to get your nub wet.
You gasp as it rubs your arousal through your folds with slight pressure, prompting the Entity to release a low, unconscious hum. It is more than satisfied with the sloppy sounds that bounce off the walls along with your hushed whimpers.
As the strokes of its tentacles turn more intense, the urge to feel it inside you becomes utterly oppressive. You don’t know if it is trying to tease you relentlessly, or perhaps if the curiosity it feels towards your body is genuine, wishing to take its time to study your reactions—from your cute sounds to the way you tense and squirm under its tender touches.
“Sublime.” It whispers. You squeak in response, writhing in its firm hold.
“Settle down, my little star.” It grumbles. “I am going to give you what you have been craving very soon.”
You nod eagerly, a cry erupting from your throat as the other appendage puts more pressure on your throbbing clit, the suction cup following the example of the two tentacles abusing your nipples by steadily tightening and releasing your nub.
Despite its weird, unique texture, it still feels like a mouth suckling on your clit.
“Must you move so much?”
“It feels—” You almost choke on your own saliva. “So good.” Your eyes squeeze close.
“Oh, my darling. You are such a vision.”
Your hips attempt to chase the stimulation, yet there are other appendages already emerging from different sides of the couch to carefully wrap around every exposed inch of your body, until you are forced to lie spread and still for the Entity to turn you into its personal fucktoy.
“Fuck.” You whisper, panting at the pure display of dominance.
The fact that you are fully restrained and exposed for this unknown, powerful creature to do as it pleases should terrify you—considering the sick obsession for you it flaunts so proudly.
Yet here you are, pliant and eager for it to finally lose control and possess you.
“That is indeed what I plan to do with you, lovely.”
“Oh, please.” Your teeth sink into your bottom lip to unsuccessfully stop a shameless whine.
“You are an impatient little thing.” It chuckles eventually.
You would love to wipe the smugness out of its voice, see its tentacles flinch in disdain at another one of your silly nicknames, but then a smaller appendage joins the one that has been gently working on your clit and the two focus on two different rhythms, alternating quick, flicking motions to slow, intense sucks.
“Oh God.” You squeak, letting your head fall limp to the side.
“I could spend an eternity buried in your little treasure and still, it would not be enough.” The voice grunts. “Sing for me, my little star.”
All it takes is the suction cups on your nipples tugging at the sensitive flesh for you to come. Your climax is so intense that your mouth opens around a loud, raw moan, your vision momentarily fading out as your body attempts to arch into the wicked stimulation.
“Gorgeous.” It marvels. “I need more.”
Your eyes widen as your pussy is lavished with attention by several more tentacles tracing your folds, forcing you into that delicious state of perpetual pleasure.
With rapid and decisive movements, the Entity quickly drives you over the edge over and over again, leaving you flinching pathetically in its hold, your muscles tensing up so often that you feel a faint ache throbbing in your tendons.
The appendages on your breasts are still eager on your tender nipples, abusing them with their suckling motion and cruel flickers.
“Looking at you makes it difficult to believe anything else deserves attention, little star. I apologize but I will never tire of your sweet sounds. You are ravishing when you surrender to pleasure.”
“I can’t—” You sob, finally being granted a moment to breathe as a thin tentacle slides up your neck to catch the tears threatening to spill, lovingly stroking your cheeks and your damp forehead as you sniffle.
Your eyes briefly roll back as those two sneaky tentacles keep your clit wet and sensitive, electricity running through your veins as your hips hopelessly jerk against the Entity’s appendages trapping your lower half.
“Do you wish to stop, pretty thing?”
“No! No please.” You cry out, your eyes instantly snapping open. “Just—need you inside, please.” A mewl falls from your lips at the gentle pressure on your hole.
You briefly catch something moving in your peripheral vision, and when your head turns, your heart almost stops at the sight of a new, perfectly thick tentacle emerging solemnly from underneath the couch. Its bumps and ridges are far more numerous and prominent than the ones scattered across the others.
“I know you are fond of certain… sizes.”
You whine, before something crucial finally dawns on you.
“W—what’s your name?”
It seems taken aback. “My name…” It muses. “It is too difficult for humans to pronounce, little star.”
“What should I call you then?”
“For now,” you moan shamelessly at the sensation of being finally filled. “I want to hear you scream for me.”
The appendage works inside you, the ridges a pleasant addition as they stroke along your walls in a steady motion while it carefully feeds you of its length.
“More.” You whimper.
“Hm?”
“Give me more.” Crying out, your hips attempt to thrust up.
Huffing a chuckle, the Entity manifests a few smaller tentacles that carefully push inside you along the bigger one, each of them focusing on a new spot to rub. Your eyes cross in bliss at the incredible feeling of being so stretched. The fullness is almost absurd, to the point that you briefly wonder if your body is going to explode at some point, all burning and taut as you feel trapped in an endless orgasm.
The depravity of being restrained and pounded by a mess of eager tentacles right in the middle of your living room only makes you moan louder.
“You have to be quieter, little star. Someone might hear you.”
The urge to chortle and reply with something sarcastic is strong, but right now you can barely recognize your surroundings.
“There could be the entire building watching me from the window for all I know and I still wouldn’t give a fuck.” You breathe out.
A wail roughly makes its way out of your chest when the little suction cups tug at your nipples harshly, the length of the appendages curling around the flesh of your breasts to fondle and squeeze them together.
The Entity lets out a growl so guttural it makes your bones shake.
Your breath catches when something slimy brushes over your bottom lip—another tentacle, quite thick but not like the one thrusting inside you.
“Open.”
You obey at once, parting your mouth as it doesn’t waste any time to slip inside. Its motions are less harsh compared to the Entity’s possessive tone, and that allows your lips to wrap around it and suck at your own pace.
“I warned you before I would harm other beings if necessary.” It starts, your body tingling as the hair on the back of your neck raises at its baritone echoing right into your ear.
The large tentacle around your waist tightens, almost protectively.
“I will rip the flesh and feast on the bowels of anyone who dares to touch you.” The Entity’s tentacles inside your pussy pick up their pace, furious and wild, eliciting a string of loud moans out of you that get promptly muffled by the appendage curiously exploring your tongue.
“I love watching pleasure consume you, my lovely, beautiful creature.” It grunts. “You are perfect. So soft, and wet and warm.” It blabbers, as delirious as you.
A low moan quietly resounds in the living room as it plunges in and out of your pussy while the other tentacles work in unison to send you over the edge, never stopping their unforgiving twists and sucking on your nipples and clit until you are thrown back into pure and utter ecstasy.
“You are coming, right? I can feel your pretty pussy clench around me.” The tentacle inside your hole gently whirls as it slides in and out.
“I am going to mark you so deep with my essence that every being, mortal and celestial, will know not to challenge my claim on you.”
The Entity gasps as the tentacles holding and fucking you suddenly tense up, trembling and pulsing. It roars, the sound so primal it travels deep into your bones till it reaches the tips of your nerves.
The warm, viscous liquid filling you initially catches you by surprise. Then, you eagerly accept it as if you’ve been craving it for eons, doing your best to relax your throat to accommodate the spasming tentacle.
The one on your clit moves harder and faster, clearly determined to break you completely.
You keep shuddering in sensitivity, yet the tentacles avidly work one last time to make the unbearable tension in your lower belly snap.
You shriek around the slimy flesh stuffing your mouth, not even noticing the smaller appendage that comes up to stroke your cheek, as though to calm you down. The other tentacles cling onto you, tightening their hold in tenderness to keep you safe throughout the burning climax that shatters the only ounce of composure you had left.
Only when your body ceases its severe shaking, leaving you pliant and drenched in sweat, the Entity eases its grasp. The skin of your cheeks is gently held as the tips of two more appendages wipe away the tears the moment the tentacles leave your pussy.
The others begin a soft kneading motion on the sore muscles of your legs as the ones previously attached to your clit curiously brush your puffy folds, marveling at its cum steadily running down your hole and inevitably dirtying your ruined shorts.
You barely have any energy left to notice the deep ache in your joints when the Entity guides your arms back by your sides and your legs on the couch. Still, you try to control your stuttering breath as those two sneaky appendages keep stimulating you in tender curiosity.
“Rest, little star.”
You lazily blink at the ceiling, startled that your eyes had been closed this whole time.
Speechless, your ears and mouth both feel like they’ve been stuffed with cotton wool. “Huh?”
“Rest, little star.” It purrs, still caressing your sides, adoration dripping from each reverent touch.
“You are safe with me here.”
The next morning, you wake with a small smile already tugging at your lips and your body still pleasantly sore from the night before. The memories linger a little more before consciousness can interfere—the beautiful sense of fullness, the phantom ache of being held firmly in place without needing to understand the technicalities, the solid warmth curled around you in the aftermath.
It’s only when you open your eyes that you notice the unusual quiet.
You lie still for a moment longer than necessary with bated breath, because some part of you is already reaching for that familiar presence that always lingers somewhere at the edge of your awareness. But you can’t find it.
You sit up almost lethargically, expecting the feeling to return now that you’re properly awake. The apartment is exactly as it should be, unchanged in every single detail, and somehow that only makes the emptiness beneath your ribs harder to ignore.
Of course you assume it will return, so you start your morning, anticipating the Entity to pop out anytime as you eat breakfast.
But the coffee grows cold in your mug. The television drones quietly in the background. The sunlight shifts across the apartment as the hours go by... And still nothing.
Usually, its silences never feel truly empty. Even when it isn’t speaking, there is always the certainty that it is there with you.
This is different.
And that’s where everything begins to change.
The next day arrives with a kind of stubborn normality that feels almost insulting.
You wake again hopeful that the absence might have been temporary, something that would fix itself the way it should. But the same void is still there.
What unsettles you the most is not the loss itself but the way your thoughts keep skirting around it, never lingering for too long, as though looking at it directly might break you completely.
It hurts to acknowledge the small pauses between actions, the moments where you find yourself waiting for something to talk, and then realize, too late, that there is nothing to respond at all.
Each time it happens, it leaves behind a faint sting of embarrassment.
By the fourth day, the idea that something was there starts to feel like a version of events that only exists because you keep brooding over it, even when everything around you refuses to support it.
You keep turning moments inside out, trying to hold them in place, but they slip out of reach as soon as you look at them too closely.
It feels like a stab behind your ribs, because your memories of it are no longer anchored to anything that could confirm its existence.
There are moments when anger comes out of nowhere, sharp and ugly, usually when you catch yourself waiting again without meaning to. It feels ridiculous, humiliating even, reacting so strongly to something that simply left without a word.
That feeling turns quickly inward, because there is nothing else to blame that makes sense.
Only you.
After several days, its memory trails after you like a ghost—quiet enough to ignore for a while, but never far enough to forget.
You work, eat, sleep, and in between, there is always that quiet, painful feeling of something missing.
Gradually, you accept that it is not going to return. Not because you have figured some big mystery out, but because the waiting has sunk its poisonous teeth into you. It feeds on every quiet moment, contaminating every stray thought, gnawing steadily at your sanity, rotting the vulnerable parts of your life.
Day by day, it consumes you out from the inside, leaving behind a space shaped entirely by its hunger.
At the end of the second week, the silence has become ordinary in a way that almost convinces you it was always like this. The version of events where something had been present starts to feel increasingly difficult to defend, even in the privacy of your own mind.
It’s only later that reality bursts in a way you cannot ignore anymore.
You are standing there, knife in hand, your movements automatic as you work over the cutting board, when something inside you finally tears loose, so violent that even breathing results painful.
Your movements slow without permission, until they stop completely.
For a long, horrible moment your still body exists in a space that feels suddenly foreign. Your eyes stare blankly at the counter as your vision quickly blurs. You blink once, sharply, hoping that it would fix it, but it doesn’t. Only then something wet falls on your cheek.
You let out a short, disbelieving huff.
“Shit.” You swallow thickly, but the word comes out wrong—thin, strangled. “What the fuck is wrong with me.”
You press the heels of your hands briefly against your eyes as if that could physically push the tears back into place. If anything, it only makes it worse, the lump in your throat growing heavier with every second.
“This is pathetic.” You whimper, not sure whether the anger is aimed at yourself or at the situation.
Or at the fact that there is no situation at all.
Because there is nothing to justify this.
Nothing that should be making you cry in the middle of making dinner on a random Friday night.
You let out a sharp laugh, but it breaks halfway through.
“I’m actually losing it.” You sniffle.
Standing there with your breath uneven and your face still wet, your hands wipe your cheeks a little too roughly.
Your attention goes back to the cutting board, as if resuming the task might finally steady that precarious balance you’ve been clinging to for days, but your hands don’t immediately follow. They hover—uncertain, trembling.
And beneath all of it, there is still that absence—hollow and impossible to prove—pressing against the inside of your awareness, a dull ache lodged in your chest that no amount of distraction can soothe.
The next week is quieter.
You stop revisiting it. There is no point in chasing something that leaves only pain behind.
You’re not waiting anymore, not voluntarily at least. You still pause sometimes in doorways, still find yourself listening into empty rooms, but the expectation is gone. What’s left is only habit.
You eat because Tony still needs your help keeping the company running—there are too many things that would fall apart without you.
You clean because the mess won’t clean itself.
You move because stopping would mean having to untangle what comes next, and the sole thought of facing that is akin to stepping off the edge of a cliff you can’t see the bottom of.
At night, you lie in bed and stare at the ceiling for hours—not really on purpose, sleep just evades you. When nothing happens, there’s no disappointment. Only a bland confirmation.
The absence stops being absence, it just becomes normality again.
Because remembering hurts more than letting go.
Three months pass and you have finally taken some of the vacation days that have been accumulating in your file for months.
Well, calling it a vacation feels generous considering most of it has been spent catching up on everything you never seem to have time for while working.
Medical checkups you kept postponing. A dentist appointment for a wisdom tooth you should have booked six months ago. And then there are the usual tedious tasks: laundry, groceries, cleaning...
By all accounts, it should feel productive.
Instead, you are left drained.
You move through your days checking items off lists and running errands across the city, returning home every evening with aching feet and the vague satisfaction of having accomplished something, only to discover the feeling never lasts particularly long.
The apartment is still your favorite place. At least, you think it is. Lately, it feels less like comfort and more like retreat.
There are moments when you catch yourself staring into nothing for no reason. Moments where a pit opens somewhere in your stomach before disappearing so quickly you almost convince yourself it never happened.
You have stopped trying to understand it, though. Whatever happened—or didn’t happen—refuses to become any clearer with time.
Maybe loneliness is capable of stranger things than people give it credit for.
Maybe your mind had built something elaborate to fill a void you didn’t even know was there.
Maybe that’s why the memories still feel like a knife buried deep in your chest.
By the final day of your leave, you have mostly made peace with what your life has become.
You spend the afternoon exactly as planned: sprawled across the couch, surrounded by junk food and no obligations in sight. For the first time in weeks, there is nothing demanding your attention.
When the doorbell rings, you’re halfway through a tub of ice cream and so absorbed in the new season of Abbott Elementary that it takes you a moment to realize the sound isn’t coming from the television.
You briefly assume it belongs to your phone, lost somewhere between the cushions, and decide to ignore it. You have every intention of enjoying the last few hours of freedom before returning to your personal circle of hell that is Tony’s company.
However, after exactly one minute, the shrill sound comes back, clear and unmistakable, and now you are pushing yourself upright with a groan—your back aches from lying there all day.
You cross the space without much urgency, immediately regretting all your life choices once you open the door in pajamas and find a handsome man standing on your doorstep.
Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a plain, dark t-shirt that perfectly hug his big, sturdy body.
He has the kind of face that would attract attention without ever seeking it. A man people notice instinctively and then spend the next several minutes pretending they haven’t, because there is something eerily intimidating about a face that looks carved by the gods themselves.
His eyes catch your attention next.
Blue. Startlingly so, almost unnaturally bright, the color so vivid and intense it looks like pigment suspended beneath glass. You decide they must be contacts, because that’s the safest explanation and your brain is gradually learning to settle into this pattern for the sake of your own sanity.
The moment he smiles, the effect is immediate.
It softens his sharp beauty, easy and unforced in a way that invites trust and warmth.
Such a shame that his presence is so staggering that you completely miss what really lies beneath the illusion—a crude imitation.
His body seems to always react a fraction later than intention: his shoulders shift a moment after his head turns and his posture corrects itself a beat too stiffly, as though alignment is a conscious reminder rather than an innate response.
When he steps forward, there is the faintest unevenness in his weight, one foot pressing down a little too carefully before the other follows. A subtle trembling persists in his legs even when standing still, his knees locking into place a second later than expected.
Even his hands don’t settle easily. When they fall to his sides, a few fingers twitch and bend on their own accord before returning back to a more natural state.
“Hello.”
There is something unfairly serene about his voice, just as smooth as silk.
“I’m James,” he continues. “I just moved in next door. Apartment 6B.”
The tension you hadn’t noticed you were holding loosens without permission, leaving your shoulders a fraction lighter and your breath a little less controlled than it had been a moment before.
Unfortunately, you realize a moment too late that you have been staring at his gorgeous face all along.
“Oh—sorry.” You let out a short, embarrassed chuckle as you shake your head. “I didn’t know Ms. Esposito moved.”
The man tilts his head slightly, as if considering the name.
“Ms. Esposito?” He repeats, lightly, the name seemingly not settling the way it should.
That small hesitation makes your brows knit faintly in confusion.
“Yeah,” you add, half-amused. “She lived here. Apartment 6B. I just thought—”
You decide to stop as his expression remains unchanged, waving your hand dismissively. “Never mind.”
Maybe they didn’t have the chance to meet each other.
His gaze remains exactly where it is, fixed on your face with the same intense attentiveness as before.
The silence stretches a second longer than it should, and you find yourself shifting slightly under it.
“Well,” you start with a small titter, eager to fill the gap before it becomes too awkward. “Nice to meet you, James.”
As you offer him your name, something shifts—a subtle spasm in his features, but it’s gone in the blink of an eye.
You accept his extended hand without hesitation. His grip is warm, firm without being excessive, but there is a curious deliberateness that suggests he is paying more attention to the contact than what is socially acceptable.
You are already preparing to let go when his grip abruptly tightens around your hand, enough that the bones in your fingers press together unpleasantly. The change catches you off guard. Your breath hitches as a sharp pulse of discomfort runs up your arm, and before you can stop yourself, your gaze drops to your joined hands, noticing how his knuckles have been turning an unhealthy shade of white, bordering on dark grey.
When you look back up in confusion, your stomach gives a small, sickening lurch.
James’ big smile is exactly the same, but it doesn’t respond anymore. It stays frozen in place with an odd consistency, as if it has been placed there and forgotten.
You don’t remember his eyes looking so... wide. His eyelids seem to draw farther and farther apart by imperceptible degrees, exposing a little more white with every passing second.
Your hand jerks in a reflexive attempt to pull away, but his grip doesn’t yield. It holds with the intransigent firmness of steel, his long fingers locked around yours as though they have forgotten how to let go.
And so you remain there, forced to watch as the features of this weird stranger soften until they slowly melt out of shape.
“Oh, I already know that, little star.”
— ⟢ END NOTES: thank you so much for reading 🖤
my masterlist → winteryn's masterlist
Characters: Bruce Wayne (late 40s), Reader (fem. pronouns, afab, lab technician, early to mid 20s)
Pairings: Bruce Wayne x afab!Reader
Summary: Bruce goes to a Wayne Foundation Gala with Reader, who just so happens to be the new lab technician for Wayne Enterprises, as well as his controversially young acquaintance, and the night ends nicely.
Warnings: NSFW !! age-gap relationship (reader is like... half of bruce's age), conservation bio speak, power imbalance, workplace crush, condescending language, dirty talk (?? idk man), lowkey pervy bruce, i think i accidentally made him kinda mean, pet names (e.g. darling, pretty girl, sweetie, etc), kind of semi-public sex (idk??), fingering (fem. receiving), p in v, hair pulling, reader has long enough hair to wrap around bruce's hand, drunk sex, unprotected sex (bad idea !! wrap it before u tap it !!), please let me know if there is anything that i missed !!!!!
Word Count: 12.3k idk what happened guys...
The first time that Bruce Wayne saw you, he didn’t think anything of you. He didn’t think that you would end up being anything more than the latest lab technician at the new federally funded lab that he had to oversee as CEO of Wayne Enterprises. He certainly never thought that he would end up introducing you to his children at the next Wayne Foundation Gala.
It was supposed to just be something that Wayne Enterprises could write off on their taxes—something about quantifying carbon sequestration in the coastal marshes so that the monetary values of coastal marshes could be quantified for conservation purposes. It was important PR, important enough for Bruce Wayne to go to Gotham University himself, to recruit local seniors who were still looking for a job.
That was the first time he saw you, in an auditorium in the basement of the sciences and engineering hall. He got to give a talk on the importance of the work, on how giving marshes a monetary value for how much carbon they could take out of the atmosphere to combat greenhouse gas effects and global warming, if more sites of coastal marshes were able to be designated for conservation and preservation, and if their monetary value was high enough. He spoke about it as if it were something that he was passionate about, something that he studied himself, instead of something that his assistant suggested to invest in as a PR stunt for good press.
The way that he spoke was entrancing. Bruce Wayne spoke to an auditorium full of over two hundred biology majors, but he was so charismatic, so magnetic that it felt like he was only speaking to you. Every word, every breath of air was somehow directed at you in the center left section of the seating. The stagelights highlighted the silver strands that graced the mostly black hair by his temples and the satin tie around his neck.
Something—something—“marsh grasses.”
That was when you realized that his eyes were blue from the third row.
Something—something—“great research opportunities and prioritizing local ecosystems.”
Your friend elbowed you then and giggled at you for gawking at a billionaire twice your age.
-_-
You thought that it was nothing short of a miracle when you got the email that confirmed you got the position. It was a generic email, the type where some secretary fills in your name, position, a contact, and a starting date. The rest of it was some predetermined “we’re so happy to inform you that your application was exceptional… etc., etc., etc.,” kind of BS that everyone who got recruited to work for Wayne Enterprises got. It said that you were a part of a family now. The absurdity of such a statement from such a giant conglomerate made you laugh.
It was your first industry job, sure, you worked in your professor’s lab for credits and volunteer hours, but this was real. On your first day, you may have been overdressed, but you were going to meet the people behind this entire project, the people who signed off on the research grants, the people who paid for the lab space and supplies. You had to make a good impression so that they wouldn’t decide to despise you and use that as a reason to defund the entire project. Or, at least that’s what you told yourself.
That was when you found out it was only Bruce Wayne funding the research. No one else, no angel donors, no rich tree-huggers or nepo-babies with a too-big heart. Just Bruce Wayne, the billionaire, who was somehow concerned for coastal marsh ecosystems. It was almost refreshing to see such a mythical public figure seem so concerned for something that you had just gotten a degree in, something that you knew all about.
On the last Friday of every month, everyone in the lab would make their way up from the basement lab of Wayne Tower to the conference room, all the way on one of the top floors, the ones with all the glass walls. Every last Friday at ten in the morning, it would be the head researcher, the handful of graduate students whose degrees were being paid for by Wayne Enterprises, another handful of undergraduate students being used for free labor in exchange for experience and class credits, you, the lab technician who was in charge of cooridinating mostly everything and the Bruce Wayne asking all of you about the research that was being done.
-_-
You had been working there for an entire year, twelve Friday morning meetings with Bruce Wayne and the rest of your lab, when it happened. The catalyst for the mess that had become your recent life. The turning point in your career at Wayne Enterprises.
That was the week that the entire lab had driven to a saltwater ecosystem conservation convention in North Carolina and were meant to come back well before 10 am that Friday. You had stayed back at the lab in Gotham to keep weighing dried-out biomass samples to meet the deadline two weeks from now. You expected to meet the rest of your lab mates to meet you in the conference room, half-asleep and on their third cup of coffee.
That’s not what you saw when you got off the obnoxiously long elevator ride to the forty-third floor or whatever too-high floor it was that housed the conference room.
No one was there. No one except you and Bruce Wayne. The Bruce Wayne and no one else. Not even someone to keep him company, not even someone to get him coffee. Just you, the lab technician, and the CEO of the company that you work for. This was the man who had captured all the hearts of Gotham with his return to the public eye, only to adopt a young boy, and then another, and another, and another, until it was a comedy bit on late-night shows. The man who had enough money to pay off all of your student loans and then purchase the entire school you went to.
Apparently, there had been an accident on the highway, and the rest of the lab wasn’t going to be there for hours. It was awkward at first, being in a room with someone who had so much confidence, so much self-assurance, like he knew that he was supposed to be there, like he knew that this space was his own. A stark contrast to you, sitting in your usual chair at the conference table, fidgeting with your laptop and chewing on your bottom lip much less subtly than you had thought.
But he saw you from across the table, saw the nerves that were making you dig your fingernails into the palm of your hand, the nerves that were making your left foot tap the floor hard enough to feel the pressure in your ankle but not make that obnoxious tap, tap, tap that your mother always scolded you for.
And contrary to the stone-faced expression that seemed to be a Wayne trademark, he started talking to you. At first, just asking how long you had been with Wayne Enterprises, but eventually devolved into you recounting the time that you and your freshman roommate at Gotham University had tried to sneak into the yearly Wayne Foundation Gala without tickets and failed miserably. So miserably in fact, that your friend resorted to flirting with the security guards who threw you out so that he wouldn’t call the police.
The story had made him snort out an undignified laugh, and he made a comment about his sons sneaking out of galas but never into them. It was like someone opened a window to let in fresh air—Bruce Wayne went from being this figure, this unapproachable man who lived on a pedestal in the minds of most Gothamites, including yourself, to someone real, someone whose eyes crinkled in the corners when he laughed. He was someone with grey dappling the otherwise dark hair by his temples, someone whose bottom teeth weren’t perfectly straight but overlapping just enough to be charming in such a splendidly human way.
Bruce had become so interested in you. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so enthralled by the way you spoke with your hands or the way that your lips quirked up when you explained the differences in marsh grasses; you were, after all, younger than his two oldest sons. That should have stopped him; it should have made him shake the thoughts out of his head and go back to his more stoic public persona that the employees of Wayne Enterprises knew.
But he couldn’t.
The way your eyes sparkled and how your lips quirked upwards when you spoke about carbon sequestration made him lean in whenever you spoke, even in the following weeks when the rest of your lab was able to join the two of you at those monthly meetings. He seemed to start deferring to you in almost all matters that regarded the lab. Not the Ph. D.s that ran the lab, not the grad students who were basically in charge all of the time, but to you. It made you feel special, like there was something about you that the others didn’t have. And Bruce didn’t know what it was, just that you were the only person who had it.
You were working for Wayne Enterprises for almost a second whole year when Bruce came to see you in the lab. He never came down to the basement to see the labs; he only ever saw the pretty glass walls of the upper floors.
Bruce had walked in unannounced, catching you just as you were putting biomass samples that you didn’t have time to sort back into the freezer. It was one of those iceboxes that lay on the floor, the kind that opened up like a coffin. It was a big freezer, and the undergrad students who came into the lab for credit hours always left it in disarray. You always spent the last hour or so of your day rearranging the samples in the proper corners of the freezer—or at least what you had decided were the proper corners. It was a system that you had implemented in the first week of working in the lab, something that actually let the undergrad assistants find the samples they needed without asking you a thousand times.
Biomass samples 3dR through 8dT always had to stay on the left side of the freezer in descending order, while samples 15cK through 24cP were piled together on the right side like a very specific, strategic game of Tetris because those samples were smaller and much more brittle. To do that, you would lean against the annoyingly tall side of the freezer, so that the edge of the lip propped your lower half up to let you bend at your hips. It let you lean all the way into the freezer without having to kneel down on the hard linoleum floors that were always covered in a dusting of dried grass samples and dirt. You didn’t have to hold onto the sides of the freezer; you were able to move all the samples with both hands, keeping them flat and from getting crushed.
And besides, you were always the last one there, so it wasn’t like anyone was going to see you bend over the icebox like that. You would put your earbuds in, listen to whatever album had been stuck in your head that week, and resituate the icebox like your life depended on it so that the lab supervisor didn’t have to scream his head off at you in the morning. Or at the undergraduates for asking too many repetitive questions too close together.
That was the sight Bruce was greeted by when he entered the lab: you bent over the side of the icebox, ass high in the air, while you whispered the lyrics to a Knocked Loose song that was playing through your earbuds.
He walked into the lab and froze. You were so young, so unassuming as you bent over the icebox. Bruce could see how the seam of your trousers wedged itself between your ass cheeks more and more as you bent into the freezer—emphasizing just how plush it was. You didn’t even know that he was there; he could walk up right behind you and just grab you, let himself feel how the soft skin would give way to the pressure of his thick, calloused fingers. You were so young, probably around twenty-three? Younger than Dick, younger than Jason even. What would you think?
Would you think it’s unprofessional if you caught him staring at your ass? Would you even know that was what he was doing? Had you ever caught grown men staring at you like this before? Surely you had to, you looked so perfect every day, there was no way that the other people around you didn’t notice how explicit you could look even in business casual.
Bruce cleared his throat, shaking his head side to side as if that could free him of the improper thoughts that were pestering his psyche. He shouldn’t—couldn’t—be thinking of an employee like this; it was an abuse of power, something that he would scoff at and reprimand someone else for thinking. But he couldn’t help it; you just looked at him with eyes that were so sparkling, so enthralled by the mere idea of catching the interest of someone like Bruce Wayne.
Clearing his throat didn’t break through the noise-cancelling barrier that your earbuds had made, so you kept sorting through the freezer to your heart’s content. So Bruce walked to your side, trying again to clear his throat and get your attention without startling you.
It didn’t work.
He seemed to just appear in your peripheral vision, and you practically jumped three feet in the air. It was a miracle that you didn’t fall into the freezer when you finally saw him. Bruce felt horrible, like he had just accidentally stepped on an innocent puppy’s tail. You practically ripped out your earbuds because technically, you weren’t allowed to wear headphones, earbuds, or the like when you were in the lab. Something about a safety hazard
“Sorry, I didn’t hear—see you,” you scrambled, trying to tuck your earbuds into your pockets, acting like the reason he scared you wasn’t totally because you were doing something you were told explicitly not to do. “Is there anything that you need, Mister Wayne?”
Bruce froze. You were just standing there, chest heaving from scrambling upright, blinking your nervous, almost meek eyes at him. It made his thoughts take a hard left-hand turn from trying to control his thoughts to just giving up entirely.
Those eyes.
Bruce couldn’t stop thinking about what those eyes would look like under him, one of your legs hitched around his waist, a hand on your ass—squeezing. Would they get all watery and distant if he tried to stretch your pussy around his fingers before trying to fit his cock into you? Have you ever tried to take a cock like his before? Could you take it?
“Mister Wayne?”
“Oh—yes, don’t worry, I’m not here to bust you for listening to music in the lab,” he huffed out, trying to sound less official, less in charge, less like he was imagining what it would be like to fuck you bent over that freezer. “And there’s no need to call me ‘Mister Wayne,’ Bruce will do just fine.”
You forced out a nervous laugh, still shoving your earbuds further into your pockets like a nervous tic. Your weight shifted from foot to foot, waiting for Bruce to continue speaking, to tell you why he had made his way down to the basement lab in the first place.
“Well, Y/N, I seem to have an extra ticket to the Foundation Gala this year, and I couldn’t help but think of that story you told me about you and your college roommate unsuccessfully trying to sneak into one. Would you be interested in taking the extra ticket off my hands?” Nothing about Bruce seemed to give away how nervous the question made him. His voice was steady, and so were his hands. But that didn’t change the fact that he was, he was afraid that you would find it improper, that you would find him inappropriate and perverted for asking a girl half his age to the Wayne Foundation Gala, even though he simply asked you to take the ticket off of his hands, not for you to even go with him.
It made your heart skip a beat. A real ticket to the Wayne Foundation Gala. Something that you had only seen in your dreams. Your face lit up in such a way that made Bruce suppress a startled smile. How could such a simple gesture make you so happy? If that was all it took to see a smile like that, as he had somehow handed you the world by inviting you to a company event, he would put your name on every single Wayne Foundation Gala invitation list; he would make you his plus-one for any event he was invited to.
You had the kind of smile that made him forget why he walked into the room, the kind that made him feel like some sort of school boy with a hallway crush. It was the kind of smile that made Bruce forget himself, made his heart stutter in his chest.
“Oh. Oh. Like a real ticket? Like actually? You’re not jerking me around, are you?” You asked him, biting your lip and bouncing your weight back and forth from your heels to the balls of your feet. There was this light, fluttering tone to your voice that reminded him of how much younger you were than him.
You looked so giddy, like you were a child asking her father if he really did mean that she could have ice cream before bed. It made something churn in Bruce’s stomach, like maybe he was doing something wrong, but he wasn’t; you were twenty-something years old, younger than two of his sons, but you were an adult nonetheless. And there certainly wasn’t anything wrong with him giving you a ticket to a gala you had already expressed interest in going to, albeit a casual interest in passing conversation. It wasn’t his fault that he seemed to just remember the things that you said, like you were trying to implant them into his brain like some sort of witch.
“No, I am not. It’s a real ticket,” Bruce told you, nodding calmly. “I figured you’ve been doing a lot of very good work for us here, so I figured I would need to give you some incentive to not jump ship if another company decides that they want you to clean up their labs the way that you’ve done for ours over here.”
It was a shitty excuse to say that he wanted to see you all dressed up, to maybe convince you that the ticket was supposed to be for his plus-one, and then maybe get to treat you to a nice night just to see that smile again. Bruce was quickly realizing the lengths that he would go to just to see you smile like that again, but this time, at him.
“Oh my god! So, you’re serious? It’s next weekend, right? Oh, god that means I’m going to have to get a dress,” you exclaimed, practically vibrating out of your skin because you were going to get to go to the Wayne Foundation Gala! Something that you had wanted to go to when you found out that some students of Gotham University somehow got tickets to go sometimes. Your hopes were crushed when you found out that only the marketing or business students were the ones with access to the tickets.
Bruce only nodded again, like the gala was a solemn affair instead of one of the most decadent nights all year in Gotham, made to convince the other one percent to give up some of their precious money to actually help the people of Gotham.
But people had fun at these events, they had a good time, and he always saw the young women at galas smiling. He wanted you to be one of those women smiling at him at the Gala. If his sons were going to give him literal Hell for being forced to make an hour-long appearance, he at least wanted to be able to be around a person who wanted to be there. It would also help him survive the event when you were moving up on the list of people he enjoyed watching do the most mundane things.
-_-
It wasn’t until you were about to walk into the Gala that you started to get nervous. You had pulled out a dress that you had gotten for a club formal during college. It was buried underneath your old business formal clothes that you had gotten in preperation of your post-grad job interviews and never touched again.
The dress was a rather slinky number, still managing to fit after a few years. Sure, it was a little bit tight on your chest, but it pushed your boobs together in a way that made your roommate cheer for you. So, really, it was a win. You had used your expensive makeup palette, used your nice perfume, and even worn the heels that you said you’d never be able to walk in.
It felt like too much and not enough at the same time. It was the most dressed-up you had gotten since the lab’s holiday party, but you were going to the Wayne Foundation Gala. You had been trying to get an invite to go to that for years, and now it was finally happening. There wouldn’t be college students or coworkers here; there would be heiresses, and millionaires, and God knows who else. And you were wearing a dress that pushed your boobs together because it was a half-size too small.
You managed to get to Wayne Tower just fine, feeling rather pleased with yourself that you were able to not only pull the whole look off, but also just manage to not chicken out because you were technically going alone. Sure, it did seem like Bruce had hinted that the ticket he lent you was one of his, but he never actually told you that; he never said that it was a ticket for his plus one. He was a rather blunt man when it came to office communications, so surely he would have said something if that was what he had meant when he offered the ticket to you? Right?
The more you thought about it, the more you got insecure about showing up to the gala in the first place. Your dress felt too cheap, your makeup felt too sloppy, and your jewelry suddenly felt like it belonged in a costume store rather than at a gala when you looked at the others walking around.
You had your ticket folded up in your phone case because you didn’t have a fancy little clutch, just a backpack and a tote bag—neither of which would ever see a Wayne Foundation Gala. Outside the doors, you stepped aside, turning the ticket over in your hand while looking at the ornate lettering, the way that it was written in what looked like gold—it shimmered in the low lights of the buildings and neon signs of Gotham.
You got a glimpse of another ticket and saw that it had the name of the invitee printed on it. Yours didn’t have that. Where there was a name written on other tickets, it was simply left blank on yours, like it was never even supposed to have a name written on it, like it was a ticket that was supposed to be given at the last minute disgression of someone else.
What got you moving was the last conversation you had with Bruce at the end of the monthly meeting. He had asked you if you were a heavy drinker, if you had a favorite drink. You had told him no and no. Then he commented on being the one to have the privilege of supplying what would most likely be your only drink of the night.
It was a comment that threw you off balance, a comment that made you blink twice at him before you responded, but you just laughed nervously and pretended that his gentle, polite smile wasn’t turning your knees into jelly.
Soon enough, you psyched yourself up enough to walk over and hand the oh-so-pretty ticket over to the attendant.
She was an older woman with salt and pepper hair pulled back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, and she wore a suit with the name “Sadie” pinned on her lapel. She smiled at you when you handed her the ticket and quickly scanned the barcode on the back so that a little blurb of text popped up on the screen of the scanner. Whatever it was must have been interesting because she looked up at you briefly, eyes flicking up from the scanner to your face, so quick you almost didn’t see, and she smiled. Small and subtle, but a smile nonetheless.
“Oh, it seems that Mister Wayne decided to invite someone to keep him company this year,” she mused, more like she was talking to herself than talking to you. She didn’t even wait for your reaction; if anything, she ignored the way that you raised your eyebrow and screwed your face up at the comment.
Bruce decided to invite someone to keep him company this year.
She only said that after she read whatever it was that popped up after she scanned your ticket. Your ticket, the ticket that didn’t have a name on it. You were confused and trying not to read too hard into it, but some little voice in the back of your head kept telling you that he had invited you to be his plus one at his own foundation’s gala.
-_-
By the time Bruce had finished his rounds, he had found you exactly where he had planned to. The seat that was assigned to your ticket number. You were sitting down, legs crossed like you were afraid to take up too much space, and your cheeks flushed from probably one too many flutes of the champagne that was being passed around by the waitstaff.
So much for only having one drink.
You definitely had at least three too many flutes of champagne. There was no doubt in your mind about that. You didn’t know anyone at this gala aside from Bruce, and the others at your table seemed not to even know who you were, although they all knew each other. It was a table full of men, or at least the ones who were sitting down. Two of them looked to be grown, the other two were probably teenagers, if you had to guess. It was entertaining to watch them bicker and prattle on amongst themselves, even though most of what they said didn’t make much sense to you.
Rich people things, you had assumed.
But then Bruce came over. He came over with the suave, socialite smile and that mostly black hair that was speckled with salt and pepper streaks by his temple. The crystal glass in his hand had some sort of brown liquor in it, sloshing around as he walked towards the table. Something about seeing him smile like that, like he wasn’t at work, made your stomach flip; it made you hope that he invited you as his plus-one on purpose.
You didn’t expect him to sit down next to you, but that just reaffirmed the currently outlandish theory that he invited you to be his plus-one to his own gala. But then he turned in his seat to face you, his smile genuine and a little haze in his eyes, like maybe he also had one too many classes of liquor.
“I am so pleased that you could make it,” he told you, leaning in a bit closer than was appropriate for a boss and his employee. But, he smelled nice, like expensive cologne and a brandy you probably couldn’t pronounce. “You look wonderful, like a dream—truly.”
His comment made you flush. And then, because you were a little bit too drunk for this, you giggled like some sort of middle school girl with a crush.
“I’m assuming that you’ve had a chance to meet my boys? These were the ones that accepted my bribes to show face,” he continued, like he didn’t just upend your tipsy little world with seven little words.
You look wonderful, like a dream—truly.
Like a dream.
His smile didn’t falter, his hands didn’t shake, but he kept nursing whatever caramel colored liqour was in the crystal glass he held in his left hand.
“Uhm—no, I don’t think that I have,” you mumbled, realizing that you did just spend your entire time sitting at a table with four other people, not talking to them, and just looking around the ballroom, watching all of the people of Gotham’s upper crust in their ostentatious attire.
“Oh, don’t worry, they can forget their manners sometimes,” Bruce responded quickly, almost waving them off before he raised a hand in their direction, clearing his throat. The action made them turn around, pausing whatever squabble they had gotten themselves into now and listening to Bruce. “Boys. This is the guest that I told you about.”
Told you about. He was talking to people about you. You, the lab technician at the lab that had been started so that Wayne Enterprises could write it off on their tax deductions.
They all looked like they had seen a ghost. One of the boys muttered a curse, another straightened his lapels, the third looked at you like you were part Rubik’s Cube, and another looked at you so sternly you thought that his eyes were going to burn holes right through you.
“The one that you told us to behave in front of, Father?” The youngest one asked in a rather stiff voice, his tone seemingly overly formal.
Bruce pursed his lips together, as if to say, of fucking course it is, without actually saying that. Soon, they all made their way to your side of the table, introducing themselves one by one.
“Oh! Hi, well, it’s certainly nice to meet you,” the first boy had said, extending his hand for a handshake. His eyes were concerningly blue, in a way that made you almost weary. “I’m Dick, one of Bruce’s sons.”
“Nice to see that he does actually talk to people outside of the Manor. I’m Jason,” the second boy had told you. He had what looked like a bleached streak in his hair. It must have been some sort of fashion statement that hadn’t made it to your side of the internet yet.
Dick and Jason seemed to be the oldest of the bunch, and judging from the slight crows’ feet that Dick sported when his smile got too wide and the bags under Jason’s eyes, they seemed to be older than you if you had to wager a guess.
“I’m Tim—nice to meet you.” The third boy was pale, and he seemed to be waiting for your reaction, as if he wanted to dissect all of your actions under a microscope. You’d probably get along well with them if you made a good first impression.
“I am Damian,” the youngest boy said. “I am glad to meet the person he invited to pay attention to instead of us so that he would leave us be during this utterly wretched affair.”
The bluntness of his comment made you giggle. So, these were the sons of the Bruce Wayne, the sons that GQ magazine made an entire spread about. Your roommate bought it and hung up the fold-out poster on her wall when you were in college.
After that, it seemed to ease the tension at the table. Bruce stayed next to you, and most of the interjections that he made were in reference to you, the work that you do for the lab, or an anecdote you had told him once about yourself. The champagne made your lips loose, and your composure even more so. Soon enough, you were giggling, joking around with Bruce Wayne and his four sons, two of whom you learned later in the night were older than you by a few years.
Bruce didn’t touch you until Dick had told a story about him climbing up the rafters as a young child at one of these events, only to end up on the chandelier and refuse to come down until Bruce let him get his own trapeze bar at the Manor. For some reason, maybe it was how Dick told the story, or the way that the flutes of champagne just kept coming, it made you laugh so hard that you shifted your weight in your chair enough to almost slide off. The slinky fabric of your dress only made it worse.
Bruce’s hand shot out to grab your shoulder, and his other hand put down his drink so that he could grab your arm. His hands were bigger than you thought they would be, and they were warm. They were very warm. Warm enough to make your skin break out in goosebumps but still lean into his touch, like he was some sort of cushion to catch you.
He just smiled at you, like he was happy to do that, like he was waiting for an excuse to put his hand on you without it being inappropriate. You didn’t tell him to move his hands. You let him pull your chair closer when he hooked his ankle around one of the legs. You let his hand settle between your shoulder blades when you laughed so hard that you doubled over. It felt nice when his fingers started to rub along the stitching of your dress, where the fabric kissed your skin. The dress had a low back, something you could thank the fashion trends of your college days for, but that just meant that his hand was resting right on the small of your back, fingers tracing and touching and skimming your skin.
Back and forth. His fingers went back and forth from left to right like a subconscious motion, like he wasn’t even thinking about it—like he was playing with the fabric, like he was playing a game where the point was to see how hard your breath stuttered when his fingers slipped underneath the fabric of your dress. It wasn’t an unwelcomed intrusion, even if it made your shoulders stiffen—just a surprise that you welcomed because the idea of the Bruce Wayne wanting to touch your skin seemed to be more intoxicating than all the flutes of champagne that you had seemed to put back.
You even decided to lean on his shoulder when you had to catch your breath from laughing so hard at a deadpan comment that Damian had made in the middle of one of Tim’s intricate stories about his own personal theories about what was being hidden in Area 51. You had to catch your breath somehow, and Bruce’s hand already settled lower on your back, right above the swell of your ass, right where his fingers almost grazed the fabric of the thong that you wore under your dress. Each time his fingers got too close, but didn’t quite touch your panties, you could feel your cheeks heat up. You could lean your head on his shoulder, right? You were both drinking; you couldn’t get fired for this, right? Surely, your boss couldn’t yell at you for this?
Bruce was too warm, and he just smelled too good for you to even care, in all honesty. You figured out what was so special about his eyes right then, when you were leaning against his shoulder and smiling, breathing heavy, and sipping another glass of champagne. It was enough alcohol to not care that you were cuddling up to your boss, at a literal gala, where there were journalists with cameras.
His eyes were a vulnerable shade of blue, the kind that don’t look like blue from afar, just like dark pools of something until you get a bit closer, the ones that you can only see the golden flecks and green rings once you get close enough to smell the alcohol on his breath.
That was one of his sons, Dick, if you were remembering correctly, who cleared his throat before stage coughing, mumbling something about media presence and then coughing again. It made Bruce lean into you, his lips just barely brushing the shell of your ear. His breath was warm and fanned out over the side of your neck. It made you shiver when you smelled the alcohol on his breath.
“It’s getting kind of stuffy in here, no? We don’t have to stay here the whole time, darling,” he whispered into your ear, his lips grazing one of your earrings. When you turned your head to face him, you could see the smirk that plastered across his face. It was the kind of smirk that made you think of the old tabloid pictures of Bruce Wayne, the ones that your older cousins would cut out and tape above the desks, it was a smirk that oozed confidence, high class, and a sort of luxury that you hadn’t even heard of, like he could get away with anything if he wanted to. He probably could. He probably already had.
That was how you ended up grabbing his hand, trailing behind him, giggling as he pulled you out of the main ballroom, leading you up a set of stairs that seemed to be tucked away from the main crowd, or really any crowd. His fingers dug into your hand, but his nails were blunt, so there was no sting, only pressure. You didn’t even realize that he had led you into some sort of sitting room until you heard a door click shut behind you.
When you spun around to see a shut door you hadn’t even known was there, you spun too quickly, too fast for how many glasses of champagne you drank. And you were wearing those illogical, impractical heels that you had trouble walking in when you were sober. So Bruce held you up. He grabbed you by your shoulders and tucked you into his broad, warm chest. It made your stomach flip when one of his hands settled on the nape of your neck, his thumb pressing into your jugular just to feel how your pulse rabbited.
“I-I always knew that you were so tall, but I feel like you’re taller now,” you giggled at him, your smile bashful, making your youthful face scrunch up in a way that his intoxicated thoughts weren’t able to keep up with. The corners of your eyes barely even crinkled when you smiled at him like that. You seemed like something out of a dream, no lines from worry or age etched into your face yet—you weren’t as weathered as Bruce was.
It made him gravitate towards you like some sort of magnetic field just pulling and pulling on him until he gave in, until his hands were cupping your face, his fingers squishing the apples of your cheeks just enough to remind him of how much younger you were than him. The two of you locked eyes for one sobering moment, blinking at each other like an unspoken conversation.
I’m old enough to be your father.
Do you think I care?
His thumb brushed over your bottom lip before he leaned down to kiss you.
It was gentle at first, tentative almost, like Bruce was waiting for you to change your mind, like he was waiting for you to realize that you were so vibrant, too vibrant for Bruce Wayne. When you didn’t pull away, when you tried to lean forward into the kiss, tried to boost yourself even higher on your tiptoes so that you could press against his harder—that was when the kiss turned hungry.
Bruce’s tongue swiped across your lips, an encouragement to open your mouth, to let him in. When you didn’t part your lips against his, instantly his thoughts ran wild.
Had you never kissed someone like this? Had no one ever wanted to kiss you like this, to kiss you so intimately? Had no one ever had the insatiable urge to try to inhale whatever it was about you that made you sparkle like that?
But then your lips parted, letting his tongue inside of your mouth, sliding against your own before he took your bottom lip between his, sucking and letting his teeth graze it. It got messier than you realized. His spit was on your chin, and your teeth clanked into his. He tasted like breath mints and alcohol.
When you pressed your body against his harder, Bruce started to let his hands wander. The skin on his hands was rough compared to yours. One hand slid down the outside of your arm just to land on your waist, calloused fingers catching on the delicate, slinky fabric of your dress while they dug into the flesh beneath.
It was a greedy kiss, the kind that only came from a need to have something that you felt like you weren’t allowed to have. You weren’t allowed to kiss the boss of your boss’s boss. You shouldn’t be kissing a man who was twice your age, a man who was in charge of you, yet here you were—one arm wrapped around his neck, fingers tangling in the silver-speckled black hair, your other hand fisting at his suit shirt.
Bruce wasn’t allowed to make a romantic, let alone a sexual advance, on a subordinate. That was unethical, a fireable offense, something to be frowned upon. He was abusing his power, or at least that’s how he felt when your young, soft body pressed against the hardened, venerable planes of his own. He felt like he was taking advantage of you, like maybe you were just doing this to placate him, like he was somehow usurping the innocence of your youth while his tongue explored the inside of your mouth.
Bruce only broke the kiss so that he could drag his lips from the corner of your mouth down to your jaw. The warm brush of his lips from below your ear down your neck, where he pressed into your skin, his teeth grazing the goosebumps that had spread on your skin where the dress didn’t cover.
The feeling of his teeth on your skin made you gasp, the dull pressure forcing a small, quiet whimper out of your mouth while heat pooled between your legs. It was so filthy, the drag of his teeth against you brought a fresh wave of heat between your legs. The only thing you could think to do was squeeze your thighs together and let out more needy noises so that Bruce knew not to stop. His hands were moving with the kind of confidence that would only make sense for a man who seemed to have a different woman on his arm with each new issue of a gossip magazine. He seemed to keep his hands on your waist, your shoulders, your neck. It wasn’t until he felt your hands dip between his dress shirt and his sports coat, sliding down the back of his shoulder blades to feel just how solid the muscles of his back were through the fabric of his clothes.
It wasn’t until he felt your own hands explore his body, a physical cue that you wanted this just as much as he did, that Bruce let himself do the same. One of his hands migrated down to your ass, palming you through the fabric of your dress, his fingers digging in hard enough to leave bruises. The other hand moved up from your waist, caressing your breast—his thumb flicking over the thin fabric between the air and your nipple until it poked through the material of the dress.
Your body had started to move against Bruce’s with a newfound confidence that only alcohol could give you. The outline of his erection pressed through his slacks and into your dress. The dress didn’t allow for much movement, didn’t allow for Bruce to really get his knee between your thighs for you to grind down on, but he was able to press between them just enough for you to gasp into his mouth.
You didn’t notice when Bruce had shed his tie or even his sports coat. The music from the gala leaked through the cracks in the walls, infiltrating the silence with muffled tunes from the band. The soft music filled your tipsy head, making the room sway to the beat while Bruce kissed and sucked at your skin, backing you up against what felt like the arm of a couch. It was dark, and you didn’t bother to open your eyes when Bruce’s fingers slipped below the fabric of the low-cut back of your dress. His fingers dipped low enough this time to graze the lace edges of the too-thin thong you wore tonight. Bruce’s lips curved up into a rather greedy smile that you could feel against your skin. It made you shiver.
“Did you wear this for me, darling?” He groaned, as if the thought of you wearing something for him physically hurt. His voice was breathless in a way you had never heard before, making a flush creep up the back of your neck if there wasn’t already one there. “Did you wear all this on purpose? You’re a smart girl, you know how this dress makes you look.”
Bruce pulled his face away from your neck so he could see the way that your pupils were blown out, so he could see how your lipstick had smeared across your cheek and down your chin. He wasn’t faring any better than you, his breath coming in ragged pants, his perfectly gelled hair now twisted and knotted to hell.
You want to respond to him, to tell him that maybe you did wear your nicest everything for tonight. If it was for him or for the gala, you didn’t know. In this moment right now, you were glad that you wore that lacey thong that was certainly not worth twenty dollars, glad that you wore those impractical heels that always made your feet cramp because Bruce thought that it was for him, that you had done all of that just for him. And maybe in some subconscious part of you, the part of you that fixated on how he always insisted on you calling him Bruce, the part of you that fixated on how he always seemed to come to you with questions about the lab instead of the professors who were in charge of it.
“Maybe I did,” you told him, your voice bubbling out of you in a giggle, your attempt at trying to be playful. You couldn’t help how wide the smile that spread on your face was while you waited to see the way his face contorted in response to your words. His stupidly beautiful face just smiled back down at you, one end of his mouth quirking up higher than the other while the most endeering crows’ feet crinkled at the corners of his eyes. You wanted to climb up him to kiss them.
Bruce let out a huff from between his teeth, through his smile, like he was glad to be exasperated.
“Oh? So then you wouldn’t mind if I saw, then, right? If you wore this all for me, you wouldn’t mind if I saw underneath this pretty little dress of yours?”
His whisper made you shiver. Or maybe it was how his hands danced along the straps of your dress, like he was waiting for you to say that he could take it off of you, so that he could see you. Bruce wanted to see what he’s been imagining in his head for the past two years every time he saw you in those monthly meetings. He wanted to see what you would look like bent over without those slacks you always wore.
All you could do was nod. If you were sober, you would have been embarrassed at how eager you were to bob your head at him, but the champagne made you just drunk enough to ignore the flush heating up your face. You just wanted him to touch you, to see if all the things that you had imagined about him were true.
“Y-yeah, you can—the zipper’s—it’s—” you stammered out, suddenly embarrassed because Bruce’s hands had found the zipper on the side of your dress faster than you were able to tell him where it was. It was like the arousal that was prickling underneath your skin had started to migrate into your brain, making your thoughts just that much harder to grab onto before you spoke them.
Or maybe that was just the champagne.
The only thing that you were wearing under this dress was a too-thin, lacy thong that wasn’t visible through the fabric of your dress. No bra, no other layer—just you in your too-tall heels, your lacy thong, with your fully dressed boss. The thought of being completely bare in front of your boss made that liquid heat that pooled low in your belly only get hotter; you could feel it making the insides of your thighs sticky. You two would probably go back to kissing, definitely keep fondling, if you were lucky, maybe you would—
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head, darling,” Bruce cooed gently at you, as if he were talking to a spooked fawn, trying to coax a little bit more confidence out of you. “I’ll take care of you if that’s what you want. It is, isn’t it?”
It took you a moment to process what he was even saying. I’ll take care of you. What was your life? Bruce Wayne, the Bruce Wayne, billionaire and CEO of Wayne Enterprises, just cooed at you like you were a wounded bird and offered to “take care of you” like you were in some silly romance book?
“You do want it, right, darling? You want me to stretch you out with my fingers before I actually fuck you, yeah?” His voice dropped, almost like he was mocking you for drenching your lace panties because of how he was touching you, because of how he was talking to you.
Bruce was asking you like you never had sex before, like you never had any situationships or flings throughout all your college years, like you were some kind of blushing virgin just for him.
How dare he talk to you like that? Like you didn’t know what you were doing, like you weren’t a grown woman?
It made your face flame from the embarrassment.
That didn’t stop you from nodding.
“That’s not quite enough, I need to hear your words, pretty girl,” he murmured, almost as if he was scolding you. He didn’t stop one of his hands from twisting the zipper of your dress between his fingers, waiting for you to speak the words. “I need to hear you say that you want me to fuck you.”
It felt like bees were living under your skin, like your legs had been replaced with jelly, like your brain was submerged in syrup.
“Can you—just—I want you to fuck me, Bruce,” you finally managed to whine out, doing your best not to shiver when he unzipped your dress.
The straps slipped off your shoulders with ease, letting the fabric pool around your feet, to get tangled in the straps of your heels, letting Bruce Wayne see you in nothing but your sheer, lacy thong. It was too thin to hide your arousal from Bruce’s fingers when they made their way between your thighs. The gentle touches made you gasp, your body tensing up like a bowstring pulled taut.
“Uh-uh-uh, you don’t get to hide from me now. You think you get to act all shy after sticking your ass up in the air whenever you bend down into that freezer? I have been waiting for this, waiting for you to tell me that you want this from me.” He wedged his polished shoe between your feet, spreading your legs back open for him.
You let him with an embarrassing whimper.
“You’ve been waiting for me?” You asked him, tipping your head up so you could blink your hazy eyes up at Bruce like some unassuming dove. You asked him that like it was impossible for a man like Bruce Wayne to not only want you, but to wait for you.
“How could I not when you look at me like that?” He asked you like he was answering a simple math question. Was two plus two not four? “You look at me like I’m some sort of—some sort of, I don’t know—”
Bruce’s voice dropped into a rough laugh while he looked you up and down, hands brushing down your arms, down your bare waist. His lips were quirked up like he was a kid allowed to open more than one present on Christmas Eve.
“Like I’m not some sort of dinosaur. Sweetie, you’re half of my age—two of my sons are older than you, I can’t believe that you’re even looking at me like this.”
You couldn’t hold back the drunken giggle that tumbled out of your lips when he called himself a dinosaur. Maybe he was just as drunk as you were.
“Well, you are old, prehistoric, if you want to be specific—but that doesn’t mean you aren’t hot.”
The words were leaving you with a surprising amount of confidence. You could thank the excessive amounts of champagne and the way that the Bruce Wayne admitted to waiting for you, like you were in some sort of insane parody of a romcom.
The only warning you got that Bruce was going to spin you around was a low, gravely laugh. His hands were planted on your hips, spinning you around so that your back was against his chest. This way, you were pinned between Bruce and the arm of the couch. There was nowhere for you to go now, stuck between the heavy piece of furniture and an immovable wall of muscle who was your boss.
“Oh, so now you have an attitude? Do you think if I fill you up just right, you’ll drop it? Hm?” His voice was low and laced with faux-sympathy, like he was trying to get a reaction out of you. But really, how could he expect a reaction to his words when his fingers were already pushing your lacy thong aside?
You opened your mouth to say something, but all you were able to do was suck in a sharp gasp while your jaw went slack because his fingers already parted your folds. You were wet, so wet, in fact, that you could hear it despite the muted music coming in through the locked door and the heavy breathing starting to fill the room. The filthy wet noises only made your breath stutter harder, a rather pathetic-sounding whine leaving the back of your throat when the surprisingly calloused finger grazed your clit. It had to be swollen by now from the friction of lace on flesh, probably all red and puffy, oversensitive from all of the stuttering movements between your dress and his suit, even though the poor bud had barely gotten any attention since this gala started.
But you had been so wet for so long, and all you had gotten was a light press of his knee between your thighs. Not nearly enough to get you close, but enough to make it hard to remember why maybe this wasn’t the best idea in the world. So, when two of his big, calloused fingers found your clit and gave it a lazy swipe—it felt like all of the buzzing under your skin migrated between your thighs and settled at the base of your spine. It made you dizzy.
“Well, if that’s any indication, I think you’ll love getting filled up, hm?” He hummed into the top of your head, right into your hair.
His fingers went further, gathering and smearing the arousal that had pooled in your cunt just to coat his middle finger. You could hear the drag of his fingers against the velvety folds, his rhythm faltering only because of how wet you were. His fingers were sliding around without any resistance.
That was when his thumb found your oh-so neglected bundle of nerves and just started rubbing lazy, gentle circles. They were the kind that made your hips twitch and squirm against his chest because you needed more.
Bruce gave you more; he let his middle finger start to prod at your entrance, the ample wetness making it easier than he expected to slide right in. There was a little bit of resistance, of course, there was, but you welcomed him in so greedily.
“Fucking—oh my god, Bruce—!” You squealed, trying to wiggle around because it was so much and not enough at the same time. Slow, gentle circles on your clit with his thumb, his middle finger stretching you out, while his other arm wrapped around your middle, keeping you trapped between him and the armrest of the couch.
If he wasn’t holding you up like that, if he wasn’t pinning you against the couch, your knees buckling would have left you shaking on the floor. But Bruce’s other arm held you steady. Maybe because he knew your legs had given up on spending the energy to keep you standing, or maybe it was because it made it easier for him to grind his painfully hard dick against your ass.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, sweetheart. It’s a lot, isn’t it? Are my fingers better than your own?” Bruce didn’t expect an answer because that was his way of telling you that he was going to slide his index finger inside of you, too.
The noises were obscene—the wet squelching noise from between your legs every time Bruce thrusted his fingers, the heavy pants that left both of your mouths, the faint orchestral music that drifted from the ballroom through the locked door of the sitting room. It all combined to make some kind of pornographic symphony that only served to make you flush harder and clench around his fingers in more erratic pulses.
Your jaw was slack, lashes fluttering, and breath shallow. You were embarrassingly close when Bruce let out a dark huff and bullied a third finger alongside the first two. It made your hands fly up from where you were clutching the plush arm of the couch with white knuckles all the way to where Bruce’s arm was wrapped around your middle. Your fingers pressed hard into his forearm, nails biting through his button-down while you tried to adjust, unable to even stay still while he tried his best to stretch you out. The feeling of three of Bruce Wayne’s fingers inside your cunt, scissoring and spreading out to make sure that you could fit him inside of you.
The stretch made you whine like an injured animal on the side of a highway, keening because a car tire had crushed its leg. You would kick out your legs if you could, as if to fight the more than welcomed feeling of pleasure with a little tinge of pain at the edges, but you were so close to Bruce and so close to the heavy couch. You could barely move when you were pinned between the two, barely able to even breathe.
“I know, I know, don’t worry, you’re almost ready, darling—almost there, just wanna see how much wider I can get you to open up for me,” Bruce murmured against the curve of your neck, like he was talking more to himself than to you. He was bending down to reach you, his lips brushing your skin, which gave you the chills despite how you felt like your entire body was overheating, like the bees under your skin had been replaced with molten lava.
It was an uphill battle to try to wrangle the thoughts in your head to form a coherent sentence. Picking words and a point to talk about felt like trying to pick up water with your bare hands, you could touch them, hold onto them for one fleeting moment, but then when you went to say them, they left, falling between your fingers and back into the abyss you had tried so hard to grab them from.
“Br-Bruce, please just—please jus’ fuck me, Bruce,” you whined to him, leaning your head back against his chest, trying to look up at his face. You would wiggle more if you could, but your thighs were practically pinned to the edge of the couch’s armrest.
“Oh, so now you say ‘please?’ Glad that you’re sorting out your manners,” his lips still teased the shell of your ear, his breath spreading across the back of your neck and leaving goosebumps in their wake. You could feel the smirk on his face, the way his lips twitched against the top of your shoulder. It was a dead giveaway.
Bruce was mocking you.
“Since you asked so nicely, I will, of course, give you what you want, darling. You just had to ask politely. I know that you’re a smart girl, and smart girls know how to ask for what they want the right way. Isn’t that why I made sure to hire you? A two-for-one, a nice piece of ass with a big brain. Isn’t that right?”
The switch from the Bruce who politely asked you if you wanted his spare ticket to the gala to this Bruce, the one who was unzipping his trousers and growling in your ear about how you were a nice piece of ass, almost gave you whiplash. It would have given you whiplash if he wasn’t already pulling his fingers out of your cunt, helping to distract your mind with a much more important issue—the fact that he wasn’t fucking you yet. But he was about to.
He pulled himself out of his trousers, and you could feel the heat of him against the bare skin of your ass, your lace thong not doing much, not that he had it pulled to the side.
“Th-Thank you, thank you, Bruce,” you whimpered, lashes finally fluttering shut when you heard him stroke himself once, then twice before he unwrapped the arm around your middle. Before you could ask him why he was letting you go, his hand found itself splayed between your shoulder blades, pushing you down into the couch cushions, hips draped over the armrest.
“‘Course, pretty girl,” he whispered against the back of your neck, following you down to lean over your back while your face pressed into the plush materials of the couch. He pressed kiss after kiss down the back of your neck, down the slope of your shoulder, before settling back in a standing position.
This was his favorite. Now he could see you clutch at the pillows, while still getting to watch the fat on your ass bounce every time he bottomed out against your ass. “Are you ready? Ready for me to fill you up? Y’know, I’ve been imagining what you would look like bent over with your ass in the air for me ever since I saw you reorganizing the freezer after the undergrads fucked up all the samples.”
That was six months ago. The undergrads mixed up all of the samples in the freezer six months ago. Bruce Wayne had wanted to see you naked and bent over for six fucking months.
Was this even real? Were you high? Did someone slip something into your drink?
Before you could bring that up, before you could lift your head out of the pillows to turn back and look at Bruce’s face to ask him how long, he spread your thighs apart just a bit more. His touch was firm enough on the inside of your thighs to make you lose your train of thought. You weren’t able to see him, to see how painfully hard he was for you, or to see how his leaking tip flushed such an angry shade of red, how the mushroom tip of his dick was so swollen with want that just grazing the swell of your ass knocked the air out of his lungs.
One hand steadied your hips, keeping you still and propped up just right despite the involuntary squirming and the faint tremors in your legs, while his other hand guided him between your legs, only nudging your entrance. Your muffled whines of protest were met with a quick click of Bruce’s tongue, like he was chastising you, before he dragged the length of his cock between your folds. He wanted to get it all wet with you before he tried to thrust inside. He also just liked hearing how the couch cushions muffled the impatient noises coming from your mouth.
The moment that you started to feel the tip press into you, to sink inside inch by torturous inch, you tried to curl into yourself. It was too much, it wasn’t enough, he was stretching you so wide you thought you were going to break in half, you were going to cry if he even dared to stop.
His hand that had previously been steadying your hips moved up to your back, right between your shoulder blades. He pressed you down into the couch to keep you still while he hissed curses that your head was too fuzzy to understand as he bottomed out in one utterly devastating movement of his pelvis pressing into the fat of your ass.
You gasped into the pillows, your fingers grabbing into the overstuffed cushions at the totality of Bruce bottoming out inside of you. He was thicker than he was longer, but he was long. You could feel the veins rub against your fluttering walls, pressing into all those spots that made your toes curl. The head of his cock—that bulbous mushroom head tip, that had been such an angry red waiting for you—practically all the way in your guts, pressing into your lungs.
“This what y’needed sweetheart? Needed my cock to stretch you out so you forgot all those big special words you paid all that money to learn?”
His voice was filled with faux-concern. It only made you press back against him harder, and your face got warmer.
“Don’t gotta worry, I gotcha—I gotcha,” he cooed at you, starting to drag himself less than halfway out before pushing back inside, just slow enough to have your thighs shaking because it wasn’t enough.
The soft smacking of skin on skin and the squelching noises that followed filled the dark room, only interrupted by your own moans and the groaned curses that felt Bruce’s mouth every time your cunt pulsed around his length like a punishment for going too slow.
“Can you—Bruce, faster—” you whined, finally craning your neck to look at Bruce behind you. His perfectly gelled hair had fallen in limp waves around his eyes, the greying bits catching the low light of the secluded sitting room.
Bruce didn’t respond right away, not with words at least. He stopped moving, is what he did. He stopped completely fucking you just to curl his top lip in a rather cruel-looking grin.
“Don’t be a fucking brat,” he spat out before the hand between your shoulder blades left to grab your hair that had tumbled across your shoulders and the couch. He wrapped it around his hand, wringing it around and around until an involuntary noise left the back of your throat because now he was forcing your back into a devious arch, while his other hand held onto your hip so hard there would be bruises in a few hours.
And then he sped up.
The pace he took was almost unkind at first, with the way he started rutting into you, before you got used to the feeling of having his hand yanking at your hair, the sensation varying in intensity as Bruce fucked you hard enough to feel him in your throat. It was thrilling. It was electrifying to be fucked into oblivion by your boss.
Your arms felt useless as the minutes dragged on, trying to prop yourself up on your elbows only earned you a sharp tug of your hair and the pace was simply brutal enough for you to forget other fine motor skills besides clawing at the cushions hard enough to leave divots in the fabric from where your nails were digging in that hard in an effort to ground yourself.
“That better, darling? This’s what you wanted, yeah? Wanted me to fuck you ‘till your little pussy makes a big mess on my dick, hm?” Bruce rasped out, bottoming out just to grind against you. You couldn’t help how it made your hips twitch, how the only way you could answer him was nodding into the couch with a rather pitiful whine until he started fucking into you with a renewed sense of vigor.
He pulled your hair just enough for the pain to twist with the pleasure of being split open on Bruce’s cock until you were babbling nonsense into the pillows. It was like each time he rutted into you so hard it made your brain bounce around in your skull, killing off more and more brain cells each time. It only made the heat between your legs become more, the pit of tension in your lower belly getting tighter and tighter with each ram of his hips into your drooling pussy.
“Huh, looks like you’re really likin’ this? First time I saw you, didn’t think you’d let me bend you over the first thing you saw—thought I’d have to—fuck—thought I’d have t’try a bit harder than some champagne to get you underneath me.”
Each condescending quip only made you clench around him, sucking his dick back in like you wanted him to stay there, filling you up forever. Your moans got louder with each frenzied thrust. Bruce only babbled more when he twitched inside of you.
Your skin felt like it was too small, your legs felt like they needed to kick out, but you couldn’t do that, so you kept clawing at the couch, mewling with each new spot he plunged into. The heat between your legs and in the pit of your stomach had turned molten, and you couldn’t stay still anymore. You were writhing against the couch, your hips spasming and jerking, only to be redirected with a yank of Bruce’s hand wrapped in your hair. The coil that had been getting spun tighter and tighter and tighter with each word that left his mouth and each new angle was getting too tight, too wound up. Your thighs trembled so hard that anyone else would think that someone was shaking you.
“Oh, darling, you’re close, aren't you? Hm? Gonna make a big mess? Gonna—sh-shit—make a big mess on your boss’s cock, huh? I know, I know, you’re gonna make a big ol’ mess on my—hah, fuck—on my cock during a gala where anyone could unlock that door? Holy fucking Hell, darling, c’mon—jus’ come on my cock, darling—make a mess f’me an’ I’ll fill y’right up—”
The coil in your belly finally snapped.
The wail that you let out could have only been described as a noise similar to a wounded animal, crackling and desperate and gone. If it hadn’t been for Bruce’s sudden move to lean down to you, so that your back and his chest were flush together, you would have folded in on yourself like a collapsing star. Your drooling cunt fluttered around Bruce, clenching around him like a vice in erratic bursts, like you were trying to absorb him into you. Your hands were cramping from how hard you were gripping the pillows on the couch.
Bruce’s hips only continued to get more frenzied, faster, harder, while he pulled your hair tighter around his fist and dug his fingers into the plush of your stuttering hips even deeper. One thrust, another one that was even more erratic than the last, and then you could feel his dick twitching inside of you because he spilled into you. He rolled his hips against you, riding it out despite how each movement seemed to make you twitch as he elongated the aftershocks that were pulsing through your body like a metronome.
It took a while for the two of you to catch your breath, to stop panting like dogs. You were practically limp beneath Bruce as he lay on top of you, propped up on his forearms so he didn’t crush you. He had let go of your hair and started pressing kisses to the crown of your head while you both came down. Your hands shook in a way that made it obvious that you were still drunk off of champagne, and Bruce’s uncoordinated attempt at fixing the way your necklaces had tangled with each other gave him away, too.
“So, do you still think I’m prehistoric?”
Bruce answered his own question a few moments later when he stood up from the couch, to discover that his shoulder made a new clicking noise when he tried to put his suit jacket back on.
Liv Yaps: lol can u guys tell that i'm a bio major and this is what i did in my prof's lab for the past few years... anyway this came to me and i had the sudden impulse to verbally vomit but then it took me over a month to write it so if it sucks we can just blame it on that !! also i forgot how much i love kesha like i used to listen to her all the time when i was in elementary school and i completely forgot about her but like yeah bruce wayne x lab tech!reader inspired by dinosaur by kesha... i also cranked out the majority of this while listening to nine in nails after staying up for 24 hrs so.... we can blame that too !!! also shoutout to @caito-does-stuff for posting so many fics in the time it took me to write this bc lowkey every time u posted i would go aw fuck i have to finish this so thx for that !! also holy fucking shit this was way longer than i meant for it to be and i'm too lazy to make an entire other post to split it between so yeah!! my first 12k fic !!! but... uhm... if u know me irl, respectfully, u do NOT
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when Planet Publishing’s editor Clark Kent was given a steamy romance for his next project, he vowed to treat it like any other assignment: professionally. a sentiment he shared with the author herself—except it wasn’t the only thing they had in common…
🖊️ WARNINGS & TAGS: coworkers to friends with benefits?; virgins; mutual yearning; some jealousy; drunken confessions; SMUT (mentions of masturbation, oral, they're both switches, big dick clark, fingering, dirty talk, praise, size kink, tummy bulge, virginity loss, unprotected sex, creampie)
📓 READER NOTES: afab!reader; no use of y/n; reader drinks alcohol and eats meat... not clark's meat, although she does that too
☕️ AUTHOR'S NOTES: @theworstwolvie @pinksplace @tw1sters thank you for giving this a quick read while it was still a fetus—your encouragement carried me here to the post button <3
i hope everyone likes this fic because between this and another in july i don't think i'll be working on anything else... alexa play see you again by charlie puth wiz khalifa
1
Cassius traced a line with his darkened eyes. It dragged heat down Vesra’s body: first her lips, then her throat, then her naked, heaving chest. The corset that damned him all night was tugged loose, but not off, instead supporting her flesh in a way more salacious than it was designed to.
“Look at you,” he growled, the rumble reverberating in the inches between their bodies. “Better than I’ve dreamed.”
Vesra had a tease at the tip of her tongue—something about Cassius having dreamt of her—but the words evaporated the moment his lips took a pert nipple between them. She gasped instead, fingers finding his dark locks, tugging gently at them in a plea for more. If he was bothered by the touch, he didn’t show it: the first kisses turned quickly into suckles and testing bites.
The warmth of Cassius’s mouth bled into her veins. It spiked into a fever when he ground his hips into hers.
“Cass,” she cried, unbidden.
He groaned, mouth still on her tit. “Feel what you do to me? That’s all your fault.”
The question was rhetorical. Vesra felt it more than enough to answer: the outline of his shaft pressed against—
Someone clears their throat.
Clark Kent looks up. So do you from the book you’re reciting.
A waiter is there: young and blonde with a face that spelled jadedness earned from countless shifts toiling in this restaurant. He’s clearly walked into worse in his career.
“More water?” he offers, tone deadpan.
“I’m good, thanks,” you smile sweetly in response, “but please get me another bottle of soju.”
“One soju, then,” he repeats, before stepping away from your table.
Meanwhile, Clark sits across you with his face on fire. He manages an apologetic look at the waiter before throwing his gaze up, silently thanking the company for booking you a private room.
A warm pendant light looks back at him.
The Korean barbecue dinner is billable to Planet Publishing for two reasons: your birthday, and the success of your second novel under the house’s wing.
It’s the book you have open in your hands: Owls on a Moonlit Marsh, a gateway drug to fantasy for romance readers, and a steamy page-turner for fantasy readers.
Now Clark didn’t edit that book. He’s just invited to this company-expensed dinner because the two of you were in Gotham for a creative writing event, in which you were one of the panelists.
And you certainly didn’t let his politeness deter you from dragging him along, pushing past his insistence that you should spend Planet Publishing’s money with someone special—maybe a boyfriend.
(Was it rude to feel relief when you told him you didn’t have one?)
So, here he is. With you. Slightly full from an extremely delicious assortment of meats and banchan, listening to you complain about the pain in writing pleasure.
Clark Kent convinces himself that you brought him along because it’s the kind thing to do. The convenient thing, even. For once, you’re in Gotham, and this place has crossed your socials too many times. He just happened to be on a business trip with you.
That dress you are wearing isn’t low-cut to seduce him so much as to make yourself look beautiful. (And God, do you look beautiful.) It’s not flirtation that flashes in your eyes, just everyday mischief. Maybe soju-induced intoxication.
But that smile… The curl of it is so dangerously familiar, he finds his eyes averting from it to not provoke any untoward ideas—because the only ideas he’s getting are rather untoward.
Between the thoughts Clark Kent thinks to avoid heartbreak, there’s no way to misinterpret that smile.
Six months of working with someone is enough time to figure out whether you’re into them. Except Clark—if he were to admit at gunpoint—would say that being ‘into’ you is a massively understated way of expressing the specific feeling he’s dealing with.
You’re under his skin like an influence.
“Now where was I…?” you hum, scanning the page of an open book.
You point at the page. “Oh, right. His shaft.”
Once again, thank God and Perry White for the private room. Otherwise, saying the word ‘shaft’ while you read smut out loud might get you kicked out of this sleek restaurant.
“That scene was good,” Clark coughs. And he doesn’t just say that because he likes you, but in all honesty. “It’s sexy. And vulnerable.”
The main characters have gone through a literal book-load of feelings, which culminated into what has been described by Tumblr users as a “clit-throbbing” smut scene. In working with you for half a year, he deeply understands—the first part about going through a lot of feelings, that is.
The latter part? He can only dream.
“Thanks, Clark. Flattery gets you everywhere,” you beam. “I have a praise kink.”
Gosh, it’s so darn warm in here. (The charcoal’s been dead for a while now.)
“I was being serious.”
“Really? You think it was good?” you reply so earnestly he sits up straighter at the attention. “I was worried we were getting repetitive—M and I could only substitute the word ‘cock’ so many times.”
Clark nearly chokes on his rice wine.
If the publishing house let you loose with your word choices, people will get ID’ed at the counter for wanting to buy your books.
And M? She’s the reason he’s working with you: the editor for your first two novels, now on maternity leave.
M stands for Mary, but only those closest to her would know that her full given name is Mary Magdalene.
Alanis Morissette would like a word.
“I’m sure ‘thrust’ is the same,” Clark murmurs, fixing his glasses.
You give the comment a thought. “Actually, not really.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm-hmm,” you nod. The green soju bottle glints in the dim as you swirl it around. “I suppose… it’s the sensation that I find difficult to write.”
Clark tries to school his heartbeat. Be professional. That’s the one thing he vowed when taking up this job: you can’t edit a critically acclaimed romantasy if you don’t take it seriously.
And the two of you haven’t gotten there. Writing the sex, he means, not having sex. There’s nowhere for you and him to go on that part. And he definitely has not thought about it. Not in the slightest.
Professional, Clark scolds himself internally.
“How so?” he asks.
Your gaze shifts away from his. That’s rare.
“Well,” you begin, tone light as a feather, “it’s hard to write about something I haven’t felt before.”
A beat of silence. Then two.
“Sorry, what?” he pipes up, voice comically tiny. “I don’t think I heard you right.”
There’s nothing for him to be nervous about, though, because you’re grinning back at him like that wasn’t a dropped bomb. He’d blame it on the alcohol in your veins, but even while sober, you’re the kind of woman who just… shoots it straight.
God knows he loves it—his heart blooms in secret joy with every flash of honesty.
Like right now.
“I think you did, Clark,” you giggle, “and now you’re getting shy about it.”
“It’s the makgeolli,” he defends, though feebly.
“I’m a virgin,” you announce.
As if it’s the Declaration of Independence.
As if the waiter didn’t just enter and place another bottle of soju on your table.
You throw him a thank you with a pretty smile, to which the young man nodded. He leaves the room without asking if you need anything else.
You have the decency to continue after the door slides shut.
“And I mean that in the PIV sense. Not that the notion of virginity makes any sense, let alone penetrative virginity.”
“No, yes, of course,” Clark stammers in reply, all while his mind asks what have you done, then, and how do I stop picturing you doing it?
Because you did things with someone else. At some point in time, you were doing things with someone else. That makes him jealous.
Clark Kent doesn’t like feeling that green thing.
He’s jolted out of his slightly bitter reverie by a nudge on his calf.
It’s the tip of your high-heeled shoe. He doesn’t need to peek under the table to see, he can picture it just fine: maroon patent leather with a pointed tip brushing short, playful strokes over the fabric of his dress pants.
His heartbeat snags. The pulse floods south.
“But with your experience, Mr. Editor,” you smile coyly, “you’ll ensure my written work is as accurate as possible, yes?”
Call it in vino veritas, or call it Ma and Pa’s education, but Clark Kent can’t lie. Not well, anyway. The truth stumbles out of his lips soon as you stop talking.
He tries to make it sound casual.
“You know, I haven’t done it, either.”
Your eyes widen, gasping out in drunken surprise.
“Really. A catch like you? The world truly is ending.”
There are many graces offered to Clark Kent tonight, and maybe the small kindnesses he did in the past are paid back in this exact moment: the waiter saunters in again to announce that the restaurant is closing soon, giving Clark a second or two to collect himself after your remark.
A catch, you called him, while he catches his breath and gathers your coats from their hangers, while his heart flies away on wings of joy. You think he’s a catch.
Or maybe you’re just being nice.
You stand and turn around. He helps you with your sleeves.
“The meal was fantastic,” you tell the waiter on your way out, appearing completely sober—save for the warm lilt in your voice.
The subject is dropped just like that.
Meanwhile, on the short walk back to the hotel, Clark Kent can only think of how you’ve never.
And how you know he’s never, either.
୨୧
When you reach the hotel, he’s not sure if you’ll even remember anything in the morning, because you’re giggling in the elevator up when the height pops your ears.
He’s not just walking you to your room, but walking himself inside your room—to make sure you’re safe, of course.
The bedroom is a mirrored layout of his just next door. He watches as you cross the threshold, dump your coat on the floor, and kick your heels off before jumping face-first onto the queen bed.
He shakes his head, but everything he does bleeds affection: he hangs up your coat and places your shoes neatly onto the side.
Then you sigh into the cold sheets, as if laying there is the best feeling in the world, and Clark tenses.
You’re safe. He isn’t.
Because that sigh reminds him of another sound.
A moan—airy, short.
Yours.
It happened last night. He could only hear it because the hotel walls aren’t as thick as he thought, or maybe because your beds were pressed up on the same side. It wasn’t loud—just him being really cognizant that your private existence and his are separated by one slab.
A concrete slab, sure, but still.
And his mind got the better of him, as it always does when you’re involved. The little noise was enough to make him think about you touching yourself. The image alone inspired him to do the same in the shower.
He’d spent a long time after feeling guilty for morphing that beautiful sound into something that resembled his name—that’s how inconceivable it is, a person like you being into a person like him.
Still, if he has a character flaw, it would be the endless hope that pours out of him. It’s in the way he tucks you under the covers and fixes a strand of your hair after.
He’s about to leave when you grab his hand.
“Don’t go,” you murmur, eyes half-closed. Even so, he sees them glazed—with both alcohol and a brand of loneliness he can’t bare to subject you to—and he folds easily.
The smile you smile when he slips under the covers is just about worth the torture of holding you in your bed.
You snuggle up into him, face buried in his chest.
But then you go and make things even harder for him. Something you keep doing even while drunk.
“Clark?” you slur.
“Hm?”
“You know I’d give it to you, right?”
“Give me what?”
“My virginity.”
Oh.
How cruel, he thinks to himself. The things people say under the influence.
“Go to sleep,” he says softly, stroking the top of your head. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about, is what he tells himself to keep the feelings at bay.
But his mind recalls the shape of your moan, and how perhaps he didn’t make it sound like his name.
You murmur something unintelligible. He wonders if you can hear the wild bang of his heart. Your prolonged silence and even breaths mean no.
He drifts off soon after.
2
You wake up feeling like a person in a daytime pad commercial who just slept like a person in a nighttime pad commercial.
That is to say: you wake up comfortable because you slept amazing. The only minor complaint would be the lack of bodily warmth on your sheets.
On the other side of the bed are wrinkled sheets, suspiciously Clark-shaped. Flashes of last night play in your head: the Korean barbecue, alcohol burning your throat, the smell of him under your sheets…
…and the things you told him.
Oh.
Well, you said what you said. It certainly isn’t the first time you embarrassed yourself just to make him look your way. The dress last night is another recent example.
Life goes on, and you figure your colleague-slash-friend probably returned to his room right after he woke, most likely flustered even with no one looking.
On the nightstand is a tall glass of water and Advil. Must be Clark’s doing.
You drink the medicine down despite 1) feeling in perfect health and 2) knowing that the water won’t quench the thirst you have for the man who poured the glass for you.
And boy, does Clark look like a tall glass of water when you see him again in the lobby, seated in one of the plush armchairs. You keep telling yourself it’s the suit, but the hotel receptionist is wearing the same color and cut—yet you’re not salivating at the sight.
“Good morning,” you chirp, wheeling your small suitcase while you walk towards Clark.
He stands. He always does when you enter a room. Those manners and looks in one person would incur panic upon suburban mothers everywhere.
“Thanks for the Advil.”
“It’s no problem.” He smiles back at you. You sense immense politeness—more than usual. “How did you sleep?”
“Really well. You?”
“Yup, out like a light.”
“Must be the alcohol,” you reply.
It would’ve been a decent lie, if not for the whole beat that passed silently before Clark coughs out a response equally weak to yours.
“Yes, it was… really good alcohol.”
You agree that the soju was excellent, but the better the booze, the worse the sleep.
You know you slept well because he was in your bed. You just don’t know if this is his normal display of shyness or if he’d rather die than admit it.
Either way, it’s just who he is: Clark is too kind to turn you down and too professional to ever address what you told him last night.
Lucky for you, there’s plenty of time to lick your wounds.
The two of you drive back to Metropolis. Clark sits behind the wheel of his car. The traffic leading up to the Interstate is egregiously heavy, just like the air inside the vehicle.
Small talk makes it worse—and for the record, the two of you usually converse just fine. His mindless distraction is changing radio stations as if he knows what he wants to listen to. Meanwhile, you pretend to do something productive on your laptop: developments for your third novel, the last of the installment.
Developments. Psh. All you have are bullet points.
ves forced into divine deal with zalrythar god of secrets
she can’t tell anyone including cass
figure out b plot
cass thinks ves is pulling away and confronts her
she obv stonewalls
angst haha
resolve b plot
cass and ves both end up in god-mandated sex
That takes you less than a minute to type out. The car hasn’t moved for the last seven.
You spend the next three staring at his hands on the steering wheel.
୨୧
Even when traffic eases as you reach Metropolis, the tension doesn’t. It thickens the closer he gets to your destination, palpable by the time Clark turns into your street. The GPS lady shuts up at this point, leaving you and him to stew in silence.
Your apartment is just up ahead. He’s slowing the car down and you internally curse yourself.
There’s no way you can take any more of this, the tip-toeing a shared truth like it’s a secret. There’s no way he isn’t aware—he wouldn’t be so quiet otherwise. And you’ve seen him truly oblivious: someone would ask him out to dinner and he’d think it’s because they want to talk business.
If you do this, he’s probably going to think you’re even more shameless than he initially thought.
What he doesn’t know is that you want to be an honest person around him. Just your luck that, in your case, being honest means shamelessly wanting him.
“Clark?” you call out as he tugs at the handbrake. Your voice isn’t fully gathered, underused in the silence of the ride back, and you sound a little less sure than you’re used to.
“Hm?” he hums back, looking over at you. The car hums, too.
You shift your body to face his, seatbelt clicked free, like that’s going to help you breathe in better.
“Something happened yesterday.”
His jaws clench once. Eyes widen a fraction. You aren’t asking a question.
“Yes. We slept toge—I mean, I fell asleep on your bed.”
Clark Kent isn’t a good liar by nature, but you’d be lying, too, if you said you didn’t pay special attention to his voice. The words come out too fast, and there’s a slight pinched quality to his voice that clues you in on his farce. You’ve known him long enough to learn his tells.
“And?” you ask.
He thrums his fingers on the steering wheel.
“You also told me… you’re a virgin.”
You don’t spare a beat, lest he finds a way to escape this situation.
“And so are you.”
He nods. “Yep.” There’s a pop on the ‘p’, heavy with an acceptance of his fate.
Your lip twitches up in amusement—he looks so close to spontaneous combustion, the tapping of his fingers like a ticking time bomb.
“Gosh,” Clark smiles, the shaky, worried kind, “you don’t think that’s funny, do you?”
That catches you off-guard and a little offended. “Why would I? We’re in the same boat.”
“No, yes, of course,” he stammers. “I'm sorry, I just—"
“—thought an erotic novelist can’t possibly be a virgin?"
There’s a pause.
" Yes,” he admits. “I mean, it’s my fault. I assumed. From your books, of course! Not from anything else.”
You laugh a little at his jitteriness, and funnily enough, he seems to relax.
“It’s okay. I was just—” you search for the right word, “tickled. Two virgins writing and editing paperback smut.”
He laughs this time. You take in the dimples of his cheeks, and suddenly the totally silent car ride home fizzles out like a distant memory.
“Not that I think sex is a prerequisite, by the way,” you add, just to make sure you’re not staring at him too much. “You’re a good editor, Clark.”
He seems to be taken aback, eyes locked on yours.
“That’s because you’re a great writer.”
He ends that sentence with your name, spoken it’s holy. Something in you cracks open.
The reality is that writing comes easy because he fuels your dreams. All you do is extend them. You take every little thing he gives you in real life, surgically pluck it out of context, and blow it out of proportion. The lingering brush of his hand after a hug. A touch on your lower back in a crowded room. Him leaning down to hear you better.
He’s the fire that kindles your prose. Inspires your imagination until he’s shaped like a man who wants you.
Writing is the highest form of wishful thinking, after all.
You used to think Clark Kent wanting you is an impossible thing, but now? Maybe it’s not.
Because his face takes on a kind of expression you’ve only written about.
His eyes darken.
“Clark?”
“Yes?” he replies, a microsecond too fast. He’s scared. Or nervous. Or both.
Either way, you are too—because there’s no turning back after this.
“That’s not all I told you, was it?”
You catch his throat bob. When he speaks, his voice is taut, like the air in the car.
“No.”
Your fingers twitch from seeing his jaw clench.
The urge to touch him wins out, and you find yourself moving both hands to cradle his face, thumbing at the tense spot. His breath visibly hitches: you can tell from the rise of his chest when you bridge the gap between your seats.
“I meant what I said, you know,” you murmur, not even looking him in the eye anymore. Your gaze lands lower.
His lips are parted so beautifully… but you make sure to stare straight into him when you nail your own coffin shut.
“I’d give it to you.”
He needs to know you mean it.
As if those words were permission, he leaned down and closed the gap entirely, kissing you.
He’s more sure than you thought he’d be—and God, that’s past tense, because you now know how he kisses: slow, deep, with the rumbly beginning of a groan brewing in his chest. You melt into his body as much as the car will allow, the hand on his face slipping back to card through dark locks.
That’s when he feeds the sound straight into your mouth.
The groan isn’t the only thing that travels. His hands do too. One drags a path up your side to tug you closer. Another snakes to your nape, as if the kiss could get any deeper.
Your tongues dance and you moan at his taste.
“Fuck,” you breathe, lips still on his. You nip at his bottom lip in between words. “You want it? Want me to give it to you?”
His reply is hazy above all yes, like he just woke from a dream or is drifting into one.
“Yes. Please. I want it—want you.”
“Good,” you smile, releasing his lip with a pop, “wanna take yours, too.”
The look on his face is something you wish you could photograph.
He’s red—just from kissing—lips swollen and rosy, a tiny, faint pool of drool out one corner. His glasses are askew.
You fix it with a smile.
“Come upstairs.”
3
Upstairs takes an elevator ride where he stands behind you to hide his boner—just in case someone walks in, he reasons—but you make it through your door soon enough.
Not without you fumbling with your keys and giggling into his mouth.
By the time Clark tumbles into your bed, bringing you down with him, he’s already painfully hard under his slacks.
Everything smells like you.
Your hand on his chest draws a cheeky line down his stomach past his belt, and he sighs in relief. You sit back on your haunches, still straddling him, finally palming the tent that’s formed in his pants.
He gasps at the touch, mouth open, already missing your lips on his.
“So hard already,” you murmur. “Take this belt off.”
He obeys, quiet except for the clink of metal. The belt drops somewhere on the floor with a thunk. Your pretty hands work his zip, tugging just enough to reveal a dark blue pair of boxer-briefs.
Then he feels your weight shift on the bed. Watches you move down until you’re face-to-cock with his still-clothed erection.
“How far have you gone, Clark?” you ask, light as a feather, breath warm against the fibers of his underwear. The sight of you smiling between his legs is so dizzying, he grips the sheets for anchor. “Did you at least get blown?”
“Yea—ah,” he pants, because your hand is on his cock again. Palming. Squeezing.
You hum. Fingertips playfully stroke down his length from over the boxer-briefs, fondling his balls. “When was the last time?”
“Don’t know,” is his immediate, husked-out answer. There’s no past in his mind. Just the present, as unbelievable as it is—your bed, you, your hand, your pretty face… “Don’t care, just, please—”
As if triggered by his begging, you sit back up, leaving his cock completely touch-starved.
He sighs, because you’re thumbing his bottom lip. The touch isn’t kind. As a matter of fact, it’s a little mean: your finger is pushing his lip to the side, teasing the plush of it, pulling it down just a bit before letting it bounce back.
He likes it.
You chuckle when he takes your thumb in his mouth, even before you push it past his lips.
“So eager,” you drone, your other hand stroking his hair. “You want it that bad?”
“Yes,” he says, except it sounds more like mmph with his mouth occupied.
He lets your thumb go, only to kiss at your open palm. One quiet sound after the other, he presses his lips into your hand more—until very soon, he’s literally making out with it. His own hand is gripping yours close to his face, keeping you still.
“What exactly do you want, Clark?” Your words carry more breath than voice, and his blood sings.
“Anything you’d give to me,” he answers.
It’s at that point you choose to wrest your hand away, settling back down between his legs. You lean down to peck on his hard-on—it jumps excitedly under the fabric. You laugh, thumbing at the waistband.
Then you pull his boxer-briefs down, and there he is.
All of his inches, eight or nine, you’re not sure, but the exact measurement doesn’t matter—not when he’s relatively equal to the length of your forearm.
Surprise, surprise. Your big sloppy crush has a big fucking dick.
A dick so pretty you might cry—especially because it’s already crying a pearly bead at the tip. You trace a prominent vein that runs on the underside, lick your lips as he bucks into your hand.
You look at his face and a cruel amusement takes over you: Clark is propped on his elbows, cheeks bathed red, jaw slack like he’s just ran up fifty flights of stairs.
And you haven’t even done anything.
Rising up to your knees, you move to his face. A kiss on his lips, slow and deep. Then ten more light ones all over his cheekbone, jaw, neck, throat, up to his ears, at which point he’s stuttering out the beginnings of your name.
Your hands part his legs wider, letting you situate yourself more comfortably between them. He gulps. You move back down to the center of his expanse. Your head tilts, mouth a dangerous distance from where he’s most sensitive.
“Can I kiss you here?”
Your fingerpad teases the tip. Pre meets your skin, warm and sticky. You smear it on his fat head.
“Yes.”
Christ, was that a whine? Your little smile turns devious, nose nudging his cock. It twitches again, as if autonomous from the rest of him—like it’s developed its own mind and is begging you greedily to give it more.
“You’re so big, Clark. Will you even fit?” you muse, fingers curling around him, pumping once, twice. He throws his head back with a grunt, the movement so sharp you think he might be pulled at with a leash.
Well. You’ll figure out the answer to that later. For now, you should play with your meal.
You slip the tip into his mouth and watch shivers wrack his body. After swirling your tongue on it once, you let go with a pop, purring.
“So sensitive. What am I gonna do with you?”
Meanwhile, Clark is losing his mind.
“Your—f-fuhh—fault,” comes his raspy reply just as you descend one, two, three inches more. Gosh, your mouth is so warm, so tight…
You chuckle, and the vibrations rattle him up to his ribcage. It occurs to him that he might’ve said those things about your mouth out loud. Rather than mortification, he feels elation, because even when you move up and the warmth is gone, you’re teasing his tip with your tongue again, and it feels so good he might cry.
The circles in his vision must be mimicking your wet heat drawing patterns on him.
One of his hand sinks into a pillow, the other cards digits through your hair.
An expletive escapes the moment you hollow your cheeks, far too sudden for him to take back.
“Fuck,” he gasps, the sound tailing off with dumb, repeated attempts of forming your name. Most of his brain is in his hips now as they swivel in hopes to get more of him in your mouth, but your fingers splay beautifully on the rippling muscles of his abdomen.
“Uh-uh. Stay still.”
Following orders is usually a thing he’s good at. Just not today. Not now.
Now, all he can think of is how good it feels—his mouth echoes those thoughts with babbles of “so good, feels so g-good, you’re perfect”—and how if you keep this up, he’ll come in an embarrassing amount of time.
It’s already taking everything in him not to let that happen.
But then he catches you look up at him.
The sun’s still out, bathing the room with enough light to show him exactly what makes him nearly crumble:
Your pretty lips, wrapped around his thick cock, head bobbing up and down to reveal the glisten on him—a mix of precum and spit—your hair messy around his hand.
“Stop,” he groans, holding your skull still so he can gently pull himself out of you. There’s a line of drool that connects your mouth and his cock. “Stop, don’t wanna come—”
The surprised tinge in your reply almost breaks his heart. “You don’t want to?”
He shakes his head, reconstructing his breaths. “Not until I’m inside you.”
For once in his life, you don’t talk back, and he’d be damned to let the opportunity slip.
Clark Kent grew up learning how to take things into his own hands. He puts that into practice with you, grabbing you up by the waist, laying you down on the bed. He takes your clothes off: slowly, because every inch of bare skin is the closest he’s been to heaven, because he wants to savor this, because he thinks you’re beautiful.
Says it too, even if it’s whispered.
He has you in your underwear, teasing the strap of your bra. “Can I take this off, sweetheart?”
You nod instead of giving him mouth. A rarity.
He’ll give you mouth, instead: by kissing you as he unclasps your bra with one hand (still no comment from you). Once it’s off, he drags his lips down your throat, then collarbone, then your heaving chest, where he lets himself stare for once. His warm breath caresses your skin, while heat pours out from his gaze.
He finally leans down, laving at a nipple. Polite first, hungry just two seconds later. His entire mouth is involved: sucking at your chest, a large hand squeezing around your flesh to feed more into him. Your hand digs into his curls when he hums, teeth grazing playfully as you arch for more.
He looks up.
You’re a dream. He’s sure he’s dreamed of this once—except instead of blurred images and hazy glows that tortures him at night, the scene is crystal. He sees everything through his glasses: each strand of lashes on your pretty eyes, the color of your skin against the sheets, how your hair splays on the pillows.
Actually, speaking of pillows—and dreams…
“Here,” he wrests one from under your head and taps the side of your hips, “lift your hips up for me.”
You do it, but it seems you’ve found your voice again. The cheeky retort comes out breathless.
“Really, Clark? You’re gonna use that line on me?”
He adjusts you on the pillow, lips pursed—both from your tease and the sight of you, naked, save for the cute underwear raised up to meet him.
It’s already wet at the gusset. There isn’t much for him left to imagine.
“Just because you’re a writer doesn’t mean you’re immune to it,” he hums, peeling the material off of you. You instantly fall silent.
He groans at the sight of you clenching around nothing, slick threatening to dirty the pillowcase you’re resting on.
Two fingers drag a path down your mound to your wet entrance. Two moans erupt when he circles there—yours higher pitched than his, because he touches like it’s payback for some unseen grudge. Surely you don’t know how long he’s thought of you like this, how long he’s struggled with the guilt of fantasizing about his hot colleague, only to find this.
Your soaked cunt winking at him.
“You’re so wet,” his digits dip, collecting your juices. Your hips buck. “Is this from sucking me off?”
“No, I was thinking about winning the lottery,” you moan, betraying your impatience, “yes, it’s because of you, stupid!”
He laughs. He’s wanted you way too long—you can wait a little longer.
“Need to prep you,” a thumb pushes the hood off your clit, only for him to do nothing but look at it.
You shiver under his gaze, tease audibly lacking the bite. “Is this how you do it—stare?”
His eyes meet yours, blue eyes almost burning. Your throat bobs. That’s what fuels him.
“You tell me,” he murmurs, “you’re the erotic novelist.”
Fingers explore again, barely touching, always circling, and he bites back a moan at the sight of you arched like that, like your hips are hungry for more. His touch doesn’t relent, although it’s taking everything in him not to take every part of you right then and there.
“Clark—”
“You wrote something like this before,” his thumb swipes your clit. His name on your lips breaks, but those eyes on your face never does. “Page 347 of Owls. ‘When his finger sinks inside her, she gasps like she’s never breathed air’…”
Just then, he does as he says. His middle finger stretches you, one knuckle deep at first, then two, then all the way in. You writhe, stuttering a moan at how slow he is, before the sound dies in your throat with a gasp.
The base of his palm presses against your clit.
Clark catalogs your reactions with the precision of a machine. The warmth of his touch is anything but. So is the slight crinkle between his brows: signs that he’s testing his own boundaries by stretching yours so slowly.
“Or is it the next page? ‘The rhythm he sets replaces the beat of her heart—except nothing about the slow scrape of his fingers echoes the relentless thumping in her chest.’”
When he moves his fingers, the dimples on his cheeks begin to show. He smiles down at you, free from the pretense of professionalism:
He doesn’t commit your lines to memory because he’s a dedicated editor. He does it because he thinks about doing those things with you—so, so often.
“Fuck—Clark—” you whimper, the syllables choked out as his other hand pins your hip.
One finger becomes two, but the pace doesn’t change. Still arduous, still torture. Clark’s eyes are glazed: in watching you lose your mind underneath him, he loses his in trying to erase true words laced with alcohol. Your voice floats in his memory:
And I mean that in the PIV sense.
Does that mean you’ve done this before, with men who aren’t him? Were they any good? Did you like them, or did you let them in your bed just to use them? Doesn’t make a difference, Clark decides, because they still got to be with you. Were they the reason you wrote passion so well, or was it because they were so shit at it you had to take matters into your own hands?
Speaking of taking matters into your own hands, your voice floats in his memory again. Not words this time.
“You touched yourself, didn’t you?” Clark grunts, fingertips kissing your cervix at the word touched, “Two nights ago. In the hotel.”
You don’t answer, but your widened eyes said enough.
He leans down. Presses his forehead against yours.
“Heard you through the wall. Sound so sweet. Wanna hear it again.”
He kisses your lips once before moving down the expanse of you, flat on the bed between your very open legs—thanks to his gentle grip around one ankle, spreading you out for him to see.
But before you can shiver at the loss of his warm shadow, his lips closes around your clit, and you give him what he wants.
An open moan, loud enough to bounce off the walls.
Clark moans, too. The sound vibrates directly onto your cunt, you can’t help but spasm. He doesn’t stop. The flat of his tongue presses entirely on you, never really still: soon, he starts sucking and licking and teasing your poor clit. He tastes you, and a steady stream of muffled groans leak from his mouth—the same way your pussy leaks juices around his thrusting fingers, the squelch squelch squelch growing faster and louder in the room.
“You wrote about this so many times,” he murmurs against your slick, “d’you like it that much?”
Your answer is an unintelligibly keen noise.
“I love it,” Clark is purring now, hazy with your taste, “I’ll help you write lines later, m’kay? Want you to soak my hand, my tongue—”
Your body must’ve mistook that as an order, because the orgasm hits you out of nowhere, hot-white and sparking off your every nerve. You arch, convulse, slurring his name like you can’t speak while your pussy gushes around his fingers as they thrust through your spasms, unrelenting.
He breathes out a blasphemy, the first “oh my God” you’ve ever heard coming out of his mouth. Your senses are only starting to come back, but he replaces his fingers with his tongue, and you can’t hear anything past your own scream.
He fucks you just like that, lapping at your juices like he hasn’t drank in ages.
Something within you unstitches, and you feel your body leaping past overstimulation to overwhelming pleasure. You don’t tell him to stop—how can you, when he’s so clearly drunk on your pussy? He moans words into you like it’s a pet, coos of “You’re so pretty when you come”, “Tastes so good for me” vibrating against your core.
The cool frame of his glasses bumping against your inner thigh only makes everything feel better.
“Clark,” you cry, and he already knows. Already mumbling encouragements into your cunt.
“Want you to come again, honey, c’mon, you can do it, yeah?”
You do. The crest tugs at your spine like a string, and your hips seek his mouth as if looking for a place to give.
He takes it—slurping, licking, kissing.
When your white-edged vision comes back from the dappled blurs, he’s already shirtless and sitting on his heels, looking down at something.
You follow his gaze.
It stops at his cock resting on your stomach—the exact measure of how deep he’ll be.
There’s a smile on Clark’s face. Kind, but not kind enough that he won’t fuck you into the mattress.
“See that, sweetheart?” he leans down, feeding the words straight into your ear. “We’ll make sure you take everything, m’kay?”
When you whimper and close your eyes—because how is that thing going inside you?—he tuts once. Cups your jaw with a broad palm, still sticky with your juices. Another time and place, you’d scold him, but now?
“You need to watch,” he says, “so you can write about it.”
Your eyes blink open, only to find his pupils blown out black.
Now you’re screwed—or just about to be.
The fat head of his cock rubs against your hole, hot, smearing precum on your cunt. You mewl, eyes fluttering shut again, but he tightens his hold on your jaw, whispering “c’mon, honey, look at me” like his voice doesn’t make things worse.
Like he’s not just as wrecked.
Lips slick, parted, and a little swollen, hazy eyes half-lidded, Clark Kent is the picture they put next to the definition of lust.
But you’re the same, because his cock nudges your clit again and you melt, stammering your truest wish into his mouth:
“Please, Clark, please fuck me, need you to fuck me—”
How he isn’t already cumming all over you is beyond his comprehension.
“Oh, attagirl,” he breathes, before finally sinking in.
The stretch isn’t as painful as you thought it’d be, but maybe that’s just how desperate you are for him. Clark doesn’t seem to be holding up so well, though: he’s panting just a breath away from your lips, exhales shaky at the tightness that wraps around him, holding back the need to just slam into your perfect heat.
Inch by excruciating inch, he sinks into you, then stops. You gasp at the feeling: full. How you managed to take him all so easily is a mystery.
You call his name, clenching around him. His answer is strained, brows knitted.
“I’m only halfway in, baby.”
A wave of desire and dread washes over you at the realization. Those blue eyes, though black now from dilated pupils, drift momentarily down, before they lock onto yours again.
He pushes in.
Your jaw falls slack in disbelief, walls stretched by the veiny ridges of him. His girth bullies your cunt to take his shape. He watches as he thrusts the thickest part of him inside you, studying each twitch and blink and stutter, looking out for pain, but finding pleasure above all else.
This time, you know he’s all the way in. Your vision blacks out a little at the heft.
“There we go, good girl, so good for me, you’re perfect…”
Those words come tumbling out, both a reassurance for you and a distraction for Clark—because you’re so warm and tight and wet around him, he might lose himself if he doesn’t focus.
“Breathe for me,” he hums, but he’s not breathing right either.
This is it. His cock is inside of you—the first one to ruin you, if he doesn’t mess this up and ruin himself first.
Meanwhile, you watch Clark pant above you, his forearms flexing as they bracket your head, face red from restraint.
The sight makes you clench and he moans.
“D-Don’t—a—ah,” his chest heaves.
That pulls a grin out of you, weak as it is. You clench again, this time intentionally.
He grits your name out between teeth. “I said, don’t.”
“Why?” you husk, even though you know the answer.
“Gonna make me c-come.”
You stroke his cheek to guise the fact that you’re not doing much better yourself—not with all eight, nine inches of his hard cock pulsing directly against your walls like that.
The thought strikes you then: this is the closest you’ve ever been to someone—quite literally speaking.
And it’s Clark who’s holding you right now. Clark. Endlessly polite and often sweet Clark. Easily ragebaited into a rant Clark. Charming without meaning to, helps with the best of intentions Clark.
It’s precisely because you’re with him that your mouth decides to say something stupid. Call it a defense mechanism—from what, you’re not sure, because he’s already inside you, what the fuck are you defending yourself from?—but the words slither out anyway.
Playful. Teasing. You say it right by his lips, the exact opposite of what you had in mind.
“You can cum, Clark. I’ll just find someone else to help me write my book.”
When in fact you’ll never let anyone else between your legs ever again.
Something in Clark shifts. His throat bobs with it, eyes sharpening past the haze of lust.
Then he’s on his knees, gripping your hips with both hands, before thrusting up without pulling out even an inch—like deeper is possible. You feel him in your lungs. He does it again.
This time, both your eyes and his snap down to the faint bulge near your stomach.
The view doesn’t stay for long. He drags his inches out of you, slowly, all the way to the tip, before plunging deep once more.
“Fuck—!”
You’re busy crying out when he leans back down. His hand gathers your wrists above your head, the other firm on the side of your hip—both anchors to the slow pace he builds.
“‘s this what you need?” he rasps, voice broken between lazy thrusts that ring loud, “Writing—nmm—material?”
“Aah—”
“You gonna write about how,” thrust, “he’s so deep, she can see him in her stomach?”
Your eyes widen, first at the bulge on your lower belly, then at him.
“About how she cries out for him?” Thrust.
“—a-nghh—”
“How she’s clenching around him,” he mouths against your ear, words slurred, “like she doesn’t want him to leave?”
The cant of his hips pick up speed, and soon there are plap plap plaps of his balls slapping your ass under your moans and his. His hand on your wrists becomes a lever from which he thrusts.
The air hangs heavy with sweat and a heady scent. The bed begins to creak.
You’re rutting up into him, the swivel of your hips growing more and more desperate with each murmur of his name—he watches you the entire time, entranced by the roll of your bodies.
“Fuck, look at you,” he whines at the sight, eyes glazed over.
“Wanna touch,” you mumble, drool beginning to pool on one side of your lip. Your fingers claw the air. “Please, let me touch—”
He lets go of your hands. You drag him into a kiss that tangles your moans together, all while his hipbone bumps into yours again and again.
The freedom he gives you damns him: your hands raking down his chest makes him shiver, so do your nails digging into his bicep. The worst part happens when you tug at his hair: a response to one particular slam that hits a spot in you, in turn drawing a garbled moan out of him.
You can’t stop touching him, and he’s all the worse for it.
With each fuse of your hips and his, your walls clutch him like you’re trying to keep him inside. Out to the tip, in to the hilt, splitting you open with each store, coating his cock with you while he bullies that spot that makes you beg so beautifully: “yes, Clark, please!”
It’s clear you’re close. It hasn’t been long since Clark got acquainted with your pretty pussy, but the way she clenches is enough to clue him in.
He’s not doing any better: eyes dark behind glasses that sit askew, swollen lips parted. His only hope now is to pound into that gummy spot in you again and again and again while he spews praise in your ear—make you come before he does, because it’s too good for him not too: he’s so hard and you’re squeezing him so tight, rubbing delicious friction that’s all at once too much and not enough.
You respond with nails raked down his naked back, the mantra of ‘Clark Clark Clark’ shooting ecstasy straight to his head, fueling the piston of his hips.
The sounds of your bodies aren’t helping him hold on: wet slaps betray the mess he’s making out of your pussy. Every thrust makes him yours. Make you his.
He groans at the thought. Depraved as it is, his cock being the first to ruin your pussy does something indescribable to him. At the tail end of that thought is something sweeter:
The same way that he’s your first, you’re his. He doesn’t want any other.
He paraphrases professions of love into everything else but the words he loves working with. Instead he employs a language said by the body: through his hips now ramming deep strokes into you, the way his arms wrap around you until you can’t see anything except him. Your heels drag on his back now—he spares a second to hook one over his shoulder before plunging back into you, deepening the angle.
He glances down. Your nails sink into his arms. They look pretty.
You look pretty: eyes blank, hair a mess, skin misted with sweat as you lay arched underneath him…
“God, you’re perfect,” he breathes.
Meanwhile, you're so full your brain decides to empty itself. Its only care right now is your basest of needs.
“So good,” you whimper, “Clark you feel so good, gonna cum…”
“Yeah? Me too, honey,” he pants, voice reedy, “where do you want me?”
“Inside, p-please, need you inside—”
That answer unspools all restraint in him, and he lets his hips go of their very last bit of restraint: he pistons into you with abandon as he siphons groans into your lips in exchange for your climbing moans, the two of you feeding into each other’s lust until your heat is too much.
“I can’t, honey, I—”
It’s too late: he’s spurting all the way inside you, breathlessly gasping your name.
“Gah—nggh—”
The flooding sensation of his orgasm, hot and sticky, triggers your own. The tension shatters in your body: your legs quiver on his shoulder and around his waist, voice broken as your nerves turn into livewires that burn bright at the edges of your vision, electrifying everything to white.
He’s on you the entire time you come, breath warming your ear. The spurts don’t stop. You’ve never been fuller—until he pulls out of you and you moan, not just from the loss of his cock, but also the messy splatter of him on your stomach and tits.
The thought is faint, but the sensations are real: he’s still fucking cumming.
Now you’re just not quivering, you’re a quivering mess. Even with your senses flashbanged, slowly reconstructing themselves from that orgasm, you register the warmth that drips down your hole and onto the bedsheets.
Then the quiet lands. Your breaths even. He still hovers over you, glasses fully fogged up and crooked. The sight is stupidly hot, but you don’t like that you can’t see him.
You slowly take them off.
Blue eyes look back at you. His pupils aren’t so dilated now, and you see a different emotion in them as they widen.
Concern.
“Gosh—I—are you okay? did I hurt you? ”
He thumbs at your cheek. It’s wet. When did you start crying?
“No, no,” you stammer, “I’m fine. It’s just… that was—”
You stare, wordless. He stares back.
“It’s perfect. You’re perfect, Clark.”
His shoulders drop with heavy relief, warm breath fanning your face as he leans over you again.
“Thank goodness.”
That makes you giggle.
“Don’t laugh. I’ve wanted you for so long, I can’t possibly mess this up.”
A beat. You blink up at him. “You have?”
He doesn’t answer. Just buries his face in your neck, undoubtedly redder than before. His voice is muffled against your skin.
“I just—I like you so much it hurts.”
You huff in amusement, raking your fingers through his hair. A silent plea for him to look up at you.
He obeys. You smile, thumbing the fat of his cheek.
“When I touched myself two nights ago, I was thinking about you.”
His eyes widen, though just a fraction. Maybe it’s not so unbelievable, after all—but he allows himself to expend the last ounce of his surprise.
You raise your brow. “Is it really that unexpected?”
He kisses your fingers. Sweetly this time. “I… It’s an outcome I’ve never considered.”
You lean up. The peck lands on his chin. “Why else would I invite you to an expensive Korean barbecue, silly?”
Clark smiles so earnestly it almost blinds you. Thank God he hides in your neck again.
“So you like me, too?”
“Yep. Like, a lot.”
୨୧
Ten minutes later, you’re in the bathtub, back pressed against his chest.
The sun is setting outside, the drawn blinds creating light serrations that spill across your bathroom tiles. Metropolis is strangely quiet. The only thing you perceive is the lazy drip of the faucet into the water’s surface.
Maybe you’re just preoccupied by the replaying of your memories. Every little detail collects in the forefront like the soap suds Clark massages into your shoulders—before you know it, you’re stringing together words in your head, a momentum you can’t stop even if you wanted to.
Huh. You’re… inspired.
Maybe you should do this more often.
Clark kisses the nape of your neck as you bask in the silence. The sensation grounds you back to reality, and a realization dawns. You sit up straighter in the water.
He notices.
You turn to face him.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“My suitcase,” you say, “it’s still in your car.”
He smiles so warmly you think you might melt and be one with the bath water. The expression looks so sweet and innocent on him… except you feel his cock hardening against your ass.
“Sweetheart, I don’t think you’ll be needing clothes for a while.”
THREE MONTHS LATER
“C’mon, write something,” Clark pants playfully, hands on your hips, driving his cock into your weeping cunt as he watches the fat of your ass bounce with each thrust, “You can do it—you’re a smart girl, aren’t you?”
Time doesn’t make any sense, not when he’s rubbing against your walls so good, but you do know you’ve been at this for a while. Your body can’t even hold itself up: chest glued to the damp sheets, ass held up by his hands, arms limp in front of you.
Your hands rest above the keypad of a laptop. On its screen is a word processor, its typing cursor blinking back at you tauntingly. The page’s contents are measly, only about halfway filled—unlike your cunt that’s full with his length.
It’s your fault for planning so many sex scenes. But it’s the final installment of your trilogy, the perfect breeding ground for emotional sex.
You’re guessing that breeding ground is what Clark thinks about you, too, aside from his undying respect for you: because his thrusts are getting messier the way you know he’s about to cum, and sure enough, with his chest against your back and his mouth sputtering “that’s it, take it, gonna fill you up, sweetheart, you’ll let me?” in your ear.
He waits for your pathetic mewl of an okay to spill inside you.
His orgasm pulls a weak one out of you, because God knows how many times he’s made you. You shake underneath him, gasping for air while he does the same.
Then it begins: the delicious replay your mind does after every tangle with him. While the shivers ebb, your memory picks up the details…
Your feeble fingers begin to type. Slowly, as if each key ignites a thing he said not ten minutes ago.
You can hear Clark smile in his voice. He buries his lips in your hair.
“One week till the manuscript deadline,” he husks. “Let’s work hard together, yeah?”
Then his hand drifts down to play with your clit and you lose your train of thought.
Oh, well. Surely Planet Publishing can extend a deadline for their bestselling writer.
BONUS
Herons Under Sycamore Shade — Author Interview with Cat Grant
Q: Speaking of sex, there’s a lot more this time around.
A: Well, it’s the last book. I wanted it to go out with a bang, so to speak.
Q: This is a personal opinion of mine, having read all three, but you should also know that many reviewers thought the quality of erotica was somehow better in this one. To quote the Gotham Gazette: “…breathtakingly real while making you forget about reality.”
A: That’s such high praise. Thank you!
Q: What changed (between the first two installments)?
At this point, the author smiles in a way that I can only describe as coy. Don’t believe me? Ask the photographer.
ROUGH HANDS, STRAWBERRY KISSES & OTHER SOFT THINGS
18+ | MDNI - masterlist
PAIRING: farmer!bucky barnes x teacher!reader
SUMMARY: navigating your first relationship feels overwhelming at times; every touch, every question, every new feeling makes you wonder if you’re doing things right. thankfully, bucky loves you with enough patience and gentleness to turn every new experience into a reason to hold you a little closer. or, a collection of moments in which your boyfriend teaches you that love was never supposed to feel frightening—not when it’s held in careful hands like his.
WARNINGS: pre-established relationship; older!bucky (he's just mentioned to be older than reader & have a salt-and-pepper stubble, but both age are unspecified); gentle!bucky; protective!bucky; insecure!reader; reader is mentioned to wear skirts & dresses; size difference (author likes her men tall & beefy); non-sexual & light d/s dynamic; pet names feast & praise festival (this man is disgustingly whipped); reader uses "jamie" a lot bc the author finds it cute & intimate; domestic fluff; tooth-rooting romance; light angst; one (1) small argument; discussion about dealing with arguments in a healthy way; toxic family dynamics (reader's parents mentioned); brief discussion about the future & having kids; smut; big dick bucky organization (🙂↕️); soft dom!bucky; scent kink & possessive behavior; nipple play; pussy pronouns; pussy inspection; oral (f receiving); fingering; sex in public places; unprotected sex (I imagined reader to be on the pill but nothing is mentioned); rough & primal sex; multiple orgasms; overstimulation; squirting; creampie.
WORD COUNT: 26.2k
A/N: so... I won’t lie, I’m a little anxious. this story is extremely self-indulgent and stems from a deeply personal place. I know it might not be many people’s cup of tea but writing this was actually therapeutic after my friend gave me a sort of reality check about my love life lmao. one last thing, the order is not chronological. hope you’ll enjoy!
ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU WANT TO WEAR MATCHING CLOTHES
Sitting cross-legged on your bed, your laptop is balanced precariously on your thighs. The cursor has been hovering over the same cream-colored sweatshirt for almost twenty minutes now, your eyes flicking uselessly between the product picture and the tiny sizing chart beneath it as if either one could help with the actual problem here.
Because unfortunately the problem is not the hoodie per se, but that Bucky owns the exact same one. Well, almost exact. His is a beautiful shade of forest green, faded slightly at the cuffs from use and permanently smelling like fresh air, and the cedar and rose body wash he keeps in his shower. You saw it weeks ago, the first time he picked you up to drive you to work because you had planned to grab dinner together later. His broad shoulders easily filled the doorway of your house, holding two coffees and wearing that stupid hoodie that somehow made him look even larger. You remember trying to subtly peek at it while he drove, only to end up staring shamelessly at the way the sleeves strained around his forearms every time he turned the steering wheel.
And now here you are, thinking about matching clothes like a sixteen-year-old girl with a Pinterest board titled someday. It’s embarrassing enough that you need to physically close the laptop for a couple of seconds, before opening it again with a sigh.
You don’t even know why this matters so much. You have never done this before—the soft, easy parts of a relationship. You have never had someone long enough to build small habits with, someone steady enough that you could easily picture yourself sharing jokes only the two of you could understand over morning coffee, or reaching for their hand in the grocery store without spending days working up the courage first. You are still learning how to ask for things without feeling guilty afterward. Still learning how to want openly. And Bucky... God, Bucky makes it so much worse by being so impossibly patient about everything. From the very beginning.
Your first date had barely even started before he showed up with flowers hidden awkwardly behind his back, his left hand rubbing at the back of his neck almost sheepishly when he handed them to you.
“Before you say anything, sweetheart, my mama raised me right and she’d come back from the dead to beat my ass if I showed up empty-handed.”
Your laugh was so loud and unexpected that he stared at you for a good moment like he had just been entrusted with a beautiful, precious gem.
Then there was the second date. And the third. And somehow every single time, he never failed to surprise you with his sweet thoughtfulness. Sometimes it was wildflowers from his property he’d personally tie together with twine. Sometimes big yet tasteful bouquets of stargazer lilies that you would immediately put in a vase and proudly display on your dining table. Once, peonies so full and soft they had shed pink petals all over the inside of his truck.
He opened every door without making it feel performative, always guiding you carefully with one warm hand on your lower back as if that had become instinct before he even realized it. And then came the night of your fourth day, when he walked you to your door, lingering awkwardly while you fumbled with your keys.
You remember smiling nervously. “So… what exactly are we doing here?”
Bucky had taken a long moment to look at you, blue eyes softening under the faint light of your doorstep. “I was hoping I could court you properly.”
Court you. Who even says that anymore? Apparently, James Buchanan Barnes.
You stared at him while your heartbeat climbed into your throat. And because silence had stretched a little too long, he had immediately stepped in to reassure you.
“Only if you want me to, sweetheart. No pressure.”
No pressure. As if he had not already made your entire understanding of men shift off its axis.
Sometimes, it frightened you how naturally Bucky fit into your life. It started with warm drinks and pastries between classes because, “my pretty girl shouldn’t have to survive on burnt coffee from that old thing in the staff room”; with calling you every night just to hear your voice before bed, and taking you out on dates every Friday. Yet he could not stand going the rest of the week without seeing you, which was how sunny Sunday walks around his property became routine, along with Wednesday lunches at the little diner where his aunt’s friend, Pat, worked and spent the entirety of your meals watching the two of you with the sort of fondness reserved for people who are obviously in love yet keep shyly tiptoeing around each other.
Bucky loves intensely in all the quietest ways, which somehow makes asking for things complicated. Because what if one day you asked for something silly enough that made him realize how inexperienced you really were at all this?
Your eyes land back on the hoodie again as you chew at the inside of your cheek. Before you can overthink yourself out of it, you click purchase.
The first time you wear it around him is for movie night next Saturday. You have been shaking with excitement for weeks over the special twenty-fifth-anniversary screening of The Lord of the Rings. Bucky had agreed to come with you without even letting you finish explaining why it mattered so much, only to follow it up with an amused, “don’t gotta sell it to me, doll. I’ll take you wherever you wanna go.”
You almost change three times before he arrives. By the time his truck pulls up in your driveway, your stomach is churning so badly you feel like throwing up. It’s a hoodie that just happens to be like his, so what? People wear hoodies every day, they’re such a common piece of clothing... This is not a confession of undying love.
Still, the moment you pull open your door and find Bucky waiting on the other side like he’s been standing there just long enough to start missing you, you realize the sweater has perhaps not been your most emotionally neutral decision. His eyes find your face immediately, his default frown melting at once. But before he can even say hi, his gaze drops on the cream-colored fabric. You watch with horror the exact moment recognition settles in.
There is a brief, heavy pause, and then that slow, familiar curve of his mouth appears—not teasing in any cruel sense, never that. Just quietly pleased, enough that heat crawls all the way up your neck. And because your brain seems biologically incapable of letting you experience vulnerability like most people, you blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.
“I thought the color looked nice.” The words tumble over each other so quickly they barely sound coherent by the end of the sentence.
Bucky blinks, clearly caught off guard by your sudden defensiveness, before one dark eyebrow lifts, amusement flickering across his face in the gentlest possible way.
“Nobody said it didn’t, baby.”
You promptly look away as if the floor might offer some kind of mercy, pretending to be preoccupied with the sleeve of your hoodie while internally mourning what little dignity you have left. Bucky doesn’t let you sit in it alone for long, though. Taking a step closer, his warm presence is grounding enough that all the static noise in your brain fades. His hands naturally find your waist like they have always belonged there, before he softly nudges you forward.
“C’mere, sweetheart. Let me say hi properly.” He murmurs, leaning down to press a slow kiss on your lips, grinning at your unguarded, little giggle when his stubble tickles your skin.
The cold evening air makes you shiver, and you instinctively tug your sleeves further over your hands while Bucky leads you to his pickup truck, parked beneath a flickering streetlamp. You can sense his quiet amusement, though he is kind enough not to mention the hoodie outright. Still, every now and then you catch him glancing at you from the corner of his eye with that same smitten expression reserved for you only.
Once you reach the passenger side, Bucky opens the door before you can even think about touching the handle yourself, one hand braced against the top of the frame while you climb inside.
“Watch your head.”
You duck obediently beneath his arm, trying very hard not to think about how quickly you have fallen into these tiny routines with him.
As Bucky rounds the hood and slides into the driver’s seat, your heart finally starts calming down. You might survive the evening with minimal humiliation, after all. But then, he just has to reach across and smoothly pull the seatbelt into place for you—the way his knuckles brush your thigh briefly through the fabric of your jeans still manages to send your thoughts scattering again.
“You’re fidgeting.” He mentions quietly, eyes flicking toward your hands where they are twisting nervously in the sleeves of your hoodie. “What’s going on in that pretty head, hm?”
You shake your head, far too quickly to look convincing.
“Nothing. I’m just a little cold.”
Bucky hums under his breath like he doesn’t believe you for even a second, yet doesn’t comment and instead lets his gaze fall on your sweater one more time before returning to your face. The smile that spreads slowly across his lips is so openly fond that your cheeks start burning.
In a careful movement, he leans over the center console and kisses you, his calloused fingers cupping your jaw with impossible tenderness.
“You look lovely tonight.”
That almost makes your heart explode out of your chest.
The next time he picks you up for lunch on your day off, your breath hitches as you freeze on the threshold. Because Bucky is leaning against the hood of his truck in his dark green sweatshirt, looking so boyishly handsome with his sunglasses pushed up into his long hair.
His expression loosens when he sees your features fall in realization. God, he looks so unfairly gorgeous when he gets that look in his eyes, the same one that suggests every sharp edge exists only for the rest of the world, never for you.
“There’s my pretty girl.”
Your stomach flips violently as he pushes himself off the imposing vehicle to cross the short distance, his hands easily settling at your hips the second he reaches you. He bends to kiss you hello, unhurried despite the cold, and your palms unconsciously come up to touch his chest.
“I missed you so much, baby.”
You are still too busy internally combusting to softly point out that you just saw each other two days ago for bowling night with your friends, Natasha and Darcy. Your fingers curl tighter in the fabric, and Bucky notices instantly.
His thumbs stroke once the curve of your waist. “You okay?”
You nod eagerly.
“You wore it.” The words slip out of your mouth before you can stop them, gaze still lingering on the hoodie in pure wonder.
Bucky glances down at himself, and then at your own sweater before meeting your eyes, the right corner of his mouth lifting adorably.
“Thought we’d look real cute if we matched.”
You feel dizzy at his effortless answer, devoid of any trace of irony or hesitation. And that’s the thing about Bucky, you realize again as you stand there trying to steady your pulse: he doesn’t treat these moments like anything out of the ordinary. He simply folds them into the shape of his care for you.
Before you can collect yourself enough to answer, he is already guiding you forward with an arm around your shoulders, opening the passenger door ahead of you with that same practiced care. The warmth of the truck hits you almost dazedly after standing still in the cold.
“Heat’s been on for a bit.” He remarks at your blink of surprise as he settles into the driver’s seat, his chin lightly nodding at the backseat, where two of his heavier jackets are folded neatly, placed with deliberate care so they will not shift during the drive. Beside them a fuzzy blanket sits just as methodically arranged.
“I know it’s not the warmest of hoodies.”
When you look back at him, he sends you a small wink. At your stunned silence, his fingers gently move beneath your chin to have your complete attention, your heart already beating too fast for you to pretend otherwise.
“You alright there, doll?” He asks with a small crease between his brows.
You nod too quickly, not entirely sure what words would even hold up under the weight of everything you are feeling right now. Bucky lets out a low sound that might almost be a laugh if it were not so gentle, and then he is leaning in just enough to press a peck to the corner of your mouth.
“Y’know, I think I’m getting attached to this whole matching thing. Sends a pretty clear message.” He murmurs against your skin.
From that point on, it’s an unspoken agreement that has tenderly carved its rightful place between you both. It never turns into a conversation so much as it becomes a habit for the two of you. A jacket chosen to match the tone of your skirt, a top swapped for a darker color, small details that only make sense when you realize he’s genuinely paying attention to you, building your relationship one quiet choice at a time.
And months later, there are mornings when he is sitting at the edge of the bed with coffee in hand, his eyes lazily following you move around his room as you get ready. They eventually land on your shoes.
“You wearing the brown boots today?”
You glance down at your outfit, confirming it with a small nod as you keep applying your mascara. Bucky hums once in acknowledgment, already pushing himself up with a low groan to reach for his own pair in the shoe rack.
“Then I’ll wear mine.” He mumbles casually.
ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU WANT TO TAKE A CUTE PICTURE TOGETHER
The local café is a half-forgotten hole-in-the-wall tucked between a bookstore and a florist, the kind that only feels busy because the tables are close enough that conversations blur into one another in a soft, overlapping hum. Today it’s warmer than usual for the season, sunlight spilling lazily across the pavement outside almost indulgently after days of grey skies and persistent rain. It coaxes people into lingering longer than they probably intend to as though no one is in any particular rush to leave.
You are sitting across from Bucky at a small round table on the patio, your cups half-full and an empty plate sitting between you, remnants of the slice of red velvet cake you shared earlier still scattered across it. He stepped away only a few minutes ago, murmuring something about the restroom and brushing his knuckles briefly against your shoulder as he left.
In an attempt to occupy yourself while you wait, you take out your phone, your thumb moving absentmindedly across the screen as you scroll through whatever comes up. Until a specific post catches your attention so suddenly it stops you entirely.
It’s one of those photos you have seen countless times while looking for outfit inspirations on Pinterest, clearly curated despite its effortless appearance. A girl sits on what you assume must be her boyfriend’s lap while the camera is angled downward just enough to capture their shoes together, his heavy worn boots resting beside her delicate heels. The entire image is framed in warm light that makes it look like wanting something and simply having it without hesitation.
The contrast is cute rather than discordant.
You find yourself stuck on that picture as your chest tightens, because there are still so many small things that you don’t know how to ask for yet, things that feel too silly to voice even though they linger in your mind longer than you would like to admit. A lap. A picture. His boots beside your pretty Mary Jane heels… It feels ridiculous to desire it this badly, yet you keep staring at your phone as if hesitation could soften the sting of being dismissed. Or worse, laughed at.
You don’t notice Bucky returning until the chair across from you shifts under his weight, the scrape of it pulling you sharply into the present as you instinctively place your phone back on the table a tad too quickly for it to look natural. He sits down pretending to not have noticed any of it, reaching for his coffee.
“Alright, lovely?” He asks, voice unbothered.
You open your mouth, then close it again almost immediately, your mind caught between embarrassment and the awareness of how easily he always seems to understand you. Bucky notices your uncertainty, but doesn’t push, instead loosely rests his forearms on the table to lean closer.
“Hey,” his voice lowers just enough to gently pull you out of your thoughts. “What were you saying before I got up? About yesterday’s meeting?”
It’s such a simple question yet it almost disarms you completely. People don’t usually do that—they interrupt you to start new conversations, change direction, lose track halfway through and then forget about it entirely. But Bucky is looking at you like your words were simply waiting there for him to return to them.
So you blink once, a little startled, then slowly exhale as memories come back with a sharp pang. About that stupid staff meeting. About Ms. Cox.
The words come out carefully at first, testing how much space you are allowed to take up, but the more you speak, the clearer Bucky can see frustration still fresh beneath your composure.
“There is this student, Mark. Ms. Cox keeps insisting that he’s lazy and just—” You exhale tiredly. “She believes he doesn’t care about school.”
His jaw subtly tenses as he nods for you to go on.
“And I tried to explain that it isn’t that simple,” you continue, your fingers fidgeting on your lap. “Because it’s true that he struggles with math, but he works really hard, always does his best. He just needs time. And she… well, she went off on me.”
His brows draw together. “Went off how?”
Your eyes fall on the table before you adjust in your seat, as if moving could shake off the discomfort.
“She accused me of inflating grades to make myself look like a good teacher.” You admit quietly, the accusation leaving behind an ugly taste of shame on your tongue despite your innocence. “Because students do well in English. Including Mark.”
You can practically sense Bucky biting back his irritation, his frown deepening as he watches you shrink just talking about it.
“And the principal just let it slide?” His voice roughens slightly at the edges despite his effort to keep it even.
You huff out a small breath that resembles a laugh, devoid of any humor. “She has been teaching there forever. They just don’t deal with her anymore. Alice described her as—ah, sorry. Alice is the—”
“The art teacher.”
You finally look at him, blinking in surprise.
“Yeah.”
He gives you a small nod, a brief smile crossing his features.
“I remember.”
“Oh.” You have mentioned your colleagues only once since you started going steady, your meager dating experience having taught you that nobody was really interested in your life—especially your job. They focused more on meaningless, polite conversations punctuated by some generic compliment about your eyes, or your dress, that could guarantee them some sort of reward at the end of the night.
“Um.” You clear your throat, trying to ignore the intensity of his gaze. “So, Alice described her as a vindictive woman and since she’s close to retirement, they let her do whatever she wants because it’s easier than arguing with her.”
You hesitate for a second. “Years ago, there was this new physical education teacher...” Your voice lowers a little as if she might appear out of thin air and point her condescending finger at you. “She refused to approve his one-day school trip unless it was on her day off, because she didn’t want her schedule disrupted.”
Your jaw clenches briefly. “He told the principal… and after that she kept filing complaint after complaint about his ‘lack of professionalism’, until the school ended up not renewing his contract the next year.”
“What the fuck?” He mumbles under his breath, his lips pressing together tightly. “Wait—and they just expect you to take it?” His nostrils flare with a slow exhale.
“Pretty much.” You shrug, though it feels heavier than you intend.
For a moment, Bucky just sits there with his jaw tight as he chooses to not push his annoyance outward yet, mainly because he is waiting for you to let it all out. It’s in that pause that your eyes move unconsciously to the side of the table. Your phone is still there, the screen dark now, but not locked properly. You realize it too late, when a notification from that stupid teachers’ group chat—the one filled with nothing but good morning texts, good night wishes, and painfully unfunny memes—briefly wakes it and reveals that picture again, bright and candid.
Bucky’s attention promptly lands on it too. He doesn’t comment, which only makes your stomach tighten further as you hastily reach for your phone, turning it face down with too much force.
“What was that?” He asks casually, quiet curiosity dancing in his eyes.
“Nothing.” You answer too fast and his eyes narrow slightly, more observant than suspicious.
“That didn’t exactly sound like nothing, sweetheart.”
You hesitate, then deflect again, weaker this time. “Just a random picture.” You shrug, hoping to appear disinterested. “I was on Instagram and forgot to close it.”
That earns a pause from him, his head tilting just a fraction as he studies you more carefully.
“A picture you don’t wanna show me?” He asks gently.
You shake your head, eyes shyly falling on his arms. At that, Bucky simply shifts in his seat, his hand crossing the small space between you—not to take your phone, but to find your wrist and gently guide it to his lips. When you peek through your eyelashes, you almost flinch at how close he is now, his thumb reverently stroking your knuckles before his other hand cups your chin deliberately.
“You can tell me anything.” His voice is steady in a way that doesn’t leave room for pressure, only reassurance. “Y’know that, right?”
You shiver at the proximity. You do know, that’s the problem, how could you forget when Bucky stands before you, always so careful and sweet? And still, you are never entirely sure how to stop the words from breaking in your mouth.
“I just… saw something,” you confess weakly. “That I thought would be cute to recreate together.”
Bucky’s expression softens instantly.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
You swallow thickly, fingers flexing once under his hand. Then, barely above a whisper, you manage it. “I’d like for us to take pictures like… couples do.”
He observes you silently, expression unreadable, until a small smile pulls at the corners of his mouth, patient and knowing all at once. He nudges his chair back a little farther to make room for you, patting his thigh once.
“C’mere.”
You blink. “What?”
He nods toward his lap.
“C’mere, doll.” He repeats quietly, reaching for your wrist before you can overthink yourself into refusing, to guide you around the table.
The realization of what you are doing hits in one overwhelming wave of self-consciousness the second your weight fully sinks on his lap. Bucky is bigger than you in every conceivable way, broader and heavier with muscle, solid where you are soft. His thick forearm dusted with dark hair keeps you close to the warmth of his chest, and his strong thighs spread comfortably beneath yours. When his palm settles on your knee to keep you balanced, the rough heat of his skin bleeds straight through the thin fabric of your stockings, and a small involuntary shiver runs through you. It’s humiliating how dizzy it makes you feel, because Bucky appears completely at peace behind you. You are trying not to implode from his touch and there he is, sitting back and holding you as if that’s exactly where you are meant to be.
Your unsteady hands finally reach for your phone, trying to angle it properly, breath catching a little when his fingers flex against your waist.
“You’re thinking way too hard.” He murmurs near your ear, his salt-and-pepper stubble faintly scratching your skin.
“I’m not.” You insist weakly.
Bucky hums low in his chest, unconvinced, the sound of it vibrating through his body into yours.
“Baby,” he calls out gently, mirth lying beneath his words. “You’ve taken six pictures of the table.”
Your face burns.
“I’m trying.” You mumble horrified, sighing in relief when you finally manage to frame your shoes correctly while he chuckles behind you.
“I know. You’re doing just fine, sweetheart. Take all the time you need...” He releases a slow exhale, then under his breath, “I’m definitely not complaining right now.”
The faint rasp in his voice and the way his thumb strokes the skin of your knee only make your pulse stumble harder. Finally, after another moment of fumbling and readjusting yourself against him, you manage to take a few proper photos.
The knot in your chest loosens gradually as you look through them. They are good. Not overly posed or awkward as you feared, but cute and intimate in that effortless way you had envied earlier. His scuffed work boots are beside your neat Mary Janes, your knees tucked between his jeans-clad ones, the edge of his large hand visible against your thigh like a quiet reminder that the man holding you is very much real, and that’s him.
A coy smile brightens your features. It’s a small, absent-minded gesture, yet Bucky is completely enraptured.
“There she is.” A comment under his breath, meant for himself.
You feel him lean closer to look over your shoulder, his chin brushing your cheek as his gaze settles on the screen, and the expression that crosses his face afterward is so openly proud that you feel the sudden urge to squirm out of giddiness.
“They came out pretty nice, huh?”
You nod before turning back to properly look at him, still smiling.
“Thank you, Jamie.”
The words leave your mouth instinctively, sincere. Still, Bucky furrows his brows at you. His hand leaves your knee to curl delicately around your chin, guiding your face until your eyes meet properly.
“You don’t need to thank me.” His voice low but firm—a fact rather than a suggestion. “I love spending time with my girl. Y’hear me, baby?”
Your next breath catches in your throat so fast you almost choke on it. His expression softens further at whatever he sees on your face, his thumb stroking once your bottom lip before he closes the distance between your lips.
“You ask me for something, I’m gonna give it to you if I can.” He adds quietly against your mouth.
You swallow thickly, answering with an imperceptible nod that makes him hum, pleased. For a while, it’s just you and him. Tucked against his chest with the phone still loose in your hand, you sit sideways on his lap, his arm tightening around your waist the more your body grows pliant. The initial embarrassment melts into pure bliss once his forehead comes to rest on yours, his blue eyes fiercely glinting with devotion as they trace your pretty features.
You would probably stay here all afternoon if you could: no talking needed, just the safety of his arms. Eventually, though, duty creeps back in enough that you stiffen slightly, and Bucky loosens his hold at once, watching you get up. The hand on your thigh lingers for one last meaningful squeeze, goosebumps prickling across your covered skin.
The second your feet touch the ground again, you suddenly become aware of your slow breathing; of how his touch made you completely forget that you were sitting in your boyfriend’s lap, making out in the middle of a café situated on the main street, for anyone to see.
“I should probably go.” You mumble, smoothing your flowy dress unnecessarily to avoid his eyes.
A small smirk tugs at his lips at your clumsy attempt to regain composure.
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
By the time you reach the parking lot, your embarrassment has faded into a fuzzy tingle in the back of your head. Bucky opens the driver’s side door for you without breaking stride, one large hand resting automatically against the top of the frame while you climb inside. Your movements are a little languid as you place your palms on his chest for another kiss—quick and sweet and still a little flustered—but before you can pull away fully, his fingers close gently around your wrists.
“Send me those pictures later.”
You almost flinch in surprise. “You want them?”
That earns you a look.
“Sweetheart,” he starts slowly, like the answer should be painfully obvious by now. “Of course I want the pictures we took together.”
You promise you will do that once you get home, and Bucky lets you go only after one last heated kiss that has you sighing dreamily the entire drive back.
Later that night, long after you have changed into pajamas and curled beneath your blankets, your phone lights up with a message from him. It’s a reel of a chubby orange cat dramatically rolling onto its back for belly rubs. The giggle that falls from your lips is immediate, because you know how much Bucky loves these silly videos.
Still smiling, you tap back to reply but your fingers freeze, because his profile picture has changed. And there, framed in a tiny circle at the top of the screen, are your shoes beside his boots.
ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU WEAR HIS CLOTHES FOR THE FIRST TIME
Bucky’s bedroom smells like him. Not cologne, or any sharp, artificial department store fragrance sprayed onto stiff collars and wrists... but a scent warm and lived-in. Cedar and clean detergent tangle together with fresh air drifting in through cracked windows, traces of earth and hay and early morning breeze clinging stubbornly to heavy fabrics, no matter how many times they are washed.
The whole house smells like sun-warmed wood floors and open fields after rain. Like stepping onto his farm and understanding right away why he belongs there.
The shower is running somewhere down the hallway after a long day spent driving deliveries back and forth across town, leaving you curled near the headboard with the remote in your hand, halfheartedly scrolling through movies while waiting for Bucky to come back. Your attention drifts eventually, pulled away from the television by the sight of one of his flannels folded over the chair near the dresser. It’s clean, probably left there after laundry day, thick dark fabric softened with wear. Before you can really stop yourself, your gaze lingers.
There is something strangely intimate about wearing someone else’s clothes. Not just in the obvious sense. It’s like stepping quietly into the shape of their life, wrapping yourself in something that has spent time caressing their skin, that carries their warmth and scent and the evidence of their existence in every seam. And maybe that’s exactly why your heart flutters at the thought. You stare at the flannel for another few seconds before finally setting the remote aside and climbing off the bed, moving almost cautiously toward the chair like it might bite you halfway there.
With a meaningful glance toward the door, you listen to the muted sound of running water, before carefully lifting it from the chair. The moment you pull it closer, his scent fills your lungs completely, clean and grounding and unmistakably Bucky. Without thinking too hard about it, you peel off your own sweater and slip his shirt on instead. The sleeves hang long past your wrists as the heavy fabric settles warmly around your body, and suddenly you are standing in front of the mirror near his dresser, turning slightly from side to side while smoothing your hands absently over the front buttons.
You feel ridiculously happy. Safe, somehow. Because it reminds your body that it never needs to stay on guard if he is there.
For a moment, you simply stand there smiling privately at your reflection. You are so entranced by it that you barely notice the bathroom door opening.
“Hey doll, did I tell you that yesterday those sneaky ducks nearly knocked over—”
Bucky stops mid-sentence. The silence that follows is sharp enough to make your stomach drop.
You glance at him through the mirror with wide eyes and freeze. He is standing just outside the bedroom doorway with his hair still damp from the shower, a grey henley stretched across his chest while he drags a towel over the back of his neck, but all movement stops the second his eyes land on you.
On his flannel wrapped around your body.
His gaze languidly follows your curves like he is trying to commit them to memory, scared you might vanish like some beautiful, cruel dream. Because his girl is standing barefoot in his bedroom wrapped in pieces of his life. And Bucky looks at you like he just forgot how to breathe.
“Oh my God,” you whisper, heat rushing into your face as you turn around. “I’m so sorry, I—I saw it there and—”
The towel drops forgotten onto the end of the bed as he carefully shortens the distance. The closer he gets, the quieter you become, until the only sound left is the faint clucking of the chickens outside.
Up close, you swallow at his gentle eyes, though there is something else lingering beneath them, proud and possessive.
“Are you apologizing for wearing my shirt?” He lifts an eyebrow.
Your lips part unhelpfully, but they close again on a second thought. Bucky’s eyes flick toward the sleeves swallowing your hands before he reaches out, large fingers carefully rolling the cuffs back for you one at a time, movements unhurried and practiced despite the roughness his hands are used to.
“There,” he murmurs. “Better.”
When he finally glances back at your face, there is a spark of amusement dancing in his gaze. “You keeping this one, sweetheart?”
“What?” The question catches you off guard enough that you huff out an embarrassed chuckle.
“The shirt,” he nods at it, still delighted. “Think it’s yours now.”
“Bucky, no. I can’t just steal it.”
“Sure you can.” He shrugs easily.
Your eyes widen. “What—no!”
A real smile finally breaks properly across his face, devastatingly fond.
“Angel,” he murmurs patiently, hands warm against your waist. “You’re standing in my bedroom looking happier than you have all week. Think I’d be pretty stupid to ask for it back.”
You awkwardly tuck your chin down, studying your socks.
“You’re exaggerating.”
A quiet laugh falls from his lips. “You were twirling around in front of the mirror.”
Your head snaps up at that, your jaw dropping indignantly.
“I was not!”
“You absolutely were.”
“I was simply checking how it fit.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Before you can argue back, his hands slide a little more securely around your back to pull you closer, eyes dropping briefly to the flannel.
“Looks better on you anyway.” He murmurs.
“That’s a lie.” You focus on a spot on his neck, too shy to meet his gaze.
“Ain’t.”
“It’s your shirt.” You retort weakly.
“Not anymore.”
The certainty in his tone makes your stomach flip. Bucky watches the reaction happen in real time, something unbearably tender crossing his face at your attempt to further hide from his gaze, before he leans just enough for his forehead to touch yours.
“Y’know,” he starts casually, thumbs rubbing slow circles on your sides through the fabric. “I like seeing you in my clothes a little too much to complain about it.”
Your chest warms at the sincerity in his voice, yet you keep stubbornly staring at his chest, trying and failing to stop the grin tugging at your mouth.
“I think that would get out of hand very fast.” You mumble, finally meeting his eyes.
He smirks down at you. “Would it now?”
“You have a lot of nice flannels.” Your arms wrap around his neck, prompting him to get impossibly closer.
“Mhm.”
“And your hoodies are comfortable.” The tip of your nose brushes his.
“That so?” His brows shoot up playfully.
“And your jackets smell good.” You admit before you can stop yourself.
That finally earns you a proper grin. Far too pleased with himself.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he drawls. “You’re in real trouble then.”
You groan tiredly, throwing your head back in despair but his arms don’t allow you to stray too far from him.
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not making fun of you.” His hands settle more firmly. “Just thinking I oughta start keeping extras around.”
His brows then lift as though he has just reached a very reasonable conclusion.
“Actually,” he corrects himself, voice thoughtful. “Might need to make a rule.”
You squint up at him suspiciously. “A rule?”
“Yeah.” He nods once, completely serious despite the subtle, teasing smile. “Think the second you walk through my front door, you’re legally required to put on one of my flannels.”
“Legally required?” You ask unimpressed.
“Mm-hmm.”
You shake your head pensively. “I really don’t think you can do that, Jamie.”
“Sweetheart, I own the property.” His expression turns impressively solemn, his lips grazing yours as he speaks.
“Means I make the laws around here.”
A laugh bursts out of you before you can stop it, bright enough that Bucky beams at the unguarded sound.
“No exceptions either, baby. Could be ninety degrees outside, I don’t care. Flannel goes on.” He hugs you tighter, his next words nothing short than a low murmur in your ear.
“Don’t even need to wear anything else underneath.” A squeak unexpectedly falls from your lips as his palms land briefly on your ass, squeezing the soft flesh before sliding back on your waist.
You sigh fondly despite the heat crawling up your neck. “This is the dumbest rule I’ve ever heard.”
“And yet,” his eyes drop briefly to the flannel before returning to your face. “Here you are.”
At some point, Bucky doesn’t announce it anymore. The moment you step inside the farmhouse, he’s already reaching for one of his flannels and holding it out—doesn’t matter if you’re staying for hours or just long enough to share a meal and a quiet evening that doesn’t demand anything from either of you. And then he’s crossing the distance between you in a few unhurried steps to pull you into his chest. He lowers his face into the slope of your neck, and breathes in deeply, again and again, like he needs the second breath more than the first.
Something unmistakably you—familiar, layered with the faintly sweet body cream you always use—mixes with his own scent that lingers in the weave of the flannel, worn-in and musky. His shoulders drop every time unfailingly, the tension he carries out in the world has no choice but to disappear.
His obsession for your scent doesn’t stop there, it only exacerbates when you are finally lying on his sheets, the two halves of the flannel crumpled at your sides as Bucky pants against your chest. He kisses you desperately, clutching your bare thighs until you are left warm and moaning under his roaming hands caressing your body with reverence. His palms map the dip of your waist, stroking along your ribs, until they encompass the swell of your breasts, gently kneading the skin as his lips trace a wet path from your mouth to that sensitive spot behind your ear that makes you whine so sweetly.
Your lips part around a breathy squeak the moment the calloused pads of his thumbs delicately circle your nipples, a low hum vibrates unintentionally in his chest at how fast they harden.
“Wanna hear you, princess.” He murmurs against your collarbones. “Let me hear how good it feels, c’mon.”
Bucky takes his time. You feel as light as cotton candy in his arms, sighing at every brush of his lips against your nipples. His mouth is hot and his tongue eager against the tender surface.
“Jamie!” You gasp as he starts sucking. His hand fondles the other breast, whimpers filling the dark room as his fingers playfully tug and flick your nub until your back arches so beautifully. His other hand grasps your thigh, leaving behind delicious reminders of his lust.
The gentle licks soon turn into harsher suckles, and your hands shoot forward to anchor yourself—one of them twists the sheets until your fingers hurt, the other sinks into his locks. Bucky exhales sharply at the light sting when your fingers pull at his hair, loving how the wet sounds bounce off the walls.
“Prettiest tits I’ve ever seen.” He growls.
“Jamie, it’s—oh my God.” Your head falls back when his lips take care of your other nipple, the one left behind now damp and tingling.
“Mhm, I know princess, they’re so sensitive. You gonna come in your cute panties?” You nod eagerly. Bucky’s dark eyes stay fixed on your crumpled features like a predator observing his prey, his mouth wicked on your poor abused nubs. Until the pressure in your belly is just too strong, and to your sheer surprise, your orgasm hits you out of nowhere. Your breasts are tingling with sensitivity, your hips frantically humping the air as your pussy throbs painfully at the lack of stimulation, clenching around nothing.
“That’s it, my needy girl. Look at you, coming just from having your tits sucked.” He grits out, giving your breasts one last, little smack a harsh squeeze.
Your skin is sticky and your lungs burning as Bucky finally moves between your shaky legs, peeling off your ruined panties with a swift, practiced movement. His calloused hands are firm on your thighs as they spread you open, silently watching your pussy as it pulses and drips, the unbearable ache mixing deliciously with the embarrassment of being this exposed for him—not a single ounce of shame in Bucky as he inspects it more thoroughly.
First, it’s his thumbs gently spreading your folds, his eyes devouring the way it tenses under his intense hunger. A shiver runs down your spine when his index finger slowly traces the tender slit, marveling at the way your slick sticks to his digit.
“Jamie...” You whine, your body—still so sensitive—lurching at his delicate teasing.
“Look at the pretty mess you made.” He whispers amazed, leaving a soothing kiss on your hipbone. You hear a sharp inhale as he buries his face into your core, his eyes rolling back at how strongly your scent hits his lungs. With blissful serenity written all over his face, his tongue starts lapping at your clit with lazy strokes. A strangled gasp falls from your lips at the sensation, your hips moving helplessly under the arm that blankets your stomach as Bucky hums satisfied at the drops of sweet arousal blessing his senses.
You almost choke on a delirious moan the moment a long finger slips inside, the hand grasping his sheets shooting down to grasp his wrist instead.
“Gonna bury my face here every morning, sweet girl.” He mumbles, a second finger joining the other inside you. “Make you soak my beard so I can smell your pussy all day at work.”
“Shit!” You almost scream, thighs snapping close around his head.
Bucky growls at the pressure, hungrily nursing on your throbbing clit as his nostrils flare. It’s so messy, with his saliva dripping down his chin and the insatiable need to please you driving his hips wild against the mattress. You can feel its intensity from the way his starved tongue laps at you, every flick sending biting sparks down your spine.
When he momentarily pulls away with a wet squelch, he groans in delight at the intoxicating taste. “C’mon princess, time to make a mess on my face.” He rumbles, mouth already latched back onto your clit, sucking with a steady rhythm as his fingers hit your sweet spot at the right speed.
Your body shakes from the unbearable pleasure washing over you, but Bucky refuses to stop, only pressing himself further into your clenching pussy, his tongue insistent as he pumps his fingers quickly.
“‘M gonna—Jamie!” You sob, hips jerking up as he pushes you right over the edge for a third time, this orgasm just as powerful as the others. Thoroughly consumed by him, you tremble and writhe, wailing when you squirt all over his face, soaking the sheets and your inner thighs as well. Bucky is not doing any better, resting his forehead on your mound. He tries to regain his breath after almost coming in his boxers as if touching a pretty, naked woman for the first time.
When he finally has a steadier grip on his self-control, he licks his lips with a low hum, shifting both of you until you are straddling him, your head lying limply on his chest as he plants sweet, little kisses on your forehead.
“Breathe, angel.” He murmurs, voice still rough with arousal. “You did so good for me, lovely.”
You blink, still spent and disoriented, but as his arms gently pull you higher, your sensitive core accidentally brushes against his erection. Bucky is still kissing you, noticing your little shiver but not thinking much about it—he knows you must be sleepy and tired. Yet he couldn’t be far from the truth.
Your hips gently rut against his thigh, squeaking under your breath when it finally touches your naked clit. Bucky’s body goes rigid for a heartbeat, suddenly catching on what’s going on in that pretty head of yours. You keep moving your hips, now thoroughly and shamelessly humping his thigh. His arms squeeze your waist hard, eliciting a surprised gasp out of you.
“What are you doing, doll?” He rasps out, his voice heavy with lust. He planned to take care of himself in the bathroom, maybe paint your tits with his cum if you insisted on helping... But how can he keep his composure with such a beautiful, sweet woman in his arms, so desperate for his touch?
Your head lifts enough for you to meet his gaze. “Please, Jamie.”
“Please what?” One of his hands grasps your jaw. “Use your words.”
You moan shamelessly, the warm tingle in your core impossible to ignore now. “Your cock... please.”
“You’re making a mess.” He mutters absently, his chest heaving at the sweet sight. And suddenly, his tongue is slowly tracing your bottom lip. A whimper escapes you, before his fingers tighten on your jaw as he thrusts his tongue in your mouth, just like he would with your pussy.
“You need my help, baby?” He reiterates, his gaze marveling at your fucked-out expression. At your eager nod, Bucky swallows thickly, fingers digging into your hips until you are forced to stop the desperate rocking motion of your hips.
It takes a single look at your big, shiny eyes and suddenly you are on your back, his cock so thick you start to tear up. “I know, I know. baby girl. It’s big, hm?” He coos, carefully kissing your cheeks and licking up the little tears like a ravenous beast.
“Eyes on me, princess… There you go, that’s a good girl.” Your mouth falls open into a perfect round shape, squeaking as his hips thrust forward leisurely. Bucky takes in the sight of your pussy stretched nicely around his length with pride burning hot in his chest. He would be lying if he said he isn’t getting impatient himself, unable to ignore anymore the fervent urge to see you unravel on his cock.
“Hold on to me.” You obey, eagerly wrapping your arms around his neck, your breasts pressed against his soft torso dusted in dark hair.
Once his cock slams right back into you, you gasp, nails digging into his back as he sets a brutal pace. The sounds of your skin slapping against his fill the room obscenely along your little whines of Jamie.
It only spurs him on because, “Fucking hell—yes, baby. Your Jamie.” Before searching your lips to pull you into a filthy kiss.
His calloused fingers dig into the plush of your ass, keeping you anchored to him just to see your eyes roll back at the delicious friction between your clit and his pubic hair.
“She’s so tight.” He grunts. “Keep clenching like that and I’ll make you leak for days.”
Your legs squeeze around his waist, drawing him impossibly deeper. “Please.”
He takes note of the way your eyes start to roll back as your pussy flutters eagerly, even if you do your best to keep them on him just like he told you... His pretty angel is always so good for him.
“Jamie...” You breathe out, body squirming between his sturdy arms built by years of hard work in the fields rather than gym. “’M so close—oh my God, yes right there!”
“I know, princess.” He mumbles, never breaking his rhythm. “Fuck, can feel her squeeze me so good, wanna keep me there forever, huh?” His lips twist smugly. “Don’t worry sweetheart, this cock’s all yours.”
Your breath stumbles in your throat as though there’s not enough air. Bucky is right there with you, brows pulled in concentration when he feels the familiar ache in his belly. His thrusts grow deeper, more purposeful, almost primal in their intensity, and you can tell by the tension in his jaw and the slight tremor in his arms, that he’s fighting for control. Even lost in pleasure, he is always putting you first.
“Tell me when you’re close.” He grits out, leaning down to steal a wet kiss that is more tongue than lips. “So I can fill my pussy up. That’s what you want, right princess? Wanna feel my cum drip out of you while you sit all cute watching me cook, hm?”
Your words come out in a warped, pathetic moan as he stuffs your mouth with two thick fingers. Your tongue is already playing with them, a sad whine clawing out of your throat when Bucky takes them out. It’s not even seconds later that you are tossing your head back, your words barely coherent as you tell him you are coming, his two wet fingers rubbing your clit at the right speed.
“That’s it.” He drawls through his teeth, his rhythm clumsily faltering at the thought of your pussy completely covered in his white cream. “Just like that, beautiful.”
Your vision blurs at the edges as pleasure consumes every single crevice of your body until your brain only knows how to scream your boyfriend’s name. Until there’s nothing but the delicious shape of his cock. You clench so tight his hips can barely move, pulsing and shaking around him as your hazy eyes cross, before rolling back.
Bucky follows moments later, pressing deep inside you as a full shudder travels down his body. His face is insistently pressed into your neck, trying to muffle the roaring groan that rumbles through his chest. The contact grounds him as his cock twitches and swells inside you, borderline animalistic in the way his fingers clutch your hips when he finally fills you up—the thought of leaving a part of himself inside you only prolonging his orgasm.
“Oh, my pretty princess.” Bucky pulls you tighter against him like he cannot bear the thought of letting go yet, both your hearts still hammering in sync as the aftershock pulses beneath your skin. His warm breath tickles your collarbones, and although his limbs are trembling with exhaustion, his hips still thrust lazily inside you to make sure not a single drop goes to waste.
ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU START REACHING BACK
By the time Bucky introduces you to his friends properly, you have already learned something important: everyone else gets a different version of him than you do.
You begin noticing the pattern before he ever points it out himself. People straighten when he walks into a room, some of his new employees still stumble over their words when he speaks to them, and children stare at him in open fascination because he is broad and carries himself with grounded confidence without appearing arrogant. And honestly, you understand it. Bucky looks like someone built to endure anything. His hands are coarse from years of work, permanently marked with small scars and callouses from repairing machinery, hauling feed, and spending entire days beneath brutal weather conditions without complaint. His voice settles low and gravelly in his chest, and whenever he frowns in concentration—which is often—he appears unapproachable to anyone who doesn’t know him well enough to recognize that his silences are rooted in reflection rather than coldness.
Then there is the version of him that exists around you, so quiet in its devotion that you only begin noticing it gradually, through dozens of tiny moments. He automatically slows his pace to match yours whenever you walk together—just enough that your shorter steps never have to hurry to keep up with him. On the nights you stay over, he reaches past you to test the shower water before you step under it.
And somehow, it extends to even the smallest, most ridiculous things. Like the time you gasp at the sight of a spider near the kitchen sink and instinctively dart behind him before you can stop yourself. Embarrassment burns on your cheeks at your own reaction as you quietly ask him if he can please take it outside instead of killing it. Bucky only glances back at you, visibly amused by the fact that you are clinging to the back of his shirt like the spider personally declared war on your bloodline. Then, he easily cups it beneath a glass, slides paper underneath, and carries it out onto the porch with all the patience in the world. And when he comes back inside, there is a faint smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as you mumble a sheepish thank you from the safety of the hallway.
And maybe, the thing that affects you the most is how instinctive all of it seems for him. His care exists in reflexes. In the quick appearance of his hand over the sharp corner of an open cabinet before you can bump into it while bending down. In the way he reaches for your hand whenever a crowd grows too dense around you, thumb constantly stroking your knuckles in reassurance before you even realize you needed it. In the way he notices your social battery draining only by the slight slump of your shoulders, then gently finding reasons to get you home before exhaustion fully settles into your bones.
It feels less like being looked after and more like being... considered. Constantly. Carefully. Which becomes a problem eventually. Because the safer you feel with him, the more affection you want to give in return. And unfortunately, loving someone openly without constantly doubting yourself is still difficult for you.
Despite how naturally Bucky seems to exist inside your life now, there are moments where you feel painfully aware of your own inexperience. You want to reach for his hand first, sit beside him in diners instead of across from him, kiss his cheek whenever he starts rambling about the farm with that subtle enthusiasm that makes him look so unfairly adorable. You want to curl into his lap during movie night and play with his hair and bury your face into his chest whenever he hugs you.
Every little touch from him feels so dangerously addictive now that you know what it’s like to be handled with genuine tenderness. But every single time you think about doing any of it, your brain betrays you. What if he thinks you are clingy? What if you interrupt him? What if he only tolerates it because he knows you have never done this before?
So instead, you hesitate. But the thing about dating someone who observes the world as methodically as he does is that very little escapes him for long, especially when it concerns you. Therefore, he just starts making things easier. When the two of you sit together somewhere public, his hand begins resting palm-up beside yours on purpose—an open invitation without forcing you before you are ready. He starts pulling you gently against his side halfway through movies, and sometimes, while talking with Steve or Sam out on the porch, he pats his thigh absentmindedly without interrupting the conversation at all, silently inviting you closer. Eventually, sitting on his lap is expected and anticipated. And every single time he notices your hesitation before kissing him first, his head tilts downward before you can even decide whether to ask.
But it’s the first time you meet Steve and Sam properly that you understand how clearly his devotion to you reads to everyone else.
Dinner happens at a small place near the edge of town after one of Bucky’s longer delivery days, rain clouds gathering thick and heavy outside while the restaurant buzzes warmly around you.
You keep squirming nervously beforehand despite Bucky reassuring you the entire drive there.
“Baby, believe me, you’re worrying over nothing. They already like you.” He repeats patiently while turning into the parking lot.
You glance over suspiciously. “They’ve never met me.”
Bucky snorts under his breath, one hand settling on your thigh to give it a comforting squeeze.
“Sam’s heard about you so much he already acts like he knows you.”
“That’s not reassuring.” You mumble, sinking a little lower in the seat.
A beat passes in which the car slows as he searches for a parking spot, and you take the opportunity to dramatically exhale like your entire future depends on this night going well.
“You’re meeting my friends, not attending a parole hearing.”
“They could easily be the same thing.” You insist. “Meeting your partner’s best friends is basically like meeting... I don’t know—their adoptive parents.” Bucky snorts, shaking his head.
“Don’t laugh! I’m serious. There’s judgment involved. Silent scoring. Probably some kind of test I don’t know about yet.” You hastily list with your fingers.
That pulls a chuckle out of him, warm and low in a way that only worsens your dramatic suffering.
“Baby—”
“No, because what if they hate me?” You whine, already spiraling. “What if I say something weird? What if I accidentally make Steve uncomfortable? He looks like the kind of man who says ‘language’ unironically.”
Bucky laughs harder at that, shoulders shaking slightly.
“Steve absolutely says language unironically.”
“See? I’m going to swear once and he’s never going to recover from it.”
His grin only grows as the car comes to a stop, but he doesn’t turn it off yet. Instead, Bucky leans back slightly in his seat, head turned to watch you with that infuriatingly entertained expression that makes your anxiety feel personally mocked.
“You’re one to talk anyway.” You quip before he can say anything.
His eyes go wide. “Excuse me?”
“Because let’s talk about the first time you met Nat and Darcy.” You smile innocently, straightening up. “You kept me on the phone for forty minutes because you didn’t know what to wear.”
There’s a beat of silence, before his entire posture shifts.
“Hey, I wanted to make a good first impression.” He frowns.
“You were debating a tie,” you repeat slowly. “For bowling.”
“It was a new environment.” He shrugs.
Your eyebrows shoot up. “It was bowling!”
He simply shakes his head dismissively. “You don’t understand the social dynamics—”
“You were spiraling,” you cut in, now completely turned in your seat to face him. “I remember it very clearly. You kept throwing clothes on your bed that I’ve never seen you wear to this day.”
“I was being thoughtful.” He answers quickly.
“That’s anxiety.”
“That’s being prepared. And my first impression went fine.”
“Yeah, because I talked you out of the tie.”
You lean back in your seat, absolutely delighted now despite your earlier panic.
“I see how it is. I don’t need to worry about meeting your friends, but you needed a forty-minute emotional support phone call about whether you needed a tie for a bowling alley.”
Bucky exhales through his nose, clearly trying not to laugh at being exposed so thoroughly.
“It was a valid concern, I wanted to be respectful, sweetheart.”
“To who? A bowling ball?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again, having run out of arguments to defend himself.
A grin takes over your lips as you nod in victory. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Bucky laughs properly at that, fondly shaking his head at you. The sound makes the knot in your chest loosen despite the anxiety, and when his hand eventually reaches over the console to intertwine your fingers together, you finally feel like you can breathe a little more easily.
“Steve and Sam are gonna like you. That’s not even up for debate.” He says anyway, quieter now.
You purse your lips, the teasing softening just a little.
“And neither is the fact that you’re still nervous about a tie.” You add gently.
His head briefly falls forward as he sighs dejectedly. “It was a good tie.”
And that, somehow, makes you laugh all the way out of the car.
Inside, Steve and Sam hug you instead of shaking your hand, and within less than twenty minutes, both men seem to realize something deeply unsettling about Bucky Barnes.
Namely that he becomes ridiculously, unbearably soft around you. For starters, his hand settles automatically against the back of your chair while you sit down. At some point, he subtly pushes your drink closer because he knows you forget to hydrate when too engrossed in a conversation, his attention entirely shifting on you whenever your lips part, no matter what topic.
And then there is the hand-holding “incident”.
You are talking about your disastrous attempt at baking banana bread last weekend, when your eye briefly catches Bucky’s hand resting near yours on the booth seat.
His large, warm palm tilted upward.
Your gaze keeps drifting toward it despite yourself, because you want to take it so bad. God, you need to feel his skin against yours. But... What if you are misinterpreting it and he is ashamed of being affectionate in front of his friends? What if Steve and Sam think it’s excessive?
Without looking away from Sam, who is now complaining about boat repairs, his hand moves another inch closer until his knuckles brush lightly against yours.
Your heartbeat quickens embarrassingly fast at how obvious he makes it for you.
Hoping nobody is going to notice how you keep squirming in your seat, your hand moves before you can change your mind. Bucky’s fingers close around yours like he had been eagerly waiting for you all night. His thumb strokes once over your knuckles as he replies to his friends, completely unfazed.
Across the table, Sam goes still. Steve, on the other hand, is trying very hard to hide a smile behind his beer. Because the thing is, they have both known Bucky for years. They know him as reserved and controlled and difficult to read most of the time. Yet, what they are witnessing now is essentially an imposing Anatolian Shepherd collapsing happily onto its back because someone finally understood that looking scary doesn’t mean hating cuddles.
Once you are back at the farmhouse, rain is crashing heavily against the roof, therefore Steve and Sam help Bucky move a few things into the barn before the weather worsens further. Afterward, everyone ends up scattered throughout the kitchen while you make lemonade because inside it feels warm from all the damp clothes and humid air.
You are standing near the counter slicing lemons when Bucky walks in, settling beside you after washing his hands.
His gaze automatically drops to the knife, then to you. Then back to the knife.
“You’re holding it wrong.”
Your chin snaps up, eyes blinking at him in confusion.
“What?”
Instead of answering verbally, Bucky steps behind you until the softness of his belly is touching your back. One hand covers yours around the handle while the other steadies the cutting board before showing you a safer angle to hold the knife.
“There,” he murmurs near your shoulder. “Less chance of slipping.”
The entire interaction lasts maybe twenty seconds, yet the butterflies in your stomach go absolutely feral. The worst is that Bucky doesn’t even seem aware of what he does to you half the time. To him, this is simply how he loves, through guidance and care.
A little later, after his friends disappear into the kitchen for more lemonade while loudly arguing over the score of some recent football match, you end up curled beside Bucky on the couch, on the brink of dozing off to the soothing sound of rain tapping against the glass. Your head rests on his chest while he absently rubs slow circles along your arm, and eventually your fingers find his hair without much thought.
You expect tolerance at most. Maybe amusement. Instead, the second your nails lightly scratch his scalp, Bucky goes completely still, before his eyelids flutter shut. A deep, slow breath leaves his nose, his posture slumped as he leans unconsciously into your touch. His expression is so devastatingly content that you feel a mix of pride and joy burn hot in your chest.
From the kitchen doorway, Sam witnesses the scene in horrified fascination.
“Steve!” He whispers sharply.
The other man can’t help but burst into helpless laughter because there, curled around you in complete bliss, sits the same man who once made a grown mechanic squirm just by staring at him too long during an argument over tractor parts. Meanwhile Bucky, fully aware you are being watched, slowly opens one eye to glare at them with pure annoyance.
“What.”
“Man, you know your imaginary tail is wagging so hard I can practically hear it from here?”
Bucky silently stares at Sam for exactly five seconds, and without any shame whatsoever, tightens his arm around your waist to pull you closer.
“Yeah,” he rasps out. “And?”
ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU NEED HIM THE MOST
Bucky simply moves through your life with the quiet assumption that if something can be made easier for you, then of course he will do it.
One freezing morning in late November, you walk outside expecting the usual miserable routine of scraping ice from your windshield before work while trying not to freeze your fingers off in the process, only to stop short at the sight of your car already running softly in the driveway, pale exhaust curling into the cold air while warm light glows through the windshield.
And there he is, leaning casually against his pickup truck with two cups of coffee in his hands. Wrapped in his heavy work jacket, Bucky looks entirely unbothered by the bitter cold biting at his skin this early in the morning. You stare at him with wide eyes before glancing at your car. Then back at him.
“Did you come all the way over here just to start my car?”
His eyebrows pull together, genuine confusion touching his face.
“You hate being cold, sweetheart.”
Bucky never treats care as some grand romantic gesture that deserves applause. To him, love exists in maintenance, in noticing and remembering. It exists in the way he arranges himself around the sharp edges of your life without ever making you feel ashamed of needing help.
By the third month of your relationship, he already knows you forget meals whenever work gets too stressful, so he begins leaving containers of food in your fridge after particularly exhausting weeks, usually with little notes written in neat handwriting.
Eat something besides crackers today.
This one’s got vegetables in it. Don’t roll your eyes.
At first, a mix of embarrassment and old habits makes you protest.
“Jamie,” you sigh one evening while unpacking groceries he absolutely did not need to buy for you. “I can feed myself.”
“I know you can.”
The answer comes calmly, his attention never even leaving the frozen peas he’s putting away in your freezer.
“Then why are you doing all this?”
That finally makes him look at you, blue eyes steady and open.
“Because yesterday you had cereal for dinner and called it a balanced meal.”
Heat floods your face instantly. “It was one time.”
“It happened last Tuesday as well, baby.”
Your eyes squint at him betrayed. “You remember way too much.”
“You tell me things,” he shrugs lightly, shutting the fridge with his hip. “And I pay attention.”
Yes, Bucky pays attention. To everything. He notices the way your head starts to ache more than usual after difficult meetings at work; the moments you shrink because someone talked over you while discussing something important; the days you’ve had too much coffee and not nearly enough water before you’ve even registered it yourself. Once he recognizes a pattern, he simply starts building small routines around it—never demanding, or controlling. But guiding you so tenderly that by the time you notice, he’s already taken the weight you carry and made it easier to bear.
“Three coffees, baby.” He reminds you one afternoon after spotting the suspiciously large iced drink in your hand during lunch.
You promptly clutch the cup closer to your chest.
“This is tea.”
Bucky stares at you for a long moment, before his eyes lower meaningfully to the giant logo on the side of the cup.
“Sweetheart,” he starts patiently. “That thing smells like melted tiramisu.”
Your smile is sheepish. “It’s been a hard week.”
The teasing falls from his face at the exhaustion in your voice, concern replacing it so quickly it makes warmth bloom beautifully behind your ribs. He steps closer without hesitation, one broad palm settling on the back of your neck while his other hand cradles your cheek—a gesture so instinctively soothing that your entire body loosens before you can acknowledge it.
“I know, princess.” He murmurs softly. “Still need water though.”
And somehow—impossibly—you find yourself listening. He never makes care feel humiliating, because every reminder sounds far from correction and more like loving you so much it physically pains him seeing you not taking care of yourself the way you deserve. However, having someone pay attention to you this reverently is still complicated when, for your whole life, you’ve been used to being the responsible one, the accommodating one, the person who notices everybody else’s needs before they can become problems. Teaching only sharpened instincts you already had mastered long before adulthood: constantly anticipating, organizing, soothing, fixing. Somewhere along the way, taking care of yourself became secondary to making sure everyone else was never burdened by you.
Then Bucky arrives and begins undoing those habits piece by piece without ever criticizing you for it.
There is one particular parent-teacher night that leaves you painfully exhausted and miserable, so much that your eyes burn with unshed tears the entire walk to your car. One parent spends twenty minutes speaking over you every time you attempt to explain their child’s struggles in class; another openly questions whether you are “experienced enough” to manage disruptive students, because “you definitely don’t look like you are”. And Ms. Cox still finds enough energy afterward to criticize your “overly emotional teaching style” in front of half the faculty before finally leaving for the night.
By the time you make it home, you feel like an empty shell. You sway on your feet while eating half a granola bar in the dark, then drag yourself into bed wearing one of Bucky’s old sweatshirts—the same ones you shyly asked to have for particularly hard nights where his absence presses heavy on your heart. Yet, you spend nearly two hours staring miserably at your ceiling because exhaustion apparently does not guarantee sleep.
You and Bucky already said goodnight earlier. Normally he insists on calling before bed no matter how busy either of you are, but tonight he could feel how drained you were by text alone. Still, sometime after midnight, loneliness finally outweighs guilt. And even as you beg him to stay in bed and rest, insisting it’s late and he should be sleeping, he still replies with two simple words that make your heart flutter.
Already driving
12:22am
Twenty-five minutes later, headlights sweep across your curtains and you get out of your bed with a pained groan, your legs heavy as you shuffle into the kitchen in fuzzy socks. Bucky is already inside, carrying a paper bag in one hand, concern settling visibly between his brows the second you appear.
“Hey there, princess.” He whispers, leaving everything on the counter so he can pull you against him.
And that’s the moment your body goes frighteningly limp as you realize how badly you needed Bucky to hold you, knowing he would never ask for anything in return.
“I’m okay.” You quickly try to reassure him, but don’t do a very good job when your words come out slurred against his jacket.
His low hum expresses clear disagreement, one hand smoothing slowly over your back before he pulls away enough to cradle your cheeks.
“You ate dinner?”
The hesitation on your face answers for you.
His jaw clenches slightly. “Sweetheart.”
“I wasn’t hungry.” You blurt out, dangerously close to tears.
“I know, angel.” His voice turns to a whisper in front of your distress. “But you had a long day.”
There is no irritation in his voice, only concern wrapped in gentle firmness that somehow makes embarrassment crawl up your throat anyway. But before shame can take you away from him, Bucky leans down to press a long kiss on your forehead.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “I’m not angry.”
Your shoulders visibly lower a little.
“Sit down for me while I make you something warm, okay?”
And there it is again, that tingly sensation spreading low in your belly whenever he speaks like that, calm and assured and already prepared to handle things for you before you can break.
You curl beneath your favorite blanket on the couch while he heats soup and makes some chamomile tea. Watching him in all his composure as he takes care of you, moving around your house, and opening cabinets without needing directions because he already memorized where everything belongs months ago... Well, it nearly undoes you completely.
“You always think about me like that?” You ask feebly once he finally appears with a tray that he momentarily places on the coffee table.
Bucky glances at you from where he’s adjusting the blanket around your legs. “Like what?”
“Like… this.” You swallow, not liking how your throat is starting to tighten. “Taking care of things—of me, before I even notice what’s wrong.”
“‘Course I do, princess.” He answers quietly.
Tears dangerously sting at the back of your eyes, but your teeth promptly sink into your bottom lip before you can succumb to them. There is a brief moment suspended in time in which Bucky’s eyes search your expression, before he moves to kneel on the floor in front of you, palms already reaching for your jaw.
“You spend so much time looking after everybody else.” He starts under his breath. “I just want... somebody looking after you too.” His thumb strokes the skin of your cheek and that’s when you notice the lonely tear that escaped the last thread of your control.
“I wanna be your safe place. Want you to know you can come to me. Always. You don’t gotta hold it together with me.”
“And when it gets too much out there,” he adds after a beat. “Or here,” his knuckle gently brushes your temple. “I’ll be right beside you. I’ll catch you. Every time.”
You built a relationship based on care and mutual trust, something you never had before but deeply craved. For quite a long time, those sleepless nights spent wondering when it will finally be your turn, soon turned into cruel reminders that maybe, after all, you just were not built for that kind of love. So you kept running yourself into the ground for everyone else without anyone actually noticing how much that cost you. Some people though, Bucky said, weren’t even worthy of those pretty eyes looking their way, let alone your kindness. Still, a small flame of hope kept burning in your heart—the hope that someday, someone would truly see you. Nobody has ever tried to earn your trust enough for you to hand over your vulnerability. But with Bucky, you bloom so easily in the warmth of his love.
Rain has turned part of the farm path into thick mud after a storm, and despite Bucky repeatedly warning you to not wear your pretty shoes near the fields, you ignored him confidently right up until your foot sinks deep enough into the mud to trap you completely. Bucky turns at the sound of your horrified gasp, and immediately starts laughing.
“Bucky!” You whine while trying unsuccessfully to yank your shoe free. “Stop laughing.”
“Sweetheart,” he says through obvious amusement while walking toward you. “Why’re you wearing those heels out here?”
“I didn’t think it would be this bad.”
“Mhm.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “You’re being mean.”
His grin only grows as he reaches you.
“Far from it, princess. C’mere.”
Before you can ask what he means, both hands settle firmly around your waist and suddenly your feet leave the ground entirely. A startled squeak escapes your throat as your boyfriend lifts you effortlessly out of the mud like one of those bags of fodder he so easily carries around the farm.
“Bucky!”
“You were getting stuck.” He smirks.
“I could’ve figured it out myself.” You mumble shyly.
“I know you could.”
His words are tinged with mirth as he carries you back toward solid ground, one arm secure around your waist while your hands instinctively clutch his shoulders.
“Doesn’t mean I’m gonna stand there watching you struggle.” Your chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with guilt anymore, your hands instinctively curling a little tighter into the collar of his jacket as the real meaning of it sinks deep in your heart.
This becomes another habit somehow. He lifts you onto kitchen counters while cooking because otherwise you “hover too much.” Carries you inside from the truck whenever you fall asleep during long drives home from town. Sometimes, after particularly exhausting school days, he simply hooks an arm beneath your knees and picks you up before you can properly protest.
“Jamie, I can walk.” You mumble sleepily against his collarbone.
“I know you can, baby.”
“Then put me down.”
“No.”
The answer comes calm and completely immovable while he adjusts you more securely against his chest.
He looks down at you. “You’re tired.” As if that is enough of an explanation.
You squint at him, but he raises one eyebrow before your overworked brain can elaborate something witty to retort with.
“You gonna keep arguing or you gonna let me hold my girl?”
Being with him has a way of quieting the constant vigilance in you as your body learns—gradually, unconsciously—that Bucky’s strength never asks you to fear it. All that’s left is a fuzzy, unfocused warmth you can’t quite name. And over time, you begin realizing that what affects you most is not the carrying itself, but what it represents. Around him, you are allowed to take up space without apologizing for it first. You are allowed to keep him company as he works, to cling to him through difficult days and cry without trying to make yourself smaller afterward.
The first time you break down in front of him happens after a bad argument with your mom. You spend nearly ten minutes apologizing between sobs. Bucky listens quietly the entire time before finally reaching up to tenderly wipe your tears with his thumbs, brows drawn together in soft confusion.
“Princess,” he asks gently. “Why’re you apologizing for being upset?”
You open your mouth, but then close it again helplessly. Because once again, you were about to slip back into the bad habits you are carefully working through together. Bucky’s expression morphs instantly in silent understanding.
“C’mere, baby.”
And just like always, you go.
ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU WANT TO BE PART OF HIS WORLD
For a long time, you are convinced that helping Bucky with work will only make things harder for him. Not because he ever said that—quite the opposite, actually. But he moves through the farm with effortless capability, making everything look so easy. He knows where every tool belongs, which fence post is beginning to loosen before anybody else notices, the sound each engine is supposed to make—immediately catching when something is wrong.
Meanwhile, you once managed to stall your own car three times in a row trying to leave the school parking lot because your brain was too tired to function properly. So naturally, the idea of “helping” him feels laughable. Standing in the middle of his world feels strangely similar to trying to communicate in a language you don’t speak fluently yet. Still, that doesn’t stop you from wanting to try. Loving Bucky means wanting to understand the shape of his days and exist inside the life he built long before you arrived in it. You want to know what his mornings look like at sunrise, learn the routines his body slips into automatically after years of repetition, and more than anything, you want to stand there beside him without feeling like a guest.
His blue eyes catch the golden afternoon sunlight so prettily as he glances up from where he’s crouched in front of the fencing, near the south pasture.
“What’s up, lovely?” One corner of his mouth lifts when you linger there without answering right away, your hands fidgeting against the wooden post as if looking for something to ground you.
“What?” He teases lightly. “My girl misses me already?”
You huff a quiet laugh through your nose, eyes dropping briefly to the tools scattered beside him.
“Maybe a little,” you mumble. “I just wanted to see what you were doing.”
His expression softens instantly at that. “C’mere, then.”
You step closer without thinking.
“You wanna help?”
You hesitate under the weight of the question. “Only if I’m not gonna be in the way.”
The offended look Bucky gives you makes you chuckle lightly. He frowns, standing to full height while wiping his hands against his jeans.
“You being here is the opposite of in the way.”
And there it is again—that wonderful ache in your chest. You shift your weight from foot to foot, head ducking a little at the sheer love in his words. His rough fingers slowly hook beneath your chin to tilt your face back toward him.
“You wanna stay with me while I work?” He asks softly.
You nod silently.
“Then stay.”
Simple as that. No sighing. No tolerating your presence to avoid arguments. No making you feel like affection must be earned through usefulness.
After that, he begins finding small ways to pull you into his world. Nothing overwhelming that leaves room for you to panic about messing things up.
“Hold this for me.”
“Pass me that small wrench, pretty girl.”
“Sit over there where I can see you, and watch your step.”
At first, your help is mostly symbolic. You hand him tools, hold flashlights, keep him company while he works beneath trucks or repairs broken equipment in the barn. At some point, Bucky quietly sets up a small table near his workbench for you, sanding the wood smooth and making sure to buy a comfortable pillow for the chair so you can sit there for hours grading assignments and planning lessons while he moves around you.
One afternoon, while you are perched on the workbench as he works beneath the hood of his pickup truck, you accidentally hand him the wrong tool three times in a row. By the third attempt, you groan dramatically. Your face falls into your hands.
“I’m fucking useless.”
Bucky leans back enough to look at you, expression deeply unimpressed.
“Hey.” The single word lands firmly enough that your head snaps up at once. “You ain’t allowed to talk about my girl like that.”
You simply stare at him as he reaches out to squeeze your knee before taking the wrench from your hands.
“Besides,” Bucky adds casually. “You’re real cute when you boss me around with the wrong tools.”
You burst out laughing despite yourself, shyly looking away once you notice he has been busy admiring you with a smitten grin.
Every single time insecurity starts curling around your throat, ugly and uninvited, Bucky is there to loosen it with his careful hands before it can choke you. Dismissing insecurity is far too easy, yet that’s what most people do. It makes them uncomfortable and impatient, so they wave it away with empty reassurance. They joke about it, call it overthinking... They turn vulnerability into a shameful weakness. Because acknowledging it properly would require them to sit inside someone else’s discomfort for a while. But Bucky never treats your vulnerable moments like inconveniences he has to endure. He looks at them directly in the eye until they stop feeling quite so monstrous inside your head.
The way you feel warm all over has nothing to do with the late afternoon sun spilling gold across the land. He had sounded genuinely insulted, because loving you also includes protecting the way you speak about yourself. He cannot stand cruelty directed at you even when it comes from your own mouth.
Your pulse flutters embarrassingly beneath your skin.
His attention returns to the engine eventually, muttering something under his breath as he reaches deeper beneath the hood. Your eyes focus on the rolled sleeves exposing his strong forearms slightly soiled with grease, then slowly travel up the faded flannel stretching across his broad chest, before noticing the crease between his brows. The low hum he gives every now and then when something cooperates correctly makes your pussy throbs, your mind clouded with memories of your thighs around his head.
Your legs swing idly as you sigh, watching him work for another silent moment.
“You know,” you murmur thoughtfully. “For someone who says he likes having me around, you sure are ignoring me right now.”
Bucky snorts softly without looking up.
“I’m working , sweetheart.”
“Mhm.”
He glances at you briefly, one eyebrow lifting. “What?”
You exhale dramatically, leisurely looking around the shed. “I think you’re pretending to fix the truck because you secretly enjoy making me suffer.”
A low chuckle rumbles out of him at that, though he still turns another bolt calmly like you are not trying to derail him on purpose.
“You surviving okay over there, pretty girl?”
“Barely.”
“You’ll make it.”
The problem is that he sounds entirely too entertained by this. Your eyes narrow slightly at his tone. Then, after a moment of consideration, you shift a little closer along the edge and let your thighs part slightly, your hands landing on the wooden surface by your sides to slightly push your chest forward.
Bucky notices immediately from his peripheral vision, but all he gives you is a low, “Careful, doll.” Without any real heat in it.
You stare at the side of his face for another second, then toss your head back enough to deserve an award.
“Mhm...” You hum mournfully. “If my boyfriend really loved me, he would stop fixing stuff and pay attention to me.”
This time Bucky laughs unguarded, the sound rough around the edges as he finally leans back enough to look at you.
“Oh, so that’s what this is?”
You try to appear unbothered. “What?”
“You being a needy girl.”
Heat crawls immediately into your cheeks, still you keep your eyes on his.
“I am not needy.” You insist.
His mouth twitches, incredibly amused. “No?”
“No.”
“Mhm.”
You huff softly, crossing your arms while he turns back toward the engine with entirely too much satisfaction for your liking. And unfortunately—for the both of you—you are an incredibly stubborn woman. Which means your brain immediately decides to make things worse by jumping down the bench and silently approaching the vehicle until you are leaning down the edge of the hood, right beside your boyfriend.
“Maybe there are more interesting things you could be doing with your hands right now.” You murmur, eyes dragging slowly over the length of his body.
The wrench stops turning at once. For one very dangerous second, the entire world seems to go still with it. Bucky exhales slowly through his nose before straightening to his full height, wiping his palms across his jeans with deliberate calm that somehow feels infinitely more threatening than any other reaction.
“Oh, you’re trouble today.”
You try to hold his gaze without shrinking under it, but that becomes significantly harder once he starts edging closer to you, the stupid tool that confused you completely forgotten. The light teasing in his face has shifted into something heavier, a kind of seriousness that has your panties completely ruined.
“Looking at me like that while I’m trying to behave...”
You swallow. “Maybe I don’t want you to.”
His nostrils flare for a brief moment, one large hand sliding around your waist while the other braces on your hip, and before your brain fully catches up, he is backing you a few slow steps toward the side of the shed. The wall presses lightly against your back, Bucky’s frame crowding you back into stillness, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from him through every layer between you. His thumbs stroke your sides rhythmically as he studies you with an expression that almost makes you forget how to breathe.
“You’re playing with fire, doll.”
You tilt your chin up despite the way your pulse stumbles. “I just wanted your attention.”
Bucky’s jaw flexes once. “Oh, you got it.”
His mouth claims yours like he is afraid you will disappear if he doesn’t, the hand on the curve of your waist tightening possessively while the other traces the length of your neck, until his fingers dig into your jaw to keep your head tilted exactly how he wants it. A small, unintentional whimper is muffled against his mouth as your fingers curl tight into the front of his shirt, and Bucky exhales softly through his nose like the sound nearly undid him too. It is rough, urgent... Too much and still not enough.
When he finally pulls back, it’s only far enough for his forehead to rest briefly against yours. Both of you breathe a little unevenly, his palms still heavy on your skin, as though he has no intention whatsoever of letting you wander too far now that he finally has you pliant and whining for him.
“Tell me to stop.” His voice is rough, gaze frantically going back and forth between your hazy eyes and your lips glinting with his spit.
“I need you, Jamie.”
And he is kissing you again, slower this time but no less distracting, and you are just beginning to melt properly into him when his hands slide beneath your sundress, harshly grabbing the back of your thighs.
“Jamie—”
“C’mon, up sweetheart.” He rumbles in your mouth, already pushing you higher against the wall.
Your giggle dissolves into a wanton moan when his tongue slides back between your lips, fervent and eager, your fingers tangling into his hair while his grip tightens instinctively on your ass.
“Fuck.” He pants wrecked, his bulge pressing insistently against your covered core.
“Jamie, please.” You toss your head back as his lips frantically move over your neck and cleavage, more lapping and biting at your skin than actually kissing.
“So fucking sweet.” He grunts, humping you like an animal right in front of the open door of the shed.
See, Bucky is… well, particularly insatiable. It’s not enough to spend Sunday mornings slowly grinding into you until you are begging him to make you come, tears staining your cheeks as he coos at you. It’s not enough to bend you over the kitchen counter and thrust his cock into your pussy from behind, his warm and heavy body pressing you down as you hold onto the edge of the wooden surface for dear life. It’s also not enough for his fingers to not-so-subtly slip beneath the hem of the blouse you just spent ten minutes adjusting to your liking, just to squeeze your tits because “They’re missing me, doll”.
And he never seems to care if you are late for something, or how long it takes... or where you are. Like that time he pulled into the deserted parking lot of a random mall on the way back from your cousin’s engagement party because one of her friends had flirted with you a few too many times—even with Bucky standing just a couple of feet away, talking to your aunts while openly glaring at him. He growled an amused, “Try not making a mess on the seats, princess” before you ended up squirming and moaning in the backseat of his pickup truck, still fully clothed as his hand slid down the front of your unbuttoned pants. He was three fingers deep inside your pussy, his other hand gripping your jaw to keep your eyes on his as he whispered how good he was going to fuck you later in his bed, and how good he’d make you cream all over his cock. His dick was straining against the confines of his pants, painful and throbbing because you were so pretty with your lips parted around your little, unrestrained whimpers, your half-lidded eyes staring hazily at him, and then… the bright flash of red and blue lights blinded you both in an instant.
By the time the two police officers knocked on the window car, you were both just about composed—his jacket lay on his lap to hide the impressive bulge while you leaned against his shoulder, carefully performing a convincing enough bout of nausea to explain why you had been parked there so long. They told you that someone had reported a vehicle acting suspiciously nearby and Bucky quickly chimed in, matching their story just enough. However, the car in question disappeared down the road the moment you parked. A brief, measured silence followed, until one of the officers glanced at you. Then at Bucky. Then back at his partner, clearly deciding that whatever they might have walked in on was not worth pursuing further.
Or that time your first picnic date turned into Bucky keeping a hand on your mouth as he fucked you right in the middle of the blanket you had so carefully arranged, imagining quiet naps beneath the trees and lazy kisses. Instead, you had squirted all over it after Bucky had growled into your neck that you needed to be quiet, or else one of his employees might catch you. Still hard, he hastily lay between your thighs for his earned “dessert”.
You have always managed to get away with it before—never caught, never interrupted, always just out of reach of consequence. Until now.
The wall rattles with a particular hard thrust of his hips, loud enough that the sound travels straight through the large space, followed immediately by a sharp, unceremonious clatter from somewhere above your head. Before either of you has even processed what’s happening, something tumbles from the nearby shelf and lands directly on Bucky’s head with a force that makes you both flinch at the same time.
Your boyfriend jerks back instantly, a harsh curse slipping out under his breath as one hand flies up to the exact point of impact, while his other arm tightens around you, still holding you close out of reflex even as he recoils.
“Oh my God—” You gasp, eyes widening in horror as you register what just happened. “Bucky!”
“’M fine.” He grunts automatically, though the tight set of his jaw and the faint squint in his eye suggest otherwise.
You wriggle out from his hold with anxious urgency until he sets you back on your feet, quickly reaching for his wrists as though you can physically prevent any further damage. He keeps muttering under his breath about “fucking shelves” and “the motherfucker who put that damn thing there.”
“Sweetheart, it was just a flashlight, not a bullet.” He grits out to reassure you.
“Who cares, it hit your head!” You argue frantically. “Move your hand, let me see.”
There is a long, theatrical pause, during which Bucky clearly considers refusing out of principle alone, but eventually he exhales through his nose and lowers his hand with exaggerated reluctance, revealing nothing particularly dramatic beyond a faintly annoyed expression.
“There,” he sighs. “Still alive.”
You stare at him with genuine devastation shining in your eyes.
“Oh, baby.”
And that is the moment everything shifts. Because your tone changes completely, your panic dissolving into something softer and infinitely more dangerous as your hands come up to his face without hesitation, cradling him with careful precision while your thumbs brush lightly over his cheeks. You inspect him with big, worried eyes, pouting at him like he has just survived something far more dramatic than an ambush by a shelf.
Bucky, for his part, goes still in a way that has nothing to do with pain and everything to do with your attention. It’s almost humiliating how quickly his entire focus narrows down to you. The way your thumb absently brushes his cheek. The way your voice drops into a gentle, breathy coo every time you ask if he is alright. The way you keep smoothing your thumb over the bruise like it physically pains you to see him like this. And somewhere in the middle of it, a thought forms with unsettling clarity—he really likes this.
“You poor thing,” you murmur mournfully. “Does it hurt?”
Bucky blinks once, twice. “A little...” He admits slowly, though the word feels less like an answer and more like an experiment he is conducting purely for the sake of seeing how you respond.
You frown. “Oh, Jamie.”
He leans into your soft palms without thinking, eyelids lowering in complete bliss.
“Mhm.”
“Do you feel dizzy?”
“... Think I might now that you mentioned it.”
The crease in your brows deepens at once, fingers sliding into his hair as you begin checking for other bumps, your touch careful and thorough in a way that turns his brain into pure mush.
“You need ice.”
“Mhm.”
“And water.”
“Probably.”
“And you should sit down for a minute.”
At that, something entirely too satisfied slips into his expression, subtle but unmistakable. Because you are standing in front of him on the verge of tears, treating this huge, rough man like a wounded woodland creature.
“You’re real sweet when you worry about me.” He murmurs, smitten.
You roll your eyes even as your hands stay on his face. “Someone has to take care of you.”
That’s all it takes. He is not going to discourage this behavior in any way, shape, or form.
Bucky lets you guide him toward the chair beside the workbench without resistance, lowering himself into it with slow obedience. The moment he is seated, you are immediately between his knees, hovering, checking, fussing, entirely focused on him as though nothing else in the world currently matters. Which, unfortunately, becomes the highlight of his entire week.
“There’s a bump.” You murmur to yourself, brows drawn together in concentration.
“Mhm.” He agrees gravely, as if this confirms a deeply unfortunate outcome for his future.
“You could’ve been seriously hurt.”
And Bucky just watches you, completely lost in the way you move around him with anxious care, your hands never quite leaving him. There is something recklessly addicting about being the center of your attention that settles into him far too easily, like it has always been waiting there for you to unlock it. It goes to his head faster than the flashlight ever could.
“Are you still feeling dizzy?” You fret.
Bucky tilts his head slightly as if genuinely considering it, though the truth is he could not care less about his symptoms.
“…Little bit.” He decides finally.
Your eyes widen. “You do?”
“Might need mouth-to-mouth.” He adds, entirely deadpan.
You stare at him in disbelief. “James.”
“What?” A pause, thoughtful. “I got a concussion, sweetheart. Have some compassion.”
“You don’t have a concussion.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.” Your voice briefly cracks with amusement.
He sighs as though genuinely disappointed by the medical community. Still, he looks unbearably pleased with himself.
“Stay still,” you mutter pensively, already turning toward the small freezer tucked away nearby. “I’m getting ice.”
Bucky watches you go with an expression bordering on lovesick, his lips twisting into a soft curve. By the time you return, he has already shifted slightly, spreading his knees just enough to make space for you again. His hands find your hips as soon as you’re close enough, steadying you, holding you in place while you press the ice gently against the bump, your face still pinched with concentration.
“Too cold?” You ask softly.
“Nah.” Then, after a beat, entirely too casually, “Still think you should kiss it better, though.”
You roll your eyes, yet your small smile betrays you. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“Can’t believe you’d say that while I’m injured.” He retorts, tone solemn. “I got hit real hard, doll.”
“You said it was a flashlight.” Your eyebrow raises skeptically.
“Still could’ve knocked loose my precious brain cell.”
That finally does it, a laugh slipping out of you despite the anxiety still lingering in your stomach. It’s soft and breathless and completely unrestrained, and Bucky’s hands squeeze your waist, as though he is physically anchoring himself to it.
“What am I going to do with you?” You sigh, fingers threading carefully through his hair. It occurs to you with a fond, helpless kind of clarity that you have accidentally created a monster. One who is absolutely going to treat every minor inconvenience like a life-threatening injury, if it means being doted on by you.
This time, there is no hesitation when he answers, voice quieter but absolutely certain.
“Keep spoiling me like this.”
The words come out lazy and teasing, yet they land heavier than either of you anticipate. Because he means it a little. Maybe a lot. Your expression softens in response, the final threads of panic melting away into something far more vulnerable. Then, much to his delight, you lean down and press a long kiss to the top of his head.
“There,” you murmur. “Better?”
Bucky goes still beneath you, before his arms wrap more firmly around you, pulling you just a fraction closer until his chin can comfortably rest on your torso.
“Yeah,” he whispers, reverent eyes looking up at you. “Way better.”
ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU SPEND YOUR MORNINGS TOGETHER
The two of you are stretched across his bed after a late dinner and a movie downtown, the television flickering low pale light across the room. One of Bucky’s older hoodies hangs from your shoulders, and the comforter pooled around your legs still carries faint traces of that comforting earthy scent that always seems permanently stitched into everything he owns.
You are trying very hard to stay awake. The week has been horrible: your students restless from too many rainy recesses indoors, paperwork piling endlessly across your desk, and parent emails arriving faster than you could answer them. By the time Bucky picked you up earlier that evening, your body had already been aching with fatigue. Still, you are determined not to fall asleep here. Because despite the fact that Bucky has never once made you feel unwelcome in his space, there is still a nervous little part of you convinced that accidentally crossing invisible boundaries will somehow ruin everything. Falling asleep in his bed feels far more intimate than kissing him does, strangely enough, because it means trusting him enough to stop monitoring yourself.
So every time your eyelids begin slipping lower, you stubbornly force them open again. Unfortunately, Bucky notices the way your responses slow down halfway through conversations and the increasingly delayed reaction every time he asks you something about the movie. Your body keeps unconsciously curling closer and closer toward his warmth before you catch yourself and straighten again. At one point, your head dips toward his chest for too long you abruptly jerk yourself upright.
Bucky glances at you, his hand leisurely rubbing along your arm, and one corner of his mouth already threatens to lift.
“You don’t gotta stay awake for me, doll.”
His voice comes low and soothing beside you, yet your eyes widen abruptly.
You open your mouth but nothing comes out, your eyes fluttering shut in defeat when you realize you absolutely set yourself up for that.
Bucky’s chest shakes slightly with restrained laughter at your weak glare.
“I’m serious.” You slur, shifting upright again beneath the blankets with all the determination of somebody seconds away from losing consciousness. He hums patiently, still rubbing slow circles against your sleeve.
You try very hard after that. You focus on the movie, ask questions about the actors… You even sit up straighter just to prove you are perfectly fine. Then Bucky’s hand slides absentmindedly beneath his shirt to rub slowly along your bare hip instead.
And honestly, after that, you never really stood a chance. Bucky glances down after a couple of silent minutes and finds your body curled into his side while your breathing evens out gradually beneath the faint sound of the wind outside. And something about the sight hits him so deeply it hurts. Because he knows this is not easy for you yet. That you are still learning how to be yourself around another person without feeling like an inconvenience.
Your boyfriend slowly adjusts himself against the headboard so you can settle more comfortably on him, one hand pulling the comforter higher around your shoulders before he lowers the volume of the television. You stir faintly at the movement, brows pinching briefly in your sleep, but his hand promptly strokes your back with gentle movements.
“There you go,” he murmurs quietly. “Go back to sleep, pretty girl.” The tension melts from your muscles so quickly beneath his touch that Bucky’s eyes linger on you in silent wonder for a long moment. He presses one long kiss on your forehead, and sometime later, sleep finally finds him too, quiet and unguarded with you tucked safely against his side.
The next morning, you wake feeling unexpectedly well-rested. For several peaceful seconds, your mind drifts lazily through the hazy border between sleep and awareness. It’s only when your body stirs with a slow, languid stretch that you realize you are pressed against something solid.
Solid, pleasantly warm, and… moving?
Memories crash into you all at once—the dinner, the movie... Bucky’s bed.
Your eyes fly open.
Early sunlight catches along the broad expanse of his bare forearm where it rests heavily around your waist, like he fell asleep making sure you were always close throughout the night. Mortification hits you like a punch in the stomach. You can’t believe you were careless enough to fall asleep in his bed without discussing it first, the surprise quickly curdling into guilt as you picture him stuck with you there, too kind to wake you up.
Trying to not be swallowed by panic until you are completely alone, you carefully shift beneath the blankets only for Bucky’s hold to tighten automatically around you. A sleepy hum leaves him, followed by his voice a second later, raspy and deep.
“Morning, sweetheart.”
You turn carefully enough to find him already watching you through heavy-lidded eyes, hair messy from sleep and jaw still shadowed with yesterday’s stubble.
“I’m sorry.” The words come out before you can even think about it.
Bucky blinks slowly, his soft smile falling at once. “For what?”
“For falling asleep here.”
“You were tired.” He frowns.
“I know but… I didn’t mean to bother you.”
The second the words leave your mouth, something in Bucky’s expression morphs into painful understanding. You genuinely believe this inconvenienced him.
“You silly girl,” he murmurs fondly, pulling you closer by your waist. “You fell asleep during a movie. That ain’t exactly a crime, y’know?”
You stare down at the comforter instead, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. “I just didn’t wanna impose.”
Long fingers are already sliding beneath your chin, guiding your face back toward him with impossible patience.
“You think I’d rather have you driving home exhausted in the rain at midnight? Hm?”
Your lips part slightly. “Well—”
“No, baby.” His thumb delicately brushes your bottom lip. “I’d rather have you here with me.”
It feels hard to breathe properly when faced with the certainty in his voice.
“I liked waking up next to you.”
The confession lands directly beneath your ribs.
“You did?” Your eyes observe him wide with hope.
“‘Course I did.” A sleepy little smile tugs at his mouth. “I...” He huffs out an abashed chuckle, and you recoil a little, completely caught off guard. Because Bucky has never once looked this flushed since your first date.
“I’d really like it if you stayed over more.”
“Really?” It’s nothing short of a whisper.
“Mhm.” His hand drifts slowly along your side as his gaze lingers on your face with devastating devotion.
“Don’t really like the idea of you driving home late all the time anyway, and…” He pauses briefly, almost thoughtful. “I wanna wake up with you in my arms.”
The room suddenly feels far too warm. Bucky shifts slightly closer again, his other arm coming under you to anchor your body to his, his nose teasingly grazing yours.
“Wanna have my mouth on you before either of us even gets outta bed, and be late because we inevitably get carried away with our little kisses.” He whispers lazily against the slope of your neck, pressing a peck on your collarbone that makes you shudder.
“Wanna make breakfast together and watch you steal half the bacon off my plate after you said you weren’t hungry.” His mouth barely brushes your cheek. “Wanna sit at the kitchen table while you talk my ear off about your day before it even starts.”
Nobody has ever spoken about wanting you in their life as a fantasy too fragile to touch. But Bucky has already made space for you in his future without hesitation.
And then he completely ruins you by adding under his breath, “You look good here, sweetheart. With me.”
The same hesitation holding you back melts completely after that.
“I liked waking up next to you too.” You whisper, cheeks warming up at your own brave confession. But the bright smile he gives you is completely worth it.
Staying over becomes less of an exception and more of a habit neither of you wants to break. Soon enough, pieces of you begin appearing around the farmhouse: a spare toothbrush beside his sink; a brand new box of your favorite strawberry lipgloss that Bucky bought for you to specifically use when you stay over; your favorite cookies tucked into one of the kitchen cabinets—because Bucky noticed you always look for them first in the mornings.
He never rushes you into the day. Even when he has technically been awake for hours already, he moves through the morning with a steady, unhurried ease, as though the world itself knows it can take a break around him.
Sometimes you wake to find him already watching you quietly from the pillow beside yours, one arm still draped across your waist while pale sunrays spill across the sheets between you. Most mornings, you simply cuddle closer for a little while, listening to him breathe, memorizing the warmth of his arms around you, letting yourself exist without urgency for once.
“Morning, baby.”
His voice still sounds rough around the edges from sleep when he leans to meet you halfway, pressing a slow kiss on your mouth that lingers far longer than necessary because neither of you is in any hurry to separate yet.
Downstairs, the kitchen already smells faintly of coffee he started earlier. You are halfway through pouring cream into your mug when dread hits you like a bucket of icy water. Bucky notices immediately from his seat at the kitchen island, where he’s reading the newspaper like every morning.
“What happened?”
You sigh softly, your head falling back with a groan. “I still have to finish prepping activities for today.”
Instead of looking disappointed that your attention has shifted elsewhere, Bucky simply studies you thoughtfully for a moment before setting his mug down.
“Show me.”
You turn in surprise. “What?”
“Show me what you gotta do.”
“You wanna help me lesson plan?” Your eyebrows raise in amusement.
“Correction, I wanna spend my morning with you.”
So eventually you spread everything across the wooden surface: worksheets, glue sticks, colored markers, laminated reading cards, paper cutouts for today’s classroom activity. Bucky watches the process unfold with intense concentration, a deep crease between his eyebrows while he studies your materials.
“This all for one class?”
“Mm-hmm. Reading exercise, drawing activity, vocabulary review…” You point at each group of items.
Bucky gives you a slow nod, despite still looking vaguely overwhelmed by the amount of paper involved. Without thinking much about it, you hand him a stack of cut-out shapes that needs to be organized by color. He takes them at once, no hesitation whatsoever. Several minutes later, you glance up and nearly snort out loud when you realize he’s sorting them not only by color, but by shade. After that, he busies himself with other simple tasks, like passing markers to you in color order because he noticed you unconsciously arrange them that way yourself, and flattening laminated sheets carefully beneath one rough hand while you cut around them.
At one point, Bucky picks up one of the worksheets and studies it with intense concentration, his brows slowly knitting together the more he reads through the page. You barely pay attention at first, too focused on cutting out paper stars for the reading activity, until silence stretches suspiciously long. When you are done, you find Bucky still staring at the paper as if studying a government document.
“These kids gotta circle the adjective?”
You blink once. “Yes?”
He glances down at the paper, then back at you. “They know what an adjective is?”
“Most of them.” You chuckle at his genuine curiosity.
Bucky shakes his head like the information has sincerely overwhelmed him.
“When I was their age, I was eating dirt behind the barn.”
“Bucky.”
“I’m just being honest, sweetheart.” His finger taps the worksheet once. “These little kids are out here identifying pronouns and shit at eight in the morning.”
You are laughing too hard now imagining a smaller, frowning Bucky eating dirt and running around the pasture hugging lambs probably larger than him. Bucky watches you with obvious satisfaction, until his eyes narrow at another page on the table.
“Is that a frog?”
You grin at him. “That’s the reading mascot, Sir Ribbits.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “The frog helps them read?”
“He encourages them.”
Bucky stares at the cartoon amphibian for another long moment before giving it a satisfied nod.
“Good for him.”
After hunching over papers for what feels like hours, you stretch your arms with a tired little moan. Bucky is already rounding the table to rub your stiff shoulders, and instead of flinching, you simply lean back into it.
By the time everything is finally packed away, the kitchen table is covered in marker caps and paper scraps. He gathers the last stack of worksheets into neat piles before you can even reach for them.
“You’re weirdly good at this.” Your teeth sink into your bottom lip as you prop your elbow on the table and rest your chin against your knuckles.
Bucky glances up from the papers. “You let me into your world,” he says simply. “Figured I should learn it too.”
He never expected you to abandon pieces of yourself to fit into his life more easily. Instead, he stepped gently into yours, observing every detail with patience and the kind of love that makes ordinary mornings feel sacred without either of you even realizing it.
A strange heaviness weighs in your body on Thursday morning but Bucky is so warm, and still dozing beside you with one of his large hands resting on your stomach. So you yawn, lazily letting your eyes blink at the window just enough to not abandon that pleasant, fuzzy state of drowsiness. But then they accidentally land on the clock on your nightstand and the realization is like electricity in your veins.
“Oh no.”
The words catch painfully in your throat while you scramble upright so fast the mattress shifts violently beneath you.
“No, no, no, no—”
Bucky wakes with a jolt at the desperation in your voice, his brows pulling together while he pushes himself up on one elbow, still heavy with sleep but already alert.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
You are throwing the blankets aside, heart hammering painfully while you frantically open your closet. “I’m so fucking late.”
He glances once toward the clock and sits up fully.
“Okay.” He says calmly, rubbing one hand briefly over his face before standing. “Hey, sweetheart. You need to breathe.”
But your thoughts pile over each other in a chaotic succession to acknowledge the note of seriousness tinging his voice. Stumbling around your bedroom, you mentally list everything waiting for you at school, and fuck! You still need to print the spelling worksheets—
Suddenly your chest feels too tight for your lungs.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” you whine shakily while yanking open dresser drawers with far more force than necessary. “Why didn’t my alarm go off?”
Bucky watches you for approximately three seconds before deciding this has gone on long enough.
“Sweetheart.”
You barely hear him.
“Where are my tights? Fuck—”
The sound of your name in his low voice is like an arm dragging you out of the fog. You look up just in time to see him step directly into your path, his palms settling carefully on your upper arms before your nervous pacing can continue.
“Sit down for me.”
The words are not sharp, but there is enough firmness in his voice that your body pauses anyway.
“I don’t have time to sit down.” You argue weakly, still breathless.
“You got thirty seconds.”
“Bucky—”
“Thirty.” His thumbs stroke once over your arms. “Then you can go back to panicking all you want.”
And somehow, despite yourself, a tiny startled laugh almost escapes your throat. Your spiraling does not scare him, he has already decided he can handle it.
Reluctantly, you fall back on the edge of the bed, your right knee already bouncing anxiously. Meanwhile, your boyfriend moves around the room with military efficiency despite being startled awake not even five minutes ago, opening drawers you left hanging crooked and pulling out clothes with far more success than you had managed one minute earlier.
“This sweater okay?” He asks, holding up the brown-colored knit you wear most often to school.
You nod quickly. “Yeah.”
“What about bottoms?”
“The dark jeans. Not the—no, the other ones.”
A sleepy smile pulls at his mouth. “Doll, you own six pairs of those.”
“They’re different.”
“Mhm. I’m learning.”
He lays the clothes neatly beside you before his eyes meet yours.
“I’ll get the shower running.” You are already half-way up but he stops you promptly with a hand on your shoulder. “You stay put for one minute and focus on your breathing.”
Your body slumps back on the mattress dejected. “I don’t have one minute.”
“You do,” he calls back over the hallway. “You just decided you don’t.”
And annoyingly enough, hearing him say that steadies your heartbeat embarrassingly fast. Bucky never meets your panic with more panic, but with this quiet expectation that life will go on if you slow down to take a breath.
By the time you finally hurry into the kitchen twenty minutes later, still trying to button one sleeve, you stop short at the familiar sizzling of the pan. Bucky is standing near the stove in grey sweatpants and an old dark henley, hair still messy from sleep and posture relaxed while he slides scrambled eggs onto a plate.
“Sit.” He says after spotting you hovering on the threshold.
“Bucky—”
He turns toward you fully then, watching you with that deeply patient expression of his.
“C’mere.”
You comply with a sigh as he slides the plate in front of you alongside a toast, some jam and a travel mug of coffee already prepared exactly the way you like it.
“You need protein.”
You massage your temples to soothe the impending headache. “I’m gonna be late.”
“You’re already late,” he points out calmly, leaning against the counter. “Now, you can either be late and fed or late and miserable.”
You stare at him and he promptly raises one eyebrow. “You done fighting me on this or you got another argument ready?”
That finally pulls a reluctant laugh from you. “You’re bossy in the morning.”
He shrugs easily, now understanding why you arrive home every afternoon looking like somebody has been ruthlessly peeling pieces off you since sunrise.
He then helps without making a performance out of it. Your coat appears folded neatly over a chair, and your keys get placed directly beside your coffee as you try to eat faster. When your lunch bag nearly gets forgotten on the kitchen counter, Bucky simply hooks two fingers through the strap and places it near your coat.
“Every morning you skitter through this part like a startled little thing.” He murmurs eventually.
Your answer is a tired sigh. “Because I’m always running behind.”
“Nah,” he corrects gently, stepping behind your chair to put his hands over your shoulders and press a kiss to your temple. “You just got it in your head that if you ain’t running yourself ragged, you’re not working hard enough.”
The words hit uncomfortably close to home, leaving you staring down at your empty plate in silence. Bucky promptly kneels beside you, intertwining his fingers with yours.
“You hear what I’m saying, princess?” He mumbles softly.
“A little.” You nod reluctantly.
“You don’t gotta earn rest by wearing yourself thin.”
Your throat tightens unexpectedly, not used to have your exhaustion treated like something deserving tenderness instead of expectation. Before the moment can settle too heavily inside you though, Bucky glances toward your bag where papers are sticking halfway out.
“You got everything?”
You finally look up, straightening just a little. “I think so.”
“That usually means no.”
You groan softly. “Please don’t start.”
He chuckles under his breath before walking over to the bag for a checkup, clearly having observed this exact routine unravel before. Within seconds, he pulls out your half-empty water bottle.
“You forgot to fill this.”
“Oh.” You frown.
“And your portable charger.”
“Oh.” Your shoulders slump.
“And doll?” His eyes lift to you knowingly while he holds up the folder with all the notes for your lesson currently bent sideways. “This thing’s fighting for its life.”
Exasperated, you hide your face behind your hands while he fixes the folder carefully before zipping everything properly closed. But the bag is too full and when your fingers close around the handle a few minutes later, the zipper gives away anyway, and frustration spikes sharply enough that your eyes sting.
“Why won’t this stupid thing—”
Before you can fight with it further, Bucky steps in and takes the bag from your hands. One smooth motion and the zipper slides perfectly into place.
“There.”
Your entire nervous system settles slightly from that tiny act alone.
You finally make it to the front door—still flustered, still behind schedule, still trying to mentally catch up with the day waiting outside. But you are no longer drowning in it.
You grab your car keys, expecting some hurried goodbye while Bucky cleans the kitchen. Instead, he is standing directly in front of the door, and without a word, his hands reach down and fix your collar where it folded awkwardly.
“Text me when you get there.”
“I will.” His eyes search your face for another moment, cradling it between his warm palms.
“You did good.”
You stare at him incredulously. “I overslept by almost an hour.”
“And you still got up,” Bucky comments simply. “Still got dressed. Still ate breakfast. Still remembered your stuff. That’s what matters, baby.”
He never measures your worth through perfection, only through effort. Through whether or not you are being gentle enough with yourself while surviving difficult days.
He leaves a long kiss on your forehead, completely unbothered by the clock ticking loudly behind you.
“Now go teach your little gremlins.”
“They’re not gremlins.” You roll your eyes fondly.
His left eyebrow raises in skepticism. “One of ’em tried to lick glue yesterday.”
“He said he wanted to know if it tasted like blueberries because the bottle was blue.” You mumble defensively.
“Mhm.” He presses one last kiss to your lips. “Tiny gremlins.”
You shake your head, chuckling as you reach for the door. And while walking to your car, you realize with pleasant surprise that your breathing is a little steadier. Controlled. Because Bucky stood beside your panic and refused to let it carry you away.
ᥫ᭡. WHEN YOU ARGUE FOR THE FIRST TIME
Pickup was already chaotic: one of the first graders had burst into tears after losing her glitter-covered pencil somewhere near the cubbies, a little boy had refused to put on his raincoat because he insisted it was “for babies,” and by the time the middle school students started flooding the shared hallway, you already felt like hiding beneath your blanket and sleeping for two days.
That’s when the shouting starts—two eighth graders near the front doors, chest-to-chest, yelling loud enough to make half the younger kids stop in place.
You don’t even think before stepping in.
“Hey!” You call sharply, moving between them before either could swing properly. “That’s enough.”
One of them backs off immediately. The other glares at you. He is taller by several inches, angry in the ugly, reckless way teenagers sometimes become when they realize they can intimidate adults physically now. His face twists the second you tell him to step away from the younger students.
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
“I absolutely can,” you answer promptly, trying to keep your voice collected because several of your students are staring with huge frightened eyes. “Go cool off in one of the classrooms.”
He laughs, a sharp and bitter sound, before stepping closer.
“You think because you teach stupid little kids that you can boss everybody around?”
You ignore that part. “Watch your language.”
That only makes him angrier. “You gonna write me up?” He mocks. “Go teach somebody the alphabet or something.”
He starts talking over you, muttering insults under his breath, waving his hands too close to your face while you try to de-escalate things without frightening your students more than they already are.
And then Bucky walks in. He has come to pick you up because your car is still at the mechanic after the tire issue earlier that week. The second he steps through the school doors and sees some teenage boy towering over you while a crowd of scared children has shrunk back against the wall, something in him visibly sharpens.
Once the boy swings one hand again while barking the umpteenth insult aimed at you, too close to your shoulder this time, Bucky is there in seconds.
“That’s enough.”
His voice cuts through the noise so coldly that even the younger kids go quiet.
The boy freezes. Honestly, anybody would in front of a six-foot-something man wearing rough work clothes still dusted faintly from the farm, and a face that rarely softens around strangers.
“You’re done yelling at her, and you better start showing some respect to your teachers.” He continues evenly. “You understand me?”
The boy mutters something under his breath about you not being his teacher, prompting Bucky to take a step closer. The younger snaps his head up, before taking a step back.
“Try again.”
Silence.
Then finally, begrudgingly, “Yes, sir.”
The principal arrives not even a minute later after hearing the commotion, quickly pulling the boy away while apologizing profusely to you both, and the altercation ends as quickly as it started. At least physically. Emotionally, it’s heavy as a boulder on your shoulders, because the entire drive home, Bucky is quieter than usual, so tense that you feel the need to tentatively reach for the handle at your side and roll down the car window for some fresh air.
His hand still rests on your thigh, he still opens your door, and asks if you have eaten. But there is something bothering him underneath all of it. And eventually, while he is cooking dinner later that evening, it finally surfaces.
“You shouldn’t have stepped between them like that.”
You look up from where you are sitting at the kitchen island grading some assignments. “What?”
Bucky keeps stirring something in the pan, shoulders tight beneath his henley. “He was bigger than you,” he continues carefully. “And he was already angry.”
“He’s a kid.”
“He’s fifteen.”
“He’s still a student.”
His jaw clenches briefly. “And if he had hit you?”
With a slow sigh, you decide to put your pen down—these are all signs that you are not getting out of this conversation anytime soon.
“He wasn’t going to, I had it under control.” You rebut tiredly.
“Didn’t look like you did.”
The second those words leave his mouth, something ugly inside your chest twists painfully. His voice is controlled, far from cruel, but those words feel like a knife ruthlessly stabbing an old scar that refuses to heal properly. And suddenly, you are twenty-two again, standing in your parents’ kitchen while your mom frowns at your teaching degree paperwork.
Teaching little kids? What are you gonna do with that?
You’re wasting your time, this won’t pay bills.
“Well, I handled it anyway.” You look back at the paper in front of you, quietly.
Bucky exhales through his nose, still focused on the stove.
“Sweetheart, I know you were trying to help, but—”
“I did help.” You frown at his back.
“You can’t just jump between two angry teenagers.”
“I’m a teacher.”
“And I’m saying you don’t gotta throw yourself in front of people to prove that.”
That one hurts too. It tastes like doubt, criticism... disappointment.
“I know how to do my job.” You croak out.
Bucky finally turns then, brows drawn slightly.
“I didn’t say you don’t.”
But his voice is firmer now, frustration slipping through the cracks of his apparent composure despite himself, and when he gestures with the wooden spoon in his hand, his tone rises just enough to make you flinch before you can stop it. The movement is barely noticeable, more out of surprise than anything. Except Bucky freezes.
You don’t even realize your eyes have dropped somewhere on the counter in front of you until his voice changes completely.
“Sweetheart.” A soft, tentative sound, but you are already shaking your head.
“It’s okay.” Your voice sounds wrong and dismissive even to you and Bucky’s expression shifts into painful realization.
He sets the spoon down without another word, turns off the stove, then gingerly walks toward, still keeping his distance so you won’t feel cornered.
“C’mere a second, baby.”
You hesitate, because your body already knows the shape arguments are supposed to take, even if your mind is trying to remind itself that this is your Bucky. Your Jamie.
Still, somewhere deep inside you, disagreement has tied to punishment long ago, to that awful tightening in the air that used to settle over rooms after somebody got upset. You are used to conversations turning cold the second emotions become inconvenient; to silence stretching for hours or even days because you were the one expected to smooth everything over—apologize first, speak softer, take up less space. Growing up, anger always came with withdrawal attached to it. Simple disagreements morphed into slammed cabinets and heavy sighs and someone suddenly acting as though your mere presence had become irritating. And even though Bucky has never treated you that way, your instincts still brace for him to go quiet in that unbearable way that turns a home into a suffocating prison.
But his hand rests on your back as it gently guides you toward the couch, settling beside you but still leaving enough room to breathe. Bucky does not like the way you move cautiously around him, the way you slowly lower yourself onto the same couch that has held you both through late-night talks that stretched until early morning, and movie nights that ended in soft, unhurried kisses.
“We’re not doing silence, okay?”
Your eyes fall on the floor. “I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were.” His voice stays gentle. “You started disappearing on me halfway through that conversation.”
“I was listening.” You stare at your fingers fidgeting on your thighs.
“No, angel.” He shakes his head once, his eyes never once straying away from you. “You got quiet because you thought I was gonna turn into somebody I’m not.”
The stinging pressure behind your eyes becomes unbearable. Bucky braces his forearms on his thighs, leaning forward with a slow exhale instead of pressing closer.
“I’m not mad at you.” He adds in a whisper. “I was worried for you.”
You swallow around the lump in your throat. “I know.”
“Do you?” His tone is impossibly feeble now, because suddenly this is not about the hallway anymore, but a habit that was acquired through mortification and fear. Bucky studies your face for another second before speaking again.
“Ain’t no reason for you to be scared to talk back to me, sweetheart.” His brows pinch faintly. “And if I say something that hurts you, I need you to tell me.”
You let out a shaky breath, your voice coming out weaker than you intend to. “It wasn’t just that.”
Bucky straightens at once at the first crack in your armor, unconsciously getting closer.
“Then help me understand.”
Eventually, with trembling hands and wet eyes, you open up. About your mom and how every time you came home exhausted during your first teaching year, she would look at you like you were failing at life itself. About how your dad used to scoff whenever you talked about your students, because “Teaching kids how to write their name isn’t a real career”. About how even the tiniest mistake sounded like proof you were incapable.
And the more you speak, the worse Bucky looks. By the time you finish talking, it feels like a weight has finally been removed off your chest, yet he looks genuinely sick with guilt.
“Baby,” he mumbles, reaching for your hand. “I wasn’t doubting you. I would never do that.”
You shrug weakly. “I know you weren’t trying to.”
“But I still made you feel that way.”
That’s what finally breaks you, because he’s not defending himself, nor minimizing it.
Tears spill before you can stop them, and your Bucky is already there with open arms to catch you.
“C’mere, babygirl.”
You climb into his lap without hesitation, burying your face against his neck as his arms wrap around you securely. One large hand slides slowly up and down your back, and you try really hard to swallow down your sobs, but you only end up making a bigger mess of his shirt.
“I’m so sorry, princess.” He whispers against your temple. “And I should never’ve raised my voice at you.”
“You weren’t yelling.” You answer shakily.
“You still flinched.”
The shame in his voice makes your heart ache. His hold tightens around you instinctively at your whimper.
“I wasn’t angry at you.” He mumbles urgently. “I was angry at the whole damn situation. At that kid thinking he could talk to you like that after nearly starting a fight in front of your students.” His jaw tightens briefly before he continues. “Couldn’t stand there listening to some mouthy little bastard trying to scare you in front of those little kids.”
Your eyes close in sorrow as the image of their startled faces comes back cruel and still fresh.
“They were terrified.” You sniffle and his arms squeeze you just a little tighter.
“I know why you stepped in.” he sighs. “You love those kids like they’re your own for eight hours every damn day, and you can’t stand the idea of any of ’em feeling helpless in a place that’s supposed to be safe.” His palms cradle your cheeks to slowly coax you out of his chest, the urge to see you so strong it pulls hard at his heart.
“You walk into that school every morning and spend your whole day teaching them how to read and write and believe in themselves. And you’re so fucking good at that, angel. You teach ’em how to be brave enough to admit when they don’t understand something. How to speak up without being scared of failing. How to be kind with each other when the world already gives them enough reasons not to be.” A faint, helpless sort of admiration softens his face then, like he still can’t believe he gets to love and be loved by someone as precious as you.
Your lips shake as you give him a pained smile, tears still sliding relentlessly down your cheeks.
“Years from now those kids probably won’t remember every worksheet you gave ’em, but they’ll remember how you were patient with ’em. That you listened.” His teeth clench when his voice wavers a little.
“So yeah, I know exactly why you did that. But that boy still thought he could stand there and talk to you like you were nothing.” He exhales slowly, forehead leaning against yours. “And baby… I got scared too.”
Your chest heaves, something akin to panic swirling in your stomach, because you have never seen your boyfriend look so devastated.
“You matter to me more than being right in an argument,” the words come out rough, his throat working hard around the tight knot lodged there. “So if I get scared and it comes out wrong sometimes, I need you to remember it’s only because the thought of something happening to you tears me apart.”
You nod slowly before folding yourself back against him, arms wrapping tightly around his neck as you bury your face in the warmth of his chest. And then you simply exist together for a long while, curled into him with your cheek pressed against the soft fabric of his shirt while his strong arms hold you safely close to his heart.
The living room has gone quiet around you, the stove forgotten for the moment, as your breathing gradually evens out. He is the one who breaks the silence first, clearing his throat lightly as his lips brush your forehead.
“We’re gonna argue sometimes,” he murmurs carefully, almost reluctantly, like the thought alone upsets him as well. “I can’t promise we’ll never get frustrated with each other.”
Your arms tighten around him at that.
“What I can promise you,” he continues softly, pulling back just enough to look at you properly, one hand coming up to cup your jaw with impossible tenderness. “Is that I’m not gonna stop loving you when things get hard.”
A fresh set of tears settles at the corners of your eyes, because that’s the part you never learned growing up—that the love of the people close to you was not supposed to be conditional.
Bucky’s thumb brushes beneath your eye. “And I’m really, really sorry, sweetheart.” His voice full of genuine regret. “I hate that I made you feel small for even a second.”
You shake your head urgently, not liking his expression. “You didn’t mean to, Jamie.”
“Yet I still did it.” He shifts slightly beneath you then, settling you more comfortably against his chest before continuing quietly.
“Next time one of us gets too worked up, we stop.” His tone is thoughtful now, already trying to build something safer for you with his bare hands. “Nobody keeps pushing the conversation just to win it. We sit down, we breathe, maybe hold each other if that’s what you need, and then we talk when it actually feels like us again instead of our anger. How’s that sound?”
You nod eagerly, before letting out the tiniest watery chuckle against his shoulder.
“That sounds very therapist of you.”
Bucky huffs a soft laugh of his own through his nose. “Probably because I’m thinking real hard how I never wanna be the reason my girl cries like this again.”
A sob threatens to spill out at the pain beneath his words, so you press your face against his neck insistently—as if that could physically stop your own anguish. Bucky plants a gentle kiss on your temple.
“And if I ever get loud again,” he continues with quiet embarrassment, brows pinching in guilt. “You tell me straight away, okay? There are no excuses for it. Don’t sit there holding it on your own while I’m thinking everything’s fine.”
You nod slowly. “I can do that.”
“Promise?” He mumbles, teasingly pushing the tip of his nose against yours.
“Promise.” You leave a tiny peck on the corner of his mouth and only then does some of the tension finally leave him.
His hand slides upwards, fingertips scratching lightly at your scalp just how you like, a soft sigh escaping him at the feeling of your body melting against his.
“You okay now, babygirl?” The whispered question comes out so sweetly, so sincerely worried, that it nearly brings you to tears all over again.
He gets a simple nod as an answer, and that’s enough for him to understand you are still quite overwhelmed to communicate with words. Bucky considers your body for a moment, his eyes moving carefully over you like he needs to be absolutely certain before he believes it. Your shoulders are no longer drawn up near your ears, and your hands have loosened, clutching lightly at his shirt instead of gripping it desperately. Your breathing has finally settled as well, slower and steadier against his chest. Even your eyes have lost their heat, no longer shiny with panic but tired and present in the moment. Only when he seems fully convinced that you are no longer bracing for something awful to happen does his expression finally ease.
“I got you,” he murmurs quietly against your forehead. “Even when we get things wrong, I still got you.”
Later that night, long after your chagrin has faded and dinner has finally been eaten cold straight from reheated plates, you lie on him with your ear resting directly over his heartbeat. Usually Bucky melts into the sheets whenever you cuddle him like this. Tonight, he stays strangely rigid beneath you.
Lifting your head slightly, you look at his handsome features kissed by the dim, warm light coming from the lamp on his nightstand.
“Jamie?” His fingers pause where they have been tracing absently along your spine, eyes fixed emptily on the TV screen.
“Hm?” He blinks once, hastily turning toward you, like your voice had suddenly pulled him out of whatever thought he had disappeared into.
“You alright?”
The silence that stretches afterward allows anxiety to creep onto the edge of your ribs, before he carefully maneuvers the both of you so you are lying on your sides, facing each other.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Always.” His jaw clenches before he meets your eyes.
“Were you scared of me?”
You almost flinch back. “What?”
“Tonight.” He grunts, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Or before. At any point.”
You stare at him in genuine disbelief. “Bucky—”
“I know I ain’t exactly…” He huffs. “Mr. Friendly with strangers.”
You snort softly because the statement sounds so painfully sincere.
“I’m serious, doll.” His gaze absently lands somewhere on your collarbone. “Most people think I’m angry before I even open my mouth.”
You frown at the tinge of sadness in his voice.
“And then tonight happened,” he continues quietly. “You flinched when I raised my voice and—”
“That wasn’t because of you.” You quickly correct him.
“But I can’t stand that your body reacted like that around me.”
You push yourself upward, cupping his face between your hands until he finally looks at you properly. “James Buchanan Barnes,” you whisper solemnly. “I have never been scared of you. And never will.”
His expression softens at the full name.
“You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel safe.” His eyes still refuse to meet yours, but from the blush settling high on his cheeks, you reckon it’s out of shyness rather than bitter insecurity.
“You know what I see when I look at you?” He shakes his head once. “I see a good,” you murmur softly. “Gentle, patient man.” Your voice lowers even further at that, warmth blooming through your chest when he finally looks at you.
“You always reach for my hand before we cross a street without even thinking about it. You remember which side of the bed I sleep better on; you peel oranges for me because you know I hate the smell on my fingers, and you always turn the porch light on before I get to your house so I never have to walk up in the dark alone.” An adoring grin tugs at your mouth then. “You look at me like I’m the prettiest girl in the world. All the time—even when I’m exhausted and cranky and covered in glitter glue from school projects.”
“So no, Bucky. I don’t think there’s anything about you to be scared of.” You sigh dreamily, lying back down. “You’re my Jamie.”
He swallows hard, jaw tightening for a moment as he fights for control over the tears threatening to spill.
“I love you.” He whispers abruptly, like he can’t hold it back anymore.
Your breath hitches, and then your smile breaks open so wide your cheeks start to ache. “I love you too, Jamie.”
The second the words leave your mouth, Bucky is pulling you over him for a feverish kiss that steals the oxygen from your burning lungs.
That night, he carefully rolls until he’s the one resting on your chest, his arms locked securely around your waist. And for the first time in your life, disagreement ends with someone offering silence as a space to settle instead of weaponizing it.
ᥫ᭡. WHEN HE THINKS ABOUT FOREVER
You are sitting with crossed legs on the couch in one of Bucky’s flannels and thick socks, Alpine dramatically sprawled on your lap as one tiny paw stretches lazily beneath your chin. Her purring is loud enough to vibrate through your ribs every time your fingers drag slowly through her white fur. She arrived in the middle of January wrapped inside one of Bucky’s old flannels, small enough that at first you mistook her for some white bundle of fabric against his chest. You still remember the way he had stepped through the front door that evening with rainwater clinging to the shoulders of his jacket and damp locks at the nape of his neck, one large hand carefully cupped beneath the trembling kitten like he was afraid she might dissolve if he held her too tightly.
“Found her near the south fence,” he had explained quietly while you fretted over them, your heart already breaking at the sight of the little thing. “No collar. Could barely stop shivering to eat.”
Alpine had looked miserable then, all wide blue eyes and soaked fur, but the second you reached for her, she had pushed her tiny face straight into your palm with a desperate little squeak that made Bucky huff a soft laugh. And that was it for you.
Months later, Alpine rules the farmhouse like she personally pays the mortgage. She follows Bucky everywhere when he is home, winding around his boots while he cooks or trying to climb directly into his lap whenever he sits down for more than five minutes. But with you she turns even softer, almost spoiled in the way she melts instantly against your affection. The moment you walk through the front door, she is meowing to be picked up, trotting across the hardwood floors before you even have time to take your shoes off. Sometimes she is eagerly waiting on the back of the couch like she somehow heard your car turn into Bucky’s lane.
He pretends to find it deeply offensive.
“Think she likes you more’n me now.” He had grumbled once while watching Alpine stretch shamelessly in your arms instead of his. You laughed, finding him extremely adorable.
“She sees you every day.”
“Exactly,” he had replied, narrowing his eyes at the cat like she had personally betrayed him. “And apparently that means nothing anymore.”
Tonight is no different.
“There’s my pretty girl,” you murmur as your hands delicately cradle her face. “Yes, there she is. Sweet baby.” Alpine answers by shoving her tiny face directly beneath your chin.
“Oh, you want more attention?” You gasp theatrically. “What a shocking development!”
From the doorway, Bucky watches the entire thing unfold in silence with the shadow of a fond smile lingering on his lips, one shoulder leaning against the frame separating the living room from the kitchen and thick arms crossed loosely over his chest. There is dirt still faintly smudged along one forearm from work outside, his flannel pushed up to his elbows, hair still slightly messy from where he dragged his fingers through it earlier. But all of that roughness fades beneath the look in his eyes. Because you are sitting there treating that tiny stray kitten like she hung the moon. Carefully kissing her head. Adjusting the blanket around her. Holding her with such tenderness, like this is the only language your body knows how to speak.
“Needy thing.” You murmur affectionately before pressing another kiss between her ears.
“You say that like you’re any better.”
The sound of Bucky’s teasing voice makes you glance up immediately. Alpine notices him too, her ears perking instantly before she lets out a tiny chirp of recognition. Still, she makes absolutely no attempt to leave your arms. The floor creaks softly beneath his boots as he finally pushes away from the doorway and walks toward the couch. You give him a sweet smile before your attention drops back to the kitten currently trying to chew on the sleeve hanging over your hand.
“Your daughter is biting me again.” Bucky snorts quietly as he lowers himself beside you, one arm immediately stretching around your shoulders.
“My daughter?” He repeats, pulling you closer. “That cat stopped being mine the second you started baby-talking her.”
“Mmh, that’s not true.”
“Princess, you carried her around this house for three hours yesterday because she sneezed once.”
You frown. “She was sick.”
“She had dust on her nose.”
You gasp softly in mock offense while Alpine flips onto her back, completely unconcerned with the argument happening over her custody. Bucky watches you scratch carefully beneath her chin, your entire face softening without restraint every time she purrs louder. Something in his chest pulls so hard it almost feels unfair, because you have no idea how gorgeous you look, and that he could stand there for hours just watching you pour your love out so freely.
Bucky reaches down then, scratching gently beneath Alpine’s chin until the kitten practically melts in your lap. “She sits in front of the door when you leave, y’know.”
Your eyebrows lift in surprise. “She does not.”
“Mhm.” His mouth twitches faintly. “Walks around crying for twenty minutes like her entire life just fell apart.”
“That’s dramatic.” You tell her with an exaggerated pout.
“Says the woman holding her like an actual infant.”
You look down instinctively. She has, in fact, moved to lie against your chest beneath the blanket with only her tiny head visible. “… Okay maybe a little.”
Bucky chuckles softly, the sound settling warm and deep inside your chest. You eventually notice his silence as somewhere deeper in the house the dryer hums low and steady. The air smells faintly like coffee and detergent and the water lily and sheer musk candle you lit earlier before sunset. When Alpine decides it’s time for the second round against the buttons of the flannel, your smile fades gradually as you become aware that Bucky’s still looking at you.
“What?” You ask softly. He blinks once like he has to pull himself back into the room.
“Nothing.” He murmurs automatically, though it’s very clearly not nothing.
Your eyes narrow a little. “James.”
His expression shifts then, softening even further until it almost looks thoughtful, his gaze drifting toward Alpine.
“I keep picturing something,” he breathes out absently. “Not in a big, dramatic way. Just… small things stacked together.”
Your breath catches quietly.
“Waking up,” he continues, almost like he can see it somewhere in front of him. “And not having to rush outta bed right away. Coffee that gets cold because neither of us remembers it’s there. A kitchen that’s too full of noise for how early it is.” His frame moves with the faint breath of amusement that slips through his lips, but it never breaks the softness of the moment.
“And coming home at the end of the day knowing it doesn’t matter how it went out there,” he adds more quietly, finally meeting your eyes. “Because there’s still you here.”
You can barely breathe now, your heart doing a strange little stutter. He says it so easily. Like these thoughts have existed inside him for a long time already. Like he’s visited them before and kept coming back to them over and over again.
Bucky shifts slightly closer on the couch without even seeming aware he is doing it, his free hand settling warm on your knee, his thumb brushing back and forth on your bare skin.
“I don’t know all the details yet,” he whispers, eyes moving from your eyes to your lips. “But I know it keeps coming back to the same thing. You being here. That’s the part my mind doesn’t change.”
Bucky leans closer until his forehead finally rests against yours. “If someday you decide you want kids, I’ll build something bigger for us. A place with too much noise, toys everywhere and muddy boots by the front door.” His smile grows almost boyishly giddy now, soft laughter warming his words. “Maybe a little boy with your eyes... and a little girl with your smile.”
Your chest rises sharply, your love for this sweet man soaring so suddenly in your heart it almost hurts. Tears burn hot behind your eyes before you can stop them.
“And if you don’t want that,” he continues gently, certain that every path still leads to you anyway. “Then we’ll keep the farmhouse just the way it is and spoil every animal we’ve got. Those damn ducks already act like they’re running the place anyway.” A watery laugh escapes you despite the lump in your throat, and Bucky smiles at the sound, his nose brushing lightly against yours.
“You wanna travel? We’ll travel. You wanna stay here forever teaching little ones while I complain about tractors and rain?” His hand squeezes your knee once. “Fine too.” Then the teasing fades from his expression entirely.
“Any future is right if you’re in it.”
Your vision blurs completely to the point a few small tears escape anyway, Bucky reaching up almost instinctively with his rough thumb to carefully brush away the wetness beneath one eye.
“I love you,” he whispers, thick with emotion. “I just need you.”
You stare at him for one helpless second before you finally cup his face.
“I love you too, Jamie.” You manage shakily, chuckling at how wobbly your voice must sound.
And yet, you couldn’t care less, because his lips are on yours—soft, reverent. One hand moves on your waist while the last rays of sunset spill warm gold across the walls around you.
Alpine promptly puts her front paws on your chest halfway through like she refuses to be excluded from this sweet moment. You feel Bucky laugh gently against your mouth at the feeling of fur brushing against his neck, but even then, he stays close enough that your foreheads still touch.
“Everything else,” he murmurs quietly, like a promise made as much to himself as to you. “Can figure itself out around that.”
END NOTES: what was your favorite moment? thank you so much for reading 💕 as I mentioned in another post, nowadays it’s hard to find someone who is willing to put real effort into a relationship, but with this story I wanted to focus on the more positive side of dating—especially how someone like this reader, kinda insecure and with little relationship experience, might navigate certain situations for the first time + the degree of trust it takes to let yourself be vulnerable for the first time with someone. honestly there was so much more that I wanted to write, but because of the 1000 blocks limit, I had to cut out many scenes, shorten the smutty parts and make longer paragraphs (hope it doesn't look bad). I also intend to further explore the non-sexual d/s dynamic in other stories, because this one-shot was just a collection of moments so I thought it'd be better to keep it pretty tame.
You’re a graduate student visiting the elusive Ministry for a mass, doing research on branches of the Satanic Temple, and the church’s priest calls you over after the service, eager to give you a little more to learn from.
18+ PLEASE!
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Your research demanded in-person fieldwork. In your line of study, sometimes that fieldwork was easy, sometimes it was.. difficult. Your research topic was one that was most certainly categorized as the latter. After taking a keen interest into the occult, particularly the Satanic Temple, you stumbled upon the topic of off-branch Satanic cults. Your research was all witchcraft and temples, studying the dust-caked books of ritual from the first witches, learning the Latin prayers to all of the lords below. You wanted to dive into the more modern aspects of Satanism, maybe even find a temple you could interrogate. You knew that they existed, your copious hours searching corners of the internet proved it.
Lucky for you, it was in these internet dives that you found the Ministry. From what you’d read and heard, primarily from some bible-thumping critics on the infamous Father DeFroque’s “Jesus Talk”, this particular community was the nichest of niche Satanism. It was a perfect spot for you to visit, since they had a pretty well-gathered following, evening services, and an email contact you’d started a long chain with, eventually gaining approval from the clergy head, or ‘Frater Imperator’, according to his email signature, to come to a midnight service. You’d struck gold, though your research advisor gave you one of her many weird looks when you told her where you’d be going.
You decided that if you wanted to make an impression, albeit as a service goer, you’d dress nice. Like you were going to church, but darker. You settled for something simple; a black dress shirt and a neat pair of slacks in a matching color. You hoped it would be to the Ministry’s liking, but you doubted they’d care. If there was anything you’d learned about Satanism, you could’ve walked into a temple buck naked and they’d accept you with a nod of approval.
To get to this supposed Ministry, you drove, arriving at the outskirts of the more downtown area of a city you’d never had the chance to visit. You found yourself at a small, all-black church. Everything from the shingles to the brick was the same shade, dark and imposing.
Nonetheless, you parked your car, clipboard in hand, and walked, joining the crowds in a sea of black and red clothing. You inwardly heaved a sigh of relief; you’d matched the dress code, and you blended in well. You walked through the open double doors, the distant sounds of an organ and the low lighting, almost identical to the dark outside, but from what your eyes could make out, it was like you were in any other church.
Neatly decorated walls, ornate stained glass, and rows of pews that people lackadaisically filed into. You didn’t know what to expect from this place, but so far, you were baffled by how wrong you were. You took a seat in the back, still getting good enough peripherals of the scene, watching stragglers clamor for a seat as close to the front as possible. Just as you questioned what they were trying to get to the front for, the reason in corporeal walked through the doors, the organ’s hymn stopping just in time for a hush to fall over the crowd.
Papa V Perpetua. Frater Imperator had spent great lengths of your email chain detailing the long and complicated bloodline of the Papas, and Perpetua was a special case. A newly promoted Papa, and apparently well-received by the members.
Rather than papal robes, or even some kind of priestly formal attire, he wore a satin shirt and a tie, clasped at the front with a silver brooch, and a leather blazer. He scanned the crowd as he strode in with mismatched eyes that glinted in the candlelight, hidden beneath a silver mask, almost like the top half of a skeleton, accenting the hues of black and white makeup that covered his face and neck. Aside from the black curls of his hair, tucked behind his unpainted ears, his appearance behind the mask was left almost omitted. You wondered what he looked like behind the mask, what his eyes would look like with his paint washed off.
His scan landed on you, and the two of you locked eyes for a moment as he walked, long enough for a small smirk to tick the corner of his mouth, before he looked back to the crowd, beginning his sermon. That moment brought an unwanted shiver up your spine. He knew exactly what you were doing here. He must’ve known. You brushed off the thought, focusing in on the sermon, quietly jotting down notes. You were here for research purposes, you weren’t here to ogle your fieldwork.
The sermon ended with a collective ‘Ave Satanas’, and people slowly trickled out to leave. You looked over your notes one last time, satisfied with your findings, before you stood up to leave, tailing at the end of the line of service-goers.
“You.”
Perpetua’s voice bellowed through the church, and the line froze. You turned, your stomach sinking when you realized he was pointing right at you. “Stay, for a moment.” He started slowly, his eyes narrowing as a small smile curved his lips. “The rest of you are free to go.”
Oh, shit.
You watch as the rest of the crowd quickly leaves the church, the door slamming behind them making you jump.
Perpetua commands you forward with a beckon, surprisingly casual in the regality of his attire, the click of your heels muted against the carpet. He almost smirks at how easily you cow to him, yet you command yourself well, standing out in a crowd of service goers, believers.
It was clear to him that you weren’t there to worship. As you walk forward, stopping right at the first pew, part of you thinks you’re about to be scolded, that you’d done something wrong.
“You’re a spectator.” He stated, his tone more curious than chiding. His gaze sweeps over you, in a way that you would find lecherous if he wasn’t so intimidating. It sends a dull shiver down your spine. You nod, “A student. Frater Imperator gave me permission to- "
"I know.”
His smirk was visible now, his mismatched eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he stood, taking a step forward. He stopped just short of you two being chest to chest, leering over you. He was tall enough for your head to be at his neck. Enough for him to look down at you. “I’m assuming you know all about the Ministry now that you’ve watched me speak.”
His words had an undeniable snark to them. You pushed down a defensive response, going for a softer route, as you had made some pretty good notes. “I’m just here to watch. I didn’t mean any disrespect.” You replied, the meek tone of your voice making you inwardly cringe. You were nervous, and it showed.
A soft chuckle rose from Perpetua’s throat, shaking his head. The soft sound fluttered your heart and pooled warmth in your stomach, far from alleviated when he took another step forward, instead choosing to move to your side, your shoulders brushing.
“Poor thing, you thought I was bringing you here to chastise you?” He asked, tilting his head with a toothy smile. The mockery in his voice should’ve made your blood curdle, yet it felt warm, pumping loud in your ears as his fingers brushed against your shoulder, curling on a strand of your hair.
Research. You were here to research.
Yet you could barely sputter out a response to defend your purpose for being here. Not when he was this close to you. Not when you’d been eyeing him the entire sermon. His voice pierced through the tension, leaning forward to look you straight in the face, undeterred by your stunned silence.
“No, dolcezza.” Perpetua’s voice was low, almost a purr, as he pulled away, only to circle around you, standing with your back toward him. You could feel his breath dance against the shell of your ear, torturous in the way he made you clench against nothing. “I want to give you a demonstration.”
Leather traced against your shoulder, and you stiffened, his hand tracing higher, higher until he was tracing the line of your jaw. “I want to show you how we worship.”
You were aching, every touch and breath making it more and more difficult to keep the steady silence you and Perpetua held as he touched you, swallowing a gasp as his hands traced the hollow of your throat. Graduate school had, admittedly, left you isolated from anything and anyone that could give you something like this, so your knees buckled at the slightest touch, and you were soaked at the slightest bit of friction.
His hands pause at the juncture between your neck and shoulders, lifting off of you. You bite down a protest. His voice was oh so soft, insistent in a way that made your heart feel like it was stuttering. “Will you let me, sorella?”
You struggled to find the right words, the right actions, to resist what this unholy priest was offering you. You were putty in his hands from a simple touch.
In the end, this was all a matter of your research. A little fieldwork wouldn’t hurt– albeit on the basis of pleasure.
You nod slowly, and his hands fall back on you, his lips pressing against the skin of your neck. You shudder, a thrum of pleasure wafting over your body as you lean against him.
Perpetua seemed to revel in your sensitivity, a soft chuckle warm against your ears. “So responsive..” He crooned, his teeth tracing the shell of your ear, pulling a strained whimper from your throat. His index finger found your bottom lip, barely touching.
“Bite.” He coaxed. Spellbound, you opened your mouth just enough to sink your teeth into the leather, only for Perpetua to pull the glove off with a soft hum of approval, gently tugging it from your teeth. Amidst your shock, his hands found your hips, pulling your back to his chest, the rest of your body meeting his in tandem. He was close enough for your backside to rest against his erection and feel the heat radiating off of him in waves.
You roll your hips, and feel his breath hitch against your ear. His fingers squeeze your hips, pushing you into him more insistently, before travelling upwards to the buttons of your shirt. His mouth finds your jaw, pressing soft kisses on the line of bone before travelling downwards, pulling soft sounds from your lips in earnest as his fingers work against your shirt, eventually slipping the fabric past your shoulders. Perpetua lets the fabric unceremoniously fall to the ground, sighing against your skin.
His hands meander up your stomach, splaying across the soft skin before settling on the fabric of your bra. A moan punches out of you as he squeezes the tender flesh beneath, the sensation further kindling the nerves of your lower half. You grind back against him, and he responds with the graze of his teeth against your shoulder, just shy of sinking teeth into the supple skin. “What a beautiful thing you are.” He murmurs against your skin, slipping the straps of your bra past your shoulders, cupping your breasts, and savoring the sweet sounds he receives in return.
Perpetua’s quick to circle back around you, his face finding yours in an unceremonious crash of lips and teeth, driven by desire that flowed effortlessly between your bodies, taking breath after breath from you as his hands dip low, fumbling with the fastenings of your trousers, nipping at your bottom lip as his fingers slip beneath the waistband of your panties, pinning you back against the chapel's wooden pulpit with a gentle push against your hips, walking you backwards against the hard material.
His forefingers find your clit with ease, circling fervently, and you let your head fall back against the surface, eyes fluttering shut. A whine leaves your lips at the contact, quickly approaching orgasm from the touch of his fingers alone. Tension built between your thighs, molten hot amid his ministrations, enough to surprise you. You really had been neglecting yourself of this. "Just like that, tesoro." You hear him coo against your neck, lips and teeth finding the skin that he'd seemed to take a liking to. "Let the whole Ministry hear you."
A choked moan echoes through the chapel, Perpetua's teeth pinching the skin of your neck, and the pleasure-veiled pain is enough to make you unravel beneath him, your orgasm a floodgate of heat and relief that leaves you breathless, whining and panting. Every nerve sears at your climax, a delicious short circuit that makes you arch against the wood as your orgasm makes its dramatic exit, your vision swimming and ears ringing.
You barely catch the murmur of Perpetua's praise amidst the pleasure still fluttering your heart and drowning your senses, strings of Italian and soft words of encouragement that bring you down ever the easier. Your hands find the shoulders of his blazer, your eyes meet his with an intent he seems to understand, a playful look crossing his face. You realize that some of the black paint across his lips has smeared, pale skin peeking beneath the intricate lines of silver and sable.
"I'm not done with you just yet, dolcezza." His voice travels down as he bends down to kneel before you, knees knocking against the rug as you shakily assist him in pulling your trousers down. He catches your wrists, two-toned gaze meeting yours as he pulls your hands away, and you obey, letting them fall to your sides as he pulls down both layers of clothing covering your lower half.
A dull shiver passes over you, and you watch in a haze as he mouths at your thighs, up to your cunt, slick with release and still throbbing in the aftermath of your climax. He inhales slowly, his lips a hair's breadth away from your folds, and he groans, gripping your hips with a vice that makes you jolt.
A shocked yelp dies in your throat when his mouth eagerly closes down on your pussy, tongue fervent against your clit, eager to taste. The cold material of his mask bumps up against your inner thigh as he moves closer, pulling you down further against his mouth.
"Oh, fuck.." You moan, breathless. The feeling is electric, sensitivity working you back up into a fever pitch that makes your muscles tense and quake. You keen and whine in earnest, your climax approaching faster than you can prepare for, fingers gripping the wood behind you like a lifeline.
Perpetua moans below you, muffled, and his voice vibrates against you, your second climax falling over you slowly, but no less intense than the first. You cry out, a pathetic sound that catches in your throat, left quivering and in a haze as Perpetua rises back up to his feet, pupils blown and lips glistening from your release.
He leans forward to catch your lips again, the taste of your release on his tongue blooming a feeling that sits warm between your thighs. You reach forward, clumsily finding the buckle of his belt and undoing it. He hums against your lips, leaning you back against the pulpit, hands brushing over your breasts as you free his cock, feeling the skin of its underside across your fingers as proper confirmation.
Perpetua pulls away, only to grip your thigh, hitching your leg up against his hip, fingers splayed comfortably against the fat of your ass as he wordlessly guides his cock past your folds. You tense up, arms wrapping around his neck, and he meets your eyes with an unreadable expression that blossoms into something tender when he smiles.
"I can be gentle, sorella. I don't want to hurt y-" "No." You interrupt him with a soft shake of your head. Your expression is pleading, pathetic in a way that makes his cock throb against the outline of your folds. "I need you so bad," You beg, "I need you inside me, I need-" You groveling is cut short with a moan, Perpetua's cock thrusts inside you with a sudden stretch that leaves your walls fluttering, bottoming out with his own sound of satisfaction, melodic to your ears.
"Lords below, it's like you were made for me." He groans, fingers digging into the skin of your thigh as he rocks his hips against you, finding an unsteady rhythm. Each thrust draws a pitchy breath from you, Perpetua's own resolve crumbling as his pace quickens, unabashed moans meeting yours in a way that feels symphonic, skin slapping skin to a stuttered tempo as his own orgasm approaches.
"Oh, fuck, I'm-" A hoarse moan leaves Perpetua's lips, and he catches your lips in a bruising kiss that you're quick to reciprocate as his cock kicks inside you, his hips stuttering. A low moan of satisfaction is swallowed by your lips as he pulls out of you, leaving you messy with a mix of your release and his, empty of his length. He pulls away, lips parted and breathless in a way that makes you throb against nothing. He was beautiful like this, drunk on the aftermath of his climax. It was then that you understood why so many came to worship here.
For research purposes, you would be returning to the Ministry.
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A/N: Told y'all I was working on something spicy! Apologies if this isn't the best smut. Truthfully, I haven't sat down and written an entire smut in a while. So. If it's not the greatest, I'm sorry :,) - Thy
synopsis: Everyone knows that yourself and Steve should never have been put on the same team; you fight like dogs and spark like live-wires. But maybe not all of that tension is hate.
warnings: enemies to lovers, smut smut smut (fingering, oral - f receiving, unprotected p in v, creampie, size kink, mild spitting, rough sex, hate sex but add yearning, slight exhibitionism & public sex & risk of getting caught - fawking in the workplace), canon-typical violence (nothing graphic), description of gunshot, a lot of fighting but they are closeted cutiepies, cursing, steve rogers is a MUNCH and that's canon (to me),
word count: 12.3k words (literally 5k is smut. i wish i was joking. i have no impulse control)
a/n: i tried to do a bit of an inverse on the whole 'steve rogers is a golden retriever' thing in this so there are way too many references to dogs lmao (see: title). i physically cannot write hate sex without yearning bc i am a lover girl. someone release me from these shackles.
Steve has a big fucking issue with you.
You can’t remember exactly when it started but you do know that you liked each other just fine before you joined his team. Back then, you’d thought his unyielding, boy-scout-adjacent sense of duty and honour was kind of cute. He’d hold doors, call you ma’am, talk about doing the right thing as if it was just easy in a job like this. As if it was always clear as day what the right thing to do was.
Now, his virtue is just exhausting.
You’re watching him spar with Sam from the corner of the training floor as dusk descends outside the window and the training room becomes a sort of cave. Dim yellow light is spilling over the room, drowning it in a blurry smog. People are clearing out for the day, but not Steve. Each of his punches are pulled, each strike carefully calculated to inflict just the right amount of force in order to win but not injure. Steve could have Sam pinned in two minutes flat and both of them know it. The frustration in Sam’s expression is tickling you - you recognise it well.
You used to taunt Steve for this kind of thing during training runs and team building events, and he’d tease you right back. That boyish smile would give way to something a bit more wicked and an unnamed heat would pool low in your stomach at his crack in composure. You had been sure he was only days away from asking you out - some very proper invitation to the pictures with an assurance that he would drop you back by a reasonable hour, most likely. But then you got a promotion and came under his leadership.
He moves through missions like he’s got some do-gooder checklist in his head, and you can feel him watching every corner you cut. He doesn’t have to say a word (though he often does); the disapproval is baked into the air between you. Whatever spark had been building between the two of you got buried somewhere between all his rules and all the ways you’d break them.
A side-mission from Fury here, a refusal to wait for backup there - and suddenly you two are enemies. Or adversaries, at the least
You remind him frequently, in the throes of fiery screaming matches that make the rest of the team avert their eyes, that this is the way SHIELD trained you. He is the one going against the grain, not you. But it doesn’t seem to matter to him because his trusty moral compass never points him wrong, it would seem.
Things have gotten so bad by now that you think Steve, patient and tolerant as he is, might have even considered requesting that you be transferred if you weren’t so damn good at your job.
And you are good. That can’t be denied.
But there’s something about working with Steve that makes you great. When you’re not at each other’s throats.
You move around each other on missions as if performing choreography that only you two have rehearsed. You’ve saved his ass more times than he has ever acknowledged or thanked you for, but he has done the same for you. You have a deep understanding of how he works, mind and body. He keeps his moves varied as a rule, but you have learned to read the minute shift in his centre of gravity before he strikes, the smallest drop in his hips that means he’s about to duck, the tightening of his frame before he lunges. Equally, you know when he’s running multiple scenarios behind his eyes, when he’s processing angles before he commits.
It makes you his best possible partner on the field and the biggest pain in his ass in training.
“You’re up,” Steve mutters to you while Sam limps to the corner of the room, grumbling something about how next time Steve needs to stop dragging this shit out before he gets a leg cramp.
You haul yourself up slowly, moving to the centre of the gym with exaggerated languor just to piss him off, rolling your shoulders as you go. His sweat is making his white t-shirt entirely transparent, the thin fabric sticking to his defined pectorals and torso. He shakes his head, spraying sweat over the mat. It should be kind of gross, really, so you’re a bit disgusted by how hot it is. You see his jaw tick with impatience, and you begin to stretch your calves, too.
“You couldn’t have done this while you were waiting?”
“And risk seizing up again while you played with your food?”
“Just because I don’t use full force, it doesn’t mean I’m ‘playing with my food’,” he says, frowning at you in that disappointed-teacher way of his “Every time you all fight a super soldier, it makes you better. I use more force every time.”
You say nothing, only because you’re cautious about baiting him too much ahead of the ass-whooping you’re about to get. You roll your shoulders one more time, looking up at him.
“Let’s go.”
Steve lunges, coming at you hard and fast. A blur of muscle flies past your eye-line, fist cutting into the air where your jaw had been just half a second before. The force of it sends a gust that moves wisps of your hair and the speed of your dodge sends your boots skidding across the mat. You raise an astounded eyebrow at him and he shrugs with a tight smile.
On days like this, when his restraint is frayed and he is too irritated to be sanctimonious, you are reminded that he can be a little bit fun.
When you slide by his guard again, your eyes catch his for a fraction of a second before he lands a surprise hit to your abdomen that pummels the wind right out of your pipes. You groan but stop yourself from bowling over right into his knee that comes shooting up for you. You see him bear left and you glide away in the opposite direction.
“Testy today,” you say, but you can’t hit the patronising tone you are aiming for. Your voice comes out scratchy from the knock you took. He says nothing but leaps at you again.
You lean back and dodge the hit but go sprawling to the floor. Before he can pin you, you sweep a foot under his. It’s not enough to knock him in itself but he blunders for a bit and with one more kick, you send him to his ass. You get a foot in his side and hear Sam hoot in delight as he clears out of the training room with the remaining agents.
Steve’s on his feet in a flash, but by then, so are you. There’s a glimmer of something on his face, like surprise or maybe excitement. You try not to get too arrogant.
And it’s a good thing you don’t. Because after five minutes of hits and dodges, he has you on the ropes again. You’re giving it as good as you’re getting but you don’t have his stamina or pain tolerance. You can feel your equilibrium slipping, movements getting sloppy. You’re over-balancing, tumbling instead of landing.
There’s something about the current between the two of you today that makes you want to win in a way you never do with Steve. You had never even really seen it as a competition before, safe in the conclusion that he and all his serum-amplified testosterone will have you beat eventually. It was always a matter of if, rather than when.
But Steve is coming at you properly today, not pulling his punches (as much), not giving you the space to recover before he’s on you again like a hound on fresh blood and it’s making a sort of swooping adrenaline sing in your blood.
You don’t think too much about it, sweeping behind his back and hooking a leg over his. The serum means you don’t have enough strength to bring him down, but the confusion makes him stumble. With two hands on his shoulders, you climb his broad frame, boots digging into flesh, hands ploughing through his hair. He reaches a hand back to peel you off with bruising strength, but you have an iron clasp. His fingers dig into your t-shirt with almost enough force to pull it clean off.
You eventually reach the peak of him with immense difficulty. You are able to lock your thighs around his broad neck and curl your knee around his throat, squeezing hard. It’s not enough. His hands are pulling at your legs, but he’s not tapping out. You can only hold this grip for a matter of seconds, before your muscles loosen, and Steve will have your tired body pinned.
Impulsively, you dive backwards, head swooping down towards the floor. The force of it sends Steve flying back with you and you vaguely feel three taps - a victory - against your thigh before you both hit the floor.
You crash hard on your back. Your head takes a small bump to the mat and black dots dance behind your eyes for just a second, but your ass and shoulder blades take the brunt of it. It’s far from the worst injury you’ve received in training, but it’s been a while since you’ve received more than a hit. You take a few deep breaths to centre yourself, groaning once air returns to your body. Only then do you realise that Steve’s head is planted firmly on your lower stomach, neck still pressed up between your thighs. You scramble away with what you hope is a collected suavity, all bones and muscles shrieking in opposition to the sudden movement.
When Steve spins around, you know you’re in for it.
“What the hell was that?” he spits, picking himself up from the floor. His eyes are blazing, hands on his hips while he looks down at you where you are sprawled out on the mat. You close your eyes and let out a long, deliberate sigh - precisely the response you know will drive him crazy.
“That was me winning, Steve,” you say, ignoring your groaning limbs to pull yourself up. He does not offer you a hand up.
“No,” he said, voice strained and thick with irritation. “That was you trying to get yourself killed. Are you insane? You could have a concussion.”
“I know a concussion from a small bump,” you say, brushing him off with a limp hand. You move over to get your water, trying not to stagger. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“This is your problem, you know that? You always think you know best and everyone else is just dramatic or not seeing your vision, or whatever it is. You’re a good agent, but that’s not enough. You’re going to get yourself killed some day and it won’t be some great, heroic gesture like you probably think. It will be something stupid like this.”
His speech might have made a mark on you if it had been the first time you had heard it. As it stands, you just roll your eyes and take a sip from your bottle to look busy. The water mixes with blood from where you had bitten the inside of your cheek. It tastes bitter and metallic going down.
“God, you’re-”
You glance warily at Steve, wondering whether he is about to curse at you for the first time since that mission in Moscow. He swallows it. “You don’t listen.”
You shrug with a smile, watching his face go from a blushing red to a deep crimson. His eyes narrow and he spins around, broad back tensing as he storms out of the gym.
“Steve?”
He stops, twisting ever-so-slightly.
“You not gonna congratulate me on my first ever win?”
You think he might have given you the finger if he was anyone but himself.
You do end up grumbling your way over to the med bay eventually, but only because Steve threatens to suspend you from any further missions. You turn out to not have a concussion so you feel perfectly justified in scowling at him days later from across the quinjet the whole way to the shipyard two states away.
The air is warm despite the February frost splotched on the grass below. The hour is getting late; the setting sun turns the lakes and rivers a deep orangey red.
You hadn’t expected Steve to bow down or apologise, but you did expect him to ignore you. Instead, he’s watching you with a detached curiosity, like you’re some rare lab specimen or an interesting insect.
“I know you’re not seriously mad at me for sending you to the med bay,” he says. “Because that would be insane.”
“They did a whole medical evaluation, Steve,” you snap at him. “I was in there well over an hour. All for fuckin’ nothing because I’m healthy as a horse, apparently.”
“Well you missed your last mandatory check-up. So you’re welcome,” he says, his lips stretching into a handsome little smirk.
You frown. You are usually the one provoking him and you’re not overly fond of how it feels to be on the receiving end. You can feel Steve’s eyes on you, heady and pleased. He’s leaning back with his arms crossed, lofty thighs spread open with an abnormal arrogance. One that would not be on display if the rest of the team were with you.
You can fully appreciate his size from this angle, the fabric of his t-shirt straining against his biceps, his wide shoulders holding strong like an impenetrable wall of muscle and brawn. He looks particularly good when he smiles - even if it’s at your expense. He could have passed for a Gladiator, or some Greek god in another universe - the kind whose likeness would be captured in marble for future generations to marvel at and admire. It wracks you how unfair it is that he can be so irritating but still look like that.
Have you thought about him bending you over? Sure. Many a time. But you still can’t stand the guy.
“You still seeing that guy in R&D? Uh- Mark, or whatever.”
You give him a side-glance. Steve doesn’t forget anyone’s name. He is the kind of guy to be introduced to a hundred-man team and be asking Lucy for a debrief and thanking Jim for the coffee the very next day. You think he might be on a first-name basis with everyone he’s ever met. So you know that he knows his name his Mike.
“No,” you mumble. “We broke up last month.”
“Why?”
“None of your business, Rogers,” you say. You’re trying to appear unbothered, but you’re a little rattled. Your teeth are grinding. “What about you? Any dates recently?”
“A couple.”
“And how were they?”
“Good.”
You scoff. “You talk this much with them? Your chattiness might scare them off.”
“The ladies I take on dates might not have the same preferences as you, you know,” he says with a raised eyebrow. Your lips twitch at that term - ‘ladies’. How old-school.
“No, I’m sure they love one-word answers and taciturn grumbles.”
“I’ve had no complaints.”
Your mouth opens and closes stupidly. The shells of your ears prickle with heat as Steve just grins wider, shifting his hips to lean further back. He looks so goddamn cocky, so punchable. You wish you could take a picture and show him to all those trainees you had heard refer to him as a ‘golden retriever’. He seems more like a Mastiff to you; huge, stubborn, impossible to deal with.
You purse your lips together, eyes dropping to his army dog tags. The chain droops down his tanned, fabric-clad chest, the tags sitting neatly in the deep groove between his pectoral muscles.
“Why did you and Mike break up?”
Your cheek twitches up. “So you do know his name.”
“Tell me.”
You turn your gaze away from him to watch the sun set out the window, even if it makes your retinae burn. “My fault, mostly. I don’t really, uh- know how to do it.”
“What? Relationships?”
“Yeah, I guess. I’m not used to having to let someone know when I’ll be home or making sure I have time for them between back-to-back missions. I blame my career choice.”
“Maybe you just didn’t care enough.”
Your eyes snap back over to him, eyebrows shooting straight to your hairline. “What?”
“I’m just saying. It’s not your career choice. Lots of people in this line of work have relationships that they prioritise.”
“What, you’re suddenly Dr Phil or something? It’s not like you know the ins and outs so don’t-”
“Dr Phil?” A cute little line forms between his brows.
“He was this-” You pause, heaving a frustrated breath out your nose. “You know what? Never mind.”
“My point is,” Steve continues. “I think you would want to do all those things for someone you cared enough about, even when it’s difficult. It wouldn’t be some tick-the-box.”
All traces of arrogance are gone from Steve’s expression, only genuine interest remaining as he scans your face like he’s trying to solve some puzzle. It makes you uncomfortable - you would prefer for him to laugh at you or lecture you.
“I could be dating Brad Pitt and I still would not care enough to answer a text about what’s for dinner when I’m busy.”
He frowns. “Who is Brad Pitt?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
The walk to the shipyard is quiet. Silent, if not for the steady scratch of Steve’s boots grinding against the gravel. The hum of the quinjet dulls the farther you walk.
You may not particularly like Steve, but you appreciate him at times like these. You couldn't be more perfect mission partners for each other if you tried. The way you fall into your posts quickly and seamlessly, giving each other the space and silence to focus on preparing for the mission while also trusting that you will speak up if the situation calls for it.
Your methods and routines are practically identical. It’s almost a shame that the moment things break open, that quiet alignment shatters.
Steve holds a fist up, signalling you to stop. You do, falling in behind him. You’re not sure what he’s hearing, but you trust him implicitly when he makes the motion for you to duck behind a flatbed truck. You press yourself against the cool metal and Steve plunges in after you, his warm chest and stomach caging you. Hardly a second later, you hear what he had - a door clanging open, boisterous voices spilling out, all speaking over each other in Russian.
Steve meets your eyes, gives you a silent signal and you nod, moving out from behind the truck as silently as a deer and blending into the night. You weave through the shipping containers with practiced alacrity. You don’t need to look to know Steve is right behind you; you can feel him.
You split angles without having to speak. Steve covers the high runways while you sweep the lower lanes between cargo. The night has cooled and the wind is vicious now, needling the hulls of the half-empty freighters and blowing the hook block of the crane overhead until it swings like an unsteady pendulum over the flooded pier. Steve is keeping close. His hot breath feels sharp on your neck against the biting wind.
You get within five hundred feet of the main electrical substation before you’re spotted. A pair of guards open fire from the building behind you, spraying an uncoordinated bouquet of bullets in your direction. You find cover effortlessly and huff with humour at the sloppy execution. They had just revealed that they are aware of your presence without allowing you to get close enough for a good shot.
“Idiots,” Steve mutters, as if he’s genuinely disappointed. You smile up at him, almost expecting him to say something about how he expected better from them.
You easily dodge their fire as you advance leisurely and safely, winding in and out from behind shipping containers. You decide that you’re not in the mood to go at it with Steve today, so you take his lead even if it’s significantly slower than how you would choose to do this yourself. You don’t worry about the shots that get too close - whatever you can’t dodge, Steve fends off with his shield.
You are out of the gunmen’s range when you make it to the ladder that leads up to the platform you need to get to, but you have no doubt they are headed your way. You go first, taking your gun from its holster, aiming it upwards, and heaving yourself onto the ladder. The iron bars are slick with seawater and heavy fuel oil; you have to grip tight so you don’t slip.
You’re making careful progress up the ladder with Steve behind you, eyes pointed upwards for any sign of unwanted company. The metal feels slithery beneath your fingers and it takes you an extra few seconds to climb each step. It’s shuddering under each step and you wonder vacantly whether Steve’s weight will make it collapse.
You don’t have much time to prepare for the gunman that approaches above you. Your fingers are still clumsily fidgeting, trying to aim your gun while also grasping the slippy bar of metal. You get your shots off at the same time; yours hits, his does not.
What it does do, though, is make you dodge. Your body bears left, foot skidding on a rung of the ladder and suddenly you’re slipping downward, stomach swooping as your body collides with Steve’s.
He scarcely reacts, catching you with one arm, using little to no exertion. His fingers clamp around your waist, steadying you. For a fraction of a second you both freeze - your breath catching, his jaw tensing, bodies flush together, faces inches apart. Every hard plane of his body is pressed up against you. There is a throbbing warmth low in your stomach.
“You good?” he asks, breathy and deep.
“Move,” you say, voice tight, shaking out of his grasp and climbing up once more. He sighs and mutters something under his breath but you can’t make it out. Your heart is galloping, your pulse thundering in your ears.
You barrel over the platform, and go running towards the tower just as another guard reaches the door, attempting to get to the breaker panel before you have the chance to disable it. He locks the door behind him but Steve kicks it in with a crash. You slide low, sweeping the guard’s legs. Steve disarms him before he can even hit the floor.
There’s no need for discussion as you both fall into your respective roles. The room is oppressively grey and layered with multiple wires, but you find your way to the breaker panel. You work on planting the shutdown device on the primary switchgear while Steve holds off reinforcements, laying enough suppressive fire to keep three guards pinned behind a forklift.
You’re more aware of his presence than usual while you work. He sits like some nagging instinct in your head, telling you to look. You know if you do, all you will see is his back, a heavy fortification of muscle and hard lines and sweat. You don’t need that kind of distraction. Your nerves are already fried from the uncomfortable consciousness of how his body felt pressed tight against yours.
You step back, watching the disruptor activate and the power shut down around you with a whining drone. The grey space becomes black and for just a split-second, yourself and Steve stand alone in the dark, no sounds pervading the room except your laboured breaths. The street lamps outside have extinguished - the bullets outside pause while the gunmen assess their situation.
Steve moves, shattering the stillness. He grips your wrist and pads quietly out the door, taking full advantage of the blackness to make a discreet getaway. You grab your wrist violently out of his grip but you follow him silently. You can’t see anything very well, but you think he might roll his eyes.
The shipyard is drowned in darkness, the only light the thin silver sheen of rain on metal. You move with Steve between the towering containers, keeping low. Every small sound seems deafening now - the clink of a loose cable swaying in the wind, even your own breaths.
A pair of guards drift close, their flashlights slicing through the blackout. You flatten against the cold steel wall, willing yourself still as the beams skim past, bright enough to catch the rivets beside your cheek. When the voices fade, Steve breaks across an open stretch at a quick, silent sprint. You follow.
You’re not sure why you do it. It’s usually Steve’s job to scan the high ground. His serum-enhanced eyesight can catch movement long before you can. But Steve is preoccupied with sweeping for guards on ground level, so you do it instead out of pure intuition. And you see it: a sharp, unmoving glint on the crane platform above.
Your pulse spikes.
There’s a shooter.
You had caught sight of him too late to find cover. You are out in the open. You can’t see the shooter well, but you know who their target will be and it’s not you. Steve is too far ahead to be able to warn him in any sufficient way.
In a moment of complete and utter instinct, and maybe more than a little stupidity, you raise your gun and shoot. You miss.
The shooter turns their attention to you now. You fire another, miss again.
The hit slams into your shoulder so hard, it immediately steals your breath. You stagger forward, fingers going numb. The gun drops from your clasp.
You try to breathe, but the pain is sharp and choking. Your vision wavers from blood loss and the sheer, overwhelming burn tearing through you. Steve’s gun cracks somewhere to your left but the sound bends around the pain, distant and warped. You can’t lift your arm. You can’t even unclench your jaw.
You wait to feel the blood clot around your wound but it’s slow and reluctant. You hold on for one more second, and then blackness swallows you.
The only thing that you’re aware of when you open your eyes is the pain. Not the cold, harsh light of the hospital. Not your family and team members that sit around you, looking morosely at the floor and bouncing their legs. Not even that Steve is absent.
For some length of time that feels very long, you exist in that state; slinking in and out of consciousness. But the pain never disappears, not even the bouts of darkness. In those moments of oblivion, the pain goes behind a cloud, but it always returns with a violence. You get to know this in a vague sort of way, feeling dumbly grateful when the pain is at bay but never being so naive as to think yourself free of it.
Although you will later find out it is only two days, it feels like a small eternity before you can clear the film that feels like scum from your throat and croak anything out. You must not be of fully sound mind yet or maybe the painkillers are making you loopy, because the first thing you say to the room, crammed with familiar faces, is; “Steve?”
You’re assured by someone - Maria? Natasha? - that he got you out. That he’s ok.
And then that grey cloud descends once again. The pain and the haze return.
It’s not that you care that Steve doesn’t come to visit.
It turns out that your wound is just a through-and-through shot to the top of your shoulder. One centimetre in any direction and the bullet might have lodged itself firmly into your neck or paralysed your arm for good. The area is packed densely with muscles and nerves so you are wreaked with pain, but as it stands, it did no permanent damage.
So, really, there is no need for him to visit. And you definitely don’t care. You just think it’s bad leadership is all. You would have showed up for him if the roles were reversed, no matter how much of a pest he is. Would have sent a card. Even a text, at the very fucking least.
You leave the hospital after the dullest week of your life. You hadn’t, until that point, realised how tangled your life purpose is with your career. You feel rabid after just a day or two of consciousness, restricted to your bed with no files to review, no cases to crack open. Just you, a few beat-up novels you had been meaning to get around to reading, and whoever decides to drop by to see how you were doing.
Maria lets you know that you are required to take another two weeks of leave before returning to work. Standard policy. Your requests to be forwarded files related to your ongoing cases are rejected. You can’t even enter the building to go to the gym.
In the absence of anything better to do, you watch films back-to-back. Try some recipes you had earmarked. Visit the new museum that had opened in the next block over. Wait to hear from family, friends and colleagues. But not Steve. You’re definitely not waiting to hear from Steve.
You’re not usually great for following orders but you follow the doctor’s instructions closer than you have abided by anything in your entire life. By the time you return to HQ, the pain in your shoulder has flattened to a dull ache and you have formed a resolution to try to find some sort of hobby outside of work. You had no idea your real life is that grim.
Maria meets you with a distant smile at reception.
“Welcome back,” she says pleasantly, turning to walk with you through the building. Quiet conversation, the rustling of paper and the heavy clicks of agents suiting up covers the space you walk through. “We’ll do a mini induction and then I’ll let you get to it.”
Maria’s office is pristine. The door clicks shut behind you, muting all murmured voices outside. Everything looks recently straightened, recently dusted, recently organised. Sticky notes, task lists and cables are perfectly spaced out into their correct positions. The files stacked on the shelves are bound and appear to be in alphabetical order. You picture your home office space with a dim sort of shame as you sit down in front of her.
“How is your shoulder?” she asks without much interest.
“Much better, thank you. Should be able to get back out there now.”
She opens a cabinet in her desk and pulls a bloated yellow file. “That won’t be possible. We have made the decision to transfer you to another team. You’ll need a few weeks to catch up on the ongoing cases.”
“Another- what?”
Your brain is whirring, trying to catch up with what Maria just said. She doesn’t reply, just watches you buffer.
“You’re really taking me off the team on my first day back? Am I being punished for getting shot?”
“Not punished, no,” she assures you patiently. “You’re not being demoted, your day-to-day won’t even change very much but you’ll be working under Romanoff now. It was just decided that you would be a better fit somewhere else.”
“Decided by who?” you ask, even though you know the answer.
“By the leadership team,” she replies diplomatically.
Your gaze narrows on her but she is unperturbed. The sound of the seconds ticking by on the clock are suddenly deafening. You’re engaging in a sort of silent stand-off with her and you’re certainly not winning.
“Where is he?” you ask at last.
“On assignment.”
“When will he be back?”
She smiles at you tightly and you realise she can no longer tell you. You’re not on his team anymore.
A wild instinct runs through you; you feel you might be a few seconds away from stomping your feet like a child, shouting at her that it’s not fair! and he started it!
Instead, you huff out a harsh breath and snatch the file up from the desk.
The hour is late and night is spilling through the windows. Yourself and Nat are the only ones left in the room; maybe the only ones left in the building. She lounges against the opposite row of lockers, boot propped up, grinning like you hadn’t just run a mission that by all rights should’ve ended in a four-page incident report and at least one formal reprimand.
“We are a match made in heaven,” she says with a dreamy sigh.
You snort. “Tell that to the clean-up team.”
“Let them file a complaint,” Nat says, waving a dismissive hand. “Clean exit, no casualties, minimal property damage. Made decent time too.”
“Mm.”
It had gone well. Better than well. Nat works like you do - zippy, instinctive, a little unhinged when the situation calls for it. There had been no questioning glances when you made a split-second decision, no screaming matches in lieu of a debrief. Your third mission back was a big fat success. You should be overjoyed.
But as you wipe the shower-water from your skin and peel your top on, all you can summon is a hot, directionless anger. Or, maybe not entirely directionless.
Because for the most part, you can direct it towards Steve. Your shoulder has mostly recovered with only a mild stiffness left to show for it but you’re still suffering from a wounded pride. The fact that he didn't bother to check up on you and requested a transfer after you quite literally risked your life for him is bad enough. But he’s been a ghost to you in the three weeks since you returned to work.
That first week, he had been on assignment in Hungary. You had gone on a hunt for him as soon as word got around that he was back, but he was nowhere to be found. All his usual conference rooms were vacant and he had clearly started training elsewhere. You have not been able to track him down in the weeks since and you have no doubt in your mind that his sole intention is to avoid you.
Because he feels guilty for what had happened? Or maybe because he doesn’t want to have to thank you? You’re not sure. But you’re pissed.
And not just at him either. At yourself too.
Because, alongside that anger, there’s an uncomfortable hollowness tugging at you. You bring it with you everywhere you go. It weighs you down like a chain. He won’t vacate your brain no matter what you do and you can’t quite deny that maybe you might miss him. Just a little.
The anger is not the worst of it; it’s that other thing - the tiny, shameful spark fluttering under your ribs when Natasha lets you rove free instead of testing you, challenging you, making you better. It’s the way your life feels just a bit emptier without someone to tease and provoke.
And it’s humiliating, because - seriously? How original. You really had to go and join the queue of people pining after the tall, hot, golden-boy with perfect manners and stupidly earnest eyes and muscles so perfect that only scientists could have sculpted them. Brilliant. Groundbreaking. As if you don’t already hate him enough without adding that to the mix.
“I was gonna drag you for a drink but the energy you’re giving off right now is rancid,” Nat says, walking towards you with her towel in hand. She snaps it at you but you jump out of the way before she can make contact. “You’re so pissy all the time since you got transferred.”
“I’m not pissy,” you snap, obscurely aware that you’re proving her point.
“Why do you even care? You and Rogers fight like dogs. You never wanted to be part of his team in the first place.”
You’re purposely avoiding her gaze, but you know the exact look that Nat is giving you based on her tone alone and you hate it with a burning passion.
“I don’t care. It’s just not fair, but it’s whatever.”
She sighs, picking up her duffle bag and flinging it over her shoulder. “I’m gonna leave you to whatever this is,” she says, waving her hand vaguely in your direction. “Get eight hours tonight and try to come back less cranky.”
She walks out, hips swinging, and you wait another moment or two before following suit.
HQ feels different at this time of night. The overhead lights seem a shade too bright without bodies moving through them and your footsteps sound sharper against the floor. The whir of a printer on standby and the buzz of a monitor stand out more. Clean, white light is shining on empty desks.
There is a weight on you as your make your way through the carpeted corridors, passing empty offices and meeting rooms. Nat is right - you are pissy. You’re so goddamn angry and mortifyingly upset, crucifying yourself with mental images and memories you would do anything to be rid of. You had always been mildly curious about those feelings that you observed in movies, the ones all your friends used to rave about when they met someone they fell head over heels for. You have dated, have even been in a few serious relationships. But you always knew there was a big gap between what you had witnessed and what you had experienced.
You wish someone had told you how stupidly painful and embarrassing it could be. You would have tried harder to steer clear of it.
You almost think that you’re imagining the picture of Steve in the meeting room to your right, framed by the semi-frosted window in the door. For just a split-second, you think it might be another one of those humiliating daydreams. But no - he’s burning the midnight oil; his neck is craned over a file, a small lamp pouring light over his handsome features.
You’re not one to question your instincts. You hurl the door open with an aggression that has Steve’s head snapping up in shock, pen falling from his hand, mouth parting. You listen to the door tumble closed before you realise dimly that you have no idea what to say to him. You’re floundering a little, but you keep your expression steady.
He breaks the silence first.
“You’re here late.”
“Just wrapped an assignment with Nat,” you say, hand on hip. “Turns out we make a pretty solid team. It’s refreshing.”
His jaw ticks, but he gives nothing else away. He looks back to his papers, as if dismissing you. “Glad to hear it.”
That’s it? That’s really all he’s giving you?
You can feel fiery heat crawling up your neck and you try to stop the furious shake in your hands. Composure is becoming more difficult to maintain and you know that you’re about a second away from bursting but his gall is astounding. He really has nothing else to say? After everything?
“You got me kicked off the team.”
“You didn’t get kicked off anything,” he sighs, leaning back in his seat. His eyes are travelling your form warily, like he isn’t quite sure where you’re going with this. “You got transferred.”
“Yeah, transferred out of the team.”
“I thought you would be happy,” he says wryly. “You were always complaining about having to work with me. I think you even said you’d rather work with Natasha a few times.”
“I am happy!” It comes out as a bark. You’re embarrassed by your petulance even though you can’t cork it. You know that you’re acting like a child. Steve’s lips are creaking upwards, his eyes lit up in amusement.
You clear your throat. “I am happy,” you repeat, in a low, controlled voice this time around. “It just feels a bit ungrateful is all.”
The way Steve’s poise breaks, superior grin twisting itself into a snarl, is hugely satisfying. You are self-aware enough to know that you’re being hugely immature, but it just feels so good to drag him down to your level.
“You think I should be grateful that you almost got yourself killed on a mission?” he snaps, standing up from the meeting room table and walking towards you. You meet him half-way, until you are inches from each other. Your neck stiffens with how it bends up to meet his enraged eyes. Your body is humming with this familiar rhythm, as if fighting with Steve is the only thing that makes you feel alive.
“Well, I got shot saving you, so yes - I would say that’s a pretty good reason to be grateful,” you snap back, eyes narrow.
“Don’t be dense.” His voice is tight and poisonous in a way you have rarely ever heard before. “That was a really fuckin’ stupid decision and you know it. You took a bullet for the super-soldier with accelerated regenerative healing and a vibranium shield. Does that sound like a good decision to you?”
He sounds more furious than you have ever heard him in your life - and you have made him mad more times than you can count. He had cursed at you. He hasn’t done that since Moscow.
“I knew what I was doing,” you spit back with equal fury. “That shooter had all the time in the world to get into position; they would have been aiming for your head and they would have hit their mark, too because you weren’t paying enough attention to raise your shield. I knew that pulling them over in my direction meant that they would shoot me but they would have less time to aim. Just because you think I’m stupid doesn’t mean I am, you jerk.”
He is struck dumb momentarily, brows furrowing and lips pursing in thought. You are close enough to see the twitch of his mouth, to feel his disgruntled puffs of breath against your skin. Contentment slithers up your spine. Seconds tick by in silence; Steve pensive and stoic, you smug and satisfied. You have won this round and decide to go out with a bang.
“But I guess I should be thanking you because I have a new team lead now who trusts my judgement and doesn’t pick a fight every five minutes. So thank you. And go to hell.”
You turn on your heel, already halfway into your stride, and his hand shoots out so fast it must be instinct - large, calloused fingers closing around your arm before you’re even finished the pivot.
There is a second where he just glares hard. His blue eyes eat up every inch of your face.
And then your body meets his chest and his lips are instantly on yours in a heady explosion of fire - it’s a violent, fervid thing and you surprise yourself with how quickly you return his passion. You had imagined this moment in the last few weeks - in all your dirtiest daydreams, you made him sweat it out a bit, even beg. But maybe you can make him beg later - you had missed him too much to turn him away now.
Your lips move like it’s another one of your fights, faces pressed against each other in a messy battle of lips, tongues and teeth. His hands travel to your hips and pull you flush against him while you fist his crisp blue shirt, folding wrinkles into the perfectly ironed fabric.
Your feet leave the ground as he lifts you with irritating strength, pushing you onto the meeting room table and settling himself between your legs. His sheer power - the way he can lift you like you’re absolutely nothing - makes heat pool in your tummy, something stirring low. You’re pushing your lips against his fiercely, channeling all the pent up anger from the past number of weeks.
He isn’t gentle. He’s rabid as a stray dog. His fingers grasp harshly onto your hips with bruising strength. Despite the fact that you’re already pressed up against him, he tugs you tighter to his body, like close is not close enough. You can feel the large swell of his cock against your thigh, hard as a rock, and you have to stop yourself from adjusting your position and grinding down on him. You’re eager enough to do it, but he can't know that.
Your hands travel around his chest and shoulders, fingers delving into every curve of muscle there. He feels so big and broad against your touch and it turns you on so much that it almost pisses you off.
“You’re such a dick,” you gasp, the sound muffled against his lips.
“I know,” he says back between kissing, his mouth not moving from yours.
“Didn’t even visit me in the hospital.”
“I know.”
“I hate you,” you say, aiming for a sharp tone. It comes out breathy. He’s still kissing at your mouth, lips moving wildly - out of sync and jumbled.
“Shut up,” he grunts, hand going to your lower back and pushing your pelvis forward so you grind against him. An embarrassing whine rips itself from your throat as pleasure sparks through you, lighting up your body. You grind down again, addicted to the feeling, and Steve groans against your lips, hips jerking up.
It prompts something filthy; the two of you still fully clothed, bucking and grinding against each other like feral animals. There is a delicious throbbing in your core, your entire body crying out for more of him. His left hand is still on your hip, encouraging your body to continue grounding down against his hard cock through layers of cotton, but his right hand moves up to grab your jaw with a possessive force. You are giving it back to him too, hands clutching and grasping at him with a brutality.
He pulls away to lift your top over your head, eyes levelled at you with a burning intensity. His pretty blues are darker now, less earnest.
“Steve, we’re in the office,” you object, fingers reaching out to grab it back. He tosses it to the floor before you can.
“Don’t care,” he says, reattaching his lips to yours, fingers crawling to the waistband of your trousers. “Gonna fuck you right here.”
Your stomach clenches. It’s a strange role reversal. You’re not accustomed to being the one who stops and thinks about things before acting - that’s always Steve’s remit. You should be concerned that his perfectly constructed control has been tossed out the window, but it only makes you more excited. You know that there is something dangerous deep underneath each layer of restraint that Steve exercises. You have always known you’re better at digging it out than anyone else in this world. When you do, it’s a beautiful thing.
How can you do anything but give in?
Steve’s fingers play with the button of your jeans, popping it open with an effortless tug before he slides them down your legs along with your shoes. You’re left in just your underwear, splayed open before a fully-clothed Steve Rogers like you’re some sort of offering. He watches you with dark eyes, something between worship and hunger enveloping his features.
His eyes zero in on your bra-clad breasts. “Take it off,” he says, voice strained, and you reach up with urgency to unclip it, tossing it carelessly somewhere across the table.
“Suddenly so good at taking orders.” His hand reaches up to palm your breast, the other playing with the waistband of your panties. Your body arches to his touch involuntarily. “Should have done this months ago. Might have made you behave.”
He can probably tell you’re about to say something snarky, because his lips meet yours ferociously yet again and what would have been a rude retort turns into a moan when his thumb presses down on you over your panties.
Steve pulls away, eyes catching yours with surprise before dropping down to your core, covered in a thin layer of now-transparent fabric. “You’re soaked through,” he breathes, awe colouring his tone. “See how wet you are for me?”
Hot humiliation floods your face. “Fuck you.”
He gives you a slow smirk, eyes glinting. His tongue pokes out to wet his lips, leaving them glossy and shiny, and you realise he enjoys this as much as you do. His head dips down, lips just brushing over your neck, breath caressing your skin, before he’s lathering kisses there. He hooks his fingers over your underwear and yanks it down aggressively. You watch it cascade down your legs pathetically, chest heaving with the pressure of his lips under your ear and his fingers sliding down your stomach torturously slow.
His fingers just graze over your wet heat and your blood is singing in your veins. You feel overpowered by him in the most mouth-watering way; his large frame trapping you, caging you in. He presses two fingers in, harsh and sudden, and you gasp.
“You get so turned on fighting with me, don’t you sweetheart? I knew it. Knew you were getting all wet every time I raised my voice at you. You pretend you don’t like me but you love when I boss you around.”
You want to slap him, but he’s right. And you consider that if you do, he will stop. His fingers are so big and calloused inside you and it simply feels too good to ever stop. You’re breaking into a sweat while he pumps in and out of you, your slick spilling onto his perfectly tailored work slacks while your walls clench around him.
When his other hand reaches down to grind down on your clit with vigorous strokes, a burst of white-hot pleasure works its way through you, licking up your spine. You pull hard at his hair, looking for anything to anchor yourself and hear him hiss a moan against your neck. The sound makes you clench around him and his fingers pump into you with renewed roughness in response.
You’re absolutely ruined. He has turned you into a complete wreck. You can no longer deny how badly you want him nor how much you need this; you don’t even try anymore. Your hips are wiggling down, trying to take him deeper. You have lost all semblance of shame, too taken up by the pleasure that his fingers are delivering you.
“Look how desperate you are,” he says, eyes caught where he is filling you. You don’t want to look down, shame working its cruel way through you at his taunting, but he grasps your jaw, tilting your head downwards. His fingers are warm and wet with your slick.
His two fingers are enough to stretch you out - they almost look too big for your hole. You shudder at the sight of them sliding in and out, knowing his cock will stretch you out all the more. Steve’s staring at your pussy like a man who is starving.
His fingers pull out from your heat quite suddenly. You’re hazy and confused until he lowers to his knees on the ground in front of where you are perched on the table. Your eyes connect in a moment of explosive intensity. His pupils are blown wide and when yours begin to flutter shut, he pinches your thigh gently in warning. You are forced to stare while he lowers his face between your thighs, eyes gleaming.
“Gotta taste you,” he says, almost to himself, and then that stupid fucking mouth that pisses you off so much every single day meets your cunt.
The sound that comes out of your mouth is unintentional and would be entirely mortifying if you were thinking straight. Your head falls back, eyes shutting. He pinches your thigh again, harder this time.
“Eyes on me, sweetheart.”
You eyes spring back open, twitching as you fight the instinct to squeeze them shut. He holds your gaze captive while licking a messy stripe up your folds. You can feel sweat collecting at the top of your forehead at the sensation. He is ravenous and unrelenting, sucking on your clit before soothing it with soft kisses. Exploring your folds with his lips. Dipping his tongue inside and gently nipping, testing your limits.
He’s eating you out in a way you never have been before; it’s not some repetitive flick of the tongue against the clit, picked up from porn and designed to make you cum as fast as possible so he can get the hell up and get his own rocks off. Steve is learning you, watching your expression closely to see what makes your breath catch. You feel him grin against your pussy as a moan slips out reluctantly when he drags his teeth over the hood of your clit, offsetting the pleasure with the tiniest bit of pain. He groans when you lose control and your eyes roll back in your skull.
He pulls back just a few inches and you watch him spit a thick glob of saliva straight onto your cunt. He’s still holding intense eyee-contact with you when he runs his fingers through your slit, mixing your wetness with his own. It’s sliding down through your ass and onto the table, reminding you exactly where you are. The fact that you are doing this in a meeting room in your place of work makes it seem even dirtier.
He shoves two fingers back into you without warning and your hips buck. He continues to mouth at your clit in the most beautiful patterns and you truly feel like he is doing this purely for himself, like he’s enjoying it as much as you are.
He sucks hard, sliding your clit into his mouth and you’re not in control of the words or sounds that spill out of you. You’re telling him how amazing you feel and how fucking good he’s eating you, but you realise you might have fucked up because you can just feel his arrogance. It’s pissing you off. You need to remedy it quick.
“Maybe I should keep you down here like this all the time, Steve. What do you think? Can’t bitch at me when your mouth is busy. And you’re just so good at it too.”
You can feel the smug smile melt into something more sinister. His eyes grow darker, but he never moves them from yours. He continues to lap at you, but his mouth is more aggressive now - a stormy sort of warning. You ignore it.
“Bet you’d let me put you on your knees after every mission if I wanted.” Your voice is coming out a bit too breathy for the sort of control you’re aiming for, but you continue regardless. “Keep you there for hours if I need to.”
Steve is standing up faster than you can register, a rough scowl painting his face. “Fucking brat,” he grunts, voice low. Your pride does not allow you to complain about how close you were to coming on his tongue.
He’s unbuttoning his shirt with rapidity and you get the message, part terrified and part exhilarated by what’s to come. You go to work on his belt in the meantime, clumsy fingers frantically unbuckling so you can yank his trousers down his legs.
Steve shrugs out of the sleeves of his shirt, you almost groan. It is just so utterly unfair. It’s not like you’ve never seen him in this state before - missions sometimes require you both change clothes in less-than-ideal settings. But seeing him in this context, a thin sheen of sweat coating his pecks, an enormous bulge in his underwear that you know you have inspired; it’s unearthly. It’s only for you. You want him in wicked, sinful ways. And you’re determined to have him.
You try to hide the shake in your hands as you reach towards his underwear. Time slows down as you pull down it down to reveal his cock - what had been a frenzied blur of limbs and clothes patters off into cautious movements, heavy breaths.
You actually groan when you see it; standing tall and fucking huge, slightly curved, subtle veins running lines up to the tip. A pearl of liquid has collected at the tip, smudged on the swollen head. It’s so pretty, you can feel your eyes becoming a bit hazy. The light in the room seems to ripple and bend around it.
Your fingers reach out tentatively, dragging down his length. He hisses, hips jerking up to your touch when you wrap your fingers around him. You can barely wrap your hand around it and you’re startled by how small your hand looks in comparison.
“You think you can take it?” Steve asks you.
“I can,” you confirm with certainty.
“Let’s see about that, sweetheart. I think I might break you,” he returns and you wonder vaguely whether Steve is just baiting you, taking advantage of all your stubbornness to make sure you push yourself past your limit.
His body brackets yours again, leaning over your body to give you a filthy kiss. His mouth is absolutely dripping with the evidence of your arousal and his own spit. You can taste yourself on his tongue, mixed with something that is pleasant and categorically Steve Rogers. His lips move hot and dirty against yours, tongue pressing in on yours while his cock nudges your entrance. You gasp against his lips.
“Yeah?” he murmurs against your lips. “You ready for me?”
You nod furiously and he reaches down to fist his cock. You feel his thick length begin to nudge at your entrance, the head slipping in slowly. Your cunt pulses with anticipation as you feel the sweet ache of him breaching you. You let out a low whine, caught somewhere between pain and pleasure, as he pushes in further, the thickness of him stretching your walls.
It’s a tight fit. He gets just less than half-way, before your pride breaks and your hips jump away from his at the burn. His jaw twitches, blue eyes fluttering closed for just a second.
Steve reaches down to stroke at your clit and the rush of pleasure makes you loosen up just enough for him to notch in a few inches further. “C’mon, sweetheart. Thought you said you could take me.”
“I can,” you say, the words pattering off into a whine. “Just big, is all.”
“Sure is,” he says, pushing in further and smiling wickedly at you. “And I’m gonna make you take it all, baby. Gonna make you feel it here.” His fingers press down hard on your tummy.
His cock is stressing its size inside you, hitting places previously untouched. You can’t quit believe that he still has more to give you but he does. You’ve never felt anything like this before, never had anything this big inside you and it hurts in the most delicious way.
“Fuck,” Steve spits, breathless. “Yeah, okay, I think you can take me all the way. Just a little bit more, sweetheart. Let me in.”
If he hadn’t eaten you out until you were an inch from nirvana, you’re not sure this would be possible. But as it stands, he bottoms out and you feel like you’re floating. Your hips are twitching, unsure whether to escape or grind down harder.
“Squeezing me so tight, baby. Think you were made for my cock,” he hisses, his face tightening with a primal need. “You okay?”
You’re not sure that your vocal cords are still working so you just nod and listen to his deep breaths. Your back arches when he presses sloppy kisses to your neck while you adjust to him. It feels as if he is moulding you around him.
Your fingertips drag down his back and he shivers, jerking his hips forward involuntarily. “Sorry- ah, fuck-” he groans, face clenched tight.
He withdraws a couple of inches, cock dragging through your walls, before slamming himself back in. He looks down at you like a kicked puppy when he hears your strangled gasp. “Feels too good. Gotta- agh. Can’t help it, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”
You like this side of him, you think idly. You had seen Steve in many different moods, but never like this. Apologetic and pleading. He is a boulder above you; 6 foot something of pure brawn, but begging you so nicely to take his cock. “I know it’s big but you’re such a pretty little thing for me. Have to move.”
You still can’t talk so you nod at him in encouragement and watch relief pour over his face. He kisses you again with intention, bucking his hips into yours with beautiful friction. You are stuffed so full, it feels like he’s everywhere at once. This whole thing is becoming far sweeter than you were expecting.
Steve finds a leisurely, pulsing rhythm as he rocks himself into you, lathering kisses over your lips in a way that is entirely too romantic for the setting. He rubs tantalising circles on your clit, helping your walls to relax into him - helping you let him in until you find your voice, babbling about how much you want him and how good he’s making you feel.
You’re becoming aware that he owns you now; that maybe he always had. He thrusts into you with a beautiful sort of reverence and you know that you are ruined. Sleeping with anyone else would feel like a brutal punishment after you felt him like this.
A noise from outside - the faint tread of boots on the ground - makes you both stop cold. Steve freezes completely, his dick coming to a stand-still inside of you. They are faint but getting closer by the second. Your eyes meet Steve’s wide ones. He starts looking around the room. at your intertwined bodies. You can see him assessing the situation, working out solutions, but a smug part of you notes that he still doesn’t pull out of you. He dick doesn’t soften; you actually feel it twitch inside you.
Your pussy jumps at the realisation that he’s excited by it. Maybe he doesn't even know it yet, but he is. You know it by the way his hips give involuntary, shallow thrusts. By the way his pupils grow impossibly darker.
So you do what any sane woman would do with Captain America’s cock buried deep inside her. You grind down.
Steve eyes snap back to yours with astonishment. He looks wild; entirely out of control and somewhat furious. He brings a hand to your hair, tugs it with a warning that you don’t pay any heed to.
You grind down again, this time removing your right hand from his broad shoulders and bringing it slowly down to your clit. You rub and squeeze there, using his cock to get yourself off. The way his eyes are burning as he watches you only makes it so much hotter. You feel yourself approaching your peak.
The steps get louder until you see a flash of cherry red pass the window and you know it’s Natasha. She’s on her way back to the locker room, perhaps to check if you’re still there. You don’t stop moving on his cock even as she passes by you and the locker room door swings open and shut.
“Are you insane?” Steve spits in a low whisper. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
You just smile back at him because you can see his eyes growing hazy. You not sure he even realises that he himself has begun to thrust into you again. A flush is working its way up his neck and you wonder whether it’s anger or arousal. Maybe both.
You’re halfway through a moan when the door to the locker room swings back open and Natasha begins walking out again with a huff. Steve’s hand goes up to cover your mouth, so large it almost envelopes your entire face. He’s giving you look like he’s disapproving of this development but he doesn’t stop fucking you.
Natasha’s footsteps stop for a split-second. You feel a disinterested sort of confusion, too wrapped up in the way Steve’s cock feels as it drags through your walls.
Something spasms between your legs and you realise you’re about to cum. Your blood freezes. You feel Steve tense, breath snagging in his throat. You’re sweating now - praying that all those gasps you can’t mute are not audible from outside.
You hear Nat let out a long, irritated sigh from outside, but you’re too far gone to even care about the consequences anymore. You squeeze around Steve’s length once and then your eyes are rolling back into your head while she resumes moving down the hall. As she approaches the glass window of the door, you try to crouch, as if that would prevent her from seeing your and Steve’s very naked bodies as he fucks you through your orgasm. You can see the faint shadow of her figure sliding across the frosted glass. For one horrifying second, you’re sure Nat will glance in.
But she doesn’t. She keeps walking, footsteps fading with distance until the hallway is left silent again and your pussy is squeezing with aftershocks.
“You’re seriously fucked up, you know that?” Steve asks, but there’s more awe in his tone than malice. “You really get off knowing someone could walk in here and see me fucking you?”
You don’t even know how to answer him. He’s given you no time to recover from your orgasm, fucking into you again with a renewed vitality. You’re overly sensitive, the pressure of his massive cock inside you bullying your sensitive hole. It shouldn’t feel good, it should be too much too soon - but it’s not because it’s Steve. And you don’t think you could dislike anything that he chooses to do to you.
“You wanna be fucked like a whore? Fine,” he says, pulling his cock out of you with lightning speed and flipping you around on the table so your ass is arched up for him. He takes a second to look at you, squeezing at the skin of your ass, dragging his thumb all the way up from your clit, past your wet heat and through your ass. He’s mumbling something unintelligible. You clench and shudder, a moan breaking out through your lips.
When he fists his cock and presses into you again, all that slow romanticism from earlier is gone. He is fucking you hard and fast, his thick cock pressing into a heavenly spongey spot that you didn’t even know existed. “Fuck Steve!” you cry out, ass working its way back on him of its own volition.
“Such a fucking brat. Couldn’t even wait patiently for me to fuck you for one minute. Too desperate for my cock.”
You want to argue that he was also fucking you, but your brain is not working fast enough to come up with the words. All you can focus on are his dirty words, the obscene squelching noises of him filling you, and how it feels to be taken by him.
“Maybe I should punish you for that. Always so disobedient. Maybe I’ll leave you high and dry here, fill you up and not let you cum.”
“Try it,” you growl, brain suddenly fully operational. “I’ll make you regret it.”
You hear him huff a laugh from behind you. “You’re adorable. Fucked out on my cock and still think you’re in charge. I’ll make you cum sweetheart, but only because I want to see you fall apart. Next time you won’t get this lucky.”
His cock hits a spot inside you that almost makes you see god. His hands are so tight on your hips as he fucks himself into your body that you’re sure you’ll have bruises tomorrow. You hope you do.
“That’s it, isn’t it baby? That’s your spot. Fuck. Maybe I should reward you, now that I think of it. All my sweet girl wanted was to get caught getting fucked by me. You just wanted to show everyone that you’re mine. Want everyone to see me fucking that attitude right outta you.”
Being called his coils your stomach in a way you’d rather not examine. Instead, you twist your head back and scowl.
“Fuck you,” you spit, voice strangled.
He chuckles again, but it’s strained. He’s pounding you with a force that you feel all the way up to your belly, all the way up to your teeth. You know you’re not far from coming again and neither is he.
“Is my pretty girl gonna cum on my cock again?” he asks, patting and squeezing your ass encouragingly. You nod, eyes squeezed shut, not even sure that he can see it from his angle. A desperate whine escapes.
“Good fucking girl. ‘Cause I’m about to come inside you. Want you walking out of here with me dripping out of you. Gonna fill you up so good, keep you topped up for every mission. Make you mine.”
That sends you tumbling over the edge, white-hot pleasure soaring through you. Your cunt clenches down hard on him and you feel him burst, spilling sticky ropes of cum into you. He groans loud, telling you how good you are for him while holding your hips with a bruising power, fucking into you violently. He shudders behind you, and eventually his aggressive thrusts patter out and slow into shallow jerks.
Dark spots are exploding behind your eyes for a while as you come down, chest heaving as Steve drives his cum back into you slowly. You feel your mixed spend dripping down your thighs, spilling onto the wooden floors below. Steve hisses as he steadily pulls himself from your tight heat. He stops momentarily while he, presumably, watches his cum drip out of your hole.
And then he reaches down to grab his underwear. He wipes it across your privates and thighs as a makeshift towel. It is decidedly not romantic, but the fact that he’s willing to go home in soggy underwear just to clean you up makes your chest tighten with affection regardless.
Steve begins to dress but it takes you another minute to gather the strength in your limbs to haul yourself up. Your hands are shaking as you yank up your panties and try to buckle your bra. Steve is fully dressed now, watching you intensely, thighs spread out on an office chair.
You’re feeling slightly awkward in a way you never do around Steve. You’ve never been short of quips or insults to throw at him, but the air has changed now and you’re not sure where you stand or how to navigate this.
You have just tugged on your jeans when Steve leans forward to grab your hips, pulling you onto his lap. You hadn’t realised that you were waiting for him to do it until he does. You go with no objection, curling into his chest. It feels strangely natural for how combative you’ve always been with him. He nuzzles his face into your neck with a shy affection.
“I’m sorry for requesting the transfer. I regretted it immediately after if I’m honest.”
“Why did you? It was kinda fucked up, Steve. And you didn’t even come to visit me when I got shot. It hurt my feelings because I would have been there for you.” You can’t even look at him when you say it. You are vastly uncomfortable being this vulnerable with him, but you suppose if there’s ever a time for venturing into uncharted territory, it’s now. Steve was right about what he said regarding your past relationships - you just never cared enough before. But you do now.
“I stayed there until you were stable,” he says. “I was just so angry that I couldn’t even look at you. The idea that you risked your life for me killed me. I hate the way you risk so much on missions. It makes me feel like I can’t protect you.”
“But sometimes you can’t, Steve. I know I should be less reckless. Being away from you for the last few weeks made me realise that. But I have to be able to make my own decisions too.”
“I know. I know it’s just part of what happens on missions but I can’t deal with you getting hurt for me. Not with you. Because I…”
He swallows hard, eye downturned. He fidgets against your thigh and it makes your heart ache. You’re feeling embarrassingly gushy, watching him be this fragile and open. You’re taken off guard by it.
“Because you want me?”
He gives you a tight, sad sort of smile.
“I want you so bad, I’m not even sure ‘want’ is the right word for it anymore.”
You’re fighting a goofy grin but it’s beaming out of you like sunshine. You kiss him nice and slow, feel his lips move ardently and reverently against your own. Your heart flutters where it presses against his chest, as if trying to fly its way closer to him.
You pour every ounce of your adoration into the kiss and feel Steve's grin against your lips as a response.
You pull away only when your phone buzzes with a text.
NAT: so i see you’re out of the doghouse
NAT: and now i need to find a new partner. goddamn.
a/n: initially this had bucky instead of nat but i kept accidentally creating sexual tension between him and reader lmao i can't help myself with that man
PAIRING: the winter soldier x ditzy!reader
SUMMARY: the winter soldier infiltrates a college halloween party to follow the pretty girl with bunny ears who collided into him on the sidewalk.
WARNINGS: she/her pronouns for reader; ditzy & clueless!reader; reader is mentioned to have hair & wears a skimpy bunny costume; size difference (he's beefy and taller than reader); original characters; mention of punishment and violence (suck dick, hydra); mention of alcohol & weed (they're not the ones intoxicated); mention of murder; bucky mainly speaks russian (it's english in cursive because I don't speak russian + I don't trust google translate when I don't have a basic knowledge of a language) and a little broken english; he asks reader to call him soldat; touch starved bucky; slightly dark & possessive!bucky; light fluff & angst; smut (there is no explicit consent but both of them want it); feral behavior; big dick bucky organization (🙂↕️); oral (f receiving); spanking & pussy spanking; pussy pronouns; nipple play; a little bit of degradation; sex in the woods; unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it pls); primal and rough sex; multiple orgasms; creampie; panty sniffing & stealing.
WORD COUNT: 8.5k
A/N: I posted this last october if I'm not wrong, and honestly this is still one of my favorite one-shots lol. the reader's behavior and personality was heavily inspired by karen from mean girls and rose from the golden girls (a line in particular comes from one of the episodes 🥸). hope you'll enjoy it!
“I can already smell the weed from here. It’s only eleven, for fuck’s sake.” Sarah grimaces as she gets out of the driver’s seat of her Nissan Versa.
“It’s a college party, were you expecting tea and cookies?” Nicole sighs, bent over as she reties the straps of her shoes for the umpteenth time.
The huge mansion sits among the bare trees like a sore thumb. Strings of fake cobwebs dangle from the balconies in tangled clumps, lazily swaying in the cold October breeze. The projectors wash the building in a ghostly glow and pumpkins with bizarre carved faces line the porch, their flickering candles warping the jagged smiles into something unsettling.
The front steps are already crowded with masked people smoking, drinking and laughing too loudly. Sarah snorts out loud as one of the few latecomers nearly trips over a fake gravestone planted in the lawn beside a massive steaming cauldron that reeks faintly of dry ice.
“At least this year Ethan and his minions put some effort into decorating. Do you remember last Halloween?” Nicole turns towards the house with Sarah beside her, but then glances back to find you still standing by the car window, adjusting the corset of your costume.
“Jesus,” Sarah huffs exasperated, planting a hand on her hip. “Stop fussing, you look good!”
“Just a sec…” You mumble absently, turning sideways to check your back.
This year, the three of you agreed to not pick a group costume. Last Halloween had been a disaster from start to finish, mainly because Nicole wanted to go as Cher, Tai and Dionne from Clueless, while you suggested Sam, Clover and Alex from Totally Spies. Sarah was too busy with her now ex-boyfriend to care either way, and a few days before the party she ditched both of you to dress up as Princess Peach and Super Mario with him.
Naturally, you and Nicole still managed to clash over something as simple as matching outfits: she pushed for Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, but you barely knew who they were, so you argued for Daphne and Velma instead. Long story short, neither of you had time to buy decent costumes and ended up throwing together the easiest thing possible: a devil and an angel.
Just like at least thirty other girls at the party.
That same night, Sarah caught her dear Super Mario kissing Princess Daisy—her cousin—in one of the upstairs bathrooms of this exact mansion, and from that moment on, she swore off group costumes forever.
One year later, in front of the Nissan, a Kim Possible looks pretty much done with life, while a Cher from Clueless sits on the curb smoking her first cigarette of the night. And you, a bunny in a very revealing outfit, tap your lips to even out the glittery gloss.
You thought the ears were a little too big when you bought them, but now, paired with the sheer corset and the short skirt, they look perfect.
“Okay,” you tug the skirt down out of instinct, though the snug fabric barely moves against your thighs. “I’m ready!”
“Fucking finally.” Nicole mumbles, lifting herself from the sidewalk with a groan.
“Hey—”
Sarah’s warning comes too late. Your body is already colliding with something solid, hard as steel. A startled yelp escapes you as a large hand instantly clamps around your bare arm to keep you from stumbling backward. You realize your eyes have squeezed shut reflexively only when they flutter open at once, landing directly on a broad chest covered by what looks like a black tactical vest. Your gaze slowly drifts up, along a strong neck, until it catches on a pair of blue eyes staring down at you. The lower half of the stranger’s face is hidden behind a black mask, yet you are instantly fascinated.
“Oh, hi!” You beam, tilting your head slightly, fully aware of how much guys usually love it when you do that.
The bulky stranger simply looks at you, expression barely changing. There’s a faint furrow between his brows that makes it impossible to tell whether he’s assessing you or debating scolding you for nearly knocking yourself flat against him.
A beat of silence passes between you, in which you let your curious eyes roam shamelessly on his face, before dropping to his impossibly large shoulders. Heat tingles low in your stomach, before a hint of embarrassment curls through you at how obvious you must look beneath his unwavering stare.
Someone clears their throat behind you, but you can’t look away. You don’t want to.
“Honey, let the gentleman go, c’mon.” Sarah grabs your wrist while wrapping her other arm around your waist to gently steer you away.
The long fingers around your forearm jump back as if your skin burned him.
“Nice costume, man. Looks expensive.” Nicole nods at the strange guy, still standing rigidly in the same spot. Only his eyes move, tracking you carefully as your friends lead you toward the entrance at an unhurried pace.
Something about him feels off and Sarah has no interest in provoking some potentially dangerous individual. After all, nights like these are full of creeps looking to take advantage of crowded parties and drunk girls.
Still, you glance back twice.
Each time, you catch him still looking at you.
Before fully crossing the threshold and navigating the sea of intoxicated students, your head turns one last time. The stranger is now facing the house with his shoulders squared beneath his dark clothes, and a stupid little thrill runs through your veins at the thought that maybe he might be here for the party as well.
Years without being touched by anything except harsh hands and cold medical equipment, and what unravels the Winter Soldier is a sweet-looking girl wearing bunny ears and clothes so tight he could almost trace the shape of her nipples.
He can’t remember the last time he felt such a delicate thing brush against him.
Because you are soft. Too soft. Too pretty. He could snap your bones with one twist of his wrist, yet you looked at him like you wanted to be swallowed whole.
His heartbeat has not slowed down since the moment his hand closed around your arm. And as much as he wanted to glare at your friend the moment she took you away from him, he had taken the chance to study your body properly: from the luscious curve of your hips straining against that pathetic excuse for a skirt, to the way your tits threatened to spill from the indecent corset that looked almost painted onto your torso. The fishnet stockings bit into your flesh with every step you took, the tiny bows stitched along the hems probably meant to make the costume cute, but to the Soldier, they only made it filthier.
But the thing that truly made him swallow thickly was the puffy, white cotton tail sewn to the back of your skirt, right at the top of your ass.
Fake.
Such a shame.
He could picture it so clearly: grabbing it between his fingers and tugging until you made that sweet little sound again for him.
It makes his jaw clench beneath the mask.
With a sharp shake of his head, the Soldier forces the intrusive thoughts away.
You weren’t supposed to be here. Nobody was.
The orders had been clear: break in, eliminate everyone inside, then wait at the nearest safe house for extraction.
No witnesses.
The target is a former HYDRA scientist who’d escaped over a decade ago. He’d covered his tracks well, moving states almost yearly, changing names often enough to become little more than smoke in old files. The Soldier vaguely wonders if the man had worked on the Winter Soldier project at some point, even if there would be no way to know. The face in the mission folder had looked painfully ordinary. Like all the others.
The wife and son were to be eliminated too, if present.
HYDRA had enforced the no witness rule brutally during his earlier missions. Back when he still hesitated. Back when stray civilians had managed to survive because he’d been too uncertain.
He can almost feel the scars across his back throb faintly at the memory—a lesson carved into flesh.
However, this situation is entirely new for the Asset.
For starters, the black SUV belonging to the scientist is missing from its usual spot in the driveway. And considering the mansion now resembles a nightclub overflowing with sweaty college students in cheap costumes, the target is clearly elsewhere.
He can’t proceed with the mission.
HYDRA hasn’t contacted him with further instructions either, which means he’s expected to wait at the designated safe house until retrieval. That could mean tomorrow. Or next week.
The Soldier looks back at the house spilling laughter and obnoxious music into the cold night air, then glances down at his gloved hand, slowly flexing his fingers.
Your warmth still seems trapped against his palm.
With a quiet exhale, barely audible beneath the pounding bass, he starts walking toward the door.
Inside, it’s pure chaos.
The bass from the speakers had already been rattling the lawn outside, but in here it practically punches through your rib cage. You roll your eyes at the umpteenth awful EDM remix of some new pop song you don’t even know the lyrics to. Personally, you’d rather dance to early 2000s hits—preferably ones not butchered by a DJ with a SoundCloud account and too much confidence.
People spill through every hallway of the mansion. The improvised dance floor is packed shoulder to shoulder with students clumsily grinding against each other beneath flashing purple lights, while smaller groups cling to the walls, shouting over the music with red cups clenched in their hands.
The smell hits the second you step inside: a mix of cheap perfume, spilled beer soaked into hardwood floors, and sweat that makes your nose wrinkle—all layered beneath the sickeningly sweet scent of vape smoke. Laughter ricochets off the high ceilings, blending with shrill screams every time the DJ blasts the fog machine over the crowd.
A staggering vampire bumps hard into your shoulder, nearly sending you wobbling off your pumps, but Sarah promptly catches your elbow before you can stumble. She immediately sends his back a glare, before shooting a look of utter disgust toward a group of visibly wasted frat boys gathered around the kitchen island.
“I hate college.” She gags dramatically, scowling as they loudly dare each other to shotgun whatever neon-colored concoction the host is pouring into their plastic cups.
You grin at her because, honestly, Sarah would rather be home wrapped in a blanket watching some obscure slasher movie marathon. But after the stunt she pulled last Halloween, you and Nicole practically dragged her here by force. Ever since her cheating ex, she’d shut men out entirely, and a small part of you hopes tonight might finally loosen her up enough to flirt with some attractive masked stranger for a few hours.
Your attention drifts toward the windows lining the far wall. Beyond the glass, the quiet street stretches through the chilly night, washed in pale streetlights.
The strange man is nowhere to be seen.
Almost immediately, your eyes flick toward the front door, scanning person after person as they wander in and out. Vampires. Cheerleaders. Devils. Witches. Cowboys.
No sign of the hot, tall man in black tactical gear.
Disappointment settles strangely heavy in your chest. With a small, dejected sigh, you turn back toward your friends, who are currently debating whether it’s worth risking the kitchen—where there’s at least a seventy percent chance of walking in on some couple making out—for drinks, or staying in the living room to dance instead.
Adjusting your bunny ears with a small smile, you vote for alcohol.
“Hey, Nic!”
All three of you turn at the sound of a familiar voice.
Jacob, captain of the basketball team, jogs toward your group, stopping directly in front of Nicole with an easy grin plastered across his face.
“Hey, girls. Nice costumes.” He grins, wiggling his fingers at you and Sarah in greeting. She gives him a flat nod in return.
“Hi, Jacob! You too!” You smile politely, before leaning closer to your friend. “Is that a... basketball uniform?” You mumble into her ear.
“Of course.” She raises both eyebrows, pressing her lips together as she fights a chuckle at the sight of your college team’s uniform.
Jacob isn’t a bad guy. Just a little painfully self-absorbed. And maybe slightly too obsessed with basketball—to the point where being team captain has somehow become his entire personality. Nicole went on one date with him last semester and came back with a migraine after listening to him talk about playoff rankings for nearly two hours straight.
She’d tried letting him down gently afterward, but he insisted on staying friends. Now he trails after her like an overgrown golden retriever.
“Which player did he dress up as?” You ask quietly.
Sarah’s face goes completely blank. She stares at you for a full second, mouth opening and closing once before she gives up entirely and decides eavesdropping on their conversation is more worthwhile.
“I need a teammate for beer pong,” he mentions offhandedly, pointing toward the long folding table at the far end of the living room, where rows of red cups are already set up beneath flashing lights.
Nicole grimaces slightly. “I don’t know. Maybe later? I’m with my friends right now.”
“Don’t worry about us, Nic.” You interrupt immediately, grabbing Sarah’s arm before she can object. “We’re getting drinks, then we’ll come find you, right?”
Sarah smirks at Jacob’s instantly hopeful expression and nods once.
“See?” He spreads his arms dramatically. “C’mon, we’re gonna crush them. Don’t you remember? You’ve got a winning streak to defend.”
Nicole laughs—a sharp, bright sound that somehow cuts through the pounding music.
“Okay, fine.” She sighs, sending you a half-smile.
As she steps beside him, someone near the table suddenly shouts her name. Then another voice joins in. Within seconds, half the group is chanting Nicole! loud enough to rival a halftime show.
Throwing her arms into the air, she pumps her fists along with the cheers like she’s entering a stadium instead of a living room.
Sarah shakes her head before nudging you toward the kitchen. “C’mon, Lola Bunny. Let’s get a drink.”
If his handlers found out about this, he isn’t sure he would get away with something as mild as hair pulling and a few lashes on his back.
“Cool outfit, dude!”
A guy dressed up as a banana—only his face visible through the costume—shouts after him. The Soldier glances at him briefly, expression unreadable, before continuing to run a silent scan of the room, re-evaluating the night’s target. His enhanced senses catch everything at once, unfortunately: from the humid press of bodies, to the sour-sweet spill of rum beside the DJ booth. Sweat and perfume and alcohol mingle into something thick and suffocating.
“Shit, man. That’s a nice costume you got there.” Someone slurs behind him. “Looks like real metal—” Before the hand can even reach his wrist, instincts detonate and his fingers clutch the guy’s forearm.
Hard.
“Ow ow ow—sorry sorry! Y—You’re crushing my bones, dude!”
The man wearing a cheap Jack Sparrow costume goes pale beneath the eyeliner, features twisting in pain as the Asset looms over him, a silent threat carved into posture alone.
At some point, he registers a small cluster of students turning towards them, whispering with curiosity blooming into something sharper.
Exhaling, the Soldier ultimately decides to release his grip. The pirate stumbles back into his friend, who immediately starts scolding him about consent and personal space.
Satisfied with the clear warning, the Soldier turns around, moving again through the crowd.
He raises an eyebrow, scanning the sea of people with his keen eyes. Finally, he catches a familiar pair of bunny ears excitedly turning left and right.
He walks to a dark corner of the living room with deliberate ease, folding his arms across his chest and leisurely resting back against the wall.
And he waits.
Nicole’s yellow and navy-blue plaid jacket is neatly draped across Sarah’s arm as she rolls up the sleeves of her shirt, a cocky grin spreading across her face.
“Watch and learn, losers.” She snaps, reaching for a ping-pong ball.
From the sidelines, Sarah offers a shout of encouragement, her voice already a little hoarse from all the previous screaming as Nicole sank those balls one right after the other in the rival team’s cups with brutal consistency. You lean into her slightly, eyes tracking the table from one end to the other as a red cup still full of peach vodka sits loosely in your hand, mostly forgotten as you watch the game unfold.
Nicole lines up her shot with practiced ease, wrist flicking at just the right angle. The ball arcs, drops, and sinks cleanly into the last cup with a satisfying splash.
The crowd erupts, chants of her name break out from multiple directions as you and Sarah cheer, briefly pulling Nicole into a tight, celebratory hug. Jacob throws himself at her, and she shrieks as his muscled arms lift her body from the ground, parading your friend around like he would do with the player scoring at the last minute of an important game. Nicole blows a kiss at the losing team, and once her feet touch the floor again, she bows before the intoxicated crowd surrounding the table.
You dart forward to hug her again, while Sarah claps behind you, still laughing.
“God, you were amazing. That was a really Tour de France!” You beam excitedly, but Nicole just stares at you deadpan for a second, before bursting out laughing, too tipsy to deal with your clueless ass.
“Thank you, bunny.”
“Also, Jacob is still very much smitten with you.” Your eyebrows wriggle up and down and Nicole is already sighing half-amused, lips parting to say something, but Sarah’s voice cuts through the moment, sharp.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Her expression tightens, focus snapping in place as she leans closer to you and Nicole, lowering her voice.
“Tactical guy is here.”
“Who?”
“The weird guy you bumped into outside. Black gear and blue eyes. Tactical guy.” She explains as if her choice of the nickname should be obvious.
He’s easy to spot because he doesn’t belong here—not in movement, not in stillness, not in anything about the way he stands. He towers above the crowd in matte black, posture too controlled and a judging frown permanently etched on his features.
The people around him are too inebriated to notice him, yet he doesn’t even spare a mere glance to anyone who isn’t you, not even the girl in a lingerie-level costume strutting up and down the room, hoping to catch the attention of his icy eyes.
She doesn’t know he’s busy admiring a much better view that is making his pants tighter and tighter the more he studies it.
“Holy shit,” Nicole gasps. “He’s staring at you.”
Your stomach does a weird flip at her confirmation. At least you aren’t imagining it.
“Yeah, and it’s creepy as hell. He hasn’t blinked once in the past five minutes.” Sarah frowns, goosebumps running up and down her arms. Nicole just smirks, eyes flicking between him and your parted lips.
“Go talk to him!”
“What? No way!” Sarah retorts, her head snapping towards the other. “He looks like he eats people like her for breakfast.”
“Duh, that’s exactly her type!” Nicole chuckles, nudging you forward as she gently takes the cup of vodka from your hand. “C’mon, put on that pretty smile of yours and he’ll be asking you to go upstairs before the next song starts.”
Across the room, his steady gaze still hasn’t moved.
Sarah grabs your right arm again. “Seriously, something’s off about him.”
“Boring!” Nicole says in a singsong voice, rolling her eyes to the sky. “We’re literally right here if anything happens.” She touches your left elbow, subtly pushing you forward.
If this were a cartoon, they’d be the angel and devil arguing over your shoulders.
You grin as usual, even if your heart is pounding so fast you are sure it’s going to come out of your chest any moment now.
With a small nod, you leave your two bickering friends behind and slowly make your way through the bodies swaying to the beat of Candy Shop. Your heels click against the sticky floor, until they stop short in front of the brooding man.
“Hey.” You smile, shouting over the music. “You look kinda lonely. It’s okay if you don’t know anyone, first parties are totally the worst. At my first college party, I ended up throwing up on my crush’s shoes after kissing him.” He doesn’t answer, but a deep line forms between his eyebrows.
“You’re very quiet, but that’s fine. My friend Sarah says I talk enough for two people. Or a whole group, depends on how much caffeine I’ve had.” You shrug.
Still nothing.
“So, um… what’s your name?” You tilt your head, this time expecting at least a reluctant answer, but the guy just keeps staring down at you with an unreadable expression.
“You’re the silent type, hm?” You muse, your amused chuckle soft. “That’s okay. You’re like those spy movie protagonists who never smile until the very end, and then make everyone swoon the second they do.”
He blinks once. Slowly. Maybe a little confused?
“Anyway,” your manicured fingers adjust your bunny headband as you introduce yourself. “I don’t know if you remember but I actually ran into you earlier outside. Sorry again about that. I’m a little clumsy.” You clear your throat, taking a step forward.
“You really are a good listener, by the way!” You sigh dreamily. “Most guys just check their phones halfway through our conversation.”
“So,” You lean closer, slightly standing on the tip of your toes. “Do you want to dance? You look like you need to loosen up a little.” Your eyes immediately fall down to his torso, following the sculpted muscles hidden under those heavy clothes. It’s honestly a miracle slick doesn’t start running down your thighs the moment you realize he could literally pin you to the ground and have his wicked way with you right here in the middle of the party.
Well, you spoke too fast.
The flimsy pair of panties you chose tonight to avoid the outline to be seen through the fit skirt, is getting damper. The thought of this beefy man fucking you until you pass out tickles the back of your brain for a second too long, and suddenly your thighs are clenching against each other in a way you are certain went unnoticed.
It didn’t. But you couldn’t know that the man in front of you is an enhanced individual who could probably track you from a single sniff of your pussy.
The pungent scent of something inherently you teases his nostrils even through the thick black mask. Yet he hesitates, as though he’s trying to determine whether ignoring you would make this conversation end faster. The problem is, he isn’t entirely sure he wants it to end. On one hand, he doubts he can keep himself together much longer if you continue speaking to him in that sweet voice, especially while standing this close to his starved body.
On the other… he doesn’t want to leave you.
But then you slip your hand into his left one, and his body stiffens.
“Wow, your hands are freezing!” You mention casually, squeezing his palm once. It’s indeed cold and weirdly smooth. Before his brain can fully process the alarming ease with which you’ve intertwined your fingers with the most dangerous weapon he possesses, you are unknowingly leading the fucking Winter Soldier straight onto a dance floor packed with sweaty college students—him silent and tense behind you, you practically glowing with excitement.
Yet, he doesn’t dare to stop you.
Why would he do that? A gorgeous girl with soft hands and even softer eyes has been watching him like he embodies all her prohibited wet fantasies. He would be a cruel bastard to deny this pretty thing anything.
The dance floor is a chaos of flashing lights and flailing arms that makes the Soldier’s breath hitch, but you don’t give up, and lead him right into the middle of it.
“Okay!” You yell over the music—far too close—and raise a finger. “Rule number one: just move! Don’t think too much about it or you’ll get self-conscious. I’m talking from experience.” Then raise a second one. “Rule number two: have fun!”
He just stands there—stiff as a marble statue—blue eyes darting back and forth, as if he can’t decide whether to scan the crowd like he’s on guard duty or watch the angel swaying her sinful hips right in front of him.
“See? It’s easy! Just let the music guide you.”
You smile anyway at his lack of response, peering up at him through your eyelashes. “You know, you look so cool. You’ve got this very brooding bodyguard vibe going on, like I’m some rich, dangerous man’s daughter and you’re protecting me from his enemies trying to harm me.”
Another confused blink.
“Maybe I read too many fanfics.” You ponder under your breath, before you reprise your little tantalizing moves, giggling as your fingers barely wrap around both of his wrists to coax him to move with you.
Somewhere at the edge of the improvised dance floor, Nicole is whooping, bouncing on her feet like an overexcited puppy as she takes a sip of your drink. Beside her, Sarah observes the scene appalled.
“Shit.” She mutters, tiredly dragging a hand down her face.
“I like your company. You don’t talk much, but that’s okay. Also, you’re kind of scary—but like, in a cute way.” You chuckle, twirling once and nearly bumping into him again.
That’s when it happens.
A slow, careful shift of his shoulders, but it still is something. His movements are stiff, precise, like his body is negotiating with itself about whether it’s allowed to respond at all. But it’s enough to make you smile satisfied.
The heavy bass pulses hard through your bones, and for a moment, it’s easy to forget he isn’t even really dancing, yet his presence feels like gravity: solid, unshakable, dragging attention toward him without trying.
You turn once again, this time giving him your back. His hand accidentally brushes your hip, causing you to shiver at the faintest twitch of his fingers. They jump back at his side, flexing once like he’s fighting the urge to touch you.
You tilt your head up at him, eyelashes lowered just enough to make it feel deliberate. “Are you having fun, big guy?”
You don’t expect an answer, obviously, but the way his gaze sharpens, intensely following the movement of your lips, is enough for you. It’s not unsettling. On the contrary, it feels… focused. And you already love being the centre of his undivided attention.
The music slows into a deeper beat, couples around you melting closer together, so you get bolder. Initially it’s your back simply brushing against his chest. And then, you unexpectedly find yourself gasping as his right arm circles your waist, keeping you firmly to his front. His jaw locks as you rub yourself against his solid body, your ass inevitably grinding against his bulge. For a second, you really think he might actually say something. Instead, his chest moves behind you with a slow exhale.
“You are so beautiful.” He murmurs against your neck, almost too quiet to hear. As a matter of fact, you don’t catch that, the words being swallowed by the loud song and the thick mask.
“Not so bad, right?” You bite your bottom lip, turning your face back enough to glance at him.
But your lips accidentally brush his mask and the last thread keeping his brain anchored to sanity rips in half.
“Oh!” A loud squeal erupts from your lips as the man spins you around and takes you into his arms. Suddenly, the world is hanging upside down.
Well, no. You are.
He throws your squirming body on his shoulder with an ease that should scare you, yet your stomach twists in excitement as you are kept completely still into his strong arms. You can feel several eyes burn through you as he struts towards the front door, an abrupt gust of cold wind sending a shiver down your spine as you realize he’s taking you somewhere outside.
“Oh my Gosh!” You giggle, feeling the urge to kick your legs like a teenage girl gushing about her crush.
He’s taking you to the woods. This is really happening!
Inside, Nicole freezes mid-sip. “What the—is he taking her away?”
“I told you! Fuck, Nicole! I told you!” Sarah shrieks, running to the door with her friend in tow. They both stop on the porch, eyes frantically searching into the darkness, until they see you waving at them from his shoulder, grinning ear to ear.
“Don’t wait up!” Nicole bursts out laughing, astonished.
“Holy shit, look at her, she’s loving it!”
Sarah groans in response, pressing a hand to her forehead, her chest heaving with quick, short breaths. “She’s giggling. She’s actually giggling. Why is she giggling?”
Nicole simply shrugs. “If a quiet, huge masked man with those gorgeous eyes picked me up like that to fuck me in the woods, I’d giggle too.”
They observe in silence as you get smaller and smaller, until you completely disappear amongst the dense trees. Nicole sighs, placing her hands on her hips.
“Well, you heard her, don’t need to wait up.” She claps once, skipping down the front steps.
“Where the fuck are you going? Of course we’re gonna wait for her to come back.” Nicole stops at the bottom of the stoop, throwing Sarah a deadpan look.
“You really think she’s coming back here? They will probably go at it like bunnies—pun not intended—all night, and then he’s going to take her home tomorrow morning.” She climbs two steps, grasping her friend’s wrist. “Like any adult having fun on Halloween.” She tugs at it, until Sarah reluctantly complies, hesitatingly following her to the Nissan.
“I don’t know, Nic. There’s something wrong about him—”
“So what if the guy is quiet? Maybe he just wants to stay in character.” She huffs, raising both her eyebrows expectantly.
“Mmh... that makes sense.” Sarah mutters, frowning at the trees. “Where are we going, by the way?”
“Home. And we are watching the new The Conjuring. You look miserable here.”
“Well thanks, you asshole.”
“You still haven’t told me your name.” You breathe out, yet to be released. After a few seconds of silence, you huff out a laugh. “You really don’t talk much, do you? By the way, that exit was so dramatic. I loved it!” He grunts in reply, shaking his head. It’s a deep sound that makes your legs shake a little, and you hope you’ll hear it again when he pounds you against a tree.
The walk feels endless as you dangle upside down, forced to watch the ground without anyone to talk to. Finally, he stops in a rather secluded place, and from the looks of it, you must be quite far from Ethan’s house.
Good. You don’t need some wandering drunk couple ruining your night.
As soon as your heels touch the crouching leaves scattered on the damp land, you shriek in surprise, finding yourself pinned to a tree as the man’s hands eagerly explore the sides of your body.
“O—oh! That—that feels nice.” You gasp when his palms squeeze your tits, his thumbs roughly stroking your nipples. The Asset’s eyes don’t know where to focus, torn between your hazy eyes staring up at him pleadingly and the outline of your turgid nubs pressing insistently against the fabric of your top.
“I need to kiss you.” He mumbles, the tip of your nose brushing against his mask. The hoarseness in his voice makes you flinch. It feels like he hasn’t spoken in a while... A long while.
“I don’t understand you.” You complain, clinging onto his vest to keep him close. He sighs, abruptly leaving your chest to cradle your face with a certain rudeness that twists your insides with arousal.
“Kiss. But you close… eyes…” He utters tentatively, staring right into your sparkling eyes. “Don’t look.”
The implications of seeing his face are several and dire. First and foremost, he doesn’t even remember the last time he saw his reflection, and his heart wouldn’t bear a potential rejection. What HYDRA forces him to do is repulsive, but of course you don’t know who he is—and you don’t need to. His face could reflect that repulsiveness though, and be in the worst conditions known to mankind. At that point, why would someone as lovely as you allow him to taint your body with his touch?
Plus, recognizing him would mean putting a target as large as a skyscraper on your back. If anyone were to ever find out about this, you would be in serious danger with both legal and illegal organizations.
The less you know, the better.
Your eager nod momentarily sets his worries, your hands immediately shooting up to cover your face. The Soldier’s mouth twists into what should be a small smile, but probably looks more like a grimace after years of his features knowing only pain and anger. His trembling fingers reach for the side of the mask, stopping there briefly to take you in. He waits, just enough to make sure you are actually following his order. Then, the device is tossed to the side with an uncaring flick of his hand, falling on the ground with a dull thud.
His fingers shake as they wrap around each of your wrists, waiting.
“Kiss, but… don’t look.” He repeats, his voice coming out in a rough, agitated whisper.
“My eyes are closed.” You swear, giving him a resolute nod. The Soldier lowers your hands with great care, until he can see your pinched expression as you keep your eyes squeezed shut.
And then, your lips finally meet. From the way he was treating you a second ago, you would think he was going to kiss you just as softly, like a doll made of glass.
Wrong.
The kiss is feral. His teeth clash against yours, biting and tasting you as if he has been waiting for you his whole life, his tongue frantically searching yours as his hands keep your jaw firmly open, allowing him to do whatever he wants with you.
And you can’t help a needy whimper from clawing out of your throat.
The Soldier pulls you closer to his chest, his metal arm now wrapping around your waist as the other hand traces a slow path down your body, from the side of your breast to your exposed thigh, leaving behind a trail of goosebumps.
He knows he just crossed an inviolable line he won’t easily come back from. He was ruined the moment he decided to look for you inside that chaotic mansion instead of following HYDRA’s orders. Yet, that stinging guilt rapidly crumbles the more he kisses this sweet creature.
He has yearned for something warm for so long. Something soft, and pretty, and nice. Something that is completely and utterly his. And now, it is time to finally collect what he is owed.
The sloppy kiss is met with eagerness from your part, your hands urgently tugging at his vest to keep him pressed against your squirming form. You need more. You need to feel him too.
He reaches for the corset first, pulling both cups down until your breasts spill free from their confines. Once his lips leave yours to focus on your neck, you let out a gasp at how dizzy you feel—your head has been spinning all along because of the intensity radiating off him.
Your moans are still pretty restrained, and the Asset doesn’t like that at all. He wants to hear you whimper for him, beg him to paint your insides white, scream his name over and over again in that sweet voice of yours.
His name.
He doesn’t own a name.
Maybe you could give him one. You sound like a creative girl, with all your silly little anecdotes.
When his mouth finally reaches the swell of your chest, the sight of your soft, bare tits makes him grunt appreciatively. His lips immediately latch onto one of your nipples, while his capable fingers flick and tug at the other. Your whimpers echo through the small clearing as he uses his teeth to lightly pull at your sensitive nub, moaning as he feels it hardening in his mouth. The way he kneads and sucks at your soft skin reminds you of a starving man being offered food after a week without eating.
The Soldier has never seen a more beautiful pair of breasts in his entire life. Well, he doesn’t remember ever looking at a woman’s chest before, but if he did, he is sure it wouldn’t even get close to yours.
The hickeys that now mark the tender skin of your tits are burning, causing you to flinch each time the Soldier’s tongue worships them softly.
“What—oh shit—what’s your name?” You utter between your own wanton noises, eyes still closed as your head falls back against the bark of the tree. Your bare back keeps brushing against it as your body jerks in time with his tongue stroking your nipples. They are so sore, tingling whenever he leaves one exposed to the chilly October air to give the other some love. Still, the scratches on your back are already burning as the coarse surface cruelly scrapes your skin, and you’re certain they are going to hurt so bad in the following days.
The Asset momentarily leaves your nub with a wet pop, frowning up at your parted lips. He grips your jaw with one hand, keeping your mouth open while rising to his full height. He gathers a bit of saliva, before letting it fall gently onto your tongue. Your breath hitches at the unexpected, lewd act.
“Swallow.” His cock twitches at the way you obey at once.
“Soldat.” His voice is authoritative, leaving no space for questions and doubts, before going back to lavish your nipples. Your eyebrows momentarily knit in confusion, not understanding what it means.
Is it a video game character? Is that why he’s all geared up like some sort of spy?
Your brain doesn’t have the time to elaborate a sensible question, as a twist of your poor, abused peaks draws a loud cry out of your throat.
The scent coming from between your legs is now too much for his straining cock. He needs to taste all of you: your mouth is sweet, your breasts are sweet... but the Soldier is certain your pussy is even sweeter.
With an annoyed huff at the realization he has to leave your tits, he makes quick work of removing his tactical vest, tossing it on the ground. You squeal as you are once again lifted in the air; still, you keep your eyes firmly shut and that makes his expression soften a little.
“You’re such a good girl for me, sweetheart.” With a small peck, he takes you away from the poor tree that has already witnessed enough for one night, manhandling you down on your knees and guiding your hands on the ground to make you understand he wants you on all four.
“Stay.” The order growled right into your ear, along with his hands squeezing your hips, makes you whimper and nod quickly as a reflex.
Now that he’s behind you, you deem the situation safe enough for you to slowly open your eyes. Black spots soon materialize out of nowhere, yet you notice immediately the rough fabric underneath you.
“Oh,” you blink at it. “Thank you, Soldat.”
There might be a feral beast clawing at his chest, challenging him to take you right there right now, over and over again, but he doesn’t want the rough ground to scratch your knees and palms. The softness in your voice makes him tense up, enough to feel an unfamiliar sting behind his eyes. His name—his title—said with so much gentleness stokes the flames in his lower belly until he feels a damn blaze licking at his insides.
You barely catch the black glove being discarded to the side as his calloused hands grope your hips, pushing you back against his crotch. You gasp at the ferocity he puts into his thrusts as he starts rutting your ass, grunting and panting with the effort of not coming in his pants like a fucking virgin seeing a pretty girl half-naked for the first time.
“This is what you’ve done to me.” He groans under his breath.
“Soldat…” You hum, one arm reaching behind to caress a strong thigh. “Don’t tell me you’re going to come like this, humping me like an animal.” The little airy giggle you let out makes him swallow, a shiver running down his back at those mocking words that should make him recoil. Instead, the fire grows, and before he can regain control of his body, his hips stop abruptly.
His nimble fingers don’t waste any more time, lifting the hem of your skirt until your ass is completely at his mercy.
“Yes, yes!” You encourage him, gently rocking back. The heady scent is stronger now, but it’s still not enough. The flimsy panties leave you with a sad ripping noise and a feral growl rumbling in his chest. A gasp falls from your lips at the sudden bareness of your core, giggling when you hear him inhale deeply. Is he smelling your underwear? Fuck, you want to turn around so bad and enjoy the show.
The Soldier almost drools when your scent clings to his nose, along with your slick soiling the delicate fabric. He clumsily stuffs your panties into his pocket, shifting around until he’s lying right beneath the lower half of your body.
“C’mere, bunny.” His digits sink into the skin of your thighs, forcing you down until you are fully sitting on his face. “It’s time to eat.”
“Wait! Oh, fuck!” Your lips part pathetically around a breathy moan as his tongue looks for your clit, pulling your knees apart until you’re completely spread open for him. Tears form at the corners of your eyes as your hips uncontrollably buckle down, clawing at the vest when the tip of his tongue leisurely flicks your throbbing nub.
A loud moan escapes your lips when he finally breaches your hole, eating and sucking as if he’s savoring the most exquisite delicacy he’s ever had the chance to taste. Your body squirms at the unforgiving stimulation, still, you’re covering his face like a fucking oxygen mask and you’re far too worried he’s not breathing at all.
“S—Soldat, wait! You can’t brea—AH!” A smacking sound echoes through the air as his palm leaves his mark on your asscheek. “Fuck, please! Do it again.” You beg, hips grinding down without restraint as slick shamelessly falls into his waiting mouth.
Finally.
The Asset internally preens at your enthusiastic reaction to something he did so spontaneously. Unprompted. Human.
Because you are not treating him like a ruthless weapon. A lethal killer that acts in the shadow. An ugly experiment with no dignity left.
But like a man.
So he does it again. And again.
“Taste so good, my pretty bunny.” He rasps out, returning to your clit, two of his fingers curling inside you in the meantime. You yelp, the knot in your belly getting closer and closer to snapping. Your asscheeks are burning, yet you don’t stop his punishing palm, instead arching up into his hand every time it comes down on your tender skin.
“I’m gonna come.” You mumble deliriously, sobbing when in response his metal palm smacks your ass before meanly grabbing the tender flesh, and a third finger joins the other two, pounding against that sweet spot of yours before your orgasm hits you out of nowhere.
“Fuck fuck—Soldat!”
He wonders what he’s going to do from now on when he hears that word. It would be impossible to not get hard as your delightful whines resound through his mind.
Your hole clenches desperately as he nurses on your throbbing clit one last time, panting heavily once he lifts your shaky thighs up.
“Holy shit.” He whispers surprised, licking his lips clean. His lower face is completely damp with your arousal, and in that moment he decides he’s not going to wash his face until the scent disappears on its own.
The Soldier takes a good, long look at your trembling body, now back on his knees behind you. His palms gently caress your raw skin, pulling a shiver out of you as one of his two palms is colder than the other, yet the sensation is soothing against your burning cheeks.
He would really love to kiss the sensitive spots until you fall asleep, but he can’t stop now, not when his cock is painfully craving to be inside you, his imposing bulge pushing forcefully against his pants.
The rustling sounds behind you are loud but you can’t find it in yourself to focus, still dizzy after the violent orgasm Soldat drew out of you mercilessly. You are not inexperienced by any means, yet you’ve never come this hard and fast in your life. You wonder if it’s the whole situation influencing you—being half-naked in the woods while a feral, beefy stranger eats your pussy as if it’s his last day on Earth—or if he’s just that good.
Maybe it’s a mix of both, maybe it’s something else. You don’t care. You just want him to rearrange your insides. Now.
You seem to share the same sentiment as your eyes widen at his cock obstinate at your wet folds. Your gasp soon morphs into a startled moan when the tip slides inside. The way he feeds you his length is far from careful, and without warning, your hole is tightening around all of him.
The Soldier needs to take a deep breath, the muscles in his abdomen clenching to prevent himself from disappointing you by spilling his cum at once.
When was the last time he was intimate with someone? When was the last time he felt something other than fear?
He doesn’t hold back, gradually pulling back, before lust takes over him and your trembling arms give up under you. You fall forward with a whimper, resting your cheek on his vest as his grip on your hips becomes brutal, and barely catching the foreign words being muttered under his breath.
You are delirious with pleasure, the stretch of his thick girth burning so good you can’t breath—for a second you truly fear your hole is going to tear apart.
It’s almost humiliating how it takes only a big cock and a pair of broad shoulders to reduce you to a shaky mess of moans and whimpers.
“Beautiful, sweet creature... you’re so lovely.” The obscene, sloppy noises of your pussy swallowing every inch of him drives him insane. You’re like heaven incarnate wrapped around him, and he refuses to leave, his hips barely pulling back as he clumsily humps you from behind.
“Mine, mine, mine.” You whisper the name he gave you, lying helpless with your eyes rolled into oblivion and drool soaking the dark fabric under you. It’s a miracle how the bunny headband still survives on your head as his harsh thrusts push your body back and forth, your fingers weakly holding onto the same ruined vest that your nipples brush against, now rubbed raw and sensitive.
“That’s a good girl. She’s squeezing me so tight, baby. I can’t let you go now that I found you, need to keep you forever here around my cock.” He grits out, head falling back as he feels his orgasm dangerously close, yet he’s ready to deny himself over and over again until he can feel you come around him again.
“Bet you’d like that... be my little cumdump until you are too full it starts spilling down your thighs. But I’ll just fuck more into you and then everyone will know you are fucking mine.” That’s when, with his mind clouded by pure pleasure, he reaches between your wet thighs, experimentally spanking your clit.
“Fuck!” Your squeal pulls a smirk on his lips, prompting him to do that again, his thrusts still frantic and erratic.
“Take it, my sweet little bunny. That’s it.”
Your nub throbs as the man fucking you like an animal smacks it repeatedly, and you’re certain he’s enjoying himself so much watching you jolt each time, panting like a dog the louder you whimper. His tip relentlessly taps your sweet spot, and it’s just a matter of time before you let out a delirious moan, walls tightening as your second climax washes over you—this time leaving you stiff and crying as wave after wave of bliss settle deep in your bones.
“Got… you.” The Asset grits out breathless as he buries his cock deep into you with a hard, final thrust, succumbing to the overwhelming sensation of your hole squeezing him. He falls over the edge with a guttural groan. Thick, hot ropes of cum flood your insides at once—there’s so much of it you almost choke at the unfamiliar yet pleasant sensation of being stuffed full.
You shiver under him, exhausted but sated, yet the Soldier doesn’t seem to want to budge, still hugging you tight as his thighs shakes at every little twitch of his cock.
It feels too much.
His dick snug inside your tight heat, your body held with care by the same hands soiled with innocents’ blood, the sudden emptiness in his chest after such a heavenly experience... Should he cry? He feels like crying. He’s almost certain of it, though he doesn’t understand why. He just had the best night of his entire life with the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.
Still, the weird sensation sits somewhere deep in his chest, heavy and unfamiliar, pressing against ribs that only know obedience and survival.
He knows he’ll have to move eventually, reality catching up to him the moment he steps too far from this strange warmth you keep offering so freely.
But he doesn’t want to let you go yet.
Honestly, he isn’t sure he can.
“Soldat, my back hurts.” Your voice is feeble yet tinted with amusement. Still, he scrambles on his knees, pulling out carefully in fear of hurting you. You wheeze softly at the sudden loss, your weak arms barely moving at your sides as you try to get yourself into an upright position, but the man behind you has other plans. You find yourself facing him at once, gently led down until your back is touching the vest.
With your mind too foggy with exhaustion, it is hard to remember the only rule he gave you. And shock flashes across your face the moment you can finally see Soldat’s handsome features clearly.
Your lips part, a compliment already rising to the surface, but it never makes it out. His hands come up instead, cradling your face with surprising tenderness before guiding you into a slow, lingering kiss. There’s no urgency in his actions this time, no hunger sharpened by desperation. Just some deep and achingly careful adoration that makes your heart clench painfully all the same. The kind of kiss that feels dangerously close to a goodbye. Like he’s trying to memorize you through touch alone.
He kisses you until your lungs are begging for oxygen, and when he finally pulls away, neither of you can move. His blue eyes simply observe you, urgently tracing your features with a spark of veneration glinting in his gaze.
You look like the personification of debauchery with your smudged mascara and lips swollen from kissing and biting, the poor bunny ears hanging crookedly from your hair after being fucked so crudely.
Yet, the Winter Soldier thinks he has never seen anything prettier.
“I looked at you.” You whisper softly, your dazed eyes dancing over his face with sleepy fascination, utterly devoid of remorse.
His right thumb lovingly strokes your cheek, and somewhere beneath the Soldier, beneath HYDRA’s cruelty, something human finally smiles back at you.
warnings: MDNI, smut, power dynamic, fingering, dirty talk, oral (m+f), p in v, unprotected sex
author's note: much love to my bwa girlies - i seriously don't know what i'd do without you guys. 💓 see if you can count how many nods to bwa there are in this fic! i tried to be smart with it, but i don't know if i managed it.
The skyscraper that housed Thunderbolt Records cut an intimidating figure across the milky dawn. You greeted the pair of security guards at the door with a sunny smile, unfazed by the early hour, and swiped your badge through the card reader before proceeding through to the white marble of the lobby.
As you stepped into the elevator, you pulled your planner out of your bag and started cross-checking the day's schedule with relevant emails or itinerary changes, making sure that everything would go smoothly. It was your daily ritual, as James Barnes's assistant, to be prepared for anything.
The only thing that needed to be adjusted was the reservation for dinner tonight. He always forgot the name of the restaurant, but he liked their whiskey so much that you had to call ahead every time to make sure they had it, before confirming the reservation. Your boss had a lot of things on his plate, so it would have to be a late dinner. It usually was. As the founder of the label, he had a lot of little people doing the work for him, but he preferred to be hands on. Nothing happened at the label without his explicit approval.
The eightieth floor opened to you, your heels clicking softly against the floor as you made your way to your desk, stationed right outside Bucky's—he insisted you remain informal with him—office. You hooked your bag on the arm of your chair and laid your planner and phone out beside your laptop. He hadn't arrived yet, which gave you the extra time to do a quick sweep for anything urgent that needed to be left on his desk.
You loved spending your days in your little cubicle, still able to see directly through the open door to his office. You'd get more than a little distracted watching him as the hours passed, talking into his phone or rubbing a hand over his jaw as he read through emails. When he was frustrated, he'd put his hands on his hips and stare out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, and your eyes would trace the lines of his back, the flex of his shoulders, the way his waist tapered. You would never say it out loud, but the few times he'd called someone into his office to chew them out had been unfairly attractive. Even when he was pissed, he was still articulate, his eyes blazing, his jaw clenched, hands in fists by his sides.
You'd never seen him wear anything other than one of his tailored suits. Even when he came in on a day off, he was still dressed for business. Bucky made his own hours, but he always seemed to be there, which meant you usually were, too. You saw him more than you saw your own family. You'd been to countless album release parties with him, taking note of the famous faces or the journalists both of the savory and unsavory variety. His private jet was like a second home at this point, from the number of times you'd flown around the world with him. Professionalism was important to him, and so you dressed the part too, always wearing the smartest businesswear you could afford, taking care to have your wardrobe dry-cleaned and pressed, and to try to stay on top of the current trends. You could tell he approved, even though he never said anything. You knew based on the way he'd assess you, from head to toe, with those sharp eyes of his, the way his mouth would curl into the smallest of smiles.
You checked the time. It was just after six thirty, which meant he'd be here any minute now. Your printer whirred softly behind you as you waited for it to finish with the project tracking sheet. You had already flagged multiple branding and partnership emails, but you highlighted the ones you thought were the most beneficial to the label. It technically wasn't a part of your job to offer your own opinions, but Bucky had told you time and again not to hold back when it came to your takes. It was more surprising that he actually listened to them and took them into account before he made a decision. It made you feel like you did more than coordinate travel and manage his schedule. It made you feel like you were actually doing something worthwhile.
You stacked the papers neatly into a pile and placed them on the center of his desk before you returned to your own. You did a cursory check on the label's social media accounts. You didn't run them—what a nightmare that would be—but you did always look for anything out of the ordinary, just in case. Everything appeared normal; just an announcement about Firing Stars and their tour dates. You'd probably be attending at least two of their shows; you'd be guaranteed tickets to any concert you wanted, with backstage and VIP passes to boot. It was one of the best parts of the job, getting to see any musical act you wanted without having to scrimp and save for nosebleed seats. You'd been to countless shows with Natasha, one of the label's senior event coordinators, Carol, one of the in-house producers, and Wanda, the photographer you called anytime Bucky was going to be interviewed. She always got his good side, not that he had a bad one.
As you swiped out of Instagram, you heard the unmistakable sound of Bucky's shoes—Italian leather, specially made— on the marble. You saw him a moment later, one hand in the pocket of his navy blue trousers, the other holding what you knew was a triple espresso in a to-go cup. "Good morning," you said softly, your fingers wiggling in a wave.
He smiled at you over the rim of his cup as he took a sip, his version of saying hello, before he slipped through the door to his office and sat down. You saw him immediately pick up the stack of papers you'd left for him and get to reading them, focused on the task, which meant you had more than enough time to admire him from your own chair. You'd worked for him for over three years at this point, but you were still taken aback by how handsome he was. You often had to do a double take when you saw his side profile, because it felt like you were looking at a Greek statue come to life.
You looked at him now, his brow creased in concentration, eyes glued to the pages as he lifted his cup to his mouth and took a sip. His throat bobbed as he drank down his coffee, his tongue poking out to wet his lips. He mouthed some of the words silently as he read, like he was committing them to memory. Your eyes travelled down to the set of his shoulders, straight under the jacket, the midnight shade of the fabric bringing out the blue of his eyes.
He always started his day wearing a button-up shirt, slacks, and a jacket, but sometime in the late afternoon he would inevitably, without fail, toss the suit jacket carelessly over the back of his leather chair and pop the top buttons by his collar, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It was enough to make you bite your lip and burn a hole into your desk with your eyes, the afterimage of him burned into your brain. Your knees would always knock together as your thighs clenched, the movement instinctual.
His eyes flicked up briefly to yours, and you rearranged your features to be passive, not willing to let on that you'd been ogling your boss for the past few minutes. You had more important things to do than stare dreamily at him, for God's sake. And yet, as soon as he went back to reviewing the list, you found yourself zeroing in on him once more, unable to stop drinking in his features. It was, unfortunately, a daily occurrence.
You forced yourself to focus on your laptop screen, at least for a couple of minutes, using it as a bribe. If you worked for ten minutes, you could stare at Bucky for a whole thirty seconds before getting back to it. You had a guest list to prepare for a VIP dinner, celebrating a successful quarter. You already knew it would probably be at Bucky's favourite restaurant, the same one he was going to tonight. Chateau Barnes was less fancy than what someone else might have picked, but you already knew not to argue about location. You looked through the list of preapproved people, regulars in the industry and trusted friends of his. Steve and Sam were automatically greenlit for any occasion, longtime college friends that had helped him build the company, and the rest were decided at your leisure. It was mostly heads of each department at the label, but you had free rein to add any other guests. Bucky wouldn't even look at the list; he'd just approve it right away.
The shortlist decided, you chanced a glance at him again, and did your best not to put your chin in your hand and let out a wistful, romance-movie-type sigh. He was still concentrating, still unfairly gorgeous, and still a big distraction, but then again, he always was.
Just because you worked at an ultra successful, highly regarded record label didn't mean that you got to overlook the things that other companies had to deal with.
Namely, standard regulation fire drills.
It had been posted on the doors to every floor of the building, as well as sent to the inboxes of all staff members, so it was no surprise when the alarms went off at ten in the morning and everyone calmly stood and filed out of the high-rise.
You lost track of Bucky as he cut through the crowd like a thresher shark, but quickly found Natasha a few floors down, and fell into step with her as you filtered out of the building and into the weak sunshine. You squinted, shielding your eyes with your hand as the sun bounced off the glass and steel of the structure, standing in the designated spot you'd been directed to so that the firefighters could do their safety checks. You'd be out here for fifteen minutes, give or take, so you took it upon yourself to catch up with Natasha rather than mill about silently.
"So, I put you on the list for that dinner thing next Thursday."
She made a face. "Ugh, is it at that one place again? Can't he pick somewhere different?"
This was a point of contention between you that was brought up quite often. She had said time and again that she thought you were too soft on Bucky, that you should argue with him more—his patterns were predictable, and he listened to you anyway—but whenever you tried to use the excuse, "but he's my boss, Nat! He pays my bills!" she'd roll her eyes and say that your crush was very obvious. You had talked in circles about it so much that you didn't even flinch anymore.
"He's celebrating. If it was about something different, maybe I would have suggested some other places, but it's his company. If he wants to go to Chateau, I'm not going to say anything about it. So. You're going to be there, right?" You asked again, staring at her pointedly.
She waved a hand. "Sure, yeah, fine. Just do me a favour and make sure I'm sitting with that Joaquin kid. He's a funny drunk."
You hummed in response, your eyes darting across the flat expanse of pavement. Everyone else was in similar huddles, using the time to gossip or catch up before they were shepherded back inside. You thought you saw Bucky for a split second, but it was just another firefighter. It was a little jarring, actually. He looked quite similar to Bucky. Startlingly so, in fact, but his hair was longer. He saw you staring and offered you a polite, customer service-like smile before disappearing into the building.
"Hey, did you see—"
You were cut off when Natasha started talking at the same time. "Did you order anything from that website yet?"
Your eyes went wide. She was going to bring that up right now? Why not save it for text, where you could pretend not to see it? She was entirely nonchalant about it, but you very much wished she was more chalant. You knew what she was talking about, of course. www.superbasstoys.com was a very popular, very naughty website that she'd suggested you look into the last time you'd complained about your awfully apparent single status.
She raised an eyebrow at you, and you whipped your head from side to side, making sure no one was near enough to hear. "Yes… I did."
She continued to stare, her expression very much saying, please, proceed, elaborate. You let out an exasperated sigh. "I got the, um, the Earth's Mightiest Vibe. I think that's what it was called." You winced as you said it.
She smirked at you. "Excellent choice. You tried it yet?"
Your shoulders hunched around your ears, which you were sure were red with embarrassment. "No! I, um, I might try it out tonight…" You trailed off. It wasn't that you were uncomfortable talking about it, per say, but usually, you were three glasses deep in some white wine.
"Try out what tonight?"
You felt your body freeze up as you heard the curious lilt of Bucky's voice right behind you.
Oh, God.
"Oh, we were just talking about—"
"A new TV show I want to watch!" You interrupted Natasha frantically, aiming for calm, and missing by a fraction. You knew she'd just come out and say it if you didn't come up with an excuse. "It's something like a blind dating show, I don't know. Just trashy stuff." Your smile as you turned to face him might have been manic, but you couldn't tell.
His eyes narrowed just a bit, like he wasn't sure if he could buy your excuse, but he nodded anyway, his hands in his pockets, the perfect picture of cool and collected. "Right. You should let yourself relax a little more—you're always so tense, darlin'. You practically run the label as much as I do. If you think that'll work, you should watch it."
Well, you were planning to relax, technically, but you were hoping for something that would leave you breathless rather than something as mundane as a TV show. "Mhm." You murmured noncommittally, before not-so-subtly changing the subject. "I wanted to talk to you about 54's next album drop. The extended cut of Feather? They picked the name—it's gonna be called Face. I was thinking about the photoshoot…"
Your apartment's lights were dimmed, mood music playing softly over the TV's speakers, your wine placed on the coffee table. You'd drawn the curtains already, and now you were staring at the powder pink box sitting beside your wine glass. It wasn't like you were a stranger to vibrators, but you felt a little nervous to use it.
You trusted yourself more than the average man to show you a good time, but most of your 'happy hours' as you'd self-proclaimed them, left you feeling a little shameful and guilty. You couldn't help imagining your boss's hands instead of your own, his fingers on your skin, his lips at your throat. You'd let yourself get lost to sensation, but after you came down from the high you'd chastise yourself. It was unprofessional of you to think of him like that.
And yet, you tugged the ribbon on the box free, plucked the lid off, and stared down at Earth's Mightiest Vibe like it was about to deliver you to salvation. You rubbed your palms against your pajama pants. The anticipation had been building for you the entire day. You hadn't originally planned to use it tonight, despite what you'd said to Natasha, but you'd found the idea swirling in your head for the rest of the afternoon, especially when Bucky had rolled his sleeves up right when you knew he would, and your eyes had been locked onto his forearms until you'd left for the night.
You picked up the vibrator. This one had some sort of silicone tongue on one end, something you hadn't tried before, but it was one of the ones Natasha had recommended. The pajama pants came down as you laid back on the couch. You tapped on the button.
The toy buzzed quietly to life in your hand with a smooth, pulsing whir—steady and self-assured, like it was telling you to relax and let it do all the work. It was a rich, low thrum, not at all like the sharper frequencies of cheaper toys; this one purred like the engine of a luxury car, with that little flicking tongue twitching in place like it was eager to get to the task at hand. You let it sit in your palm for a moment, thumbing through the settings with cautious curiosity, your body already reacting to the sound and the idea alone, heat prickling low in your belly.
Each button press sped the little flicker up, that tongue twitching faster and faster until it was almost a blur. It felt ridiculous in your hand, and yet your thighs were already parting, knees falling open as you leaned further back against the throw pillows, exhaling slowly. You could feel the hum through your fingers as you lowered it between your legs. The soft cotton of your panties did nothing to dampen the sensation—just a teasing tremble against your clit that made you suck in a breath through your teeth.
You swore quietly, the breath of it ghosting past your lips as your hips gave a tiny involuntary twitch forward. You shifted, pulled your panties aside with one hand, and let the toy rest flush against your skin.
The effect was immediate.
"Fuck," you hissed, the sound bursting out of you in a whisper as your head tipped back against the cushions. That flicking tongue zeroed in on your clit, relentless, precise. It didn’t slide around or miss the mark the way fingers sometimes did—it knew exactly what to do, the way it circled, pulsed, licked up and down with a maddening rhythm. You were soaked in seconds, your inner thighs wet as you bit your lip to keep the sounds in.
But your brain couldn’t help it. Unbidden, like you'd unconsciously set out a summoning circle in your mind's eye, thoughts of Bucky bombarded you.
You could see him so clearly. The sleeves of his crisp white shirt rolled up to his elbows, veins flexing in his forearm as he cupped the toy in one hand and rested the other on your thigh. He’d be calm, focused, that slight furrow between his brows as he watched you squirm for him, his blue eyes pinned on your face. His voice would be low, casual, but laced with heat.
"Is that good, sweetheart?" he’d murmur, tilting the toy just slightly, flicking up and down faster, more precise. "Feels better when you let go. Don’t hold back."
Your mouth dropped open on a soft, strangled moan, your body tightening, knees drawing up slightly as you struggled not to buck too hard against the motion. The toy never faltered, just kept moving, teasing, the tongue making quick little circles that made your legs tremble.
You thought of his suit jacket, shrugged off and draped over the end of the couch, collar undone. His voice in your ear, saying, "Let me make you feel good. You do so much for me. You deserve it."
"Oh my God—" your breath hitched, your toes curling as you felt it building fast, too fast, the pressure winding in your core like a coil.
You turned the speed up.
It was just short of unbearable now—every jolt sending electric pulses through your gut, the kind that made your thighs clamp around your hand, the toy held firm against your throbbing clit. The image of him in your head was unwavering. He’d be kneeling on the floor between your legs, tranquil as ever, watching you fall apart with a smirk on his lips. Maybe he’d hum softly, pleased with himself, as you gasped out little breathy moans and rolled your hips against the toy like you couldn’t help yourself. Maybe he'd replace the toy entirely with his own mouth and hold you firm against his face, let you ride it out.
"God—Bucky—fuck—" His name slipped out from where you'd held it between your teeth, broken, desperate.
Your back arched. The orgasm hit like a punch, all at once—white-hot and pulsing, your whole body locking up as the pressure burst wide open. Your mouth dropped open in a soundless cry before the first real noise escaped you—a choked wail, "Bucky, oh God—f-fuck—!"
You gasped, let the toy fall away from you as your hips jerked, legs quivering. A flush spread across your face as you panted, trying to catch your breath. Your hand was slick with your own arousal, the toy buzzing gently on the couch cushion like it was proud of itself. Well, it seemed that Earth's Mightiest Vibe certainly lived up to its name.
You blinked up at the ceiling, dazed.
Then you groaned, dragging a hand down your face. “Oh my God.”
Because you had come thinking about your boss.
Again.
This was getting out of hand.
You slumped back against the couch, legs still twitchy, head bowed in shame. And then you felt your heart nearly burst out of your chest when you heard a familiar ringtone. It was like he knew you'd been having dirty thoughts about him.
Your blood froze in your veins as you pressed frantically on the vibrator's off button and scrambled to right your clothes before diving for your phone. Bucky almost never called you on off hours. And yet, when you turned the phone in your direction, there was his contact photo, one of him looking all brooding and gorgeous, and there was his name at the top: "The Boss Man 🫡".
You answered it with shaking fingers, clearing your throat, willing yourself not to squeak. "Y-yes? Everything okay?" You were usually quite composed when you spoke to him, but lately, and especially now, all semblance of serenity had flown out the window.
You heard papers shuffling on the other end as your eyes found the vibrator, perched precariously on the end of the coffee table like a physical manifestation of your guilty conscience. "Yeah, sorry to call you outside of work," he said, sounding genuinely apologetic, "I just wanted to let you know that I read through the summary you put together on the next demos being submitted. I know you listened to 'em already. Whoever you think is worth my time, I want you to set up a meeting."
He definitely could have told you that in an email. You pictured Earth's Mightiest Vibe giving you an evil, knowing smile from its spot across the room. "Oh, um, okay?" You made it sound like more of a question. You schooled yourself, turning your back on the vibrator for some peace of mind—if you couldn't see it, it wasn't there, right? "You don't want to listen to the other submissions?"
"Darlin', you know I trust your judgement. If you have a favourite, I'm listening to that one. I don't need to bother with the rest."
It always made you feel a little weak, when you heard one of those stupid little pet names directed at you. You were pretty sure he did it out of instinct. It meant he never had to memorize your name—he could just call you something that made you distracted enough to not notice. "Well, if you're sure…"
The other end of the line was silent. Well, he was sure then, you guessed. "Um, was there anything else?"
He made a sound, somewhere between a sigh and a cough. "No, that was all."
You nodded to yourself. "Oh, okay. Well—"
"Is it any good?"
"Huh?" Your mouth went dry. You whipped your head around to stare at the vibrator. Did he somehow know? Had he installed a spy camera in your phone when you weren't looking?
"The show you were gonna watch. Trashy TV? Blind dates, right?"
"Oh! Oh, that. Right." You let out a weak, entirely unconvincing laugh. "Y-yeah! It's okay. Just something to put on when I'm cooking, or folding laundry, you know? Not a show I have to use my whole brain for."
He hummed in response. "Well, if it actually makes you feel more relaxed, maybe I'll have to try it sometime."
Well, great. Now you'd have to scour the channels for anything that sounded remotely similar on the off-chance he actually wanted to watch it. "Oh, well, I don't think it's your style, but sure! Maybe you'd like it." You had injected too much pep in your voice. It was time to end the call, now. "Well, if that's everything, Bucky, I'll talk to you tomorrow!"
His low chuckle sent a zap of lightning down your spine. "Alright, angel face. See you first thing."
You let the silence of the ended call fill your brain, then surged forward and chugged down your wine, like it would wash away your embarrassment. You couldn't believe he'd called you right after you'd gotten off to imagining him between your legs. The universe sure did have a sense of humour.
You sank down onto the couch and made a promise to yourself: that would be the last time you'd picture anything to do with Bucky Barnes when you were trying to bring yourself to heaven.
That promise would undoubtedly be broken by the next week.
You had avoided Bucky for much of the next day, too flustered from the previous evening to make direct eye contact with him. Curse your vivid imagination, but it had been all too easy to place him in your fantasies, and every time you saw him over the course of the day, you remembered the feeling of the vibrator's tongue, the imagined sound of his voice, and then the real sound of it on the phone. It was enough to make your thighs feel like they were permanently stuck together. Your panties were so wet it was like you'd put them on straight out of the washing machine.
It was all fun and games, imagining your boss on his knees before you, until you dropped your keys on the floor when you went to grab lunch and he knelt down before you could, scooped them up, and looked up at you as he handed them over. He looked like he belonged there, stooped at your feet, eyes cast up to yours. It took everything in you not to shiver as your fingers grazed his and you squeaked out a "thank you!" before darting away.
Unfortunately, the image was seared into your retinas as you stood waiting for your lunch pickup at the little bistro down the street. It was entirely too easy to think of him in your apartment after a long day, in the same position, pulling your heels off your feet and kissing up your legs. You had all but zoned out before you heard your name being called and hastily stumbled forward to collect the paper bag of food.
It was worse later, when you'd disappeared into the copy room in search of the last Rolling Stone issue—somehow they always ended up in here—and as you stood there, flipping through the pages in search of the interview you wanted to look over, Bucky entered the room and placed his hands lightly on your hips as he shuffled past you, the space small and cramped, his body heat against your back like a brand. You almost dropped the magazine. He was never even in here; you had no idea what he was doing now, but you didn't say anything, just let him maneuver you to the side like you were a marionette.
As soon as he had gotten what he'd come in there for, which looked to be… a stapler… he was shifting past you once again, muttering, "'Scuse me, dollface," like you were a particularly delicate figurine, his hand curling around your hip again as he brushed past and strode out of the room.
Well, that was just unfair. How were you ever going to get over your silly little crush when he called you sweet things and touched you like you were made of glass? You knew he wasn't doing it on purpose, but sometimes, it sure felt like it.
The ghost of those minuscule touches from him haunted you for the rest of the week. Half the time, you swore could feel your heartbeat between your thighs, pounding out a relentless rhythm that sounded suspiciously similar to Bucky's name, any time he called you by a nickname or stood too close to you.
It wasn't just you that found him attractive. You'd heard countless interns giggling and whispering behind their hands about how hot he was, or how they wanted to climb him like a tree. He'd been in articles and interviews dozens of times, wherein there was always some mention of his godly physique or his smoldering eyes. It was no secret that James Barnes was walking sex. But you still felt like it was a thought you shouldn't have. You didn't want to jeopardize your career by doing or saying anything that could get you a same-day appointment with HR.
You resolved to be better. Had that been your New Year's resolution, too? Perhaps. Had you broken it the next day? There was a possibility that you had. But all you could do was try and forget that you wanted to bone your boss, at least until the next time you got a breath of his cologne, or felt his hand on the small of your back, or sat next to him on the jet, so close that your legs brushed together.
Maybe you should start trying to have indecent thoughts about Steve, instead.
Weeks later, you were in his office, looking for a contract he'd wanted to check over before he met with some new talent and the company's legal team. You were seldom in his office without him being there, too, and you spent even less time poking and prodding at his desk, aside from the occasional straightening of paperweights, and positioning of fresh mugs of coffee.
However, as you looked at the different papers on his desk, you couldn't find what you were looking for. It should have been fairly noticeable; the lightning symbol at the top would have given it away. Maybe he placed it in one of the drawers?
The first two drawers had you coming up empty. A spare pair of cuff links, an expensive pen, and some dark chocolate —he stocked it himself —were in the first. The second was equally sparse, containing a notepad with the same lightning symbol as the header, and a polished wooden case that you knew carried cigars of the Nicaraguan variety. At around fifty thousand dollars a pop, he kept them tucked away in there and only smoked them when he had gotten unbelievably good news.
The final drawer was deeper than the rest, and required a key, which you had. You'd never had need to use it, but it had lived a quiet existence on your keychain nonetheless. You doubted the contract would be in there, but you crouched down to open it anyway, wobbling slightly in your heels. The lock clicked open with a soft snick, and you tugged the handle with your fingers. What you found was not the contract, as you'd expected, but you weren't prepared for what you did find, either.
Inside the drawer were boxes and boxes, stacked neatly, of jewelry. You knew without cracking the lids. Names like Tiffany, and Van Cleef and Cartier winked back at you. If that wasn't surprising enough, the stack of cards rubberbanded together took the cake. Each one had your name inscribed in neat calligraphy, professionally done. You stared down at the drawer. You recognized the cards, because the same ones had been tucked neatly into each box of jewelry he'd ever gifted you with. And here you'd found a veritable treasure trove of, what, more necklaces and earrings that he'd picked for you, however long ago, and was waiting for the right moment to leave them on your desk?
You looked down at yourself. You were already sporting ruby earrings and a delicate gold bracelet, both gifts from him, given to you on your birthday and Christmas, respectively. The first thing he ever got you, a diamond encrusted watch, was tucked away carefully in a scarf, sitting in your dresser in your bedroom. It was too precious for you to wear out all the time—you kept it for special occasions only. You had a number of other things from him, too, aside from jewelry. Bags and shoes you'd bookmarked in your browser as things you'd love to save up for had made their way to you quietly. Tickets to the ballet or Broadway productions were placed in envelopes and slotted neatly into your desk's mailbox or slid across the table to you at the tail end of conferences. He'd even paid for you to get your nails done a few times, encouraging you to invite friends or some of the other girls in the office.
Most of the time you felt it was too much, that he spoiled you more than he should by far, but that didn't mean it was unwelcome. It made you feel special, valued. He wasn't good at compliments. The most you'd ever gotten were gruff nods of his head, or him deferring to you on certain things. He trusted you and thought you were a worthwhile employee, yes, but he didn't generally say it out loud. What he could do, you supposed, was shower you with presents.
And it seemed he had acquired a whole gold mine, waiting to be dropped into your hands one crystal at a time.
You closed the drawer with a soft snap. You weren't sure what to do with this information, but you'd have to compartmentalize it and hash it out with a bottle of wine later. Right now, you had to find that damned contract.
The contract had all but vanished, so you'd raced back to your desk, searched through your meticulous files on your laptop, and printed out a shiny new copy, then hauled ass to the conference room. You weren't late, but you didn't like cutting it so close. He was there already, slouched at the head of the table, leaned back in his chair and scrolling on his phone. He was wearing that perpetual scowl he usually had before meetings, which meant you had no clue as to his actual mood.
The girl that he was waiting on wasn't here yet. She and her team were due to arrive at any moment. For her sake, you hoped she was early, because Bucky wasn't the kind of man who liked to be kept waiting. Bucky sat up when he saw, you, running a hand down the front of his shirt to smooth it out. He nodded towards you. "You got it?"
You crossed the room and placed the contract on the table. "Right here." You tapped your nails on the mahogany once, before straightening. "Though, I don't know where your original copy went. I couldn't find it anywhere."
He pulled the stack of papers closer, his eyes flicking over the words. "You checked my office?" He asked without looking up.
"Yes. It wasn't there. And I know you're not going to ask me if I'm sure, because you know I'm thorough."
You saw the corner of his mouth twitch, not quite a smile, but the hint of one. You looked over your shoulder and to the hallway. No one was there yet. Dare you ask about the drawer?
"Um, Bucky?" You asked, hesitance bleeding into your tone.
"Mmm?" He was still looking over the contract, flipping over to the next page. You weren't entirely sure if he was listening.
"When I was in your office, I was looking through your desk…"
"And?"
"Well, I, um…" You paused, fighting the urge to wring your hands, suddenly nervous about saying anything.
"Spit it out, gorgeous." He sounded amused, but he kept his focus on the document.
"Why is the bottom drawer full of jewelry? For me?" You finally blurted. You felt yourself flush with embarrassment—you supposed the answer was pretty self-explanatory. Thinking about it now, you assumed he probably bought your gifts in bulk, all at once, so that he didn't have to think about it again. He was practical; it made a certain amount of sense. But still, the number of boxes alone seemed excessive.
He let out a sound, part chuckle, part hum. "Why do you think? I know what would suit you. I see it, I buy it, I set it aside for when I feel like giving it to you."
You blinked stupidly at him, though he didn't see it. You folded your hands in front of yourself, trying your best not to shift your weight, to show your surprise. He'd never been that forward with you before, if you could call it that. "It's just—it's not that I'm ungrateful, but, well, it seems… a bit much." You winced as you said it. You hoped to God he didn't take it the wrong way. You meant no harm; you were just curious. You tried to soften it by adding jokingly, "I mean, there are only so many Christmases and birthdays, right?"
He flipped the contract back to its front page, placing his hand over it, and looked at you. His expression was as unreadable as ever, his gaze searing, his attention completely on you. "You're my girl. I don't need excuses to spoil my girl."
You were in awe. All thoughts left your pretty little head, evaporating like mist in the sun.
His girl?
His girl.
His girl?
You were saved from responding, which was honestly a good thing, because you had no words to spit out. Voices overlapped each other from the hallway, footsteps approaching the room. Bucky looked over your shoulder at the new arrivals and stood, moving past you to shake hands. The girl and her team had arrived, as well as the company's legal representatives. You made yourself a wallflower as everyone filed into the room and took their seats. When Bucky sat down, you moved to his side and said in an effortlessly professional cadence, summoning it from the depths of your soul, "Do you need anything else, Mr. Barnes, or will that be everything?"
"That's all for now, thank you." He replied, not looking at you, but assessing the room. He was in shark-mode now, where he maintained razor sharp focus on the task at hand and didn't get distracted for anything. Still, his eyes shifted to yours for a brief second. "Go and get yourself some coffee. Don't worry about me." He flicked his black card at you, holding it between two fingers. When had he even pulled it out from his wallet?
Never mind. You shook yourself, plucking it from his grasp—this wasn't the first time, and likely wouldn't be the last, that he insisted on you treating yourself. As you made to move out of the room, his eyes snagged on you once more, snaring you like a rabbit. It was the look in them that made you falter. Pure, unadulterated fire.
And you weren't exactly sure if it meant what you hoped it might.
After you'd made yourself scarce from the meeting, you had done exactly as he'd said and robotically taken the elevator down to the lobby, before exiting the building and crossing the street. The café was of the high-end variety, with each drink costing at least ten dollars, even for the most simple order. You'd settled on something overly sweet and full of caramel, needing the blast of flavour to shake you from your stupor.
His girl.
It tilted in your brain, flipping like a coin. Well. If you wanted to overanalyze it, you could, certainly. Yes, you were his girl, in a technical sense. His female assistant, i.e., his girl. A woman who worked under him. Yes, the textbook definition of the term made complete sense. He didn't need to know that you were under his thumb, hook, line, and sinker. He couldn't know that you'd quite literally do anything he wanted, accept any command. You were a professional, God damn it, wet dreams aside!
Alright, you were done thinking about it. It was time to put it away and let it only come out at night when you were falling asleep. You sipped your drink and grimaced at the taste.
But what did that even mean?
So maybe you weren't done thinking about it. Should you say something? Ask him to clarify? Follow-up in an email?
"Hey, so I just wanted to know your exact definition of 'my girl'. Thanks so much!"
You shook your head at your own ridiculousness. You were definitely overthinking it. What you should have been doing was heading back to the building and waiting at your desk for him to come back to his office, to let you know how the meeting went. Really, you were excited by the idea of the new talent coming to be apart of the Thunderbolt family. You'd been following her career closely, and were thrilled by the prospect of getting to know her on a personal level, if she decided to sign with you.
Instead, you were trying your best not to romanticize the idea of being dubbed Bucky's girl.
You forced the rest of your seventeen dollar drink down, then dragged your feet back across the crosswalk and up to your desk, Bucky's card digging into your palm from how tightly you held it. You opened your laptop and just stared blankly at the screen for a very long time, before opening your emails, attempting to read them, and not taking in any of the words. You fiddled with your bracelet instead, remembering when he gave it to you.
You'd been out of the office for a couple of days, trying to fix a huge scheduling conflict that had popped up. It hadn't been your fault, not really, but you'd felt terrible about and had been working around the clock to iron out the details, and make sure that everyone, but more specifically Bucky, came out on top. When you'd successfully managed to do so, after no fewer than twelve phone calls, an email thread fifty messages long, and seven different drop-ins throughout the city, you'd felt like all your energy had floated away into the ether, but you trudged back to your desk anyway.
A tiny white box with a gorgeous green ribbon had been sitting dead center on the top, a tidy little card poised next to it, your name written in looping cursive, the small scrawl of 'for all that you do, J.B.B.' added on the bottom. Inside the box had been the daintiest golden bracelet with a mother-of-pearl butterfly charm. You could take a guess at its price tag, but you didn't let it stop you from putting the bracelet on and admiring it on your wrist as it glinted in the sun.
You'd thanked Bucky the next time you saw him, holding your wrist out to prove that you'd received it, and he'd waved you away, though you'd seen the tiny smile on his face, the bigger one in his eyes, when he'd said, "Don't mention it. It's just me showing you that I see you workin' hard."
You rotated your jewelry frequently, due to the sheer volume of pieces he'd given you over the years, but you found yourself wearing the butterfly more than anything else. You could remember every single time you'd been presented with something from him, and you'd kept all of the cards that had come along with them, even though they generally only had your name on them.
You were pulled out of the memory by him seeming to materialize in front of you like he'd just become a solid being, fused by mist and thought alone. He had his hands in his pockets, his posture casual, giving nothing away. "What happened? Did she sign?" The question was out of your mouth before you could start with a hello.
He leaned against the wall next to his office door, his eyes meeting yours. "You better start bringing in all your CDs, doll. I'm sure you can get her autograph if you're gonna be seeing her every day."
Your heart did a somersault at the news. "What?! Oh my God, so she's a part of Thunderbolt now?"
Bucky shrugged, the movement nonchalant, easy, like he hadn't just signed your favourite artist out of a favour to you. "I told you. If you wanted her here, if you thought she was a good fit, I'd get her to sign. I'd find a way. And I did."
It was true. Right before the meeting had been arranged, you'd tried your best to be impartial, but he could read your anticipation all over your face, and he'd reassured you that she'd be joining the Thunderbolt family one way or another.
You could have jumped up and kissed him, then. You didn't. But you smiled and clapped your hands together and made a happy little sound, something akin to a squeal. "Oh, this is awesome. I promise you made the right choice. She's amazing. The best, really." You were aware you sounded like a fangirl, but you couldn't stop yourself.
"I could think of a better woman than her." He murmured, before pushing off the wall, walking to your desk, and collecting his credit card from its place on your cat-shaped coaster.
Whatever braincells you had left imploded as he gave you a certain look, one that you were absolutely sure was the expression of someone smitten. Your lips parted but no words came out, and he didn't wait for you to say anything, just sauntered to his own workspace, leaving the door open as always, pulling out his phone.
You barely heard what he was saying over the static in your head.
One of the fun things about signing new artists were the welcome parties. It was always a huge event, pulled together in a matter of days, leaving you and Natasha exhausted and running on fumes, while Wanda and her cute little assistant, Peter, got their cameras ready to photograph the affair. It was an all hands on deck situation. Carol, ball-buster that she was, had yanked a few of the interns to work around the clock alongside you.
When all was said and done, the party was being held in the multipurpose space reserved for such occasions. Usually it was made into the spot for networking mixers or press conferences to take place, but now it was full of mood lighting, catered tables, and a DJ. There were streamers and balloons everywhere, too. You hadn't had the time or the energy to change out of your standard blouse-and-pencil-skirt combination, and you had already tried to tame your bird's nest of a hairstyle, but the party was in full-swing. Aside from the lot of you who'd worked on getting the space put together, there were multiple star-studded guests in attendance, your newest addition front and center, surrounded by attention, as she should have been.
Typically, you enjoyed these things from afar, sampling the food and drinks, maybe dancing a little with Natasha. You'd network when it was necessary, but you preferred to enjoy the vibes from the edge, pleased when everyone was having a good time. You'd always have an eye on Bucky, too, in case he needed you to give him a clean exit. He liked the atmosphere as well, but he was so busy all the time that unwinding with a group like this tended to tire him out more than revitalize him.
You saw him a minute ago, clustered in a corner with Sam and Steve, the three of them clinking glasses of what you knew were whiskey. You had seen Peter trying to be discreet as he tried to snap photos. You knew they'd be in your inbox in a few hours, and you also knew you'd get stuck scrolling through the ones of Bucky specifically, like you were fifteen again and looking at photos of a teenage heartthrob in Tiger Beat.
When your eyes roamed back in that direction a few minutes later, Sam and Steve were still there, but Bucky was not. You observed the room, trying to locate him. He was probably talking to someone important, you knew, as was his usual move.
You were not expecting the soft touch on the small of your back, followed by the rasp of his voice in your ear, saying, "Want to get some air?"
You startled slightly before half-turning towards him, and oh, he was much closer to you than you'd realized, as your arm brushed against his torso. Huh, now that he mentioned it, it was stifling in here. "Okay, sure. Lead the way." You said, prepared to follow.
He took a step back from you, but he grabbed your wrist as he did, his thumb brushing against your pulse, a move that threatened to make your knees buckle, before his hand slid down to yours and he tugged you along, like you were an extension of him. Only, as you breached the doors, he didn't let go of your hand, only laced your fingers together, and he didn't stop in the hallway like you'd expected, but kept moving in the direction of the elevator.
"Where are we going?" You asked, feeling silly for asking, but also distinctly aware of the electric buzz under your skin, something you were trying and failing to tame.
"My office. It's more quiet there. And I don't want anyone following us out and bombarding me with questions." His answer was simple, like it was the obvious explanation. Perhaps it was, and you were just too lost in the feeling of his calloused hand against your soft, manicured one. It took everything in you not to look down at them, joined together as they were, in case he noticed and remembered, and let go.
He was content to say nothing else as you rode the elevator back up to the eightieth floor, the soft ding of your arrival immediately getting swallowed by the parasites in your head, the ones telling you to expect something radical to happen.
And then all of a sudden, you found yourself in his office, his hand leaving yours as he moved to the bar cart positioned in the corner. You stood awkwardly by the desk as he asked over his shoulder, "Want anything?"
"No. You know I can't handle the whiskey you drink."
He laughed, the sound rich and warm to your ears. "I know. But it was cute when you tried it last time."
Cute? Hello? Were you in the upside down?
When his glass was deemed full enough, he moved easily past the door, nudging it closed, before brushing past you and standing in front of the windows, looking down at the bright lights of the city. He was all shadows and starlight, the room dim, the lights off, only limned in the shine of the countless skyscrapers. You stood next to him and looked at the cars far below, tiny as ants. You could hear nothing up here, aside from your own breathing, and the swish of whiskey in his glass as he swirled it around and then took a sip.
You weren't one to sit in silence for long, especially not when it felt so charged. You struggled for something to say, finally landing on, "I think everyone's going to that club after the party, um, Illegal? Or at least, that's what-"
"We're not up here to talk about the party."
Caught off-guard, you tilted your head towards him. Were you really supposed to stand silently next to him, like a benevolent tree? He tipped his glass back and finished his drink in one gulp, leaning away from you to put it on the corner of his desk, before turning in your direction and giving you his undivided attention. The movement had been so swift that you could still hear the end of his sentence ringing in your ears. "We're up here because it was inevitable." He said simply, his eyes boring into yours, like he was looking past them and straight into your soul, sifting through each piece of it like he was searching for gold.
"Inevitable?" You echoed.
"I don't want to beg, sweetheart, but I will if it'll make you happy." He brought your hand up to his mouth, his eyes stayed locked onto yours as he kissed your knuckles, the move purposeful. The sensation sent flames to the pit of your stomach. "Please, pretty please, let me fuck you senseless."
He—you—
Oh.
Your hand shot to the side, palm flat against the window like it could hold you up. Suddenly, all words in the English language had ceased to exist for you, leaving you with a jumble of letters, like plastic fridge magnets that had been tossed up haphazardly. "I've been going out of my mind because of you." The words were muttered, his head dipping down, his lips brushing your ear. "Every damn day you're sittin' out there, lookin' like you belong on the cover of a magazine. And it's not enough that you're fuckin' beautiful—you're smart, too. I don't have to ask you for anything; you do it before I can. Do you know what a turn-on that is?"
The sound you made was inhuman, something like a whimper, but it was too breathy to really be called that. You faintly believed you needed to call an ambulance for yourself, because you felt like you were burning up, and it couldn't be normal, to be this affected by just words. "…Oh…" Was all you managed to say. You were quite literally no thoughts, head empty.
"Tell me to stop and I will." he said the words against your throat, his mouth featherlight against your skin, the words landing like bullets.
Your brain got its act together, finally, like it had forgotten its lines at the school play and had only just now belatedly remembered them. "I don't want you to stop."
Your hands moved to clutch at the lapels of his jacket, not only anchoring him in place, but helping to keep you standing. It seemed that was all he needed to hear, because then his mouth was on yours, the kiss messy, his arms banding around your waist like steel.
He tasted like whiskey, the note of cinnamon that had made your eyes water last time you tried it now the most delicious thing you'd ever known, his mouth moving over yours with the kind of surety that made your head spin. Bucky kissed like he was claiming you. There was no preamble, no teasing delay; just heat, almost unbearable, overwhelming your senses. You gasped against him when his tongue slid against yours, and he groaned at the sound, his grip tightening, his hands almost bruising as they slid to your hips.
His thigh nudged between your legs without warning, the press of it solid, unmovable. Your skirt rode up slightly as your hips shifted, instinctively chasing the friction. One of his hands moved from your hip to the small of your back, the other threading into your hair to tilt your head back further. He kissed you deeper, harder, like he wanted to etch himself into your very existence, and you whimpered into it, your knees wobbling. The warmth of him was almost too much, your blood thrumming like a live wire under your skin.
"Christ, the sounds you make," he muttered as he broke the kiss, voice rough. His lips traced a line from the corner of your mouth down to your jaw, then lower, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to the curve of your neck. "You gonna make those for me when I fuck you? Wanna hear you moanin’ like that with my cock inside you, sweet girl."
Your breath hitched, a shaky gasp escaping your lips. Your fingers clenched in the fabric of his jacket as he pressed you back against the window, the cool glass a stark contrast to the inferno in your skin. Your chest rose and fell rapidly, your blouse stretched taut with each breath. His hands were on you again, both of them, sliding from your waist to your hips and down, cupping your ass like he owned it. And well, maybe he did.
"Been thinkin' about this for fuckin' months," he growled, lifting you without effort. Your legs wrapped around his waist before you could think, the slick heat between your thighs pressed flush against the front of his tailored pants. "Every goddamn time I see you—tight little skirts, struttin' around the office like you don't know what you do to me. You know I get hard watchin' you walk away?"
"Bucky—" you breathed, dazed, overwhelmed, so dizzy with heat and tension and him that you could hardly string two thoughts together.
"Say it again," he ordered, voice low against your throat. "Wanna hear it."
"Bucky," you whispered again, the syllables broken and stuttered against his ear.
He groaned like the sound physically affected him, grinding against you in a slow, devastating roll of his hips. Your head thunked back softly against the window, a cry ripping from your throat when you felt the thick ridge of him through his pants, right against your center. The feeling alone was enough to bring tears to your eyes.
"Oh, God," you gasped, clawing at his collar, tugging at it like it was the only thing keeping you tethered to reality.
He smirked, voice smug and dangerous as he pressed his mouth to your pulse. "Haven't even fucked you yet, sweetheart. You're already fallin' apart?"
Your only answer was a needy sound, your hips canting helplessly toward his, your body betraying just how fucking desperate you were. He kissed you again, slower this time but no less intense, his tongue sliding over yours in a wet, claiming stroke. You could feel the hard line of his cock grinding against your soaked panties through both your clothes, and you knew—you knew—you could come just from this, if this was all he wanted to give you.
"Darlin', I knew I was screwed the moment I laid eyes on you. I jerked off to the thought of you the first day I met you. You've owned me since then. I just didn't wanna make you uncomfortable." he murmured, lips brushing yours. One of his hands dragged up your thigh, the touch setting your nerves ablaze.
"Not uncomfortable." You gasped. "Please—please—touch me."
He didn’t waste time.
His fingers slipped beneath the lace of your panties, finding you wet and wanting. You jolted against the window as he groaned into your mouth, his middle finger sliding through your slick folds, up and down, circling your clit with a practiced, devastating precision.
"Fuck," he breathed. "You're dripping."
You moaned helplessly, head falling forward to rest against his shoulder, your breath hot against his neck. "Always. Always for you. Can't—can't think of anyone else but you."
"Fuck," he growled, slipping a finger inside you, torturously slow. You gasped at the stretch, your walls fluttering around him, needy for more.
"Think about you all the time," you admitted, barely louder than a whisper. "Every day, every night, wanted you so bad."
"God," he hissed, thrusting his finger deeper, curling it up to press just right. "You're gonna take my cock so fuckin' well. Gonna fill this sweet little pussy up and make you come on it. Over and over. You want that?"
“"Y-yes—fuck—yes!"
The sound of your slick echoed between you as he added a second finger, thrusting them deep, your body tightening fast around him, every nerve ending lit up. You were gripping his shoulders like they were a lifeline, hips rolling into his hand, legs tightening around his waist.
He watched you like you were the only thing in the universe. "That's it, sweet girl. Show me how much you want it. Show me how good I make you feel."
"Don't stop—please don't stop—" Your moans were getting louder now, your thighs trembling, your whole body wound tight as a wire.
He kissed you again, swallowing the sounds you made as you came, your orgasm cresting like a tide, threatening to pull you under. Your whole body shuddered, breath catching, clit pulsing under the relentless swirl of his thumb as you clenched around his fingers, riding out every wave.
He held you through it, murmuring low praise against your mouth, the words tattooed on the inside of your skull, "So fuckin' good for me, gorgeous, that's it, that's my girl," as your hips twitched and your mind blanked once more, all coherent thought lost to you.
And then he was carrying you over to the desk, your legs unfurling, your body unsteady and swaying. "I'll give you everything. I'll give me the world if you let me." He said, his breath ragged.
You felt sparks on your skin just from the way he looked at you. "Right now, I just want you."
He was on you again, lips dragging down your shoulder, and you felt the heat of them through your blouse. "Hands on the desk, princess."
You complied without argument, turning to face the heavy wooden desk, bracing your hands against the edge, feeling a thrill zip through you like a lightning strike. One of his hands pressed against your back, between your shoulder blades, forcing you forward. You heard the clank and jangle of his belt. "You're like a fuckin' dream."
The heat of his body behind yours was like a fever threatening to take over. His fingers skimmed the sides of your skirt, and then it was being hitched up to your waist, scrunching at your hips, your ass on full display. He hooked your panties to the side, and the slight brush of them against you made you squirm, still sensitive with want. The first press of him against you had you reduced to singing a symphony of moans and whimpers, clutching at the desk and mewling like a kitten. He was just barely notched at your entrance, and you already felt like your eyes were going to disappear to the back of your head. "I know I'm in the music industry, but this is the sweetest song I've ever heard." He all but cooed the words, his chest at your back.
Your breath came out in a harsh, trembling exhale, your fingers clawing at the polished surface as Bucky’s cock slid against your folds, teasing the wet seam with slow, lazy drags. Every brush made you jolt, thighs twitching, your hips instinctively rocking back to try and take him in, but he held you steady, that big palm still flat between your shoulder blades, keeping you bent and pliant.
“You’re so wet for me,” he murmured, dragging the tip of his cock through your slick folds again, catching on your clit just to hear the way your breath hitched and your hips jerked. "So fuckin' ready. Bet I could slide all the way in right now and you'd just take it, wouldn't you?"
You whimpered in response, the need climbing your spine like fire, every cell in your body screaming for him.
"I said wouldn't you?" he repeated, that gentle, dangerous voice low in your ear, his hips notching forward just enough to press the thick head against your aching cunt.
"Yes," you gasped, barely coherent. "Please, Bucky, please—"
That was all it took.
He pushed in with one slow, deliberate thrust—thick, hard, stretching you inch by inch. The moan that broke from your throat was something primal, scraped raw, your body clenching tight around him. Your nails dug into the desk as he filled you, unhurried and heavy, pressing so deep you felt like he was in your stomach.
"Fuck, look at that," he groaned, grinding against you at the hilt, letting you feel every inch of him before he even moved. "Takin' me so well, honey. Like your pussy was made for me."
The pressure was devastating. Delicious. You blinked through the haze, tears threatening at the corners of your eyes from how good—how full—you felt. He didn't pull out right away. He just stayed buried inside you, his body flush with yours, the weight of him anchoring you to the desk as he reached around to run his fingers down your belly, over your skirt, to your clit.
Then he started to move.
A gradual, deliberate pull out followed by a sharp thrust forward had you crying out, your voice muffled against your arm as you fell fully forward, your body rocking with the impact. "Ah—fuck, Bucky—!"
He picked up pace, hips snapping forward, setting a bruising rhythm that had your tits bouncing against the desk, the sound of skin on skin sharp, echoing through the room. His cock speared into you again and again, hitting a spot that made your toes curl and your walls clamp down like a vice.
"S'tight, angel. So tight," he gritted out between thrusts, one hand gripping your hip so hard you were sure there'd be bruises. "Fuckin' perfect. You feel that? Feel how deep I am?"
"Y-yes—God, yes, don't stop—!'
You were helpless beneath him, arms shaking, knees weak, thighs slick. The slap of his hips against your ass reverberated through the office, the only other sounds your cries and his praise as he fucked you deeper, harder, grinding into you like a man possessed.
"You know how long I've wanted this?" he groaned, leaning forward to nip at the side of your neck, breath hot against your skin. "Every time you leaned over my desk. Every fuckin' time you said 'good morning' with that pretty smile. I've been going insane, sweetheart."
His fingers found your clit again, rubbing in tight, punishing circles that made your whole body seize up, the coil in your stomach tightening with terrifying speed.
"I—oh fuck—I'm gonna—"
"Yeah, you are," he growled, never letting up, cock pounding into you so hard the desk creaked beneath your hands. "You're gonna come for me like a good girl, let me feel that pretty pussy squeeze me while I fuck you through it."
Your body obeyed before your brain could even catch up.
The orgasm hit like a detonation—blinding, body-wracking, your knees nearly giving out as you cried name, back arching. You clenched down hard around him, walls fluttering, sobbing between curses and pleas. He didn't stop. He fucked you through it, just like he'd promised, hips still slamming home, chasing his own high.
"Fuck—fuck, you’re gonna make me come—where do you want it, sweet girl?" His voice was strained, close to unravelling, his cock twitching inside you.
"Inside," you whined, barely aware of what you were saying. "Want it inside, want all of it—please, Bucky—"
"Shit—fuck, yes—" he groaned, burying himself to the hilt one final time.
You felt the hot pulse of his release a second later, his entire body tensing behind you, a low, wrecked moan punched from his chest as he came deep inside you, cock twitching with each throb. His forehead dropped to the back of your neck, breath ragged, hands gripping your hips like he never wanted to let go.
The office was blessedly quiet, save for the sound of your mingled breathing and the soft tick of the city far below. You were suddenly glad that the party was happening so far below you.
Slowly, so slowly, he pulled out, the feeling making your squirm, his cum slipping from between your thighs as he tucked himself away, his hands smoothing over your back, your hips, your skirt. You stayed slumped against the desk like you couldn't trust yourself to remain upright. His palm rubbed at your shoulders. "You okay?"
You nodded, not trusting your voice. He looped an arm around your waist, pulling you to stand, turning you around to face him. He wiped tears from your face, and you saw the streak of black—your mascara—on his thumb. He kissed the corner of your mouth, the action so soft and tender it was like a butterfly landing on a leaf. "Are you gonna be able to stand on your own?"
A hoarse laugh cracked from your throat. "Yeah," you rasped, your voice hoarse. You must have looked a mess, eyes glassy, lips swollen, hair wild.
He let go of you somewhat reluctantly, and you wrapped your arms around yourself like it would help you stand firm. He moved to one of his desk drawers and started rummaging around. "What are you doing?" Your eyebrows pulled together as you watched him.
His eyes gleamed with mischief as he pulled out a familiar case. "Smoking a cigar. This is a celebration."
It appeared that it was a done deal, like you'd signed on the dotted line, no arguments, and no bribes necessary. You were together, after that. Bucky was quite sweet with you, more often than not, pressing kisses into your hair, finding you in the dark when you fell asleep at his place, his arms tight around you as he held you close. You were almost overrun with flowers, new bouquets replacing old ones at exactly the right time. He started calling you all the time, just to hear your voice. He'd cleaned you up and taken you back to your apartment that night, and then he'd had his way with you more than once. You still couldn't look at the walls of your shower without blushing scarlet.
You'd joined the mile high club almost immediately, the first time you'd been in the air with him after you'd fucked in his office. All he had to do was tap a finger against your shoulder or your thigh and you were effectively spreading your legs for him, but to your surprise and utter thrill, all you had to do was blink your eyes at him or tug him down by the collar of his shirt, and he would be on his knees for you in an instant, no words necessary.
Today, though, you were the one on your knees.
You weren't hiding your relationship, not exactly—you rolled up in the same car half the time, now—but to maintain an air of professionalism, you had insisted that you didn't screw in the office. It was practical. You'd let him kiss you, sure, but as soon as you felt his hands beginning to wander, you'd extricate yourself under the guise of getting actual work done. Meetings to arrange, events to approve, and so on.
You weren't quite sure how you found yourself under his desk, his fingers woven tight into your hair, your hands on his knees, his cock hitting the back of your throat, but there you were, blinking up at him, feeling way too giddy at seeing him reduced to a series of groans and curses. It was truly a sight to behold. Your eyes were watering but you didn't let up, taking him as deep as you could, letting your teeth graze against him just slightly, satisfied by the pitiful whine he made. And then you nearly bit him in half, your head smacking against the underside of the desk, when you heard a knock on the open office door, followed by, "Hey, are you busy right now?"
Bucky's hands tightened in your hair, holding you in place, and you willed yourself to stay completely still, even though you wanted to keep going. Tony was a shareholder with the label, and he breezed in and out of the place all the time, always failing to make an appointment with you. One of Bucky's hands left your hair and rested stiffly on the desk. You heard the click of his pen. "Bit busy, Stark, yeah." He said, striving for grouchy, but you could hear the strain in his voice. "How many times do I have to tell you to make an appointment with my assistant if you wanna talk?"
You could picture Tony's shrug. "She's not there right now, duh. Fine, if you're really busy at this current moment," he sounded unconvinced, "meet me for lunch. I want to discuss this bullshit about the JARVIS app—I'm not letting it get taken over by Doom Music, got it? It's the number one music streaming platform."
"Yeah, okay, Tony. Later. Lunch. Sure." Bucky grumbled. If you hadn't had his cock in your mouth, you would have laughed. You settled for pulling back, letting your tongue glide along the underside, and were rewarded with his leg jerking at the sensation. "Get out, Tony. I'm fuckin' busy."
"Jeez, touchy. Hope you're not this delightful at lunch." Tony's voice faded away as he left, and as soon as he was gone, Bucky was glaring down at you, tapping your cheek with one finger. You just batted your lashes at him, as if to say, "What? I'm the innocent party here! I said nothing! My mouth is full!"
"Thought you were a nice girl, angel."
You raised your eyebrows, then sucked him deeper, as if you were demonstrating that you agreed.
Bucky’s hips twitched forward without meaning to, just a reflex—like his whole body was wired straight to your mouth. You watched the quick draw of breath through his teeth, the way his eyes half-lidded and his throat bobbed in a sharp swallow. His hand came back to your head, not rough, but insistent, threading tight at your scalp like he didn’t trust himself not to come undone if he didn’t hold on to something.
"F-fuck, doll," he rasped, voice rough with disbelief. "You're gonna kill me."
You hummed around him, the vibration dragging a low, broken sound from his chest. Your hands slid slowly up the outside of his thighs, fingers curling into the fabric of his pants, bracing yourself as you set a slow rhythm. Down, deeper, until your lips met the base, then back, slow and wet, tongue tracing every vein on the underside of his cock, soft enough to be cruel.
His eyes fluttered shut. "You're not even pretending to be sorry, are you?"
You pulled back just enough to speak, lips flushed and shiny, breath warm against the tip of his cock. "Nope."
You barely had time to flash him a cheeky grin before you were sinking back down again, swallowing him in one smooth motion, lips stretched around the thick length of him, cheeks hollowed as you sucked him down like a reward. Your mouth was so slick, your spit clinging to him, glistening down the shaft as you worked him with obscene, wet little sounds. You kept your eyes up, watching the war being waged across his face: restraint versus need.
"You're fuckin' evil," he muttered, jaw clenched tight, hips rolling forward to your mouth with every stroke. "You got no shame, do you? My little office slut… keepin' it professional, huh? Is this what you meant?"
You made a show of nodding, moaning low around him, letting your tongue swirl over the tip like it was the last taste you'd ever get. His cock throbbed against your tongue in reply.
You knew what you were doing to him. You knew his tells now.
His grip in your hair tightened just slightly—not to guide you, but to stop himself from moving. His other hand left you again and clenched in a fist against the desk, his breath coming faster, his thighs tense beneath your palms.
And you wanted to watch him fall apart.
You picked up your pace, bobbing your head faster, your hand wrapping around the base of him now, stroking what you couldn't take while your mouth fucked him, tongue gliding with every pump. You let your teeth scrape again, just a little, and he growled, a sound that had your thighs squeezing together.
"I should bend you over the desk for this," he said hoarsely, eyes locked on you now, glassy and heavy-lidded. "Should make you gag on it while I fuck your throat. Let the whole floor hear you choking on me."
You whined around him, drool slipping from the corner of your mouth, running down your chin.
"Yeah," he hissed, watching it drip. "You like that idea? Like bein' my dirty little assistant under the desk, huh?"
You couldn't answer with your mouth full, but the ache between your legs was undeniable, and Bucky saw it. Saw the way your thighs pressed together, the way your shoulders tensed with every pass of your mouth. His expression shifted—hot, hungry, possessive.
He leaned forward, voice low. "Go ahead. Touch yourself."
Your stomach flipped.
You didn't hesitate. One hand slid down between your thighs, under your skirt, finding your panties already damp—ruined, really, unsurprising. You pressed your fingers against your clit through the fabric and moaned around his cock, the noise sending shivers through him.
His hips jerked. His hand fisted in your hair.
"Shit—shit, I'm close—"
You sucked harder, tongue fluttering against the underside of his cock, one hand still working the base while your other one was between your legs, circling, rubbing, already shaking. You were so turned on you could barely breathe.
"Look at me," he gasped.
Your eyes locked onto his—glassy, wanton, so fucking full of him.
"Fuck—angel—oh—fuck—"
He came with a groan that vibrated deep in his chest, hot and thick on your tongue, hips stuttering as he spilled into your mouth. You didn't stop. You took it all, lips wrapped tight as you sucked him through it, milking every last drop. His head dropped back against the chair, chest rising in rapid heaves, muscles flexing under his shirt.
When you finally pulled off, licking your lips, your face was flushed, your lipstick smudged, your eyes dark and dreamy.
He looked down at you like he'd never seen anything more perfect.
And then he smirked, slow and lazy, eyes still hazy.
"You’re not goin' back out there and sittin' at your desk like that," he muttered. "Get up here."
You blinked. "Bucky—"
"I mean it." He dragged you up from the floor, effortlessly. "Put that pretty ass right here—" he swiped his arm across the desk, sending papers fluttering to the floor "—and let me return the favor."
You let out a breathless laugh, already being lifted onto the edge. "I thought we weren't screwing in the office."
His mouth was already trailing down your neck. "You sucked my soul out through my dick, princess. You forfeited the moral high ground."
He knelt between your thighs like he'd been waiting for this exact moment all day.
And he hadn't even closed the door.
Your mouth fell open. "You cannot be serious right now. The door is wide open. What if Tony comes back?"
"Do I look like I care?"
You made to push your legs back together but he stopped you, a hand between your knees. "Bucky! I'm not joking. I don't want anyone to see!"
He huffed, put out by your worry. "Fine. I'll close the door. Just for you. Wouldn't want anyone else to see how sweet you look when you come, anyway. That's just for me."
Your heart was racing as he stood and moved across the room, and you watched over your shoulder as the door shut. Then he was prowling back to you like a lion on the hunt, and you felt yourself grow inexplicably more wet as his eyes landed on you like you were a prized gazelle. He was between your legs again without a second thought, pressing a kiss to your inner thigh, his gaze on you all the while. Your fingers tangled in his hair, your legs shaking with anticipation. You thought about Earth's Mightiest Vibe, which had been abandoned in a drawer in your bathroom after you and Bucky had started sleeping together. Who needed that thing when the Clit-Stimulator-3000 was on his knees before you, looking at you with bedroom eyes?
He kissed your thigh again, slower this time, his lips dragging a warm path just short of where you wanted him. You shuddered, breath caught in your chest as his stubble grazed your skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. His hands slid up from your knees to your hips, fingers gripping you firm, steadying, holding you like something he owned. Possessively, and like you were something precious all at once.
"You're gonna pay for bein' mean before," he murmured, voice low and dangerous, "tryin' to get a reaction out of me when Tony was here."
You laughed, a breathless, strained little sound—until his mouth pressed just above your cunt, and your laugh melted into a gasp.
He wasn't teasing anymore.
He kissed up your thigh, then again closer in—hot, open-mouthed, wet. His tongue flicked against the crease where your leg met your hip, and your whole body jolted, breath hitching as your hand tightened in his hair.
Then you felt him slide your panties down—slow, excruciating, dragging them down your legs until they fell to the floor like a white flag.
He groaned when he got his first real look at you, his breath puffing hot against your folds. "Look at that," he murmured. "So fuckin' wet. God damn it."
Your thighs were already trembling and he hadn't even touched you yet. Then his thumbs were spreading you open, gentle but firm, exposing your slick, swollen cunt to the cool air—and his mouth.
He dove in like a starving man.
You nearly sobbed at the first lick—long, broad, from entrance to clit, slow enough to make your eyes roll back. Then another, more focused, tongue circling your clit until your hips jerked forward and your fingers yanked at his hair.
"Bucky—fuck, fuck—"
He moaned into you, and the vibration made your legs shake. His mouth locked onto your clit, lips wrapping around it in a tight seal as he sucked gently, then swirled his tongue with deliberate pressure that made you cry out, no hope of staying quiet. Your legs threatened to close around his head and he just hooked his arms under your thighs, forcing them wide, anchoring you in place. Every time you tried to move, he just growled and pressed in closer, tongue lashing and licking, like he was devouring you, prepared to swallow you whole.
Your vision blurred, heat sweeping up your spine as your muscles pulled taut.
He slid one finger inside you—then two—and they moved in perfect tandem with his mouth, curling just right, pressing into that spot that made your breath catch and your eyes snap open wide.
"Oh my God, Bucky—right there—please—"
He just grunted and doubled down, his tongue ruthless now, the squelch echoing against the office walls as his fingers thrust deep and steady, stretching you open around them while his mouth focused on your clit like he had a vendetta. Your heels dug into his back and your hands scrambled over the desk behind you, looking for anything, literally anything, to hold on to.
You felt it rising in you, fast and uncontrollable, a wave so strong it stole your breath. You tried to warn him, but the words didn't come—only a desperate, keening whine as your hips bucked into his mouth.
And then you came.
Hard.
Your whole body locked up, your thighs quivering against his grip, cunt clenching around his fingers as your orgasm ripped through you like a supernova. You could barely breathe, your vision gone white as you trembled in his hold.
He didn't stop.
He did not stop.
His fingers kept thrusting, his mouth still dragging over your clit, sucking you through every aftershock. You whined, breathless, fingers clawing at his hair, trying to push him away and failing.
"Too much—too much—please—"
He looked up at you from between your legs, mouth glistening, eyes burning. "You said that last time," he said, voice hoarse, "and then you came again."
And then he started all over.
His tongue moved more lazily now, teasing, lapping softly at your clit while his fingers worked in and out of you with a slick, obscene sound. You twitched, shuddered, your body already hypersensitive—but fuck, it still felt impossibly good. Your thighs clamped tighter around his head, your back arching as the pressure built again, absurdly soon, too intense to handle.
You were crying out his name now, babbling between moans, legs jerking with every flick of his tongue. "Bucky—oh my God—please—"
He grinned against you. "C'mon, darlin'. Gimme another."
You came again, harder than the first, so fast you didn't even have time to make a sound.
Your entire body convulsed, cunt spasming around his fingers, muscles locking and then jolting as you collapsed, shaking, every breath a ragged gasp. Your head rolled back on your shoulders, eyes wide and unseeing, mouth open and silent as your second orgasm crashed through you.
When he finally—finally—pulled away, you were a wreck.
Your skirt was bunched around your waist, your blouse half-untucked, your panties abandoned on the floor and your legs trembling as he rose to his feet and leaned over you.
His mouth found yours in a lazy kiss, and you could taste yourself on his tongue, like it was nectar from the Gods. He kissed you like he had all the time in the world, one hand stroking your thigh, the other cupping your jaw like you were a piece of art he was admiring.
"I think we should revisit your 'no-fucking-in-the-office' rule." he murmured against your lips.
You blinked up at him, dazed. "Remind me what the policy is on blowjobs during business hours?"
He grinned, slow and dangerous. "Company-approved. Executive privilege."
You snorted and reached for him, already pulling him close again. "Somehow, I just don't remember that from my orientation day."
"It was in the fine print when you started here. Binding contract. I'm afraid that means you'll have to stick with it."
You grinned against his mouth, a laugh falling from your lips. "I guess that's not the worst thing in the world."
phew! what a wild ride! this was a behemoth to write. hope you enjoyed my contribution to the buckyverse! 💕
✦Bucky Masterlist - Main Masterlist - Read on aO3!✦
✦summary: you and Bucky have been at odds since you first met. he can't stand you. you pretend you can't stand him. and if Bucky ever knew how you really felt, you think you might die. not when there's no chance he'd ever feel the same way. right?✦
✦warnings/tags: bucky barnes x female!reader, modern!au, drinking, no use of y/n, mutual pining, no description of reader (pictures for aesthetic only), fluff, angst, drunken and sober love confessions, little plot to get to all that porn, feral level smut, (dirty talk, mean bucky but you're into it, teasing, possiveness, pussy spanking, praise kink, manhandling, sex toys, oversitmulation, squriting, bucky's packing, p in v sex, creampie, breeding kink), soft!bucky outside of smut✦
✦wc: 13.5k✦
✦Author's Note: i think i got possessed with this one. was barking to myself writing. Enjoy!✦
He’s the kind of beautiful that makes you want to strangle him.
Bucky walks around your apartment like he owns it, laughing all loud and musical, smiling like he fell out of a movie, running a hand through his hair and forcing you to see his sculpted torso and tanned skin. He barely fits in his shirt as it is, there’s no need for him to show off about it.
You’ve pressed yourself right to the corner of you couch, watching him silently. Watching all of them, but mostly Bucky. And his shining eyes and full lips and thick arms. Those things should be classified as weapons, or at least hazards. It’s too easy to imagine him wrapping them around you, pining you to the couch, handling you like a doll but still so gently-
“You’re staring at me again.” He drawls, and you start.
You give him an unimpressed glare, hoping your flush stays hidden in the low light of the room. “Shut up.”
“So nice to me, sweetheart.” He mocks, leaning a little further down. “Bet you dream about me, don’t you. Up all night with that rabbit Nat got you-“
You shove your foot up, slamming it square on his chest. He’d been getting too close. You’d been able to smell his cologne, and it made your head spin like opium. Bucky laughs again, walking away like you’re not even worth the argument. Your heart stings, but you ignore it. It’s an old bruise. You’re usually good at not pressing it, at pretending it doesn’t exist.
But Bucky exists only to torture you. So it never fully heals.
He’d been teasing about the rabbit thing. It had been a gag gift for secret Santa, and after Nat had even gotten you a very nice pair of shoes when you were in private. But Bucky’s clung onto it, like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever thought of. You, with a vibrator. You possibly being able to get off, when you’re the uptight little prude. The one who never brings back hookups, never dates, just sits in corners like an ivy, clinging to the shadows and watching everything else live around her.
You’ve never been fun. Never been someone Bucky would’ve chosen to know. He didn’t choose to know you. You knew a girl who worked with another girl, and that girl had a boyfriend who knew a girl who needed a roommate. You needed a roommate. You had good credit—because you’re boring—and the girl interviewing you had taken a liking to you.
Natasha rode a motorcycle. She worked in a job she was allowed to tell you about—something in black ops, that explained all the wigs in her closet—and spoke five languages. She baked calm down, and went to shooting ranges to calm down, and insisted on getting you a gun license so she’d feel more comfortable with all the hidden guns in the house.
“Hidden guns?” You’d asked, feeling your face blanch. She’d just smiled.
“You’ll never find them all. Let’s go, it’ll be easy.”
It had not been easy. But you understood how—to someone like Nat—it might be. She’d never lost patience with you, but she’d still made it look easy. When you’d gotten home and mumbled that you needed to go shower for an hour, she’d just patted your head like you were a bunny and smiled.
She might’ve been your first real friend in a while. Because it’s not that you’re not… personable. You’re just a little mean tongued. And nervous. And boring, and blunt, and you don’t like leaving the house unless someone grabs the scruff of your neck and drags you. You go to work, and you go home, and that’s mostly it. Your closest friends before Natasha had been co-workers. And you’d been really, truly happy with that.
But interesting people have interesting friends.
Natasha had a lot of friends. And they moved in and out of your apartment like they lived there.
Tony was a tech titan who you used to watch on the news, and now he left crumbs all over your couch. Wanda was a refugee and artist, and Clint worked in that same black ops thing Nat did. Steve had worked in it, but left to start his own non-profit with Sam. They all went far back, to elementary schools and playgrounds and clubs. They had history, but they were kind to you. Treated you like your little bachelor’s degree and normal person job fit in with their grand showmanship and large personalities that had been sucked right off the movie screen.
Most of them treated you like that.
Bucky didn’t.
Before you’d been introduced to him, Nat had described his as basically Steve’s brother, and it had been a striking endorsement. Steve had been kind to you. He brought you to a movie you’d really wanted to see, and never made fun of your stuffed animal collection. No brother of his could be all that bad, certainly not one even Nat described as charming and kind and not bad on the eyes.
Only one of those things was true.
Bucky Barnes is not bad on the eyes. You’d classify as maybe a medicine for the eyes, a miracle for the eyes, a blessing on a weary and tired viewer. He works in security or something, and it shows in his body. Sometimes he lets his hair grow out, and it’s frames his strong jaw and nose perfectly, all while making you want to run your fingers through each lock. You’re sure it would be like petting a very well-kept dog. He cares for it better than you care for yourself.
He’s got those eyes that knocked all the thoughts out of you, the moment you saw him. They’d sparkled and shone with his polite, white smile, and you’d just been swaying there like a lost scarecrow in a tornado. Your brain had been reduced to a fuzzy TV static and loud blaring noise, like you’d lost your own connection. Bucky had flexed his hand, a silent reminder you were supposed to shake it, and you hadn’t been able to get enough control over your body to even smile back.
His hand had been big. Calloused, with thick fingers and a lot of tiny scars. You’d shivered just at the idea of his touch. It might’ve been warm.
Might’ve been.
If Bucky had ever bothered to touch you at all.
By the time you’d dragged control back into your body, Bucky had given up and moved on. His ears had been a little red, in the moments after. You’d opened your mouth to apologize, make any excuse that would get him to offer a hand again.
He’d turned and walked away. Hadn’t looked at you for the rest of the night.
And when he looks at you now, it’s with something sharp behind his gaze. He never looks at anyone else like that. Never teases or mocks them, either. Acting like their mere presence in the room is a plague on his refined, perfect existence. He certainly never suggests they won’t be able to make it up five flights of stairs or asks if they’re sure they want to go out for the night.
You hate stairs. And you don’t want to go out for the night.
There’s only one thing more powerful than your picky little aversions, though.
The petty, blistering feeling at the top of your chest, that refuses to let Bucky win.
“You’re really coming with us?” Bucky calls your name from the kitchen, and you lift your chin, trying to look down your nose at the massive man.
“I was invited.”
“You’re always invited, you never actually get off the damn couch-“
“Barnes.” Nat walks past him, whacking his arm. “Don’t question miracles.”
You roll your eyes. “It’s not a miracle-“
“Yes it is.” She grabs your arm, hauling you off the couch like you weigh nothing. “I’ve been asking you to do this for years, I’m not letting Bucky frighten you off with his Buckying.”
That makes you giggle, and Bucky frowns. You catch him shooting Steve a look you can’t really read, and Steve just shrugs in return.
“I’m not trying to ruin it.” Bucky says, lofty and bored. “I’m just sayin’ she never comes out with us, and it might be a lot for the little doe to be shoved into the jungle or whatever-“
“You’re a poet.” Natasha says, giving him a flat glare. “Go wait in the car.”
Bucky scowls. “The car-“
“If you act like a dog, you wait in the car.”
“I am not acting like a dog-“
Sam raises his hand. “I caught him humping the furniture this mornin’ when he heard about it-“
“Sam.” Bucky hisses. “Shut the hell up before I knock your teeth out-“
“Steven.” Nat gives him a firm nod, and he sighs.
“Yeah, I got it.”
Bucky and Sam aren’t small men, but Steve grabs them by the collar and drags them out of the room without breaking a sweat. Leaving you and Nat in a suddenly very quiet apartment, a lingering smell of spice and pine still clouding the air.
Another reason you hate Bucky coming over. He’s mean to you, and he’s nice to everyone else, and he questions you then leaves the whole room stained in his presence.
“Ignore Barnes.” Natasha says it like an order, and it probably is.
You smile at her. “I always do.”
You think it comes off airy and convincing. Nat looks at you like she’s trying not to either scoff, or laugh. Before you can insist on anything, she’s grabbing your hand and dragging you into the bathroom. You did promise you’d let her get you ready. When you’d told her you could do makeup and prep yourself, she’d snorted and said maybe, but I’ll do it better.
One of the first lessons you learned was not to argue with Natasha when she’s sure of something. You let her sit you on the counter and sort through your makeup bag, finding everything she deems worthy of being on your face tonight. Your outfit hangs on the door, and you did choose that, but after Nat vetoed three others.
It’s nothing special. A short dress and heels that will blend right in a club. It hadn’t been that different from your other suggestions. But it had gotten a curt nod of approval and smirk from Nat, so it had something. You’re smarter than to question what.
“You should talk to Bucky tonight.” Nat says suddenly, and you blink at her in surprise.
“I- What?”
“Make him apologize. For being an ass to you.”
“That’s- It’s fine-“
“No, it’s not.” Nat gives you a firm look, and you sigh.
“I know, but- I don’t really care, okay? That’s just- It’s Bucky, right?”
You give her a weak smile, and this one doesn’t even convince you.
It is just Bucky. He’s charming and sweet and handsome, and he hates just you. So you hate him in return, just for being so perfect and deciding you’re the only person in the world not worthy of his attention. It would be easier if he really was a bad man. If you didn’t know he volunteered with kids and Steve’s foundation, if he didn’t advocate for his fellow veterans, if he hadn’t made his ma’s chicken soup when you and Nat had both caught something last winter, and taken the time to drop it off in person.
For Nat.
Because you’re just… Not worth it for him. Not worth his time, not worth his smiling, barely worth anything more than glowering stares and taunting words. And you’re not weak. You fight back every day, and keep all of your desires and affection buried deep in the pit of your stomach and swollen like an infection around your heart.
He never has to know that you think about him all the time. That you feel yourself bloom whenever your eyes meet, then wither when his gaze snaps away. Whenever he presses his body over yours just to tease you, the heat of his body makes your breath hitch. You spend long days daydreaming about how good a boyfriend he’d be, if he didn’t hate you. Attentive and caring and giving.
Every night you think about how giving he’d be. Flowers and coffee like he brings Wanda for galleries, or for Nat or Clint when they’ve been working late night shifts. He likes watching TV, you know, because he spends a lot of time sitting next to you on the couch and loudly making comments until you threaten to force-feed him bleach. But if that wasn’t the blunt and unforgiving knife of reality, you could just lay in his arms forever.
He could pick you up and carry you to bed. The same bed that you put that accursed vibrated between your legs, close your eyes, and dream of him railing you into the mattress. Fucking you until you can’t stand, until you can’t speak or thing, until your eyes are rolling back and your mouth can’t even figure out how to close, so he kisses you possessively or gives you some of those thick fingers to suck on-
“You should still talk to him.” Natasha’s words are blunt. If she’s noticed how you’ve been working yourself up, she doesn’t say a single word. “Before he does something stupid.”
You snort. “Bucky always does something dumb-“
“No. He does a lot of dumb things. Close your eyes.” Nat picks up an eyeliner, and you obey. “But there’s a difference between dumb and stupid. Stupid is harder to take back.”
You grunt, and you don’t think anything stupid Bucky does is going to have anything to do with you. But something scratches at your brain, and it’s green and bitter. Your fingers fidget in your lap, and you shouldn’t ask, but-
“Is he bringing someone?” You blurt, and just the idea makes you sick. Bucky with some model-type, holding her hips while she grinds onto him, all the honey he’d pour into her ears and down her throat while you just hugged yourself in the corner of the room. Her sitting on his lap in your apartment, you trying to hide the ugliness of jealousy but never being able to spare her more than a crude sneer. It’s the only reason Nat would possibly want you to talk to him. You and Bucky’s childish game of pulling each other’s hair and biting without teeth and seeing who breaks first, it ruins his picture of the perfect suitor. If you keep it up, you’ll ruin this for him, and he deserves to be happy but the thought of him being happy while you just sink into yourself like quicksand makes you want to die-
“Jesus, no.” Nat laughs. “That’s- Never mind.” She shakes her head, still chuckling about some secret you apparently don’t get to be a part of.
“What?” You try to push. “I’ve heard about his- You know. Promiscuity.”
Nat snorts. “From who?”
“Sam.”
“Sam’s an idiot.” She dismisses plainly, and you frown.
“Tony’s mentioned it too-“
“They’re both idiots.”
“Bucky’s told me, he said he leaves all his girls satisfied-“
“Bucky is the biggest idiot of all of them. Open.”
You listen again, and find Nat smiling at you with a strangely soft affection. Like you’re some wet kitten she rescued off the street.
“Put on your dress.” She says, wiping the corners of your slightly pouting lips. “Talk to Barnes.”
At the very least, you manage to follow one of those orders.
The dress is a little shorter than you thought it would be. It rides up your thighs, forcing you to pull it down with every step. In the car you cross your legs and stare at the floor, grounding yourself in the bass of Nat’s loud music as your heartbeat starts to pick up. You’re going out. You’re going out. Spiting Bucky was not a good enough reason to do this, it’s going to be loud and you can dance but not in front of strangers, and you’re going to be even more boring than usual and you feel like a fraud.
“Nice dress.”
Bucky’s voice is a low behind you, his breath fanning on your neck. You almost scream.
“Christ, calm down.” He’s grinning when you whip around, leaning forward in his seat to whisper. Sam and Steve are next to him, one very pointedly staring out the window, the other looking at something on his phone and humming like he’s already trying to drown out you and Bucky’s fighting.
“You scared me-“
“You saw me get in the car, sweetheart. Not my fault you’re jumpy-“
“I am not jumpy-“
“You are. Like a bunny.” His grin widens, and you scowl.
The shifting streetlamps make him look like an angel. Golden halo rays behind his head, long shadows that make him look even more rugged than usual. His lips look fuller, softer, eyes glimmering like a floodlight through the dark, and-
“Shut up.” You snap, turning back around. You can’t keep looking at him. It’s dangerous.
“I was just saying your dress was nice.” Bucky’s breath tickles your neck. You wrap your arms tight around your stomach.
“You also called me a rabbit.”
“Called you a bunny-“
“That’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s-“ He sighs, shaking his head. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
You flip him off over your shoulder, glaring firmly out the windshield. You can feel him retreat, but the closeness had lit up your nerves, and now they’re buzzing with hope that he’ll return.
Stupid fucking body. Stupid fucking Bucky.
You refuse to look at him when you arrive. You stumble a little bit in your heels—Natsha insisted on six inch, which is far too tall for anyone—and Bucky catches your arm, holding you upright. You brush his hand off like a fly and march on, refusing to give him the satisfaction of some other comment about how you’re like a baby deer.
When you get inside, you can smell it. The stench of sweat and alcohol and something fruity they probably use to cover the first smells. You cling to Natasha, letting her guide you through the crowd to the bar. She orders you two shots because you need them, and you don’t argue. Between Bucky and the club, you do.
You down them both without flinching, and Sam whistles from behind you.
“Damn, you took those like a champ.”
You shrug, and Sam elbows Bucky.
“You see that, Buck-“
“Yeah. I saw it.”
Bucky’s voice is lower than usual. Almost sullen. You’d examine him, try to figure out what’s wrong with him, but you’re not supposed to be letting yourself care. He’s not your problem tonight. You’re here to indulge in fun.
You’re already not very good at that as is. Bucky’s consuming presence isn’t going to help.
Another drink might.
You’re three shots in when Nat brings you out to the dance floor. The liquor is pulling you lose, the frayed knot that’s always in your chest going slack enough to allow you to dance. You’re smiling and laughing like a normal person, almost completely able to forget to check where Bucky is in the room.
Near the edge of the crowd, drinking and talking to Steve.
A fourth shot might be needed.
You’re smiling like a fool now. The room is tilted a little, all the colors neon, but they blind out your usual worried and the tilt helps your worries slide off your body. You’re able to forget about Bucky until you notice a girl talking to him, and you take a fifth shot. A sixth, when he vanishes for nine and a half minutes, and your brain starts to map everything he might be doing to that girl.
Seven, when the first stranger asks you to dance and you’re not drunk enough to forget about Bucky and say yes.
Eight, when he tries to kiss you and you shove him away, because his lips aren’t pink enough and he’s not broad enough for you to every pretend.
Nat tries to cut you off there. You slip past her, and take a ninth. The room is just a blur now. You can’t fully remember who Nat is, and why you’re trying to avoid her. There’s a man with his hands on your hips, and he’s got dark hair that looks too greasy for you to touch. Another man calls you sweetheart, but he says it a little wrong and it makes you want to cry. None of them have the right eyes, and the ones that are closer don’t have the right smile.
You feel like you’re going to cry, by the time you’ve rejected the eleventh man. Or only fourth. Numbers don’t feel real right now. Most everything doesn’t feel real.
Everything except Bucky.
Because your own name is just a sound in your head that sounds foreign, but Bucky says it and you know to turn around.
It’s less because it’s your name. More because Bucky called you.
You smile, swaying on your feet, and you’re not even sure where you are anymore. It’s somewhere with a lot of people. Loud music. It’s dark, but bright at the same time, and Bucky looks like a walking dream as he moves towards you. Your vision swims, but he’s made of clear lines and a stern expression.
He’s mad at you. Your face falls, lip wobbling, and you take a step back. You don’t want him to be mad at you. Your heart is already beating in your ears, Bucky’s anger or distain might make it burst.
“Where the hell did you go?” He snaps, and you bow your head.
“I- I dunno-“ You hiccup, hugging yourself tight.
“Nat’s been looking for you, Steve barely stopped her from trying to make the building go into lockdown, and I-“ He cuts himself off, running a hand over his face, and you blink the tears away.
You’re looking up at him under your lashes, and he’s still angry. Some distant voice in your head tells you it’s your fault entirely. That he must’ve been about to go home with someone when they lost you, and now he’s pissed he had to pause his night to find you. You sniff, wiping your nose with your arm.
Bucky’s frown deepens. He takes a step forward, and you try to step back but balance feels like an Olympic feat right now.
His arm loops around your waist, pulling you right against his chest. You stare up at him, tears streaming down your cheeks from feelings you can’t even name anymore. They’re hollow and big and full and made of a million little cuts. They burn in your heart and through your blood, but also freeze in your throat and muscles. You can’t move. You don’t want to move.
Bucky’s big hand is splayed on your back, and you don’t want to go anywhere you can’t feel him.
That voice from before reminds you that’s not allowed, so you wiggle a little.
Bucky holds you tighter, and you surrender in a split second. His frown deepens, and you think you’re still crying. Your cheeks are certainly burning, and your throat feels oddly tight.
Gentle fingers brush under your eyes, and you hum softly. Bucky’s nostrils flare, those fingers brushing hair from your face before cupping the back of your head, forcing your gaze onto his.
“Jesus, woman.” He mutters, those beautiful eyes scanning over your slack face. “How much did you have to drink.”
“I dunno.” You breathe. His brow furrows.
“Best guess.”
You shrug, shaking your head, and Bucky sighs. You want to shrink and hide from him, from his obvious annoyance and disappointment. It’s nothing new, but it’s raw like this. You can’t figure out anything, let alone how to pretend like his hatred doesn’t bother you. You try to turn and hide your face, but Bucky just pulls it right back.
“Over five?” He prompts, and his voice is so soft. Like he’s trying to coax the answer out of you.
“I- I don’t know.” You whine slightly, and he sighs.
“Yeah. Alright.” Bucky’s throat bobs, and he looks up. Glances around you, his hands never leaving your body.
You stare up at him in the dark. You’re not supposed to be looking at him, but it’s impossible. He’s magnetic, and beautiful, and you’ve never been this close to him without one of you trying to claw at the other.
But your fingers cling to the fabric of his shirt, and it’s not to draw blood. You just don’t think that if he walks away you’re going to be able to stand up.
Bucky looks back down at you, and his tongue flicks over his lips. His thumb drags slowly over your cheekbone, leaving a little trail of fire in its wake. Your breathing gets shallow, your eyes fluttering. Everything feels like a lot. Like you’re so high in the atmosphere the air is starting to get thin. Bucky’s brow furrows, and he works his jaw like he does when he’s thinking.
You’ve always wanted to reach up and touch the lines that form on his face, when he worries. They’re deep, and still handsome, but they only ever mark that he’s stressed. He shouldn’t be. It’s only you, and you’re nothing to him.
He lets out a heavy breath through his nose, his hand dragging down to cup the back of your neck. You tip your head back, waiting for him to do something. Kiss you. Bite you. Slam you back against the wall and relieve the ache, building up between your thighs. Maybe just smell you and let his lips brush over a sensitive spot on your neck, teasing you like always until you’re crying and begging for him.
Instead, Bucky just sighs. He pulls you forward, twisting you until you’re in front of him. His arms cage you to his chest, and he’s almost herding you down the hall.
“Where’re we going?” You tip your head back, and find him glowering at everyone around you.
They’re all moving so fast, stumbling in your path then scrambling away under Bucky’s glower. His eyes flick down to yours for a second, and maybe it’s the delusions of grandeur and liquor, but you could swear they soften slightly.
“We’re gettin’ you home.” He mutters, shouldering the door open. “You need to sleep this off.”
You wrinkle your nose as the chill of night air hits you. “But it’s cold-“
“Car will be warm.”
“But we don’t have a car-“
“We’re taking Nat’s.”
You scoff. “Nat would never give you her car-“
“Well, she did.” He grunts, voice dropping under his breath. “You’d never give me your car.”
“I don’t have a car.” You snap, and Bucky chuckles dryly.
“Yeah, I know.” He opens the door, giving you an amused look. “Up and in, baby.”
Your whole world stops for a second. You feel like you’re floating, a ditzy smile crossing your face, and you start to giggle because he called you baby. Bucky called you baby, like you matter to him, and he’s touching you.
Bucky sighs when you don’t move, and bends down. He scoops you up and drops you in the car like you weigh nothing. You’re still giggling when he closes the door and walks around the hood, sliding into the driver’s seat. For a second you stop, looking out the club with a frown. The world is still hazy, but you can see the neon sign, and it feels like you’re forgetting things that are very important-
“They’re all goin’ back to our place.” Bucky grunts, and you look over to find him staring at you with one of those stone-faced, unreadable expressions that he only uses around you. “It’s closer, cab will be cheaper.”
You frown. “Why aren’t they riding with us?”
“’Cause we’re going back to yours.”
“Why?”
“’Cause.” Is all Bucky offers. He starts the car before you can ask another question, and puts his arm around your seat to back out of the spot.
Nat has a back cam. He just always does it like this, and you’ve always chalked it up to his big, responsible man thing. Usually when the arm is around you, you glare out the window and pretend you can’t feel how close he is. How his fingers brush your upper arm, or how his smell gets stronger.
Tonight you can’t really remember why you do that. And Bucky does really smell good.
You turn your cheek, pressing it into his bicep. Bucky freezes, the car jerking to a stop, and you can feel his attention. It sparks a tiny fire in your core, and seeps down between your thighs. Your lips graze his skin, and he coughs.
His fingers dip down, brushing near your collarbone. You hum happily, and the car starts moving again.
When you’re out of the parking lot, Bucky doesn’t remove his arm like usual. You’re grateful. If he did, you might have chased it right into his lap.
“You have fun?” Bucky breaks the silence, voice gruff.
You nod, turning to watch him drive. He always does it in a way that’s almost unfairly attractive. He holds the wheel lazily, like he knows it’s under his control. You want him to hold you like that.
Bucky clears his throat. “You, uh- You did good.”
“Good?” You murmur, not fully understanding the praise.
You know it makes you throb, and press your thighs together. Bucky’s eyes flick to the motion, and his throat bobs.
“Yeah.” His grip on the wheel is white knuckled. “Good.”
Silence settles again, and you let yourself stare at him. He’s beautiful. So beautiful it makes you unsure that he’s real. You’d like to trace the line of his jaw, hear his smooth, deep voice again. Hear it say your name, because it’s the only thing that reminds you that you’re real. You can’t remember why you ever deprived yourself of this. Of him, and all his quiet glory. He’s a loud man, but never boastful.
He’s only really boastful to you. When he fixes the shower for Nat or someone brings up his army service, he waves them off and laughs, and you’ve always loved that about him. You love most things about him, even when he’s being insufferable. You sort of love that he’s insufferable, too. You’re not that easy either. And if you wrapped around him, you’re hoping he’d be too chivalrous to cut you off. He could mock you all he wants, you’d just hide your face in his neck and breathe him in. Grounding. Handsome. Impossible to resist.
Your fingers are itching, to touch that sad little furrow. There’s nothing for him to worry about. The world revolves around him.
“Saw you got some numbers.” He grunts suddenly, and you pause.
“Numbers?”
“Phone numbers.”
“Oh.” You reach for you bag, checking that the hard line of your phone is still there. It is. You don’t know what he’s talking about.
“You gonna call any of them?”
“Any of who?”
Bucky gives you an exasperated look, then double takes slightly. His worry lines deepen. It makes you pout, grabbing at your own hands to stop them from reaching for him.
“The guys.” He says slowly, frowning at the road. “That you were talkin’ to.”
Oh. Phone numbers. “No.”
His brows raise. “No?”
You shake your head, and Bucky prompts you with an oddly tight voice.
“Why?”
They’re not you. Even your drunk brain seems to know it’s bad idea to say that. “I didn’t want them.”
“Hm.” Bucky taps his hand on the wheel, shooting you a strange look. “Why?”
You can’t tell him that, but you also can’t think of a good excuse this time. You make a lame, half-hearted sigh, and turn your face back into his arm.
He doesn’t push it. He doesn’t talk for the rest of the drive. His thumb drags little circles on your upper arm, lulling you into a half-sleep only interrupted by the bump of the road. You’re not sure how much longer you’re in the car, and when it stops you can’t really remember what you’re supposed to do now.
Bucky helps. He slides away from you, squeezing your thigh in a silent reassurance before he steps out of the car. Your hand traces over where he’d touched you. Bare skin on skin, hands still light and gentle. He seems to have burned his handprint into you, and it spreads until you’re tingly and weak-kneed.
The door on your side opens, and his voice is low in your ears.
“C’mon, pretty girl.” A strong arm loops around your stomach, pulling you back. “Let’s get you in bed.”
You hum, and let Bucky guide you. You trust him completely, with all your heart and not a single question.
He handles you carefully. Guides you inside, holds you steady in the elevator, takes your keys from your shaking fingers and opens the door. You’re sent to take a shower, but start to trip over nothing the moment Bucky lets go of you, so he sighs and draws you a bath.
“How am I gonna stand?” You mumble, sitting on the toilet while he runs the water. “Or rinse.”
Bucky grunts. “I’ll help.”
You hum in approval, and start to pull off your dress. Bucky makes a strangled sound, eyes flying up to the ceiling, and you’ve never seen his face so red.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Getting ready for a bath?” You frown at him, and he groans.
“You- Fuck.” He takes a heavy breath through his nose, closing his eyes. “Just- Keep your underwear on, alright?”
You nod, trying to ignore the heavy sting that he doesn’t want to see you naked. Bucky won’t even fully look at you as he helps you into the tub. He leaves the room while you sit helplessly in the water, barely moving until he returns. You wrap your arms over your chest, suddenly consciously that maybe you’re not pretty enough for him to look at you. You pull your knees to your chest and sniffle, just waiting for him. You don’t even know why he left in the first place. You wanted him here.
Bucky sighs, when he opens the door to find you crying.
“Christ, I leave you alone for five seconds- Hey, woah-“ He kneels on the bathmat, hand flexing before he reaches out and wipes away your tears. “It’s alright, you’re alright. Don’t cry, sweetheart, you’re okay-“
You bite down a sob and turn your face, pressing it right into his shoulder. Again, Bucky stiffens. His arms hover for a second, breathing shallow, and you think he’s going to shove you away.
But he doesn’t. After that single, million year heartbeat of a moment, he grabs you. Holds you tight into his body, cradling your head and rocking you back and forth. The water flows under you, pushing up on the lip of the tub. A little bit flows over, splashing his pants.
He doesn’t seem to mind.
“C’mon, baby.” He murmurs, slowly starting to rise. “Let’s get you to bed.”
You nod, wrapping your arms tight around his neck. When he gets you on your feet, he stops for a second. His lips brush near your ear, and an electric rush dart through you. Then, fast but certain, he kisses the side of your head.
It’s so quick you’d think you imagined it, if you couldn’t feel the burn of his lips long after he pulls away. You reach up to brush it, when Bucky deposits you on your bed. You watch him move around the room like he belongs there.
He does.
He’d belong with you, if he wasn’t such a massive butt about your existence.
“It’s your fault, you know.”
Bucky glances up from your dresser, fisting a shirt in his hands. “What?”
“You.” You say, because it’s that simple.
He’s the reason you’re drunk. That you didn’t score tonight, that you’d been crying, that you have to be coddled like a baby.
Not that you mind that last one. It’s wonderful, having him touch and speak to you like he cares.
It’s still all his fault.
“What’s me?” He says, and you roll your eyes at the ceiling.
“All of it.”
Bucky says your name, and you wave him off with a dramatic sigh. You can hear him pad slowly across the room, and when he pulls you up gently you flop over his body. A useless ragdoll he’s trying to get a shirt onto.
But the harder you make it, the longer he’ll stay. The longer he’ll be nice, and touch you, and-
“I love you.”
Bucky stills. Your words hang in the air, but you don’t understand why. You’ve said far worse things to him, and he must have known. You know. You’re pretty sure Nat does too, with all the looks she’s always giving you after Bucky teases you and you flush, or you bicker and he marches away with a scowl.
It’s not some grand confession. You love him like the seasons turn and the sun always rises. It’s a deep, mechanical part of you that can’t be rewired, and you know because you’ve tried. But Bucky’s leans back and stares at you like the sky is falling.
“What?”
His voice is a croak, and you frown at him.
“I love you.” You say it slower this time. Maybe you’d slurred the words, and he hadn’t understood. “It’s your fault, because I love you and you’re just… There.”
He blinks at you slowly, obviously still not understanding. You roll your eyes, and flop back down.
Bucky coughs, grabbing your knee as if to steady himself. He’s sitting down, and it’s not like he’s in love. The world is perfectly under his feet. You’re the one suffering.
“I’m here?”
“All the time.” You whine, and his grip on your knee tightens.
“But you love me.”
“Mhm.”
“So why’s it problem that I’m here-“
“Because you never do anything.”
You can hear the frown in his voice. “I do things. I do lots of things-“
“You never touch me.” You prop yourself on your elbows, glaring down at him. “You just- You’re there, and you don’t like me and it- It makes me-“
“Makes you what.” Bucky’s voice is deep, his eyes dark on yours, and you stick your tongue out at him.
“You don’t get to know.”
“I don’t get to know?” He snorts. “No, you can’t just- You can’t say that kinda stuff then-“
“I wish you’d touch me.” You tell the ceiling.
Bucky grunts. “Yeah, I’ve heard. But-“
“Think I could cum just from listening to you talk.” You hum, your voice sounding like a faraway dream.
Your eyes are getting heavy, and Bucky’s gone completely silent. The words start to float out of you, like steam escaping through windows, into the warm, open sky.
“I’d like to touch you, too. Put you in my mouth, or just- ride you.” You sigh. “I want everything. I’d do- Do anything you told me too if you asked. Anything.” You look back up at him, your lip wobbling again. “But you never ask me. Why don’t you ever ask me?”
Bucky’s gaping at you, and he shakes his head, his voice a low croak. “I, uh- You’ve never-“
He swallows, glancing down, and you follow his gaze.
He’s straining through his jeans, shifting uncomfortably. You giggle, flopping back down. Your eyes start to droop, the room fading in and out. Bucky rises over you with a sigh, pulling the blankets up.
“’S nice.” You murmur. “You. Bein’ here.”
You yawn, and Bucky’s laughs. Under his breath, like an inside joke he won’t bring you into.
“Yeah. I know.” His hand grazes over your cheek, and you hum sleepily, eyes closing.
His lips press to your forehead, and it’s like a spell. The world, slowly and easily, starts to slip away.
“Sleep well, baby.” He mutters, and under that command, you do.
He’s not there when you wake up, and you have to be okay with that.
You don’t know how you’re ever going to face him again anyway. There’s a fog hanging over your brain, but it’s not thick enough that you can’t remember last night.
Bucky saw you naked. He was in your room, and put you to bed, and you-
You told him you loved him.
That you wanted him. That you could cum just from him talking to you.
You have to move. You have to change your name and move as far away as possible. Maybe Siberia, or Russia, or Romania, or somewhere he’ll never find you again. Because you told him you loved him, and now he’s gone.
He left a water on your bedside table. Mocking you with the fact that last night was real.
You force yourself to sit up, rubbing your temples, and take the glass. If you’re never going to see Bucky again, and you don’t plan to, there’s no need to spite him with ignoring it.
When you stand up, it takes a few deep breaths to start moving. Nat isn’t home yet, and she probably won’t be for a while. That gives you plenty of time to wallow before you vanish forever. You can spend the morning moping and cursing yourself, then worry about consequences.
You make cereal and put on coffee. Stare at the little bits floating through the milk, and try not to think about Bucky. If he’s thinking about you.
If he is, you don’t want to imagine what. That you’re a whore for throwing yourself at him, a fool for think he’d be open to such a confession—from you of all people—or maybe just the same as he always did. Maybe he’d known the whole time, and he just thinks you were gutsy to say it aloud when he so clearly wants nothing to do with you.
Nothing at all, but taking care of you while you’re drunk. Giving you a bath and putting you to bed, handling you like something precious and kissing the side of your head.
That could have been just more mocking. The same game he’s always played, accusing you of wanting him then laughing. Like he’d already known.
But playing that game while you’re out of it isn’t Bucky’s style. He likes you biting back, sometimes he dangles comments over your head and grins when you snap at them. So there’d be no reason for him to play when you weren’t even able to a join him. But then there’s no reason for him to act like that at all.
It’s too early to be thinking this much. You put all your hopeful bets on Bucky having somehow forgotten everything, so you don’t have to move.
The door opens down the hallway, and you glance up. It’s early for Nat to be back.
But it’s not Nat that calls your name through the house.
“Where’d you- Hi.”
Bucky walks into the kitchen, and you stare at each other. He’s wearing his clothing from last night, his hair mussed, two paper coffee cups in his hands. You swallow, and he coughs, glancing around the kitchen.
“I got you coffee.” He mutters a little bitterly, and you follow his gaze to the rumbling coffee machine.
“Oh.”
“You don’t have to- It’s here.” He puts it on the counter, and you nod, focusing back on your cereal.
You’re both silent for another long moment. There air is thick, like a swamp at the height of summer. You’re not sure how you remember to speak.
“How’d you know I was up?”
“Your door was open.” He mutters. “Made sure it was closed before I went out.”
“Did you-“
“On the couch. Just, uh-“ He rubs the back of his neck, eyes locked onto yours. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t alone, and- I think we, uh- You said some things. That we should talk about.”
You rip your gaze away as you flush, but if you’d had any hope of pretending you’d been too drunk to retain the night and just hoping he’d leave you be, that ruins it.
Bucky’s eyes narrow. He walks forward, until he’s right at your side. You can feel his presence buzzing through you, and swallow.
“You remember.” His voice is low, and he leans further down before you can protest. “Don’t lie to me. We’ve both been lyin’ way too much.”
You don’t dignify him with an answer. With even a glance.
Bucky leans closer.
“You said you wanted to touch me.” He’s almost growling in your ear. “You said you wanted me in your mouth, that you wanted me to ride you, that you’d do anything I told you-“
“James.” You hiss, twisting to glower at him.
Mistake.
He looks hungry. His eyes are blown out, only inches from yours, his tongue darts over his lips when you look down at them. He’s watching you like a dog that’s finally been told it can have its bone. Your grip on the counter tightens. It’s hard to stay upright.
“Full name.” He hums, the corners of his lips tugging up. “I’m in trouble.”
“You’re being a dick-“
“Yeah, but you like it.”
“I- You-“
“You love it.”
You freeze at that word. The air feels thin now. Your face is burning, and Bucky’s as collected as ever. Like this is all still just a game to him.
“Fuck you.” You spit. It takes everything you have.
Bucky doesn’t even flinches. “Yeah, you want to.”
Your mouth falls open, and he leans in closer.
“You meant it, right? Everything you said?”
Denying seems pointless. You try to anyway, but your lips barely prepare for the word no before Bucky’s giving you a stern look—don’t lie to me—and your voice dies.
He says your name, and it’s the same voice he used last night. Lighter, gentler, man trying to tend instead of force. You weren’t any match for it last night, but that doesn’t seem to be the drink’s fault. You give in just as easily right now.
“Yes.” You breathe.
Bucky’s eyes flash. “All of it?”
“Bucky…”
“Do you want me.” His voice is demanding now, and you try to look away.
He catches your chin, pulling you back. Forcing your gaze onto his, onto those beautiful, enchanting eyes.
You nod, and he hums in approval. The sound settles, molten and warm in your tummy.
“Do you love me?”
His words sound so sincere and taunting at the same time. You can’t look away, so you glare, and he chuckles.
“Come on, baby.” He brushes his lips over yours, his voice becoming something low. Something dangerous.
You don’t even bother to move away this time. You’re breathing in your chest, your stomach filled with too much desire to do much else. The brush of his lips let you taste coffee and mint, and his grip on your chin is commanding. You’re only putty in his hands. A lost cause that doesn’t really want to be found.
“Don’t make me fuck it out of you.”
Bucky’s eyes gleam, and he’s playing again. He knows he has you, that you want to be had.
His hand drags slowly, gently, on your waist. His fingers dip under your shirt, the soft touch making you gasp. You lean forward, and Bucky leans back. He tilts his head slightly, something stern still in his gaze. You blink hopelessly, trying to figure out what, and he squeezes your hips. It’s grounding and electric, and he presses back forward as you go still below him.
“Do you want me to fuck it out of you.” He growls, and your mouth falls open with a whimper.
Permission. He was holding himself on a leash for your permission.
Doubt drains from your head, far down south where a warm, summer storm is brewing between your thighs.
You spread your legs slowly, and grab his hand on your hips. Push it slightly down, until his attention follows.
Bucky’s jaw clenches, and his hand on your chin drops. You watch as he moves so tantalizingly slow, brushing the band of your panties before dragging down the seam at the apex of your thighs. He rubs you over the fabric, and your hips buck into the touch.
“Fuck.” Bucky hooks two of his fingers, tearing your underwear in one rip. “You’re so wet. Soaked through the panties, soaking my fucking fingers.”
You moan, pressing your face into his shoulder. Bucky dips his fingers into your heat, smearing the arousal all over your pussy, and you shake.
“Bucky-“
“You got this,” he spanks your pussy, then drags the mess down your inner thighs. “’Cause I’m here? Or just from thinking about me?”
“B- Both.” You mumble, trying to keep still as the broad pads of his fingers find your clit, rubbing in slow, tantalizing circles.
He hums. “You think about me a lot?”
Pressing hard on the sensitive button. Your knees give out, and you’re only caught by his arm around you’re lower back.
“Careful, baby-“
“All the time.” You whimper the confession, looking up at him with big, teary eyes. “Think about you all the time, Bucky, you’re- You’re so- Oh my god-“
Bucky yanks his hand from your pussy, grabbing your jaw and angling it back for a kiss.
It’s slower than you thought it would be, with how he crashed over you. You’d been expecting rough and harsh, all spit and ownership. Instead there’s a certainly behind it—a rough passion that’s demanding and hot—but it’s slow. Bucky doesn’t use his tongue until you open your mouth, and he hums in satisfaction when you grab at his hair, tugging slightly.
He grabs your ass, hauling you up on the kitchen counter. His hands wander your body lazily, tracing the softness of your hips and curve of your spine. He chuckles when you arch into the touch, deepening the kiss. Stars swim behind your eyes, and you realize you’re still grinding up into his torso.
“Bucky.” You plead, and he presses another tiny kiss to your lips, taking his sweet damn time.
“Off.” He tugs at the hem of your shirt, and you lift your arms to help him.
He leans back when you’re uncovered, and this time he isn’t trying to cover anything else. He palms one of your breasts, licking his lips before he takes the nipple between his fingers and rolls it. You squeak and his eyes dart up, almost studying how you shiver and blink at him.
“So reactive.” He switches to the other breast, and your fingers dig into the nape of his neck. “Almost came before I even really touched you, sweetheart. If you can’t hold it, you’re gonna be a fuckin’ wreck before I’m even done with you.”
You shake your head, face heating further. “It- It’s been a long time-“
“Yeah, but that’s not it.” He drags his hand down, over your abdomen. Back between your thighs. “You got that little toy keepin’ you satisfied-“
“Not satisfied.” You breathe, head lolling to the side as Bucky resumes his tight circles on your clit. “Not you, Bucky, fuck-“
He groans, dragging you back into a deep kiss. You give him everything you have in return, nipping at his lips and yanking his hair. Bucky groans and picks you fully off the counter, walking you both to your room and kicking the door shut.
“You drive me fuckin’ crazy.” He grunts between kisses, his own steps getting a little uneven. “The stuff I wanna do to you, no way we’re covering it in one night. Years to make up for, gotta ration it.”
“Years?” You pull back, and Bucky grins.
“Oh yeah. You’re not the only one who’s not satisfied, babydoll.”
“But-“
“Ah.” He kisses you, lowering you onto the bed. “Nope. Not now.”
You frown up at him. “Bucky, you said we needed to talk-“
“And now I’m sayin’ not now. And if my memory’s right,” he grins down at you. “You’re the one who said she’d do whatever I want.”
You flush, crossing your arms over your chest, and Bucky laughs. He pulls his shirt off, and you almost fall backwards on the sheets like it’s an atomic blow.
There have been glimpses. Moments. You’ve been to the pool with him before, and he’d been shirtless there too.
But he hadn’t been standing over you, massive and radiating power. You hadn’t been close enough to trace your fingers over the scars littering his muscle, remnants from his time in the army. You reach up in a trace, tracing one closer to his pant line, and he flexes under your touch. A low sound rumbles through him, and he catches your wrist with a warning look.
You giggle. “You’re not the only one who’s sensitive.”
Bucky’s eyes flash, his voice dropping impossibly low. “I’m gonna fuck you until you can’t speak.”
Your shift in the sheets, more desire building in your already aching pussy. Bucky’s attention darts to the movement, and his throat bobs. Every muscle in his body strains, and you give him a sweet smile.
“Prove it.”
Bucky makes that deep, growling sound again and grabs your face between his hands. He presses over you, shoving his tongue down your throat, and this is the kiss you’d been expecting from before. Rough and starved, almost marking you as much as kissing you. He bullies you down into the mattress with his weight, and you spread your legs wide to accommodate him.
“You’re so soft.” He mutters, kneading your thighs as his mouth starts to trail hot kisses down your neck. “Thought about touchin’ you like this forever, about how beautiful you’d be under me. And let me tell you, baby,” he nips under your jaw. “Better than I managed to dream.”
You grind up below him, trying to chase a little more friction. You keep meeting the rough fabric of his jeans, and the drag is beautiful, but it’s still not enough.
“Needy girl.” Bucky drags your legs apart, pressing his hips firmly over your core. The sudden pressure does the trick, and you moan, tipping your head back in brief relief. “Yeah, you like that. Feels so good and I’m not even doin’ anything.”
“Bucky, don’t- Don’t tease-“
“But it’s so fun.” He coos, kissing the corner of your mouth. “You get all nervous, makes me want to stuff you up with cock and see how you squirm-“
You make a loud, wanting sound, trying to fuck your hips up into the air. But Bucky’s heavy. You can only claw at his shoulders, and it just makes him tease more.
His rolls his hips, dragging the bulge in his jeans over your burning core. Your mouth falls open, and he kisses you, sneaking and arm tight around your back.
The forced arch of your back makes your legs open widen, giving him further access. He starts to rut against your bare pussy, and it’s perfect torture. Your arms are tight enough around him to choke, but it doesn’t slow him down. Bucky dry fucks you, your pussy throbbing desperately for release, arousal trickling down your ass and every thrust filling you with a burning pleasure.
You hadn’t been lying. It’s been a long time. But that’s not the only reason why you’re already so close to the edge again. Bucky’s body is everywhere around you, his thick arms holding you tight, his lips wandering over your neck and cheeks, leaving sloppy, open-mouthed kisses. The friction is everything, he’s everything, and you don’t have enough restraint to fight it.
The orgasm is sudden and harsh, shaking your whole body. You claw at his back, twitching and whining in his ear. You didn’t know you could cum that hard, hard enough to make eyes close from the overwhelming sensation, and it’s just from dry humping.
Bucky groans in your ear and pulls back suddenly. His eyes are lidded, expression lustful, and his palm flexes near his bulge like he’s forcing himself not to rub it. Your breathing is uneven, your pussy still aching, and you reach down to try and rub your clit until he collects himself.
He catches your wrist and pins it to the mattress, shaking his head. “You just fuckin’ came, baby.”
“I- I know- I just-“ You try to turn, and Bucky slaps your cheek lightly. Forces your attention back to him.
“You’re a big girl. Use words.”
You want to glare at him, but something about the slightly mocking order makes your pussy throb. Bucky raises his brows, and you barely manage not to drool.
“Want more.” You mumble, and he grins.
“And?”
“And?”
“You what?”
You stare for a second, then roll your eyes. “Oh, fuck off.”
Bucky smirks, squeezing his hold on your wrist. “’S alright. We’ll get there.”
You stick out your tongue, and he hums.
“That’s not very nice, baby. Think we need to work on your manners.”
“My manners are fine-“
“You’re a brat.” He teases, and you flush.
“I am not-“
“Yeah, you are. You’re a wet, needy little fuckin’ brat.” Bucky starts to move your hand between your legs, and you pretend to try and pull away.
He sees the challenge, and yanks it down. Presses it against your core, making you shake. Your eyes flutter, and Bucky laughs.
“Look at you.
“You really still got that vibrator?”
You nod, and he pulls your hand up. kisses your knuckles, eyes sparkling.
“Grab it.”
You scramble up the moment he lets go of you, yanking open your bedside drawer and pulling out the pink rabbit. Bucky grabs your hips before you can roll back over, pulling you backward with your ass in the air. You twist to look at him and find his attention entirely fixed on your core. On the mess between your legs.
He’s almost in a trance, as he drags two fingers through your pussy lips. You flutter, overly sensitive from before, and Bucky shoves his fingers right into your pussy.
You go limp, at the sudden stretch. Bucky’s fingers are everything you’d imagined they’d be, and more. Rough in all the right place, deft and thick, crooking right at the edges as he finds your g-spot faster than even you can sometimes. He hums like he’s figured out something interesting and kisses the curve of your ass. He starts to rub the tips of his fingers, massaging that happy, spongey place inside you, and you moan into the sheets.
“Bu- Bucky-“
“You’re tight.” He mutters, kissing between your ass and pussy, the tiny patch of skin that sends a shiver up your spine. “And wet. Gonna feel real good around my cock, babydoll. Got a perfect pussy for me to fill up.”
You make another desperate sound, and Bucky presses further in.
“Oh, that sounds good to you, doesn’t it. Getting stuffed full of my cum, being my pretty cockslut. I’d make you walk around with it after, wear a skirt so I can fuck you again whenever you run out. Fuck you until it’s stained on your legs, until everyone can fuckin’ smell it. ‘Till they know you’re mine.”
Your pussy clenches at the possessive promise, and Bucky groans.
“You wanna be mine, don’t you sweet girl.”
“Ye- Yes-“
Bucky yanks his fingers out of you unexpectedly, and you almost scream in frustration. You try to twist around again to chew him out, but he grabs the back of your neck and shoves you into the sheets. You go limp, trembling as tears prick at your eyes. Bucky arms snakes around your stomach, his thumb resting under your clit. Never touch it, or where your pussy is fluttering, desperate to be filled.
“Say it.” He grunts, and you shake your head. You’re not that easy.
Bucky doesn’t seem in any rush to give up though. He spanks your pussy, and you cry out in a mix of pain and delight.
“Say it.” He orders, and your hands fist in the sheets as he spanks your pussy again. You grind against him, chasing more, and he pinches your clit hard.
You almost fly out of your skin, a lewd, garbled plea escaping your lips as another orgasms rushes through you. This one is shorter, but no less consuming. You clench around nothing, mouth hanging stupidly open, and Bucky sucks near your throat, his teeth brushing and making the pleasure all the more intense.
“Fuckin’ brat.” He mutters, awe almost coating his voice. “I’m a damn saint, making you cum again when you’re so greedy. When you got this hungry little pussy, begging to be stuffed with cock, and I’m letting you go first.”
“Please,” you try to flip over, but Bucky’s hold on you is too strong. “Bucky, please- Please just fuck me.”
“Oh, I will.” He kisses under your ear, voice silken and taunting. “But not now, babydoll. Then we would’ve brought this out for nothing.”
“What’s-“
A buzzing sound fills the air, and your eyes widen.
“Bucky, wait-“
“You know, you get more sensitive after you cum.” Bucky drawls, dragging the thick tip of the rabbit up and down your pussy. You try to focus on your breathing, squeezing your eyes shut as your body starts to get swept away in a wildfire.
“God, fuck-“
“Quiet.” He grunts. “I’m trying to talk, sweetheart. Be good.”
You nod, biting on your lower lip, desperate to listen well. To be good.”
“Like I was saying.” Bucky drawls, shoving the vibrating dildo up against your clit, then yanking it away. “You get more sensitive. And I was thinking all night about your little confession. That you can cum just from listening to me talk.” Bucky hums, dragging the head down to rest right over your entrance. “I like a challenge, but I’m got enough on my hands with you today. And since I’m so nice.” He pushes the thick length a little inside you, and your pussy clenches around it. “I’m gonna give you some extra hands. Extra sensitive,” he gives your clit a series of tiny hits, shoving the rabbit in deeper. “Some fake fuckin’ cock to get you ready for the real thing, and me.”
Bucky drags you back into his lap, right as he shoves the dildo home. You almost scream as the smaller bit presses over your clit, the thicker part driven right against where Bucky already knew your g-spot was.
“Bucky- Holy shit-“
He pulls your face to the side, silencing you with a deep kiss as you shake. You’ve already cum twice. That’s more than usual, and you’re not sure if you’ve got another.
You don’t get to tell him that, though. You don’t think he’d care to hear it right now, and fuck, do you want to see him try.
“I said quiet.” He growls when he pulls away, and before you know what’s happening he’s shoving the same fingers that had been in your pussy into your mouth.
You melt immediately, sucking on them as your eyes flutter. Bucky groans in your ear, moving his free hand to hold the rabbit inside your gushing, oversensitive pussy.
“Good girl.” He drawls in your ear. “Didn’t even have to ask, you just knew didn’t you. Fuck, you suck my cock half this good I’m not gonna be able to last ten minutes.”
You moan, and Bucky kisses the corner of your jaw before continuing.
“I know you’d like that. What was it you said? That you wanted to touch me? When this is done we can get you on your knees. If you behave.” He nips at your sweaty skin. “I’ll let you suck my dick. I’ll even fuck your face if you ask real nice. I hope you’re nice, baby, cause I can imagine it. You crying, lips around me, fucking your fingers while you choke on my cock. My pretty baby, my sweet fuckin’ doll loving me so much.”
You slump back against him fully, hips rolling uselessly, and it’s more subtle this time. The heat building at the bottom of your tummy, winding tight and made of a strange pressure.
“You’re gonna say it.” He coos in your ear, and your pussy starts to fight against the rabbit. Like it knows you can barely take it.
But you can’t lend it much energy. You like this position well enough.
“After you cum for me again, I’ll fuck you. Fuck you properly like the brat that you are.” Bucky groans, pressing his nose into your hair. “Walking around, making me feel like I’m the asshole for wanting you, for loving you when you’re snapping off at me,you’re a mouthy fuckin’ thing, aren’t you babydoll. Lotta bark but,” he pushes his fingers further into your mouth. “Not even a little bit of bite.”
Your eyes roll back, head pressing into his shoulder, and you give him a silent look of pleading that’s only met with a mocking grin.
“So pretty like this, sweetheart. Stupid and quiet, I ain’t even fucked you yet. Won’t clean you up after you’re done, just let you walk around with it dripping. Maybe I’ll fuck you until it sticks. Until you’re mine.”
Your back arches, and you’re so close. You can feel Bucky’s dick twitch against your ass, and somewhere in the distance your thoughts manage to collect enough to tell you that he removed his bottoms at some point.
“Fuck, ‘course you’re into that. Shouldn’t have expected more from you, with how much you love this. You’re close, baby.” His lips tease the shell of your ear. “So close.”
You whimper, grinding down onto him as the dildo vibrates, and Bucky groans. He pins you down to his lap with a hiss, fingers flexing on your stomach.
“Shit- You can’t just-“
He presses his mouth where your neck meets your shoulder, kissing and sucking as his dick throbs against you, and his dirty talk becomes mumbled and deep.
“My pretty fuckin’ girl, can’t even wait for it, cum for me, babydoll, come on, fuckin’ show me how much your greedy pussy wants my dick-“
The pressure breaks like a flood. Your pussy gushes so hard it pushes out the rabbit, and your head flies back as you grind into the air. Bucky moans, fully moans, and starts to rub your clit back and forth with the palm of his hand. You grab his wrist, spasming and trying to chase it and escape all at once. You whine as it becomes all too much, batting at Bucky’s hand.
He stops, collecting your release on his fingers.
When he presses them against your lips, you open. Hum as he feeds your own juices to you. All you can do is lap at his fingers and look at him under fluttering lashes, and he smiles.
“Good girl.” He coos, and your body seizes up again. You moan around his fingers, and Bucky laughs.
He pulls them out, turning your head for a gentle, deep kiss. You’re boneless and cockdrunk, only able to let him give and give whatever he’s willing. You can’t even try to drag him close.
Bucky rolls you over, making sure your back is pressed into the mattress as he kisses you lazily. He rises up after a few moments, his gaze raking down your body, and you flush. If you had more strength, you’d cover yourself. You’ve never been good at being looked at.
But there’s nothing expect awe and affection in Bucky’s eyes. He traces a hand over your every curve and softer spot, rising slowly on his knees to part your legs.
“You’re a miracle, baby.” He murmurs, pumping his cock in his hands and for once, you feel like one. “Look at what you do to me.”
You do, and you might be about to burst into flames.
Bucky’s thick. Long, but not enough to worry you, and thick. He’s going to drag, be able to get balls deep and make you feel him everywhere.
You’re drooling, and he sees it. He smirks knowingly, and you wrinkle your nose.
“Come on.” He teases. “Say it, and it’s all yours.”
You shake your head, and Bucky hums. Crawls back over your body, notching his cock right at your entrance. His hovers his lips over yours, not quite fully kissing.
“Say it.”
When you find your voice, it’s raspy and broken.
“No.”
“But you know you want to.” He presses the first inch inside, and if you’d had any worries about not being able to take more, they’re knocked away with how good he feels.
You were right. He’s an even bigger stretch than his two fingers, and it perfect. There’s a slight ache, but it’s overwhelmed by the closeness. By how well he fits, how much you need more of this brimming, explosive pleasure already threating to take you over.
“Just say it, pretty girl. Say it for me.”
You shake your head, and Bucky pushes further in, and your hands fly into his hair like they were pulled there.
He groans, rutting into you, and bottoms out. You didn’t know you could feel this good. Be this full. Bucky moans in your ear, and you breath slowly, trying to adjust.
“You feel so good.” He smashes his lips over yours, the kiss demanding and long. “Knew you’d feel this good, always knew you’d feel this good, Christ-“
You roll your hips up, and it makes Bucky jerk. He slams into you, knocking the air from your lungs, and your toes curl in delight.
He barks your name, grabbing your jaw, and you beam at him.
“More.” You breathe, and Bucky’s eyes widen in slight surprise.
He recovers fast.
“Yeah?” He pulls out slowly, then slams back in, his tip kissing your cervix. “You like that? Like being fucked like a toy?”
You moan happily, and Bucky laughs.
“Thought you might surprise me, babydoll, but no.” He taps your cheek, and you open without a thought. “You’re just the pretty cockslut I thought you were.”
He drags all the way out again, but this time pushes in slower. You whine, but he doesn’t even acknowledge you, setting a slow pace that feels good, but is far too much. The roughness made you numb with a good, fuzzy sensation, but this makes you feel it. Bucky’s cock dragging against your gummy walls, the press of him over your g-spot and heat of him, right over your clit.
You can barely take it. You’re already so fucked out from the other orgasms, you’re barely able to hold onto Bucky properly. You think you might be about to black out from pleasure, but no part of you wants him to stop altogether, and how you’re trapped somewhere between paradise and hell.
“Look at you.” He grabs one of your breasts, palming it as he thrusts smooth and deep. “Nobody else does this to you, do they. Makes you feel so good, gets you so stupid on their cock.”
You shake your head, and Bucky taps your mouth again.
“Words.”
“Bucky…”
“Want to hear you, sweet girl.” He kisses your cheek, words pure filth in your ears. “Here you scream for me while I fuck you, hear how much you love it.”
“Can’t-“
“Yes, you can.” He slams a little firmer, giving you a pointed look. “Good girls listen. And when they listen,” he repeats the motion, holding your gaze. “They get filled up.”
You whimper, but nod. Bucky smiles in satisfaction, returning to his torturous speed from before.
“Anyone else do this to you?” He grunts, and you shake your head.
“No- No. Never, Bucky, only you-“
He groans, picking up his pace. “That’s fuckin’ right. No one fucks you like this, I’m gonna ruin you. If you wanna cum you’ll have to find me, I’m the only one who plays this perfect fuckin’ pussy- Shit-“ He groans, jaw clenching as he hits a little deeper than before. “Nobody takes care of you like me-“
“No one.” You echo, and you’re rewarded with another rough slam. “No one, Bucky, only- Only wanted you, needed you- Fuck-“ You cry out, pressing your cheek into his jaw. “You and your thick cock, needed you so bad-“
“I know. I know, babydoll, but I’m here now.” He kisses you quickly, speeding up again.
It’s enough to make you start to feel it again. Not slowly building, but being dragged out. The tip of Bucky’s cock drags through you, and that hot feeling in your core starts to fill up again.
“Wanted to do this for so long.” He groans in your ear, and a loud moan escapes your lips. “You really got no idea, I thought I was gonna lose it every time I saw you, thought you’d never let me- God-“
You clench around him, and Bucky angles your hips up, allowing him to hit deeper. You moan, and he kisses the back of your neck, sucking a dark mark.
“My girl.” He mutters possessive, and you babble an agreement. “My smart, mean fucking baby, drunk on my cock. Prettiest girl in the world, mine-“
You moan, and Bucky cuts himself off with a groan. He kisses you again, then rises over you. Bracing his arms on either side of your head as he looks to where he’s fucking into you. Your gaze follows, and the warmth in your gut flares at the sight.
It’s the most vulgar, pornographic thing you’ve ever seen. Bucky’s thick cock, sliding in and out of you with ease. Precum and your own need for him shining on the thickness of him, his chest flexing with restraint as he forces himself to keep the same pace. You watch his cock vanish into your body, and feel him deep inside you, and God-
You look up, checking if Bucky’s as strangely moved by that as you are, and find him staring at you. The moment your eyes meet, he grabs your jaw, pressing you back down into the pillows with a rough kiss. You’re unable to do anything but take it all. Bucky’s tongue pressing down your throat, his lips moving expertly over yours, his cock fucking every word but his name out of your head.
“Look at me.” He rasps when he pulls away, and you nod.
His eyes are almost wholly black, and shining. Tears prick at yours, but Bucky leans down, kissing them away before going faster again.
His balls start to slap on your ass, his cock pumping in and out of you until it’s all you can think about. Bucky deep inside you, lighting you up, how you can feel a rush up your spine with his every thrust. A lewd, wet sound is filling the room as he pounds into you. Your pussy burns and spasms every time, but it’s too good to fight.
Bucky’s too good to fight. You don’t know why you tried for so long.
“Bucky-“ You breathe, and he grunts.
“You’re close, sweetheart.” He mutters, and you don’t know how he knows, but he’s right.
You’re about to snap again. To lose it from how he’s fucking you like you’re a doll and the love of his life, all at once. You grab his wrist, squeezing tight.
“Pretty girl,” he teases. “Gonna soak this cock like a good girl, aren’t you. Give it to me, baby, show me how much you love it-“
“Love you.” You breathe out, and Bucky freezes.
Balls deep, he stills. His cock throbs in protest, but he doesn’t seem to care.
You blink at him, praying you didn’t ruin it. Bucky swallows, and rasps out your name.
“What?”
“I- I love you- Oh.”
He jerks into you when you say it, and you almost fly out of your skin.
“Fuck, Bucky- I- I love you-“
It happens again, but you don’t think he’s doing it to mess with you. He can barely seem to control himself, his attention almost feral as his cock jumps inside you.
“I- I love you- Oh my god-“
Bucky dives over you, kissing you like he’s trying to steal the words from your mouth. Like he can taste them.
“Damn right you do.” He grunts, cock dragging inside you as he starts to fuck you, shallow and brutal. “Love you, love you so much, you’re-“
He kisses you, and somewhere through the floating, hazy dreamworld his cock is fucking you into, you think he’s run out of words.
Bucky’s fucking you like an animal, because there’s nothing left for either of you to say. He pulls your hips back up to that angle from before, returning to that pace from before that pulled the confession out of you. You’re in incoherent, babbling mess, tugging at the sheets and watching Bucky above you like he’s God.
“Good girl.” Is all he’s grunting out, but it’s deep and every word of a noise than anything else. “Mine, my good fucking girl, gonna fill you up, you’re-“ He moans, doubling over your body as his thrusts become short and harsh. “You’re perfect-“
From nowhere, you find the strength to reach up and grab Bucky’s face. You pull it down, kissing him with every word you’re too ruined to say, and he moans.
Bucky slams home, muttering your name against your lips like a prayer. You can feel him everywhere. Hot and sticky, pumping deep into your own heat, coating your walls, dripping out and running down your ass. When Bucky starts to move again, slow and lazy, he presses it deeper, spreads it everywhere.
It’s hot on your clit, and Bucky’s still jerking and spraying inside of you. You’ve never been this full, it’s addicting. Your brain is empty, body alight with the feeling, Bucky’s cum so thick and demanding that you could swear you feel it washing through your whole body.
He reaches between your legs to rub your clit.
You get there all on your own.
Your vision goes white, as you cum. You’re so out of it you feel it the same way you feel a cool breeze. Light and relieving, washing over the heat inside you and pulling a happy sigh from your lips.
Bucky kisses you, and this time it’s only sweet. All his mean words and taunts so easily dissolve as you reach up, running your fingers through his hair. He smiles against your lips, and you smile back.
“Told you I’d do it.” He mutters, and you shove his chest with a weak laugh.
“Shut up.”
He grins, moving up to kiss your brow, then the side of your face. He’s still buried inside you. Neither of you are in a rush to move any time soon.
“You mean it, though.” He pauses, moving back over your body.
There are those worry lines again. You reach up with a tiny smile, and soothe your fingers over them. Bucky hums, leaning into your touch, and you smile.
“Yeah.” You whisper, and his shoulders sag.
“Thank god.” He presses his face between your breasts. “That would’ve been bad.”
You laugh, running your fingers through his hair, and he wraps his arms around your body. He’s slid out a little, but you’re still connected to him, and you never want to move again.
“How long?” He mutters against you, tilting his head to meet your gaze. “Cause mine was when I saw you.”
You flush stupidly—he’s inside you—and mumble, “Me too.”
Bucky frowns. “But you were always- “
“And were you any better?”
He snorts, leaning up to peck your cheek. “Fair shot.”
“I know.” You snip, then, “You- You meant yours, right? I mean- What you said while…”
You trail off, because you didn’t imagine it. I love you and mine, too sincere to just be dirty talk.
Bucky rises back over you, gently guiding your gaze back to his. He smiles when your eyes meet, and kisses the tip of your nose.
“With everything I fuckin’ got.” He mutters, and you smile.
“Good.”
“I know. I mean, I did really well for myself- I’m complimenting you, woman!”
You’d shoved him, and Bucky grabs your wrists, wrestling them down into the mattress. He looks at you with a rough, fond exasperation.
“You’re a gremlin.”
“You like it.” You beam up at him, and he lower back down, kissing you lightly.
“Tough curse.” He mutters. “But I’m enjoying it.”
You roll your eyes at him, and he grins. Beautiful and all yours.
“Can we stay here for a while?” You ask, just because you want to have this, and sit in it. “Please.”
Bucky nods, and you feel your heart shine like it’s been given new batteries. Beating out of your chest and comfortably all at once, as Bucky rolls you both onto your sides, wrapping tight around you.
“We can do whatever you want.” He mutters, rubbing your hips and kissing the marks on your neck.
You relax, because you believe him. About all of it.
And now, you have him with you for all the time in the world.
✦End note: big fan of that horny old man in every universe.✦
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Any time one of my favorite writers say they were possessed or blacked out writing something I know it’s about to be a work of art. This is no different. Somebody get this girl the keys to the city and a castle STAT!!
ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ › being best friends since childhood with rebecca barnes meant a life full of adventure with only one hard rule: don’t ever flirt with her brother. but that rule doesnt make room for an anonymous pen pal or a love that happens anyway.
ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ › bucky x female reader
ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ › 【18+ MDNI】 semi forbidden lovers - best friends brother, friends to lovers, alternate universe - college/university, penpal letters, kinda strangers to lovers too?, fluff, shy bucky, light angst, feelings realization/confession, eventual happy ending, mutual pining, summer romance, secret relationship, first love, semi slow burn, smut, p in v, unprotected sex, fingering, crying during sex, soft bucky barnes, dirty talking bucky barnes, semi public sex, not beta read we die like men.
ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ › 6.4k
ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇ › this is apart of the amazing event hosted by @elixirfromthestars, thank you for putting it together! it was super cool i ended up just playing with the wheels for fun so many times lol. this was a fun little world i liked diving into, i envision bucky by the lake so clearly hes such a cutieball. i played elixirs hold 'em and these were my results. i hope you enjoy & thank you for reading.
elixirs hold 'em - royal flush
» wheel au: penpal au
» wheel trope: siblings best friend
» dialouge: "Say it again." — "What?" — "That you love me." — "I can't."
» scenario: right in front of you all along
There is no one on earth Rebecca Barnes trusts more than you.
You grew up together, matching scraped knees, shared bedrooms, years of knowing what the other one is thinking before it’s ever said. You’re not just her best friend; you’re family by choice, by time, by sheer inevitability. When people ask Rebecca how she knows she can trust someone, she shrugs and says, I just do. What she means is you.
That’s why there aren’t rules between you.
Just guidelines.
Don’t take my charger without bringing the box back, after the eighth time she swore she had no idea where the box went while handing you only the cord.
If you use all the shampoo, leave a note on the mirror, after one too many mornings of her standing in the shower, bottle upside down, shaking it like it might magically produce another drop.
And lastly, said once, firmly, never joking:
Don’t ever, ever flirt with my brother.
Not because Rebecca doesn’t trust you. Because she trusts you more than anyone else.
Bucky Barnes is one thousand percent off-limits. Not hypothetically. Not dramatically. Just… absolutely. You’ve watched too many girls orbit Rebecca only to angle closer to him, smiling too brightly, lingering too long, treating her like a means to an end. You’ve been there for every crash-and-burn aftermath, every quiet heartbreak, every moment Rebecca wondered why people never wanted just her.
You would never be that person.
The guideline barely registers as something you’d ever need to worry about anyway. You and Bucky hardly cross paths. Sometimes you’ll see him at her house—standing in the kitchen when you grab a glass of water, offering a polite nod, disappearing again like smoke. He’s more absence than presence. A name. A shadow. A ghost story people talk about more than they actually know.
You never understood what all the other girls saw in him. You never cared to find out.
Right before summer starts, you’re bored out of your mind.
You’re hanging upside down off your bed, hair brushing the carpet, complaining to Rebecca about how three months suddenly feels like an eternity when you don’t have a plan. No trips, no job lined up yet just too much time and a buzzing restlessness you don’t know what to do with.
“I don’t want to waste it,” you groan. “I need something.”
Rebecca leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching you with an amused smile. “School’s doing a pen-pal thing over the summer.”
You blink. “Like… stamps? Letters?”
“Yeah. You can even be anonymous,” she adds. “They match you up with someone from a different class year. It’s supposed to be about connection or whatever.”
You think about it. About quiet afternoons. About having someone to talk to without expectations.
“Fine,” you say. “I’ll sign up.”
You do.
A week later, your first letter arrives at the school mail station. No name. Just a neat, careful handwriting and a simple opening line:
Hi. I’m not really sure how to do this, but I’m glad there's someone to do it with.
Something about it makes you smile. You write back. And then you don’t stop.
You stay anonymous, both of you. No names, no identifying details. Just words passed back and forth like offerings. You talk about music first, songs you play on repeat, albums that feel like home. Then movies. Then books. You tell him what you’re reading, what you love about certain characters, how stories make things feel survivable.
He sends you poems.
Ones he wrote, ones he loves. Dog-eared favorites copied carefully into the margins of his letters. Lines about longing, about time, about wanting to be more than what the world expects of you. You read them over and over.
You tell him about school. About how many extra classes you’re taking, how you’re stacking credits and stress because your dream job feels impossible unless you make yourself undeniable. You admit, quietly, how much pressure you feel, how your dad’s trying but money is always tight. You tell him about your mom, the necklace she left behind. How much you miss her, how some days the ache sneaks up on you when you least expect it and refuses to let go.
His next letter takes longer to arrive. When it does, the handwriting is shakier.
He tells you he doesn't have a job lined up, that he was undeclared until last year. Says he’s not smart enough. That school’s always felt like something happening to him instead of for him. That he’s tired of feeling like he’s already fallen behind.
Your chest aches reading it. You write back immediately.
You tell him intelligence isn’t one thing. You tell him about different ways of learning and you even offer half-joking, half-serious, to tutor him through letters. You start including lesson plans in the margins, little quizzes at the end. Practice problems handwritten with encouraging notes at the top.
He does them. All of them. And he gets better.
His letters change, more confident, more excited. He tells you about raising his grades, about understanding things that used to feel impossible. He thanks you in a way that feels too big for ink and paper.
Somewhere along the way, you realize you wait for his letters more than anything else. You don’t know what he looks like, you don’t know his name. But you know him.
It doesn't register as a crush at first.
You tell yourself it’s just anticipation. Just the small thrill of routine, checking the school mailbox earlier than you need to, flipping envelopes over to see if the handwriting looks familiar. You tell yourself everyone likes being understood, that the warmth spreading through your chest when you read his letters is normal.
Except you don’t write like you used to anymore.
You write longer. Softer. You start crossing things out, rewriting sentences so they sound right. You tell him about the things you don’t say out loud, about how your dad only ever looks relieved when you bring home perfect grades, how failure feels like erasure. How sometimes you’re terrified that if you stop being impressive, you’ll stop being lovable.
You expect platitudes. Reassurance that feels generic.
Instead, his reply is careful. Thoughtful. He tells you that you are not a report card. That worth doesn’t disappear when numbers dip. That being loved shouldn’t be conditional, and that even if it has been in the past, it doesn’t mean it always has to be.
You cry a little when you read it.
In his next letter, he admits something too.
He says his parents already seem disappointed, like they’ve decided who he’ll be before he ever gets there. That trying feels pointless when failure is expected anyway. That it’s easier to accept the role they’ve written for him than fight it and still lose.
You don’t let him.
You tell him that being underestimated doesn’t mean being incapable. You tell him about every small victory you’ve watched him earn through those stupid little quizzes you mailed him. You tell him you’re proud of him, even if no one else says it out loud.
After that, the letters change.
They still talk about music and books and poems, but now there are confessions folded between the lines. Longing disguised as curiosity. Questions that linger longer than they need to. They start signing off differently, thinking of you, write soon, don’t disappear.
By the end of summer, it feels like you’re in love with someone you’ve never seen.
The realization doesn’t arrive all at once. It settles. And when you finally suggest meeting, heart hammering as you write it, hands shaking, you half-expect him to pull away.
Instead, his response comes fast.
County fair. End of summer as the carousel. I’ll be there.
The day arrives far too soon. The fair is loud and bright and overwhelming, music blaring, kids laughing, the air thick with sugar and heat. You stand near the carousel, scanning faces, trying to imagine him. Taller? Shorter? Nervous like you?
You don’t notice him right away.
Bucky does.
He’s already there, leaning against the railing, pretending he’s just waiting for someone else. When he sees you approach, something in his chest tightens—not fear, just awareness. You look… familiar, somehow. Not because he knows you, you feel like a thought he’s had before but never finished.
He steps closer, offering a polite smile. "Hey."
You smile politely, not expecting him to be here but not surprised, you vaguley remember him being in the kitchen when Rebecca mentioned the fair to you. "Hi."
“You waiting for someone?”
You nod, nerves buzzing under your skin. “Yeah. You?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Guess we’re both early.”
You make awkward small talk. The weather. The crowd. The carousel lights spinning gold as dusk settles in. It’s easy. Too easy.
Your hands fidget without you realizing it, fingers brushing the chain around your neck. You twist the golden locket gently, a nervous habit you’ve written about once, mentioned how it was your mom’s, how you rub it when you’re scared.
Bucky’s breath catches.
“That’s… a nice necklace,” he says carefully.
You smile, instinctive. “Thanks. It was my mom’s. I do this when I’m nervous—” You stop short, laughing softly. “Sorry. Oversharing.”
He doesn’t laugh. He stares. The world seems to narrow, the music dulling, the carousel lights flaring brighter, gilding you in warm gold. His heart starts pounding, too fast, too loud.
You’ve told him this before. In ink. In confidence. In trust.
He sees it all at once. Every time he passed you in the kitchen. Every quiet laugh from Rebecca’s room. Every moment he never let himself linger on because you were off-limits.
It’s you. It’s always been you.
He’s in love with you.
He doesn’t say anything. Not then. Bucky swallows the truth down so hard it almost hurts, and instead he smiles, soft and careful, like he’s handling something fragile.
“While we’re waiting,” he says, nodding toward the games lined up in bright rows, “you wanna try some of those?”
You look to the games and back to the carousel, wondering if it's a good idea to leave or not, if your mystery writer was on his way. Bucky offers a slanted smile as you look back at him and think you might as well do something to pass the time.
So you do. You toss rings and laugh when they bounce wrong while he knocks bottles down like he’s done it a hundred times before. When the attendant hands him a small stuffed turtle, green and lopsided, clearly overstuffed, he looks almost embarrassed by it.
“For you,” he says, holding it out.
You blink. “You won that.”
He shrugs. “Yeah. Thought you should have it.”
You don't take it but smile when he lets you pet the fuzzy shell.
You win stickers, sparkly ones, silly ones, and you’re way more excited than makes sense. You show him all of them, sticking one to your wrist, another to the turtle’s shell. He laughs, quiet and warm, and something in your chest loosens without you realizing it.
He buys you food while you wait. Insists on it. Fries and lemonade, the kind that tastes like summer and sugar. When the night air cools, he drapes his jacket over your shoulders without asking.
You glance up at him, confused. “You don’t have to do all this.”
“I know,” he says. “I want to.”
You wonder, briefly, why he’s being so nice. Then you decide not to overthink it. Some people are just kind.
Eventually, the carousel empties. The lights dim a little. Time stretches thin. You check the spot again. And again. Your shoulders sink.
“I guess… maybe they’re not coming,” you say quietly, trying to sound casual and failing. “It’s fine. I probably read it wrong.”
Bucky’s chest aches.
“I can walk you home,” he offers quickly. “If you want.”
You nod, grateful. The walk is easy. Familiar streets. Comfortable silence. When you reach your house, you linger on the porch, fingers twisting together.
He holds out the turtle again. “For real this time.”
You take it, smiling sadly. “Thank you. And… I’m sorry if tonight was boring.”
“What?” His brow furrows. “No. You didn’t ruin anything.”
You look up at him, sincere. “You didn’t either. If anything, you made it better.”
The words hit him harder than anything else has all night. He nods once, afraid if he speaks, he’ll say too much. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Bucky.”
He walks away with his heart in pieces and doesn’t look back until he’s sure you’re inside.
That night, you write a letter. You ask why he didn’t show. You try not to sound hurt, but it slips through anyway. You tuck the stickers inside the envelope, a little silly but honest.
I was thinking about you the whole time, you write. I hope you’re okay.
Days pass.
Then weeks.
No reply.
Still, you keep writing. You send him songs you think he’d like, books you’re reading for class, movies you swear he’d love. You tell him school started and you hope you can still write, even if things are busy. Even if it’s just as friends.
You don’t know that Bucky keeps every letter in a box under his bed, unopened at first, then opened, reread until the paper softens at the creases. You don’t know how many times he starts to respond and stops, terrified that saying anything will shatter everything.
You only know the silence.
So you fill it.
Each letter becomes more honest than the last, written like confessions dropped into the dark. You tell him your secrets because you think he’ll never see them anyway. You tell him you’re still scared you’ll never be anything outside of school, that once the grades are gone there’ll be nothing left of you. That you don’t know how to live a life that isn’t measured.
That you don’t think you’ll ever really fall in love.
In one letter, you admit casually, like it doesn’t matter, that you had a crush on him at first. That it went away (It didn’t.), that Rebecca told you it was stupid to fall for someone you only know through paper and ink.
But you write that it felt real anyway. That you felt known. At the end of the last letter, your handwriting wavers.
I think I’m going to stop writing, you say. I don’t want to bother you anymore. But I’m glad I knew you. Even if it was just like this.
You seal it with shaking hands. Across town, Bucky reads it and finally breaks and knows he can’t stay silent anymore.
That night, he casually asks Rebecca if you’re coming over. When she says no, he gathers the letters, every single one, and drives to your house.
You’re in the backyard, curled up with a book, when you hear the gate creak open.
“Bucky?” you ask, startled. “What are you doing here?”
He doesn’t answer. He just pulls out the first letter and starts to read. "I don't know how to do this either, I don't know how to talk about myself without actually—"
Your stomach drops. “What—stop. Bucky, what are you doing?”
You snatch it from his hands, heat flooding your face, embarrassment turning sharp. “How did you get this?”
He finally meets your eyes. “It’s me,” he says quietly. “It’s always been me.”
You stare at him, uncomprehending.
“I’ve kept every letter,” he continues. “I listened to every song. Read every book. Watched every movie.”
Your head shakes automatically. “No. That doesn’t—what about the fair? You didn’t show. You just—left me in the silence.”
“I was scared,” he says, voice breaking. “I was standing right in front of you, realizing it was you all along and I was terrified.”
“Of what?” you demand, hurt bleeding through.
“Of hoping,” he admits. “Of letting myself believe I could have something, someone, like you.”
The anger drains out of you, replaced by something softer, heavier. You look at him for a long moment. Then, quietly a thought slips into you head, a memory from one of his early letters he once sent you, the one you memorized without realizing why.
“I trace the shape of ‘almost us,’
keep hope tucked safely out of sight.
I crave the warmth, I fear the loss,
so I hold longing through the night.”
His breath catches. He blushes, stunned and faintly nods. You step closer, eyes flicking to the stack of letters clutched to his chest. “You really kept them all?”
“Every single one,” he says.
You smile, teasing despite the ache. “That’s a lot of commitment for someone who didn’t think he was smart enough.”
He laughs softly, relief threading through it. “Guess I was wrong.”
The space between you closes naturally, like it always should have. When he kisses you, it’s gentle and sure and everything the letters promised, ink finally turning into something real.
You start seeing each other in stolen spaces. Your house, when your dad works late. The lake, when the sun dips low and the air turns cool enough to raise goosebumps on your skin. Quiet afternoons stretched thin, fingers laced together, Bucky’s shoulder always warm and steady against yours.
It's everything and not enough. Summer is running out, and you feel it in everything.
Rebecca notices first.
“You’ve been… distant,” she says one night, sitting cross-legged on your bed while you pretend to read. “Did I do something?”
Guilt hits hard and fast.
“No,” you say quickly. Too quickly. “I’m just—studying. Stressed about exams.”
She watches you for a long moment, unconvinced but trusting anyway. That almost hurts worse.
You hate lying to her. Hate the knot in your chest every time Bucky brushes his thumb over your hand in public and you have to pretend it means nothing. You start worrying less about getting caught and more about what this secrecy is doing to the most important friendship in your life.
Bucky wants to tell her.
“We can’t keep sneaking around,” he says one afternoon by the lake, voice low. “She deserves to know.”
“I can’t,” you whisper. “If this goes wrong, I lose everything. I lose you. I lose her.”
He cups your face gently, thumbs brushing away the worry he hates seeing there. “You’re allowed to want things too.”
You almost get caught a few days later.
You’re coming up the steps of Bucky’s house, laughter still clinging to you from the walk home. He kisses you softly, unguarded, right as the front door opens behind him.
“Bucky?”
Rebecca’s voice. You spring apart so fast your heart nearly stops. You duck your head, pretending to retie your shoe while Bucky clears his throat.
“Just—walking her home,” he says.
Rebecca squints but doesn’t push. The door shuts. You don’t breathe again until you’re halfway down the sidewalk. That night, you ask Bucky to meet you at the lake.
The decision tastes like grief.
“We can’t keep doing this,” you say, voice breaking. “We’re going to hurt her.”
He steps closer. “You’re hurting yourself trying to protect everyone else.”
Tears spill before you can stop them. “I’m sorry. I love you—but I can’t.”
He stills. “Say it again.”
“What?”
“That you love me.”
“I can’t,” you whisper, even as your hands clutch his shirt like they already know the truth.
He kisses you anyway, slow, aching, full of everything you’re afraid to lose. You cry into it, happiness and sadness tangling together in salt until you can’t tell which is which.
“I’ll tell her,” you say against his lips. “Tomorrow. Just—please. One more day.”
He nods. Always nods. Always chooses you. You go to the lake to swim that evening, laughing and splashing like kids again. The water glows orange under thes setting sun. Bucky lifts you out easily, sets you on the grass, his hands warm and worshipful, like he’s memorizing you.
The kiss that follows is deeper, unhurried, filled with promises neither of you says out loud. Bucky moves on top of you, holding his weight above you on one forearm as he moves his lips down your jaw and neck. Goosebumps prickle across your skin and a soft gasp slips past your lips when you feel his knee gently nudge your thighs apart, he pulls back to look at you and the sun hits his eyes, reflecting a blue so clear your heart nearly stops in your chest.
"Is this okay?"
You nod because words don't feel like enough, like they can't convey the ever churning tidal wave of love crashing over you again and again. He kisses you again and you let your hands wander, his skin still damp from the lake, letting your fingers glide over his chest and down to his abs with ease.
He rests his forehead against yours, eyes closed, as if the moment itself might be too bright to look at directly. This feeling that passes between you doesn’t need language. It lives in the way his shoulders finally drop, in the way you whisper his name like a secret kept safely.
You tilt into him, drawn by gravity neither of you fight anymore. His hand settles at your waist, firm now, certain, anchoring himself as much as you. Like if he lets go, he might lose the proof that this is real, that he’s here, and wanted, and allowed to want back.
"Bucky," you breathe out, hips twisting and arching up into him. "Please."
His fingers drift from your waist to your thighs, tracing the damp string of your bathing suit bottoms. A shuddering breath leaving his lips when you push into his touch. He stops for a moment, pulling back to look at you one more time.
Your face is still flushed from the lake, the tears and the heat blooming in your chest.
"Please," you say, reaching up to pull his lips down to yours.
You kiss again and he melts into you like ice cream under the sun, sweetness spilling onto your lips as heat and want rush through your veins, it feels like a sugar high times a thousand. While you want to ride its bliss out until then end, your heart cracks at the thought that there is an end to this.
"What's wrong baby?" Bucky murmurs against your cheek, feeling your body tighten under his. "Listen we don't have to—"
"No," you interuppt, shaking your head. "No it's not that I just… what if Rebecca doesn't want us to be together? What if…"
Bucky kisses you quiet, muttering your name across your lips. "Don't think like that, no matter what happens I'll always be yours, you'll always be my best girl."
Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, your voice a hoarse whisper. "But what—"
"Relax." He kisses the tear streaks off your face. "You're mine." Another kiss. "I'm yours. It's going to be okay."
Your mouth curves to argue but he kisses it shut again. "Relax, baby."
Your heart, mind and body are on three seperate tracks. Heart breaking for the fear that this is it, mind racing with a thousand possible outcomes for tomorrow, all while your body aches and pushes into his touch.
"Bucky," you whisper.
"Shh, just relax pretty girl, my pretty girl." Bucky kisses you like you're the only air his lungs need, his hands drifting back down your body, finding your drawstrings and pulling one side undone.
Your mouth falls open with a whisper of his name, legs trembling as he pushes his hand between them. He pulls the rest of your bathing suit bottoms aside, just enough to expose the heat that's been aching between your thighs.
His thumb brushes the seam of your cunt so gently its a wonder why you jump at the touch. His lips move down your neck and chest and kiss his mark into the skin. His broad fingers slowly stroking you, coaxing a new whimper and whine from your lips with each touch.
"That's it baby," he cooes, kissing down the valley of your breasts before moving to mark his teeth in the soft flesh of each one. "There she is."
With his thumb pressing tight little circles onto your clit you squirm and open for him all at once, hands digging into the towel shielded grass under you. A breathy and strangled whimper slips past your lips, body ignited into flames and quickly burning bright.
"Bucky-"
"I know, pretty girl." He drawls, kissing the pebbled skin of your nipple before dropping his middle finger down your slit, so slick with arousal he hardly meets any resistance as he slides it in. "My pretty baby, it's okay, let go for me."
"Oh god, Buck—y," your hands shoot from the grass and dig into his shoulders, nails leaving behind crescent marks in his skin as white bleeds across your vision. Your thighs close and clench around his hand, hips rolling and bucking into him as you ride up and over the high of your orgasm.
When you finally catch your breath and blink the tears away, Bucky is looking at you like you've donned a halo, eyes glittering with something undescribable as he looks down at you.
"Just when I thought you couldn't get any prettier." He mutters under his breath, leaning down to kiss you before you can even think of a rebuttal.
Desire and need now course through your veins, quieting any figment of doubt in your mind as you kiss him back with fervent want. Your hands pull him flush against you, not bothering with the space needed to pull the rest of your swimsuits off, just rutting into him as he pulls himself from his shorts, the thick length poking into your thigh.
You shudder and his cock hasn't even come close to you, the weight of it brushing your skin making you whimper shamelessly.
"You keep relaxing for me baby," he hums, releasing himself from your needy hold to sit back on his haunches and take off the rest off your suits. "Gonna take real good care of my girl."
Bucky unties the other side of your suit and lets the fabric give way to you cunt, all the lake water has since dried on your skin save for the aching wet mess between your thighs. Your own cum coated across your lips and onto your inner thighs, shining in the growing moonlight. He teases you, sliding his cock between your dripping cunt, the tip bumping and rubbing your clit making you thrash and beg for more.
"Please Bucky, please god stop teasing me-" you whine, hips uselessly jutting up as he holds you down, watching your pussy flutter and clench on nothing.
"Breathe," he mutters, leaning over you until your noses brush, his forehead resting against yours like a promise. You folloe his words, taking in a breath unitl every sense is overrun with Bucky. The smell of his colonge not quite washed out by the lake, the sound of his stuttering breath, the stretch of him pushing deep inside, the look of his eyes locking with yours—looking at you like he's in heaven.
He's everywhere, tears sting at your eyes as you bask in it. In everything, in him, in the perfect summer you had, the love that now holds your heart for him.
Slow, deep thrusts roll into faster and deeper ones, sweat beading on your skin where lake water once sat, heat thrumming through your veins as pleasure rather than fear. Bucky's hands cover every inch of you, brushing your hair back, squeezing your thighs and holding them open under him.
"Feels so good pretty girl," he grunts, his lips at your neck. "So wet 'n tight for me, taking me so good."
Your body hangs on the edge of nirvana, each snap of his hips into yours accompained by a messy open mouthed kiss, teeth and spit smearing its way across your skin. He groans your name, feeling your thighs quiver and shake like before.
It sneaks up on your faster than before, a coil quickly winding itself low and deep within you only to be undone by his increasingly erractic thrusts, the only coherent words you can manage being the one thing that undoes Bucky himself.
"James,"
The wanton whipser of his name brushing his ears sends him over the edge right behind you, grunting a feral, mangled noise of your name, fucking you through both your highs until he loses control of his hips and comes to a low and slow stop.
For a while, you two are suspended in air, floating through the nigh without a course in mind. A soft exhale against your neck sends a shiver through you that has nothing to do with growing cold and brings you back down to earth. Being this close makes the rest of the world feel distant and unimportant.
You feel his lips brush your temple, soft and unrushed. Time seems to stretch, every second soft and silver under the moonlight. Bucky cleans you up the best he can, even tying your swimsuit back together before pulling you back into his arms.
When you finally lie together on the grass, foreheads touching, hearts still racing in sync, it feels like crossing a threshold—like something precious has finally been allowed to exist.
You tell Rebecca together.
You sit on the couch with your hands twisted in your lap, Bucky beside you, close enough that his knee presses into yours like an anchor. Rebecca stands at first, pacing, arms folded tight across her chest like she’s bracing for impact.
You tell her everything.
About the pen-pal program. About the letters. About not knowing it was each other at first—and how it didn’t matter once feelings crept in anyway. About the fair. About the lake. About how hard you tried to do the right thing and how badly you failed at it.
Your voice shakes. You don’t cry. You’re too scared of what crying might do.
Rebecca is quiet for a long time. When she finally speaks, her voice is tight. “So you just… lied to me.”
Before you can answer, Bucky moves.
“Don’t,” he says gently but firmly. “Don’t be mad at her.”
Rebecca snaps her head toward him. “You don’t get to—”
“I do,” he interrupts, not raising his voice, but grounding it. “Because this was on me.”
You turn to him, startled. “Bucky—”
“I knew first,” he admits. “I put it together before she ever did. The locket. The letters. Her handwriting.” He swallows. “And I didn’t say anything.”
Rebecca’s anger falters, confusion cutting through it. “Why?”
“Because I knew,” he says quietly, “that if you knew, she’d choose you. Every time. No hesitation.”
Your breath catches.
“I was selfish,” he continues. “I wanted her to myself. Even if it was just for a little while. She was—” His voice softens, eyes flicking to you. “She is the best girl. My best girl. And I wasn’t ready to give that up.”
The room goes still. Rebecca looks between you, really looks this time. The way Bucky’s shoulders curve slightly toward you. The way your hand has found his without you realizing it. The way neither of you looks guilty so much as terrified of losing her.
Her shoulders sag.
“This isn’t like before,” she says slowly. “You know that, right?”
You nod immediately. “I know. I never wanted—”
“I know,” Rebecca cuts in, rubbing her face. “Those girls wanted him. You just… found each other.”
She exhales, long and tired. “I’m still upset. I won’t pretend I’m not. You hurt me. Both of you did.”
Your chest tightens, but you don’t look away.
“But,” she adds, quieter now, “I can see it. I can see that you love each other, that this isn’t a phase or a secret little thrill.”
Bucky nods once. “I love her. I won’t mess this up.”
Rebecca studies him, then you. Finally, she shakes her head with a small, reluctant huff. “God. I can’t believe this is how my life turned out.”
Then, pointing a finger between the two of you, she adds, “It’s okay. I mean it. But if I catch you sucking each other’s face off in my kitchen, I will reconsider.”
You let out a shaky laugh, relief crashing over you so hard it almost knocks you sideways.
Bucky grins, unabashed. “Fair.”
Rebecca rolls her eyes, but there’s a ghost of a smile there too. “You’re both idiots,” she mutters. “But… you’re my idiots.”
And for the first time since summer began, nothing feels like it’s about to fall apart.
Fall comes in quietly. Not all at once, not with some dramatic announcement, just cooler mornings and leaves turning the color of old gold, the air sharpening around the edges. Summer slips away without a fight, and for the first time, you don’t feel like you’re being left behind by it.
You and Bucky don’t hide anymore.
He walks you home with his hand openly wrapped around yours. He waits for you after class, leaning against his car like he belongs there. At Rebecca’s house, he kisses your temple without checking the doorway first, and when she groans dramatically from the kitchen, you both just laugh.
“Take it to literally anywhere else,” she calls. “I’m eating.”
Bucky grins and steals you away anyway.
School starts in earnest, and with it comes the familiar weight on your shoulders, but it’s lighter now, shared. You help Bucky with his classes in the evenings, notebooks spread across your bed or the kitchen table, your handwriting filling the margins with explanations and encouragement.
“Okay,” you say one night, tapping the paper. “Read the question out loud.”
He does, slow and deliberate.
“You already know this,” you add gently. “You just don’t trust yourself.”
He looks up at you, searching your face. “You really think that?”
“I know it.”
And he starts to believe you.
His grades improve again steadily, honestly. Not perfect, but real. When he brings home a test with a mark higher than he ever thought possible, he hands it to you like it might disappear if he holds it too long.
“You did that,” he says.
You shake your head. “You did.”
He presses a kiss to your forehead, reverent. “Couldn’t have without you.”
Some evenings, when the work is done and the world feels too loud, you escape to the lake. Fall paints everything softer there. The water reflects the trees like a secret it’s keeping. You sit with your feet in the grass, leaning into Bucky’s side as he pulls a folded page from his jacket pocket.
“I wrote something,” he says, suddenly shy.
“You always do,” you tease softly.
He reads anyway.
His voice is low and steady, words shaped by longing and growth and quiet hope. Poems about choosing to stay. About learning to believe in good things. About a girl who taught him that being seen doesn’t have to hurt.
You listen like it’s a gift, because it is.
"So he stayed when instinct said run,
stayed when his hands began to shake.
He learned that hope is not a weakness—
it’s a risk you bravely take.
Now he believes in the quiet good things:
morning laughter, a hand held tight.
He believes that staying can be gentle,
that being known can feel like light.
Because a girl once taught his heart
a truth it never knew how to say—
that sometimes the bravest thing of all
is choosing, every day, to stay."
When he finishes, you don’t clap or joke. You just rest your head on his shoulder and say, “That’s my favorite one.”
He smiles, small and real.
As fall deepens, the pressure you once felt, that if you weren’t excelling, you were nothing, starts to loosen its grip. You still work hard. You still care. But now, when you stumble, there’s someone there to catch you before the fear takes hold.
One night, wrapped in blankets on the porch, Bucky murmurs, “You know… I don’t think I’d have made it through this without you.”
You turn to him, serious. “You would’ve. You just didn’t know it yet.”
He studies you, eyes warm in the glow of the porch light. “I’m really glad I found you anyway.”
You kiss him, slow and sure, leaves skittering across the ground around you.
The ending doesn’t come all at once. It arrives gently, the way good things do.
Rebecca gets the job on a Tuesday.
She bursts into the apartment breathless, cheeks flushed, eyes bright in a way you haven’t seen in a while. “I got it,” she says, like she doesn’t quite trust the words yet. “In the city. Full time. Benefits. Everything.”
You scream. Actually scream.
You’re on her before she can brace, arms around her neck, jumping in place. Bucky laughs from the doorway, shaking his head as he steps in to join the chaos.
“I knew they’d be stupid not to hire you,” he says.
She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling too hard to hide it. “You’re both biased.”
Moving happens fast after that.
Boxes stack up. Clothes get sorted. Your childhood slowly folds itself into cardboard and tape. Rebecca packs her life into neat, labeled squares, ready for something bigger. You help where you can, sitting on the floor beside her, handing her things you forgot existed.
On her last night, the three of you sit cross-legged in the empty living room, takeout spread between you, walls echoing a little too much.
“You’re really doing this,” you say softly.
“So are you,” she replies, nudging your knee. “Tiny apartment. Domestic bliss.”
Bucky pretends to wince. “Hey. It’s a nice tiny apartment.”
You laugh, then grow serious, turning to Rebecca. “Promise me something.”
She tilts her head. “What?”
“Write to me,” you say. “Like—really write. Letters. Not just texts.”
Her eyes soften. “You’re joking, right?”
“I’m not. Letters are important.”
She exhales a laugh, shaking her head. “Of course I will. You started a whole relationship with pen pals. I’d be stupid not to.”
Bucky smirks. “She’s not wrong.”
Rebecca stands, brushing imaginary dust off her jeans, and pulls you into a hug—tight, familiar, grounding. “We’re not losing each other,” she murmurs. “We’re just… expanding.”
You hold her a little longer than necessary.
The apartment you and Bucky move into is small. One bedroom. A couch that’s seen better days. A kitchen where you bump into each other constantly.
It’s perfect.
You unpack slowly, music playing, windows open to let the city noise in. You hang his poems on the fridge. He lines your books along the windowsill. At night, you fall asleep tangled together, listening to a life you’re building hum quietly around you.
On the first evening, boxes still half-open, you sit on the floor eating pizza straight from the box.
“Hey,” Bucky says, watching you with that soft look that still surprises you. “You happy?”
You look around. At the mess. At the future. At him.
“Yeah,” you say, sure. “I really am.”
Somewhere in the city, Rebecca is unpacking too. And soon enough, a letter will come. But for now, this is enough.
Pairing: Post Winter Soldier! Steve Rogers x Bar Owner/Fixer! Female Reader (Ex Special force/MI6) - Sam Wilson also in this
Summary: You were supposed to be the in-between, someone who helped other people chase ghosts and disappear when they needed to. But somewhere between late-night card games, shared silence things shift… You both stop haunting your own lives long enough to share something real.
A/N: For @thelovebombbang hosted by the wonderful @daydreamgoddess14 who also made the wonderful mood board for this and gave me all the grace while I battled through this fic. It really wants to be SO MUCH more then what we have here.. I might come back to this and make it the series it decided it wanted to be.. but got forced into being just this.. and by god did it fight me..
You closed early.
Not because business was slow, there was always someone willing to drink late, but because some nights asked for preparation rather than profit.
Rain hung over the street in a fine, persistent mist, softening the edges of the city until the lamps bled into halos and the cobblestones gleamed like polished stone. Shutters were already down along the block. The tourist noise had drained away hours ago, leaving only the quieter sounds: distant laughter, the hiss of passing tires, the low murmur of a city settling into itself.
Your bar didn’t announce itself to any of it.
No sign. No neon. Just a narrow door painted dark enough to disappear between brick and shadow, and a small, old peephole set into the wood. People who weren’t looking for you walked past without ever realizing it was there. That was by design.
Inside, the space held the warmth you’d learned to build deliberately; amber light, worn wood, the faint citrus sting from a cutting board you’d just scrubbed clean. The smell of spirits lived in the grain, not sharp, just familiar. You’d drawn the front blinds, locked the door, and turned the music down to a low murmur, enough to keep the quiet from becoming intrusive.
Your phone buzzed against the bar top.
Once. Then again.
You didn’t rush to check it. You already knew who it would be.
Natasha never wasted words, especially not when things mattered.
Her message had come earlier in the evening, clipped and precise in that way she favored when the stakes were higher than she wanted to admit: Two men. One unmistakable. Both exhausted. Keep it quiet. Don’t make it public.
So you’d closed early.
You were drying the last glass when you felt them.
Not the sound, though there would be that..but the presence first. A pause outside the door. The subtle shift of weight on the step. Two bodies holding themselves still, like restraint was a habit rather than a choice.
The knock followed a beat later.
Controlled. Measured.
You set the glass down and went to the door without hurrying. Through the peephole you saw exactly what you’d been expecting: two men, coats dark with rain, shoulders squared against the night. One stood half a step behind the other, letting him take point.
You slid the chain free.
The door opened on damp air and Steve Rogers standing in your doorway like reality had failed to warn him how small the world could be up close.
Fame hadn’t made him shine.
If anything, it had worn him down.
He looked like a man who hadn’t slept properly in days and had been pretending it didn’t matter. Broad shoulders packed into a rain-dark jacket, posture still disciplined, still careful, but his eyes gave him away. Too steady. Too alert. The kind of focus that came from refusing to let anything slip, because something already had.
He inclined his head, polite, almost formal, like he wasn’t sure whether he’d walked into a safehouse or a stranger’s living room.
“Ma’am,” he said. “Thank you for seeing us.”
Behind him, Sam Wilson ducked inside with a grin that tried..valiantly…to soften the night.
“Hey,” he said, friendly like you’d known each other longer than five seconds. “You must be the contact.”
You stepped back and let them in with a tilt of your chin. “Door stays locked. House rules.”
You shut it behind them and rehooked the chain, sealing the city out.
Sam glanced at the door, then back at you. “Still feels like we’re about to get frisked.”
“Don’t tempt me,” you said dryly.
You caught the way Steve’s shoulders tightened at the exchange, just for a moment before he forced them back down.
You didn’t offer your name. Natasha’s contacts didn’t always trade names on the first night, and even if you already knew theirs, you preferred to keep the balance exactly where it was.
Steve shrugged out of his jacket with quiet efficiency. His movements were economical, nothing wasted. Even out of uniform, he wore restraint like it belonged to him.
Sam slid into the booth at the back as if he’d been invited. Steve hesitated half a beat, eyes flicking to you like he was waiting for instruction.
“Sit,” you said.
The word came out softer than you intended.
He sat.
You moved behind the bar, more for something to do with your hands than necessity. “Drink?”
“Coffee,” Steve said immediately.
Sam shot him a look. “Coffee?”
Steve didn’t rise to it. “Coffee.”
You huffed a quiet breath through your nose and reached for the bottle instead.
After the day Natasha had warned you about, after the tension you could already see set into his shoulders, coffee felt like a joke.
You poured whiskey. Two glasses. Same bottle. Same measure.
You set one in front of Sam and the other in front of Steve without comment.
Steve looked at it, then up at you. “I don’t- ”
“Pft-,” you cut in before he could finish, not unkind. “-it’s cold out there. Whiskey’s good for more than courage.” You nudged the glass a fraction closer with two fingers. “Humor me.”
Sam’s mouth curved into something appreciative. “I already like this place.”
You poured yourself something small and leaned back against the counter, watching them the way you’d learned to watch people: where their eyes went, what they did with their hands, how they breathed when a room went quiet.
Steve’s attention never fully settled. He scanned corners, mirrors, reflections in the bottles behind you. Took inventory like danger might arrive unannounced.
It wasn’t paranoia.
It was training that never learned how to stand down.
“We’re looking for someone,” Steve said.
Sam snorted softly. “Understatement of the year.”
Steve ignored him with practiced ease. “Natasha said you might be able to help us connect a few things.”
“Introductions,” you corrected. “Places to disappear. Places to be found. Sometimes both.”
His jaw tightened. Just a reflex. He didn’t like grey spaces.
You didn’t soften it for him. He didn’t need comfort. He needed honesty.
He pulled a slim folder from his bag and laid it out on the table with care; paper and photographs handled enough times to soften the edges.
Your gaze caught on one of the images before you meant it to.
Steve noticed.
Not suspicion. Not accusation.
Just attention.
“You’ve heard something,” he said.
It wasn’t really a question. You felt both their stars now. This was why you didn't like getting involved in business Natasha bought around to you you didn't want something this high.stakes in your orbit..
You let the silence stretch long enough to prove you weren’t afraid of it.
Fine
“I’ve heard things,” you offered up at last, running a hand through your hair. “A man who doesn’t want to be found leaves a different kind of trail. People talk around it.” and you paid attention to that kind of thing, so did people you knew.
Steve leaned forward without meaning to. “We have a lead. Not much. But it’s something.”
Sam rolled his glass between his palms. “We’re running it down city by city. It’s slow.”
You nodded once. You knew that pace. Chasing ghosts was never about speed. It was about endurance.
“Show me,” you said. “Lets see if I can't narrow the scope a little bit..”
As Steve talked; dates, half-sightings, names that weren’t quite names more call signs, some you'd heard.. you watched him in the spaces between the words.
Careful. Polite. Not arrogant.
And under all of it, the strain of a man carrying something alone because he wasn’t sure what it would mean to set it down in front of someone else.
Outside, the rain kept threading the city together.
Inside, the amber light held.
By the time the conversation settled into something usable for Steve and Sam tje table looked messy.. names listed, circled, places, something more workable than just a maybe.. you could feel the night pressing in.
That small sense of..hope? Before fatigue setin.. .
It crept into the pauses between words, into the way Steve’s shoulders stayed lifted even while he sat, as if his body hadn’t been convinced it was allowed to stand down. It softened Sam’s jokes too, rounded off the edges, made them land quieter, like he was rationing them for later.
You set your glass down and reached for the keys under the bar, the familiar weight grounding in your palm.
“So you'll be staying,” you said.
The words weren't sharp. It didn’t need to be. You’d learned long ago that certainty didn’t have to raise its voice.
Sam’s eyes flicked toward the door, then back to you. “We’re not exactly- ”
“- inconspicuous,” you finished for him. You turned toward the sink and rinsed a glass that didn’t need it, buying yourself a breath, letting the decision settle. “Hotels ask questions. Neighbors notice. You’ve both been on too many screens.”
Steve’s jaw tightened. You watchednhim shifted in his seat... You could see him running through the variables, weighing risk against convenience, already adjusting to a plan that wasn’t his
You lifted the key ring. Metal clicked softly in the quiet, louder than it should have been.
“There’s an apartment upstairs,” you continued. “It’s mine. You can use it. Natasha wouldnt of sent you here if she thought I'd steal your wallets..”
Sam’s grin softened into something more genuine, the humor easing into relief. “You sure?”
You didn’t look at him when you answered.
“If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t offer….”
Steve nodded once, the way he did when he accepted a call he didn’t love but trusted anyway. “Thank you.”
The formality of it sat oddly in the warm, low-lit bar, like he wasn’t used to accepting kindness without paperwork attached.
You shut down the space with practiced efficiency, till locked, bottles covered, stools straightened. The last light behind the shelves clicked off until the room became all shadow and amber spill. Outside, the city’s noise dulled to a hush, as if it respected boundaries when they were asked for properly.
“Come on,” you said, already moving.
The staircase behind the bar was narrow and old, the wood worn smooth at the center by decades of feet passing up and down it. The bannister carried the warmth of hands that had needed it. With each step, the smell shifted, less citrus and spirits, more clean linen and dust-warmed paper, the quiet domestic scent of a place ypu'd done your best to preserve, you felt it made your home feel like the nest you wanted it to be.
Steve followed a step behind you.
You felt the distance without needing to look. Not avoidance, awareness. Like he was careful not to crowd something he hadn’t been invited into yet.
At the landing, you unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The apartment was small, but you'd decorated it with intention.
A couch patched at the seams. A low table bearing the quiet scars of cups set down too hard and forgotten there. Shelves crowded with books that had been read, not displayed, spines bent and pages soft. A throw folded twice and left within reach, like someone might need it without asking.
Steve took it in with the same thoroughness he’d given the bar, but something in his focus shifted.
He clocked the exits. The windows. The small balcony. The angles of the adjacent roofs.
Then his gaze slowed.
A mug drying by the sink.Ypu were aware fo the faint herbal trace of soap in the air, was he? Photographs turned inward on the sideboard, not hidden, just undecided, because you hadn’t settled on whether they belonged to the room or only to you…
A life built after the work. Your life.
He paused in the doorway for a fraction too long, like crossing the threshold required more than just a step.
Sam didn’t hesitate. He moved inside with the easy confidence of someone who’d decided comfort was a choice rather than a reward. “This beats a hotel,” he said, approving. “You got a guest room?”
“Two,” you replied. “Down the hall. Take whichever one doesn’t have blackout curtains.”
Sam’s brows lifted. “Blackout curtains?”
You didn’t answer.
Steve glanced at you then- not prying, not curious in the way people usually were. Just attentive. Like he was mapping the outline of you from what you chose not to say.
“Bathroom’s there,” you added, nodding toward the hall. “Towels are clean. I'd like it.tjat while your here you try not to bleed on anything…”
Sam laughed. “I like her.”
Steve’s mouth curved, barely there. “Yeah.”
You tossed Sam a spare key. He caught it without looking. “For the door,” you “If you go out, lock it. If you don’t… don’t.”
Sam gave you a two-finger salute and disappeared down the hall, jacket already shrugged off, his presence receding with familiar ease.
Steve stayed.
You felt it,the way the room held differently when he didn’t move on. Like a held breath you hadn’t realized you were waiting for.
“I appreciate this,” he said. The words were careful, measured, like gratitude had conditions attached and he was still checking the fine print.
You opened the firdge to get some water “It’s practical.”
He didn’t smile properly. He looked down, then back up, weighing something that had nothing to do with logistics of a domestic space.
“I wasn’t sure people would help,” he admitted. “Given who we’re looking for.”
You studied him for a moment, he reminded you of so many soldiers you'd met, officers…The way he held himself like responsibility had weight.
“In my experience not everyone gets to judge motivations,” you said evenly. “Most of the time, all they ever see are intentions.”
His eyes lifted to yours, caught off-guard, as if the idea hadn’t occurred to him in quite that way.
“And it doesn’t sound like you’re doing anything more than trying to help a friend,” you added before lifting the small bottle.
Something in his expression eased- not relief, exactly.
Permission.
His throat bobbed.
From down the hall, Sam’s voice floated back, muffled by distance. “Steve. There is a blanket in here that could qualify as a weighted weapon.”
You snorted before you could stop yourself, the sound sharp in the quiet, glad you still didn't have a mouth full of liquids.
Steve’s attention broke, a flash of something lighter crossing his face, like he’d been reminded he was allowed to breathe.
“Good night,” he'd gone back to that formal polite tone again .
“Yeah,” you replied, tipping your chin toward the hall. “Good night.”
As he turned away, you caught the pause.
Just once.
Not to check exits.
Not to measure risk.
But to take in the room, the softness, the quiet, the simple fact of being somewhere he wasn’t required to stand guard.
And you wondered, distantly, what it might feel like to let yourself notice that too.
~#~#~#~#~
The city looked different in daylight.
Less… forgiving..
The rain from the night before had rinsed the streets clean, leaving the stone pale and slick, the air sharp enough to wake you properly… the colder weather was coming..Water clung to gutters and window ledges, caught the light in thin silver lines. Morning traffic threaded through the avenues with purpose, horns muted more by habit than courtesy. Cafés lifted their shutters one by one, steam spilling out as doors opened. People moved like they had places to be, and no time to wonder who else might be lost.
You noticed Steve clock all of it. Wilson too.
Not the sights themselves, but the rhythm but how the city carried on, indifferent to what they were trying to pull out of it. Steve watched patterns, not people. Flow, not faces. You’d walked cities like this before, learned how they resisted being forced almost as much as people did.. You knew when to push and when to let them breathe. Today wasn’t about brute force or long hours on foot.
It was about listening.
You hadn’t been running them hard.
Just a few neighborhoods you already knew. Names you’d been circling long before Natasha’s message ever arrived. Places where questions could be asked without sounding like questions. Doors you could knock on without drawing attention. When Steve and Sam had asked to come along, you’d let them. It had felt easier than explaining why you needed to see certain corners for yourself, why you trusted your read more than a fresh lead.
Some threads led nowhere.
Some went quiet the moment you touched them.
A couple tugged back, just enough to make note o. You hadn’t pushed those.. You still needed your network to like you once Steve and Sam went home..
Now the bar was closed again. Blinds drawn. The front door chained. Evening light slanted through the back window, turning dust motes into something almost intentional, like the room itself was slowing you down on purpose.
Steve had the table claimed.
Maps spread edge to edge, notes arranged with deliberate care, photographs stacked and re-stacked as if order might reveal truth. He leaned over it like proximity alone could coax meaning out of ink and paper. His weight stayed forward, shoulders set. Sam sat opposite him, jacket off, chair tipped back on two legs, energy contained but restless, watching Steve more than the map.
You poured whiskey for all three of you without asking.
After the day you’d had, coffee would’ve been an insult.
Steve eyed the glass when you set it down. “You know the serum- ”
“I know,” you said. “Drink it anyway.”
Sam lifted his in a small salute. “To not being completely useless today.”
Steve didn’t smile, but he did take a sip, jaw tightening briefly at the burn before he swallowed.
The room settled.
“We’re running out of clean leads,” Sam said, tapping a finger against the map. “Every time we think we’re close, it slips.”
Steve’s jaw tightened. “That doesn’t mean we stop.”
“No one said stop,” Sam replied evenly. “I said tonight.”
Steve dragged a hand over his face, fatigue cutting through the discipline for just a second. You caught the way his eyes stayed closed a beat too long before he forced them open again, like even that small surrender cost him something. “We didn’t come here on a whim,” he said, jaw tight, voice clipped with conviction that bordered on strain. “There’s a lead. I can feel it. It’s not nothing. If I let up now- if I stop pushing- he’s going to disappear again.”
Not it.
Him.
Bucky Barnes.
His friend.
Or who he hoped was still his friend.
The name hung there between you even unspoken, heavy with history and unfinished sentences.
You leaned against the counter, folding your arms loosely, watching the way he braced himself against the table like the wood was the only thing keeping him upright. His knuckles were white against the edge, shoulders drawn tight as wire. “You don’t even know for sure he’s here,” you said evenly, keeping your tone steady on purpose. “You know there’s a trail. You know someone’s leaving signs that suggest he is. That’s not the same thing.”
Steve’s head snapped up. “Those signs aren’t random.”
“I’m not saying they are.” You didn’t flinch under the sharpness of it. “I’m saying breaking yourself trying to grab at smoke isn’t going to do anyone any good. Not him. Not you. You don’t get closer to a man by burning through yourself in the meantime.”
Silence stretched tight between you, drawn thin and humming.
“If his trail goes cold- ” Steve began, pushing forward like momentum alone might prove his point.
“- then you adjust,” you cut in gently, but firmly. “You adapt. You regroup. You don’t grind yourself into dust chasing something you can’t see clearly yet. You’re better than that.”
Sam shifted in his chair, gaze flicking between you, reading the room the way he always did. “She’s got a point,” he said quietly, not challenging, just grounding.
Steve didn’t look convinced.
He looked desperate.
“We’ve both been doing this a long time,” he said, voice lower now, controlled but strained underneath, like something inside him was pulling too tight. “You learn what it means when someone’s slipping through cracks. You learn how fast that can happen. You don’t get many second chances.”
You held his gaze for a beat longer than was strictly comfortable, letting him see that you understood the weight of that without conceding to it.
Then you deliberately broke it.
You stepped away from the table, moving back toward the bar, giving them distance without making a show of it. You picked up an empty glass, wiped it down slowly, the soft sound of cloth against crystal filling the space you’d vacated. The small domestic noise felt intentional, a reminder that not everything in this room was urgency and ghosts.
You didn’t need to hear the rest of it.
But you did anyway.
“She’s a mood,” Sam said after a beat, voice lower now that you’d stepped away, amusement threading lightly through it.
“What? She’s helping,” Steve said, like he was working through the thought as he spoke, the defensiveness softened now. “More than she has to.”
Sam’s gaze moved between the two of you, sharp and assessing, the way it did when he’d spotted something worth naming. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “That’s kind of what I’m talking about.”
Steve frowned. “About what?”
Sam leaned forward, elbows on the table, lowering his voice further. “The vibe.”
Steve stilled. “The what?”
Sam smiled, not unkind, just knowing. “Man, I’m just saying. You’ve been staring at maps and papers for hours like they’re going to rearrange themselves out of fear. Would it kill you to enjoy something about this city that isn’t just bad news and worse coffee?”
Steve’s shoulders tightened again on instinct. “We’re here to find Bucky.”
“And you can do two things at once,” Sam said easily. “It’s never killed a man to make a new friend. Or to let someone help him breathe.”
Steve looked at him like he wanted to argue, jaw working, words lining up and dissolving before they reached his mouth.
Then his gaze flicked to you.
Just for a moment.
You lifted your glass slightly in acknowledgment, not pushing, not retreating. “He’s not wrong.”
Steve huffed a quiet breath, something between a laugh and a surrender, tension easing a fraction at the edges. “I’m focused.”
“You say that a lot,” you said.
He stopped.
Something in his expression shifted, not irritation, not embarrassment. Awareness. Like the words had landed somewhere he hadn’t been guarding, somewhere that didn’t know how to answer back.
Sam leaned back, satisfied. “That’s my cue. I’m calling it a night.”
He stood, stretching, already halfway out of the conversation. “Tomorrow’s another day. Cities don’t like being forced. People don’t either.”
Steve nodded absently, though his eyes had drifted away from the maps now.
As Sam headed for the stairs, the room seemed to hold its breath, the quiet settling heavier in his absence.
Steve stayed where he was, eyes back on the map, slower now, movements less sharp, like part of him had finally registered the stillness around him instead of fighting it.
You watched him sit in it and wondered how long it had been since he’d let himself notice that stopping didn’t mean losing.
~#~#~#~#~
Sam’s footsteps faded upstairs, the sound swallowed by old wood and distance.
The bar changed once he was gone.
Not dramatically. Not like a door slamming shut.
Just… quieter. Thinner. As if the room had shed a layer it no longer needed to hold itself together.
You stayed where you were for a moment, glass warm in your hand, listening to the low hum of the refrigerator behind the bar, the muted noise of traffic outside. The city breathed around the building, unaware it was being shut out.
Steve didn’t move.
He remained at the table, hands braced on either side of the map, shoulders still set like he was waiting for instructions that weren’t coming. The whiskey sat untouched near his elbow, catching the lamplight.
You’d known men like him.
Not him, but the type. Soldiers who carried responsibility like a second spine. Men who stayed upright long after the fight ended because no one had ever taught them how to do anything else. They didn’t rest so much as pause, always half-expecting to be called back into motion.
You stepped behind the bar and rinsed a glass that didn’t need it, giving yourself something to do with your hands while your thoughts wandered too close.
It was strange, being this helpful.
You were used to providing access, not comfort. Answers, not quiet. People came to you for introductions, for logistics, for the kind of help that didn’t ask anything emotional in return. This..letting someone sit in your space and unravel at their own pace, felt almost indulgent.
Steve finally straightened, dragging a hand over his face. “Sam didn’t mean anything by it,” he said.
You glanced up. “By what?”
“The… vibe,” he replied, clearly unconvinced by the word. “He likes to fill silence.”
“So do you,” you said lightly. “You just do it with paperwork.”
A flicker of reluctant amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth before he smoothed it away.
He leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking softly under his weight. “You make a habit of calling people out?”
You shrugged. “Only when they make it easy.”
His mouth curved faintly. “That sounds like a warning.”
“Maybe,” you said. “Or maybe it’s just honesty.”
The quiet stretched between you, not uncomfortable, just present. You watched the way his attention kept circling the map even as his body tried to loosen, like part of him didn’t trust the stillness.
“You don’t have to stay up with me,” he said. “I can- ”
“You won’t,” you interrupted, not unkind. “And neither will I.”
He huffed a quiet breath, something that might’ve been a laugh if he’d let it. “You’re direct.”
“You noticed.”
Steve picked up the whiskey then, finally, turning the glass once in his hand before taking a measured sip. His shoulders dropped a fraction afterward, like his body had been waiting for permission to unclench.
You pretended not to notice.
“You ever get tired of it?” he asked suddenly.
“Of what?”
“Being the person people come to when they don’t know where else to go.”
The question landed softer than you expected.
You considered him over the rim of your glass. “Sometimes,” you admitted. “But it’s better than being the person who doesn’t get asked at all.”
Steve nodded slowly, like the answer fit somewhere he hadn’t quite articulated yet.
“I don’t know how to stop,” he said after a moment.
There it was.
Not a confession. Not a plea.
Just a fact.
You leaned against the counter, crossing your ankles. “Then don’t,” you said. “Just… slow down.”
His gaze lifted to you, something unguarded flickering there before he caught it.
"He's your friend, this is a marathon, you might want to sprint to him like its the most natural thing in the world. But even heroes burn out if they do not look after themselves."
“You always say things like that,” he said. “Like you’re not sure if you’re flirting or giving orders.”
You smiled despite yourself. “Why can’t it be both? I find you meale tend to respond better when there's a mix of such tones.”
That did it.
A real smile, brief but unmistakable, softened the line of his mouth.
The moment passed, but it left something behind- an ease you hadn’t expected, a warmth that had nothing to do with the whiskey or the lights.
Outside, the city carried on.
Inside, you found yourself thinking…not for the first time, that maybe being around him felt different because, for once, you weren’t just solving someone else’s problem.
Maybe you were letting yourself be present in it too.
~#~#~#~#~
The quiet downstairs had worn thin long before you said anything.
You’d let him circle the same pages long enough. Watched his eyes track the same routes, the same dates, the same names as if repetition alone might force them to rearrange into something useful. The air had grown heavy with its pen, old paper and the kind of stubborn silence that meant he was digging in.
“Steve,” you said finally, closing the nearest folder with a firm but not unkind hand, your palm flattening over the paper so he had no choice but to look at you. “You’re not suddenly going to solve this tonight.”
He didn’t look up right away. His jaw worked once before he answered. “We’ve only been here a day. If there’s a lead- ”
“There will still be a lead in the morning,” you cut in, not sharp, just certain. “And if there isn’t, staring at it until three a.m. isn’t going to change that. You’re not going to scare the truth out of it.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. His fingers curled slightly at the edge of the table like he was bracing against something unseen.
You softened your tone, because pushing harder would only make him dig deeper. “Come upstairs. Change of location might help. Different walls. Different light.”
That made him pause properly this time. His gaze flicked around the bar as if seeing it anew, the dim sconces, the shadow pooling in corners, the weight of the day clinging to the room.
“Maybe,” he conceded after a moment, reluctant but listening. “Maybe a change of location will help.”
You made a solid effort not to roll your eyes as he began carefully stacking every page, aligning edges like precision alone might keep the trail intact. He moved methodically, almost reverently, smoothing corners, ensuring nothing bent, reluctant to leave anything behind as if walking away from the table meant walking away from Bucky too.
“Up,” you ordered firmly nodding toward the staircase.
He frowned faintly. “After you.”
“Lights,” you replied dryly, already reaching for the switches. “Chivalry can wait.”
That earned you the smallest flicker of amusement; quick, reluctant, but real, before he headed for the stairs.
You turned off the remaining lights in the bar one by one, the room dimming into amber and shadow, the hum of the space settling into something softer. When you followed him up, the sound of your steps felt lighter than the mood you’d left behind.
Upstairs, the apartment felt different; quieter, removed from the weight of the day below. The air was cooler. The windows reflected city glow instead of barlight. But Steve didn’t hesitate long before claiming the coffee table again. He spread the papers out across it, maps unfolding, reports fanning into neat rows like he was setting up a second command post, unwilling to surrender the ground he’d gained.
You didn’t comment.
Instead, you crossed to the window and pulled the curtain back an inch, letting the night spill in. The sky was clouded but bright with city glow, lights stretching in long blurred lines below like veins of gold. You stood there a moment longer than necessary, breathing in the quiet, grounding yourself in something that wasn’t ink and conjecture.
Behind you, paper slid against wood.
You turned.
Steve had already leaned in, braced over the table again, sleeves pushed back slightly, eyes scanning dates and routes like he expected them to confess under scrutiny. The crease between his brows had returned, sharper now under the softer apartment light.
Your expression said enough even if you didn’t.
You moved to the cabinet instead, retrieved a bottle and two glasses, and set them down with deliberate calm. The clink of glass against wood was louder up here, more intimate.
Clearly, he wasn’t done.
“You think you’re going to find something now,” you asked evenly, pouring amber into each glass, “that you didn’t find in the last two hours? Or the last twenty‑four?”
He didn’t answer immediately. His eyes stayed on the page like if he looked away the answer might slip past him.
Then, quieter, almost to himself, “Bucky wouldn’t stop if it was me.”
That wasn’t defiance.
It was conviction. Loyalty worn thin and stubborn.
You studied him for a beat, watching the way the lamplight caught the edge of his cheekbone, the exhaustion he refused to acknowledge. Then you set his glass within reach and stepped closer to the table. The maps meant nothing to you in that moment. What mattered was the way his focus had narrowed to a blade, cutting him off from everything else in the room.
“You need to let your brain rest too, you know,” you trying for something gentler now.
You reached for the coffee table drawer and pulled it open, the familiar rasp of wood on wood cutting through the quiet. Inside, beneath coasters and a folded newspaper, was the worn deck you’d kept there for years. Edges softened, corners bent from use.
You brought it out and began shuffling without ceremony, the cards whispering against each other in steady repetition.
“Can’t help him if your brain’s mush.”
The sound of cards sliding against each other filled the space, rhythmic and grounding, something that didn’t demand answers.
Steve looked up at you then, attention finally shifting away from the reports.
His brow creased. “Cards?”
“They help me switch off.” You settled back onto the couch and began shuffling, the familiar sound steady and grounding. “Picked it up in the field. Something about rules that don’t change. You play?” you asked.
“I know how,” he said, and the way his eyes flicked away made it clear he was already thinking of when he’d last done it. “It’s been… a while.” Steve’s mouth twitched. “There was always one commando who carried cards.”
“Exactly.” You glanced up. “Usually the calmest one too.”
He considered that, then moved to sit properly this time, back against the couch instead of perched on the edge. “You play?”
“Mostly alone,” you said. “Patience.”
He frowned. “Patience?”
You smiled faintly. “Solitaire. That’s what you call it.”
“Right.” His eyes warmed with recognition. “My ma used to play.”
You began laying cards out on the table, movements practiced and economical. “I’m happy to get the cribbage board out if you want company.”
“Cribbage?” His brows lifted. “You’re serious?”
“You surprised?”
“A little,” he admitted. “Feels… old‑fashioned.”
You arched a brow. “That’s because it is.”
He looked faintly apologetic. “People tend to think that’s not a compliment.”
“I’m English,” you said dryly. “Old‑fashioned is practically a point of national pride. We collect it. Polish it. Refuse to let it die.”
That drew a quieter smile from him.
“Besides,” you added, beginning to deal again, “when did you ever meet a soldier who didn’t play something? Spades. Twenty‑one. Poker if they were feeling reckless.”
His mouth twitched. “Fair.”
“If you’re not careful,” you went on, “I’ll teach you Fox in the Forest.”
He gave you a look. “Cribbage is fine.” A beat. “As long as you’re not competitive.”
You snorted softly. “I played with matches. Cigarette breaks. Long waits.”
Something in his expression shifted at that, not pity, not curiosity. Understanding.
He reached for the whiskey, took a sip without comment. “You always play to win?”
“No,” you gave your head the barest shake “I play to finish.”
That earned you a look. “That doesn’t sound restful.”
“It is when you don’t need anything from it.” You glanced at him. “You want in?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Alright, let's see if I still remember the rules." flexing his hands
Even when he tried to keep things simple, he made them earnest.
You reached back into the drawer again and pulled out the cribbage board- smooth wood worn darker along the edges from years of handling- along with a small box of matches dumping the hacked up little sticks onto the table.
The sound of cards sliding over the table was soft and steady, a rhythm that didn’t demand anything except attention. At first Steve played like he approached everything else he'd done since arriving, precise, cautious, reading patterns before committing to anything. He watched your hands as much as the cards themselves, like he thought he might learn something from the way you moved.
You let him.
You let the game be small. Let him settle into rules that hadn’t changed. Let him breathe between turns, making sure he understood what he was doing.
After a few hands, something in him eased.
Not all at once.
But enough that his shoulders lowered. Enough that his gaze stopped snapping to the windows every few seconds. Enough that he finally took a sip of the drink you’d made him, like he’d decided you weren’t going to poison him in your own home.
You pretended not to notice.
“You always stay up this late?” he asked.
“Most nights,” you said. “The bar closes. My head doesn’t.”
Steve’s eyes dropped back to the cards. “Does this help?”
“Sometimes.” You shrugged. “Sometimes it just gives my hands something to do while the rest of me catches up.”
Steve’s thumb traced the edge of a card. You saw the moment he considered asking more.
He didn’t. His hands were large and careful with the cards, like he was afraid of bending something that didn’t belong to him.
As the game settled into rhythm, the conversation found its way onto safer ground without either of you steering it there.
“How long have you had the bar?” he asked, setting a card down carefully.
“Long enough to forget what it looked like before,” you voice didn’t give the lump in your throat away. “It’s changed hands a few times. I stripped it back when I took it over. Built it up again.”
He nodded slowly, studying the room again, you wondered if he was trying to see shadows of lives that had been lived in this place before it became your’s to haunt. “The look of it… feels intentional.”
“It is.” You slid another card into place without looking up. You had stripped it down back to root, to brick in palces, bare beams. To something so honest the building had give up it’s secrets. “Nothing worse than inheriting someone else’s mess and pretending it’s character.”
A faint huff left him. “You should see some of the places we’ve been too.. I don’t know when it all got like this. Tourist traps..Best food sign in places that look too new to know anything.”
“That’s usually code for overpriced and underwhelming,” you replied lightly. “But not here. Europe takes its food personally. Half these kitchens have been perfecting the same dish longer than either of us has been alive.”
His mouth twitched. “Can’t argue with that. Coffee’s good too.”
“It should be,” you said. “If you can’t get decent coffee on this side of the Atlantic, something’s gone very wrong.”
You tipped your chin toward the window, toward the quieter stretch of street below where the light was softer, the movement slower. “And at least this part of the city isn’t built for tourists. No laminated menus. No neon promises of ‘authentic.’ Just people who actually live here.”
That earned you a small smile.
Between turns, Steve studied the board for a moment longer than necessary before glancing toward the window.
“Was there a reason you picked this part of Europe?” he asked, tone careful rather than probing.
You placed your peg, then leaned back slightly. “It still feels like time stopped here,” you tapped your fingers on your cards and looked toward the window. You didn’t add that you could stay tucked into a pocket like this. That you could live inside a small, contained stretch of streets where nothing moved too quickly. Where you could pretend you were still waiting.
“I don’t mind the weather either.” You just shrugged instead. "Though the cold hangs on longer here than people expect,” you tacked on "Gets into your bones if you let it.”
He glanced at his glass. “So that’s what the whiskey’s for.”
“Partly,” you shrugged again rearranging cards. "The rest is stubbornness.”
“Discipline works too,” he said, deadpan.
You snorted before you could stop yourself.
The cards kept moving, anchoring the moment, giving your hands something to do when words thinned.
“New York must feel strange now,” you said after a beat. “Coming back to it like this, to now.”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I know it by memory. Not by map.”
“That’s disorienting.”
“It is,” he agreed. “You expect things to line up the way you remember. They don’t.”
“Some places don’t change,” you said. “The river doesn’t care who’s in charge.”
That made him smile, softer this time. “Europe’s like that too. You think everything will be different. Then you turn a corner and it’s… familiar. We were in Paris, so much of it looked different but then others parts hadn't changed at all.
“History has a long memory.”
“So do cities,” he said.
You nodded once, the thought landing somewhere quieter than the conversation. “So do people,” you added, almost casually, like it didn’t matter.
Steve’s gaze lifted, catching on you.
You kept your eyes on the cards as went to cut the deck. “We’re all marked by our own history,” you said. “Some of us just get better at pretending we aren’t.”
For a beat, the room went very still before you flipped the card - a jack, you moved your match peg two point.
Steve didn’t push. He only nodded, slow, like he understood exactly what you meant but something told you he was filing that away for later as well.
"You're turn to count."
The game gave you both something to do with your hands. You noticed how Steve’s posture eased incrementally, how his gaze stopped darting to the windows, how he leaned in without realizing it when you spoke while pointing out point.
You found yourself watching him too, not the soldier, how he wasn't the the symbol. that had been splashed across screens. Just the man, tired and trying very hard not to be alone with his thoughts.
But Steve was also watching your hands, as you tapped spare matches, or when you rearranged your cards again “You don’t seem like someone who likes standing still.”
You glanced up briefly. “Harder to hit a moving target."
His gaze sharpened slightly. “You've been in the firing line?”
You held his eyes for a second longer than necessary, then looked back down at the cards. “MI6,” you said lightly. “Special forces before that..”
He absorbed that without flinching.
“Now?” he asked.
“Now I’m just helpful,” you replied, cutting the deck cleanly.
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Leads. Hospitality. Cards.”
“Breakfast too, if you’re lucky,” you added dryly.
One eyebrow rose at that.
Outside, the city hummed on.
Inside, the game continued, steady, unhurried, the quiet work of laying one thing down at a time.
And for the first time since he’d walked through your door, Steve looked like he might actually sleep.
~#~#~#~#~
You let the game draw out longer than it needed to.
You could have closed it two hands earlier. You knew exactly when the math tipped. Instead, you fed a few cards too generous into his crib, watched the small shift in the board as he counted, let him take the quiet win without making a show of it. It wasn’t about the points. It was about the rhythm.. and the rhythm had done what it was meant to. Steve sat back against the couch, shoulders looser than when you’d started, the tight line of the day finally easing from his posture in a way that felt earned rather than forced.
Still, there was something in the hunch of his shoulders that said he wasn’t ready for it to be over.
His gaze lingered on the scattered cards, fingers tapping once against his knee like part of him wanted another hand, another few minutes where he didn’t have to think about anything beyond what was in front of him.
“That helped,” you said lightly, gathering the files and stacking them aside, giving him an out without calling attention to it. “You actually look relaxed-ish.”
He glanced up, surprised by the observation, then gave a small huff of a laugh. “Guess it worked.”
You reached for the cards and he moved at the same time, the motion instinctive.
“I can pack those up,” he offered, already leaning forward.
“Leave them,” you said easily. “I will.”
He hesitated, fingers hovering over the deck, then nodded. He didn’t look eager for the night to end, but he accepted it, like he was learning when to stop pushing.
“You said you do you do this every night?” he asked.
“Most,” you said. “Helps shake the day off. Keeps things from following me to bed.”
A beat passed, quiet and unhurried.
“If you want to join again,” you added casually, like it wasn’t an invitation with weight, “you’re welcome. Seemed to do you some good.”
He considered that, thoughtful in the way he always was when he didn’t want to promise something he wasn’t sure he could give.
“I’ll see how I feel tomorrow,” he said.
It wasn’t a no.
Sam was already asleep when you headed down the hall, the apartment wrapped in its familiar quiet. Steve paused at the guest room door, hand resting briefly against the frame like he was marking the end of the night.
“Good night,” he said.
“Night, Steve.”
You watched him disappear inside, the door closing softly behind him, leaving the hallway still and the cards waiting where you’d left them.
The next morning you’d thought you were first up.
You’d already started breakfast; eggs in the pan, coffee blooming rich and dark, when Steve came back in from a run, damp at the collar, breath steady like he hadn’t just covered half the district at dawn. Sam followed not long after, quieter but awake enough to track the conversation as it shifted to plans.
They ate at your small table while you worked the phone between bites, lining up a couple more meetings, nudging old contacts into confirming times and locations. Steve mentioned Natasha had pushed through another lead, something about movement in the eastern quarter, a name that had surfaced twice in as many days.
It had felt productive. Ordered. Like the day might actually give them something solid.
You’d left them mid-morning to their own wits while you handled your own tasks, unable to quite name the mood you carried with you. Not optimism. Not dread. Just the sense that something was tightening, threads pulling closer to something you couldn’t yet see.
Now it was after closing.
The bar was locked, the lights lowered, the last glass rinsed and left to dry, and still you stayed up. The city had gone soft and dim beyond the windows. You told yourself you weren’t waiting.
But Sam and Steve weren’t back yet.
That fact lodged under your ribs sharper than it should have.
You were already halfway through your fourth game of patience, cards snapping down with more force than necessary, the neat columns skewed from the edge of your own irritation. The rhythm that usually steadied you felt jagged tonight, your hands moving faster than your thoughts, like if you could just solve the damn thing cleanly you might quiet whatever had started humming in your chest.
You almost stood when you heard them on the stairs.
Voices first. Low and tired. Sam’s, carrying the edge of a grin even when he sounded wrung out. Steve’s, quieter, steady, threaded with the kind of focus that refused to switch off.
They came up talking, jackets brushed with damp, steps heavy with the day.
“I’m beat,” Sam said the moment he hit the landing, already shrugging out of his coat. “I’m going to lay down before I fall down.”
Steve slowed when he saw you.
You lifted a hand in a polite wave, nothing dramatic, just acknowledgement, like you hadn’t been sitting there waiting for them.
Sam’s gaze flicked between you and Steve, quick and knowing. He gave Steve a small nudge with his shoulder as he passed, the kind that said go on without making it a thing.
“Night,” Sam tossed over his shoulder, and disappeared down the hall.
Steve hovered a beat longer, then moved into the living room and sat on the couch opposite you. He didn’t open the folder. Just sat there like he’d hit the edge of his own momentum and wasn’t sure what to do with his hands.
You kept your eyes on the table as you laid out the next three cards, trying to solve the game you’d been working on.
The cards made a soft, steady sound as they hit the table, then the next set. You reached down to pick up a four of clubs to set on the five, before moving over to shit the far row across.
A rhythm.
An opening.
Despite the grin you had heard in Sam voice the way Steve was holding himself told you something else was there.
“That bad?” you asked, not looking up and just keeping eyes on the game.
He nodded. “Nothing solid.”
You let out a heavy exhale and sat back picking up the bottle of whiskey you had open on the table and poured him a glass, pushing it over. This time there was no refusal there wasn't even a comment, Steve just accepted the glass.
"This game isn't going anywhere either." You said starting to turn cards over pushing the rows back into the deck and handed it to Steve. "I'll get the cribbage board. Unless you want something to eat?"
When he didn't answer you just opened to draw in the coffee table.
It felt familiar faster than it should have.
This time he seemed almost determined about it.
He didn’t play like he was solving something that needed cracking open. He played like the cards themselves might become his off switch, like if he focused hard enough on suits and numbers and counting pegs, the rest of the day might finally quiet down. He still paid attention , you doubted Steve Rogers knew how not to, but now the focus was different. Narrower. Intentional. He was trying to use the game instead of conquer it.
You noticed things.
The way his breathing evened out after the first few rounds. The way his shoulders dropped once he finished the first whiskey a little too quickly. The way his knee stopped bouncing under the table. The way he leaned closer without meaning to when you spoke, like proximity itself had become grounding rather than threatening.
You’d done this before.
Not with cards.
With routine. With the quiet discipline of repetition.
You’d learned early on that men like him didn’t need to be told to rest, they needed permission to stop performing vigilance. Something neutral. Something repeatable. A habit that asked nothing but presence and offered nothing in return.
This match was becoming that.
You were in two minds about letting it.
“I don’t want to talk ghosts while we do cards,” you said after a few hands, keeping your tone even as you slid a peg forward. “But, I made calls today too. I’ve got people for you to meet tomorrow.”
He didn’t look up immediately, eyes still on the board. “Yeah?”
“There was good in today,” you continued, shuffling with deliberate calm. “You eliminated other lines. No’s are often as good as yes. Even if it doesn’t feel that way.”
He exhaled through his nose, jaw tightening faintly. “It’s been months,” he said. “Four countries.” His thumb traced the edge of a card without really seeing it. “Every time it feels close.”
“And it still could be,” you replied quietly. “But this isn’t a sprint. It could be years.”
His eyes flicked up at that.
You held his gaze. “He’s trained. Probably scared. And you’re not the only ones looking.”
The words settled between you.
You softened your tone just slightly. “You need to see the wins where you can, Steve. Otherwise all you’ll see are closed doors.”
He looked away first, but not dismissively, only thinking.
Then he set his card down with more care than necessary and nodded once.
And when he focused back on the board, it wasn’t with desperation.
It was with intent to rest.
He dealt the next hand with steadier fingers, then paused, studying the board instead of the cards.
“You really know what you’re talking about,” he said, not quite a question. “When it comes to ghosts. Finding things. But it's more then that isn't it..”
You didn’t look up immediately. “I know how they move.”
For a second you wondered if he’d been holding onto that question all day. If it had been sitting at the back of his mind while he ran at dawn. If he’d asked Natasha about you when she passed along those extra leads. Or if it was just something he’d been turning over quietly between meetings and maps, deciding whether to trust what you seemed to be.
His jaw worked once. “Most people who say that mean they’ve chased them.”
You slid a card into place. “Sometimes.” A beat. “Sometimes I helped people disappear.”
That made him look at you properly.
“The bar,” he said after a moment, gaze drifting toward the window and the street below. “It’s not just a bar, is it.”
You almost smiled. “It’s an in-between place.” You adjusted a peg without looking up. “Somewhere to come in from the cold. Or to launch of into it ..if that’s what’s needed."
His eyes returned to you, searching. “You sound… comfortable in haunted spaces.”
You held his gaze this time. It was funny that it termed it like that. “Comfortable isn’t the word.” A small shrug. "Just somewhere I think I fit." Somewhere you wouldn't let go of.
He studied you a second longer. “You been here long?”
Long enough to know which corners swallowed sound. Long enough that the quiet felt less like hiding and more like choosing.
You set a peg down with soft precision. “Long enough.”
It wasn't time to think about how long you’d haunted this city. This apartment. How long you've given up waiting for a sign, but hadn't quiet given up standing gaurd.
He held your gaze a second longer, then gave a single nod, not skeptical. Not pressing.
“Enough ghost talk,” you added, looking down at your hand with a faint scowl. “Cards don’t like it.”
You both lifted your drinks at the same time. The conversations shifted too.
The conversation drifted, but your mind didn’t stay with it.
You kept playing.
Kept counting.
Kept cataloguing the cards you’d seen, the ones already burned into memory, the ones still left somewhere in the deck waiting to surface.
You’d spent most of your life in transition.
Not your own.
Other people’s.
Arrivals. Exits. Names dropped and replaced. Routes drawn and erased. You had built a life in the spaces between, in doorways, in safe houses, in bars that weren’t really bars. Places people came to catch their breath. Places they launched from. Places they vanished into.
Starting over had always felt like a punch to the gut. Like losing a fight you hadn’t chosen but couldn’t walk away from. Watching someone shed a life…even when it was necessary, felt like collateral every time.
At least doing what you were doing now, you were helping.
That word again.
Helpful.
You held onto it like it could absolve something. Like it might balance the scales for the mistakes you’d made. Undo every scar. Every lie. Every person who’d become collateral damage in someone else’s survival.
Everyone you’d known long enough had turned into a ghost one way or another.
Or maybe that was just what you felt you were left with.
If you were helpful, though, if you were useful then there was purpose in it. Meaning in the wreckage. A reason to stay standing in the in-between.
You moved a card without looking up, already calculating what remained to be played, what could still fall into place if you were patient enough.
That, at least, was something you understood.
“You’re doing that thing,” he said one night, interrupting the shuffle.
You glanced up. “What thing?”
“Thinking three steps ahead,” he said, not accusing. Observant. “You get quiet when you do.”
You smiled faintly. “It’s only your second night playing cards with me. Is it that obvious?”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “I’ve met other spies before.”
You snorted softly. “I’ve always considered myself more of a soldier than a spy.”
He tipped his head, studying you. “Either way… you don’t have to think so much.” His gaze flicked to the deck. “I thought the point of cards was to turn your brain off.”
You held his eyes a beat.
“And this is your home,” he added, quieter now. “You shouldn’t have to be this guarded inside your own walls.”
The words landed heavier than you expected, settling somewhere low in your chest.
You set the deck down slowly. The cards made a soft, final sound against the table, definitive without being abrupt.
Your shoulders dropped first.
He was right.
If you were supposed to be relaxing, you couldn’t be the only one still counting cards like it was a tactical exercise. If you kept thinking three steps ahead, he would too.
You let out a slow breath and leaned back in your chair, the edge in you easing deliberately.
“Alright, Rogers,” you said lightly, letting a hint of challenge slip in. “I’ll stop counting counts. Would hate for you to think I cheated my way to my win.”
That got a proper laugh out of him - warm, unguarded, the kind that reached his eyes.
“Oh, that sounds like a challenge now.”
There it was.
That ease.
That moment where the weight thinned and something almost playful took its place.
You hadn’t let yourself have that in a long time.
You laid your two cards down with quiet confidence and slid the deck toward him.
“Cut the deck, Captain,” you said, meeting his gaze. “You’ve got a fight now.”
~#~#~#~#~
More of your nights started to pass like this, not planned, not announced. It just became the shape of things. Cards laid out after closing. Whiskey poured without asking. The day folded up and set aside piece by piece.
Sometimes Sam joined in for a hand or two if they were back early enough and still downstairs at the bar, dragging a chair over with a grin and enough noise to keep things light. He’d play fast, tease mercilessly, then lean back and watch the two of you for a beat too long before excusing himself. Most nights he chose to give you space without saying so, retreating down the hall with a muttered goodnight like he was doing you both a favor.
There were looks between him and Steve you pretended not to clock. Conversations you overheard in fragments while wiping down the bar, Sam encouraging him past wherever he’d stalled, nudging at something about practice and ‘since ’45’ that you very deliberately chose not to unpack. That wasn’t your territory. Not yet.
But you couldn’t deny the shift.
A few evenings in, you found yourself going to bed feeling… different. Less like a fixture in the room. Less like the person holding the door open for everyone else. More like a person again.
Being seen, not assessed, not measured for usefulness. It did something you hadn’t prepared for. When you dressed in the mornings, your eyes didn’t skim over the scars across your skin with the same practiced numbness. They were still there. They still told their story. But they didn’t feel like the only thing you carried.
It was nice, dangerously nice/ To have company. To have your routine expand by just a fraction. To sit across from other soldiers and not have to explain the silence between words. To let the evening belong to something that wasn’t an exit plan.
And Steve… Steve was falling to a pattern now. A few hands, his shoulders unclenching. A sip of whiskey. A breath that finally sounded like it belonged to the present. That was how the last few weeks had gone.
You dealt the cards without looking up.
But tonight he didn’t settle into it the way he normally did.
Rained down the windows in thin, silver lines, distorting the city lights into something softer, less certain. The bar had closed early; the streets below were quieter than usual, footsteps dampened by weather.
Steve hadn’t reached for his glass.
Had needed prompting when it was his turn to count up his score.
The silence stretched long enough that you finally glanced across the table.
He was watching you.
But it wasn't in that distracted way he sometimes did when his thoughts wandered back to the mission, to finding Bucky Barnes, to finding his friend… or what, no, who he hoped was still his friend, but fully, openly, like the moment in front of him had claimed all of his attention.
“You’re up,” you said gently trying to poke him verbally back into the game.
He blinked, like he’d forgotten where he was for a second. “Sorry.”
You smiled. “Your drifting, not careful I might use the advantage."
“Just thinking” he said, but his voice was quieter than usual.
You leaned forward to gather the crib your fingers brushing the edge of his hand by accident when he reached for it too by mistake.
Or maybe not.
The contact was brief. Barely there.
But the way his finger flexed you swore he was trying to reach out slightly for you.
Neither of you moved right away.
Your breath caught before you could stop it when his finger brushed along yours. You felt it happen- felt the air shift, the space between you tighten until it seemed to hum with awareness.
Steve’s hand hovered, not touching again, not pulling away either.
Close enough that you could feel the warmth of him.
Close enough that your pulse suddenly felt very loud.
You looked up at the same time.
His blue eyes were darker in the low light, it made your think of the sea during storms, searching your face like he was trying to read something he was afraid to misinterpret.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
The rain filled the silence. Pounding against glass.
His breath overlapped yours.
You could have leaned in.
You knew he felt it too, the pull, the possibility, the fragile line neither of you had crossed yet.
Steve swallowed.
“I forgot- ” he started, then stopped.
You didn’t finish it for him this time.
Because you weren’t sure either.
The world narrowed to the inches between you. To the warmth of his hand. To the quiet awareness that something had been building without either of you naming it.
Then a sound cut through it.
A door slammed somewhere outside. Voices echoed down the street. The spell cracked just enough for reality to rush back in.
Steve pulled his hand away first, not abruptly- just carefully, like he was afraid of breaking something fragile.
You leaned back slowly, heart still racing.
The cards sat forgotten between you.
“I should- ” he said, then stopped, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to- ”
“It’s okay,” you said quickly, softer than you intended. You could of just cover it up, said something about him forgeting it was not his turn.
Another pause.
Different now. Charged. Awake.
“There’s something here,” you admitted quietly, the words feeling heavier once spoken.
Steve met your gaze, earnest as ever. “Yeah,” he said. “I think there is.”
Neither of you moved closer.
Neither of you stepped away.
"But that's still my crib though.." That was the break that was needed.
The moment had broken but it hadn’t disappeared. Just enough for you both to retreat to your corners and breath. You could feel it lingered in the air, in the way your hands still trembled faintly, in the way Steve looked at you like he was seeing you differently now.
Not just as the person who helped him rest.
But as someone he wanted to be close to.
The habit was still there.
But now it carried something more. He didn't get up. You just picked up your cards and kept going with the game. But it was there under it..
Awareness. Longing.
Possibility.
~#~#~#~#~
From the moment you woke up, you were aware.
Aware of how badly you’d slept. Of the way your sheets felt against your skin, twisted and warm. Of how still the air sat in your bedroom, heavy and unmoving.
But more importantly, you were aware of the feeling in your chest.
Of the thoughts circling in your head.
Your mind kept slipping back to the night before. To him. To the almost.
You weren’t used to feeling this… heavy. This present inside yourself. Like something had taken up space beneath your ribs and refused to be ignored.
You lay there for a beat longer than usual, staring at the ceiling, listening to the faint hum of the building waking up around you. Pipes. Distant traffic. The muted rhythm of a city that didn’t care about the quiet revolutions happening inside small apartments.
It didn’t get any better.
You and Steve spent most of the day skirting around each other with a precision that would have impressed any tactical unit. Conversations clipped short before they could soften. Movements careful, calculated. Passing plates at breakfast without letting fingers brush, even when the space between you was narrow enough that it would have been easy. Looking everywhere but directly at each other for too long, at the coffee mug in your hand, Steve looking out at the window over his shoulder. At the grain in the table like it held answers you preferred to find instead.
You were both too aware of where the other stood in the room. Even when you didn’t look at eachother.
Too aware of how close was too close.
Sam had clocked it within an hour; side‑eye sharp enough to cut glass, watching the way you both overcorrected.
You heard it start while you were in your bedroom, the low murmur of their voices carrying just enough through the doorway.
“Everything alright with you?” Sam asked, casual in tone but not in intent.
Boots scraped softly.
“Yeah,” Steve answered. “Everything’s fine.”
Sam didn’t buy it. You could hear it in the pause that followed.
“Funny,” he said after a moment. “Didn’t look fine over breakfast.”
Another beat of silence.
“Nothing happened,” Steve replied, a little too quickly. “We’ve got places to be today. Let’s just focus on that.”
Sam exhaled through his nose. “That so?”
“Did something happen last night?” Sam pressed.
“I said it’s nothing,” Steve answered, quieter now but firmer. “We need to focus. We’ve got leads to run.”
Sam let the silence stretch, long enough that you felt it in your shoulders even from your room.
Then, lighter: “Right. Sure. Focus.” A pause. “Is she coming with us?”
Steve’s voice dropped slightly. “She didn’t say anything.”
That was where you stopped listening. Only registering them heading off down the stairs.
You swallowed the ache low in your chest and redirected your focus where it belonged.
The bar.
It's purpose, your purpose.
The other people you were helping.
You spent the day putting together supply packages. Bundles that would be collected from the back door later in the week.
Lists. Charged phones with a list of contacts. Supplies. Needed inventory. Checking seals twice on things people had asked for. Recounting contents you already knew by memory just to have something to tally. Wanting for life that made sense in columns and quiet transactions. In things that could be measured. Verified. Completed. Finished.
You let your hands move while your mind refused to wander, folding paper, tightening twine, labeling crates in neat, deliberate strokes. Anything that kept you anchored in the present tense.
You did not think about the rain against the windows the night before, though by midmorning it started again, soft at first, then steady, tracking down the glass like a memory that refused to dry up. You did not think about breath overlapping in that narrow space between you. About the warmth of him standing close enough that you could feel it through your shirt. About how close his mouth had been to yours before the moment fractured and you’d both stepped back like you’d brushed a live wire.
Except you did.
You thought about it while sealing the last package, fingers pressing tape flat as your mind replayed the shape of his mouth. You thought about the way his hands held the cards or how those same hands had wiped condensation from his glass, thumb dragging slow along the curve. You caught yourself wondering, absurdly, how that thumb would feel tracing your skin instead.
You thought about it when you unlocked the bar and the door gave its familiar creak. When you poured the first drink of the evening and watched amber liquid settle into crystal. When you served your clientele, men and women who moved through this city like ghosts in coats and borrowed names. You saw them the way you always did: passing through, half here, half elsewhere. You wondered if you looked the same.
You thought about the moment you might have been brave enough to lean in and close the distance yourself. If you hadn’t hesitated. If you hadn’t been a coward.
You did not think about the way Steve had said yeah when you admitted there was something there.
Just honest.
The truth had surprised him as much as it had you. You thought about how easily that honesty had settled into your bones. How dangerous that felt.
And as you poured and wiped and counted out the till at closing, you told yourself not to think about what any of it meant. Not to give it weight. Not to let it become more than a moment stretched thin by rain and proximity, even as it threaded itself through every quiet hour of your day.
You absolutely did not think about what that something was supposed to mean. Whether it was distraction. Whether it was timing. Whether it was a door you shouldn’t open when his entire world was pointed toward finding a man who might not even want to be found. Whether you were selfish for wanting to open it anyway.
You kept your head down.
You kept moving.
~#~#~#~#~
You did not look up long enough to see if he was doing the same, because if he was, that meant this wasn’t one‑sided. And if it wasn’t one‑sided, then it was real.
Now it was late again.
You were surprised when he came and sat down.
You’d already been upstairs, cards loose in your hands, shuffling without thinking. The rain had settled into a steady hush against the windows.
You hadn’t heard Sam peel off, didn’t know if he was already in his room or lingering somewhere else entirely, only that the apartment felt quieter when Steve stepped into it.
For the first time you noticed the faint stubble along his jaw. He hadn’t shaved that morning. You hadn't even noticed that earlier..
It made him look less polished.
More real.
You kept shuffling, the soft snap of paper against paper filling the space neither of you seemed ready to claim. You didn’t comment. He didn’t either. You just let the air hang there with everything unsaid.
You swung your feet up onto the table, an old habit you rarely let yourself have with anyone else in the room, and started laying the cards out like the ritual alone might steady you.
Cards on the table.
Routine resumed like it might smooth the edges back into place.
But the pattern wouldn’t settle.
Everything felt slightly off; your hands a fraction too fast, his gaze lingering a fraction too long. The rhythm you’d built over the last few nights refused to lock in.
It felt janky.
Uncertain.
Both of you were pretending the night before had been filed away when it was still sitting open between you.
Neither of you counted properly. It was five rounds in before you couldn't stop yourself from saying something.
“This isn’t working.” Your voice came out rougher than you meant it to as you let your cards fall from your hand, unfinished, face‑up against the wood.
Steve stilled across from you. For a second he just looked at the scattered cards like he might try to argue with them instead of you.
Then he exhaled.
It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t frustrated.
It sounded relieved.
“No.”
The word landed between you heavier than the rain tapping softly at the windows. Honest. Unhidden.
You leaned back in your chair, the legs creaking faintly, and dragged a hand down your face before letting it drop to the table. Steve’s hand rested near the edge of it now, fingers splayed like he’d braced himself without realizing.
“I can’t switch it off tonight,” you admitted, quieter this time. “I keep trying. It just… won’t.”
His thumb moved against the wood, a restless tell. “You don’t look like you want to.”
That made him lift his gaze fully to yours.
Not startled.
Not defensive.
Just caught, as if you’d said something he’d been thinking but hadn’t wanted to hear out loud.
The air thickened.
Not empty silence.
The kind that presses in around your ribs and waits.
“I avoided this conversation all day,” you said after a moment, forcing the words past the tightness in your throat. “Kept myself busy. Thought if I stayed moving long enough, it would just… settle.”
His jaw flexed once. A muscle jumping under faint stubble.
“I did the same,” he admitted. “Went for a run that lasted longer than it should have. Walked the long way back. Figured if I wore myself out enough I wouldn’t have to think about it.”
A humorless breath left you. “And did that work?”
He shook his head once.
You nodded slowly, like that confirmed something you already knew.
“We’re adults,” you said, softer now but steadier. “We said there was something there.”
“We did,” he agreed, the words careful.
“And now neither of us seems to know what to do with that.”
The corner of his mouth lifted faintly, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m focused on Bucky. I need to be.”
“I know.” You did. That wasn’t the issue.
You pushed back from the table abruptly. The movement surprised even you.
“This is bad timing,” you said, more to yourself than to him. You paced once toward the window, then back again. “You’re here for a reason. Your focus has to be somewhere else. Whatever this is- ” you gestured vaguely between you “- it’s a distraction. I'm not helping. You have you're mission.”
Even as you said it, you heard the way you were dismissing yourself. Reducing the pull between you to something inconvenient. Something selfish.
Steve watched you carefully.
“Come here,” he said quietly.
You stilled.
“Please sit down,” he added, softer now. Not commanding. Asking.
You hesitated only a second before crossing back toward him and lowering yourself onto the couch beside him instead of across the table. The proximity shifted everything. No wood between you. No ritual. Just shared air.
You could feel the vulnerability in it. In both of you.
“I feel it under my skin,” you admitted, staring at your hands instead of him. “Even when I’m trying not to. Even when I know the timing’s off.”
He didn’t move away.
He watched you for a long second before speaking. “I'm not just a soldier,” Steve said gently. “You haven’t done that before.” A small shake of his head. Before turning his head to look at you “The mission’s important. It always is. Bucky’s my friend, I need to find him. But that’s not all I am.” His gaze held yours “And maybe Sam’s right. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. You’re not asking me to forget why I’m here.”
“I’m not,” you agreed. “And I know ignoring it, this isn’t making it go away either.”
A faint, almost self-aware huff left him. “If today’s anything to go on, it’ll probably just make it worse.”
He held your gaze. “I’m enjoying getting to know you. Well, what you've let me see anyway.”
The simplicity of it hit harder than you expected.
“I’m enjoying the company,” you answered. You leg shifting to its touched his, “Even if the reason you’re here isn’t permanent.”
The honesty in that hung between you.
“Yeah,” His gaze softened, the blue of his eyes catching in the dim light “Same.”
The admission changed the air.
Your fingers brushed his first.
Barely there.
Just the lightest contact across his knuckles, like you were testing whether the moment would hold if you touched it.
It did.
His hand shifted slightly under yours before he turned toward you a little more fully. Not rushing. Not claiming. Just closing the distance enough that the warmth of him felt real.
His fingers slid from yours, lifting slowly toward your face.
Steve paused just before touching you.
"Is this okay?" he asked quietly.
You met his eyes then, the blue of them steady in the dim light.
“Yes.”
Only then did his hand move.
Steve’s fingers brushed lightly along your jaw, skimming the curve of it, then tracing the line of your cheek. He didn’t hold you there, just followed the shape of your face like he was learning it, like the contact itself was enough.
Your breath caught.
Steve leaned in slowly after that.
Not closing the distance all at once.
Giving you time.
Giving you every chance to stop him.
You didn’t.
For a second his breath ghosted across your skin first; warm, faintly tickling along the edge of your mouth, the closeness of it making your pulse jump before the contact even happened.
Then you felt the warmth of his lips, soft, careful pressure that lingered just long enough to ask a question rather than answer it.
Your hand moved before you really thought about it, settling briefly against his leg, fingers tightening there like you needed something solid to hold onto. The contact grounded you, steadied the sudden rush of awareness running through your chest.
The kiss stayed gentle.
Testing.
You could taste the faint trace of his whiskey and what was probably coffee on his mouth, feel the controlled way he held himself back even as he leaned closer.
Your hand slid from his leg to his chest, palm flattening over the steady rise and fall of his breathing. Feeling him breathe under your hand made the moment sharper somehow, real in a way you hadn’t quite let yourself believe yet.
Steve’s lips moved against yours again, just slightly deeper this time. Still careful. Still deliberate. Like he was learning the rhythm of you the same way you were learning him.
You exhaled without meaning to, the breath catching between you. It brushed back against your cheeks where your faces were close, warm from his skin.
That small sound seemed to be the permission he’d been waiting for.
The kiss deepened slowly.
Your mouth parted a little, instinct more than decision, letting Steve follow the shift. The next press of his lips was warmer, closer, the careful restraint still there even as the contact deepened. His breath slipped across your skin again and you felt the faintest brush of his tongue at the edge of your mouth, drawing a quiet sound from your throat you weren’t even sure you’d made.
Heat rose quickly along your cheeks and down the line of your neck.
Your hand tightened briefly against him before sliding higher, settling against his chest and then his shoulder, feeling the steady rhythm of his breathing under your palm. Steve answered the movement by leaning in a fraction more, the kiss still slow, still deliberate, like neither of you wanted to rush the moment that had taken so long to arrive.
Just the quiet shift of two people leaning closer when neither of them pulled away.
When you finally pulled back, it was only enough to breathe.
Your foreheads rested together.
“I haven’t…” you began, then faltered.
His thumb stilled slightly, the strokes pausing through your clothes
“I haven’t let anyone close in a long time,” you finished.
Steve didn’t rush to fill the silence.
“It’s not new for me,” he added after a moment, honest in the way you were learning he always was. “But it’s been… a while. The world moved on without me. I didn’t exactly keep up.”
You huffed a faint breath that might have been a laugh. “Out of practice?”
His mouth curved faintly. “Something like that.” You guessed there was more to that remark before Steve’s hand slid back to your jaw. “I’m not going to ask you for something you can’t give.”
It almost hurt to see that look in his eyes, that painful honesty. At the restraint that always was just under the surface. At the strength he carried like it cost him nothing, though you knew better. It wasn't the serum. You could see the cost in the quiet loneliness behind his eyes. A look you recognised too easily, because you’d seen it in the mirror more than once.
“You don’t strike me as the kind of man who’d take even if I offered,” you said softly. Your hand lifted, fingers slipping through his hair in an absent, gentle motion. “But I think we could share something for a moment.”
Your voice dropped a fraction joining him that that same honesty. “I’d like to know what it’s like to share something again.”
It wasn’t reckless.
It wasn’t surrender.
It was choice.
You stood first, keeping hold of his hand as you rose, giving him every chance to let go if he wanted to.
Steve didn’t.
He followed when you stepped away from the couch, his fingers tightening slightly in yours as if confirming the decision for himself.
Neither of you spoke as you moved toward the hallway.
Your footsteps were quieter than they needed to be, instinct more than intention- both of you moving carefully through the apartment like the moment deserved the same restraint you’d shown each other all night.
You reached your bedroom door first.
Your hand lingered on the handle as you pushed it open, stepping aside instead of walking through.
Holding the door open for him.
Giving him the choice again.
~#~#~#~#~
The bedroom light was softer.
Warmer.
You might have made some quiet excuse about the slight mess, the unmade bed, the jacket over the chair, the life that actually happened in this room instead of the careful order you kept in the rest of the apartment.
But Steve just stepped inside and closed the door.
The quiet acceptance of it settled something in your chest before you even realised it had been tight.
He didn’t comment.
Didn’t look around like he was judging what he saw.
You turned toward him before either of you could overthink it.
Your hand came up first, cupping his jaw, thumb brushing along the line where that faint stubble caught the light. Steve leaned into the touch instinctively, one of his hands sliding around your waist as if anchoring himself there.
The next kiss wasn’t tentative.
It was sure.
Steve’s hands settled against your waist, fingers spreading there like he was confirming you were solid. Not another ghost. Not another memory passing through a place he’d never see again.
Something real.
Your hands slid beneath the edge of his jacket, pushing it back over his shoulders. Fabric hit the floor with a soft thud you barely registered as Steve stepped out of his boots without breaking the kiss.
You did the same a moment later, the dull knock of leather against the floor lost somewhere behind the warmth building between you.
Layers followed.
Slow.
Unhurried.
The room stayed quiet except for the small sounds of movement, the whisper of fabric, the brush of skin, the soft shift of breath when the kiss broke just long enough for shirts to be pulled free.
Steve’s hands moved carefully over your shoulders when the fabric fell away, fingers tracing the lines of your skin without hesitation.
You answered in kind.
Your palms slid over the solid breadth of his chest, feeling the heat there, the steady rise and fall of his breathing under skin and muscle. Your thumbs brushed along the lines of his arms mapping the shape of him the way he’d been mapping you, learning where old tension sat in the tightness of his shoulders, where the curve of muscle gave way to softer skin over his ribs.
When his touch passed over old scars, he didn’t pause.
Didn’t treat them like something fragile.
Your breath caught when his mouth followed the curve of your shoulder, warmth pressing there before his lips moved again. The weight of his hands at your sides, the heat of his chest against yours where you leaned in.
You reached behind yourself, unclasping the last barrier between you, letting it fall somewhere forgotten.
His skin against yours was a different kind of shock, how warm he was, how real it was feeling.
There was nothing frantic about it.
Just the steady rhythm of closeness growing, touch answering touch, breath answering breath.
By the time you reached the bed together, it felt less like a destination and more like the natural continuation of the path you’d already stepped onto.
Steve followed you down with deliberate care. His frame was solid, unyielding yet gentle, the heat radiating from his skin seeping into yours. You could feel the breadth of his chest pressing lightly against your breasts, the subtle rise and fall of his breathing syncing with your own, creating a rhythm that made the world narrow to just this: the two of you, bare and vulnerable in the dim glow of the bedside lamp.
For a moment, he held himself braced above you on his forearms, his blue eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that stripped away any lingering doubts. They searched your face, tracing the flush on your cheeks, the way your lips parted slightly as if waiting for his next word or touch. It was as if he were memorizing you, ensuring this was right, that you were here with him, fully.
“You alright?” he murmured, his voice low and roughened by restraint, the words brushing against your skin like a caress.
The genuine worry in his tone tugged at something deep inside you, a warmth that bloomed in your chest. Under different circumstances, it might have drawn a soft laugh from your lips, but now it only made you want him closer. Your hand lifted to the nape of his neck, fingers weaving through the short strands of his hair.
“Yeah,” you whispered back, your breath mingling with his. “I’m alright. More than alright.”
His mouth found yours then, the kiss starting soft. Steve’s tongue traced the seam of your mouth with patient insistence, tasting you like he had all the time in the world, drawing out a quiet sigh from your throat.
His body shifted instinctively, one knee nudging between your thighs, parting them with a tenderness that belied the strength coiled in his muscles. He settled there, the length of him; hard and insistent, nestling against the core of you, the first true press of bare skin to bare skin sending a jolt through your entire body.
You gasped into the kiss at the contact, the rigid heat of his arousal sliding along the slick folds of your sex. It was electric, intimate in a way that made your pulse stutter. You hadn’t realized just how ready you were. The surprise of your own wetness, warm and abundant, made your cheeks burn, but it only heightened the ache building low in your belly, a testament to how deeply he affected you.
Steve pulled back just enough to meet your eyes again.
"You can tell me it’s too much, I need you to know that." His thumb traced a slow circle against your skin, grounding you as he aligned himself more deliberately, the tip of him teasing at your entrance.
"I want this Steve.."
That was all he needed.
The small push for to entered you then, inch by agonising inch.
Done with restraint that spoke of his protectiveness, the way he watched your face for any sign of discomfort, pausing to let you adjust to the stretch, the fullness of him. It was a slow opening, your body yielding to his under his attentive guidance, muscles clenching instinctively around the intrusion before relaxing into the sensation.
“You feel... incredible.” He eased in deeper with each measured breath, his forehead resting against yours, sharing the air between you.
"So do you.." You're words catching as you breathing got a little tight as sensation flooded your system.
“Easy, breathe” he whispered, more to himself than to you, though the word carried a soothing weight. A quiet curse slipped from his lips as he bottomed out, stilling completely to let the connection settle.
You arched beneath him.
“Christ- forgot what this was like" you managed, your voice breathy, filled in a way you weren’t sure you’d ever really been "you- you feel good,” fingers digging into the planes of his back. “..real.."
That seemed to unravel something in him, just a fraction.
"You're real." Steve began to move then, his hips rolling in a deliberate cadence that sent waves of sensation rippling through you.
Each thrust was measured, pulling back until only the tip of him lingered at your entrance before he sank forward again, deeper this time, the thick length of him gliding against your inner walls with a friction that made your toes curl, your leg left to wrap around his thigh.
"Mmmgh.." The drag was exquisite, a slow burn that built pressure low in your core, every inch of him filling you. You felt a subtle tremor in his thighs, the warmth of his skin, the natural smell of him undercut now by the earthy musk of arousal.
Your body responded instinctively, hips lifting to meet him, a soft moan escaping your lips as the rhythm coaxed more sounds from the room: the rhythmic creak of the mattress beneath you and the deepening cadence of your breaths intertwining.
Your hands roamed over him without thought, tracing the firm ridges of muscle, feeling the play of tension and release under your palms, the heat of him seeping into your fingertips like a promise.
Steve noticed it, the way you were coming alive beneath him, your movements growing more fluid, more urgent. The arch of your spine as you pressed up into him, chasing the fullness, the subtle sounds you made that vibrated against his skin.
"You're... God, the way you move," he murmured against your ear, his voice a low rumble that sent shivers down your spine. His breath was hot, uneven, as he thrust a little deeper, eliciting another gasp from you. "I feel all of you."
The words wrapped around you, amplifying the sensations, making the heat coil tighter. You felt truly present, every nerve attuned to him, the weight of his body hovering just enough to shelter without overwhelming, the pulse of him inside you syncing with your heartbeat.
"Steve," you breathed, your fingers digging into his shoulders, urging him on even as the intensity built.
He groaned softly at that, the sound raw and relieved, his forehead pressing to yours as he slowed his pace just a fraction, the clench of your walls around him. "Fuck," he breathed, the word slipping out like a quiet confession, laced with the depth of his need.
His next thrust hit that spot inside you, sending a jolt of pleasure that made your body tense in the most exquisite way beneath his larger frame.
"Nu-uh..."A broken sound escaped your lips, your back bowing off the mattress as the sensation rippled through you, pulling you deeper into the haze of him.
"I've got you.." You felt the soft nudge from his palms against your thighs, Steve encouraged you to sit up fully, his eyes meeting yours in the dim light, dark with desire yet softened by that unwavering attentiveness.
Steve eased back immediately, attuned to every shift, his hands. He guided you with care, rolling you both in a fluid motion that left him on his back beneath you, drawing you up and over him without a hint of force. It was seamless, thoughtful, ensuring you never felt pinned or overwhelmed; instead, his size became a shared foundation, warm and inviting, a space where you could claim as much as you offered.
Now fully astride him, the change in angle struck like a revelation, a deeper penetration that stole your breath in a sharp inhale "Oh God" your body sinking down as gravity urged you to take him completely.
"You sure?" The idea he'd surrender thing to you, made your head spin, slowly drawing your legs under you to straddle him properly, knees pressing into the mattress on either side of his hips. The movement was instinctive, your body seeking more of this newfound balance, the control it granted you amid the intensity.
Steve filled you so profoundly in this position, the weight of his arousal pressing upward from below, heavy and unyielding, nestled deep within the tight, pulsing hold of your inner muscles. A profound stretch that bordered on too much yet felt utterly right, like he was reshaping you from the inside out.
"You ok?" His tone worried, your head falling back as you straightened your spine, arching into the fullness with a low, throaty moan that echoed in the quiet room. Your free hand gripped his shoulder for anchor, but nodding.
"-I- Just..." You rocked your hips experimentally, a slow, deliberate grind moving to test.
Steve groaned, his hands flexing on your thighs, fingers splaying wide to feel the tremor rippling through your muscles, a silent echo of the pleasure coiling between you.
"God," you whispered, lifting your head to meet his gaze, drawn to the way his neck corded with tension, jaw clenched as his head sank deeper into the pillow. Then his eyes lifted to yours, heavy-lidded and intense, pulling you in like a current.
"Do that again," he murmured, his voice gravel-rough from the effort of holding back, his stare roaming the arch of your spine, the subtle sway of your chest with every ragged inhale.
Emboldened, you circled your hips once more, deliberate and unhurried, rising just enough to sense the drag of him within you, the subtle shift, the way he nudged deeper before you descended, enveloping him fully in that slick, welcoming heat. A shiver chased the motion, your body awakening to the power of this position, the freedom it offered.
"That's it," he rasped, approval threading through the huskiness, his palms settling firmer on your thighs to anchor you both, thumbs etching lazy, comforting arcs against your skin. His gaze held steady, shadowed with hunger yet lit by something warmer, more profound, a bridge of shared vulnerability. "Take what you need. I want to feel you like this... all of you." Beneath you, his solidity radiated heat, a yielding strength that dissolved the edges of the world, banishing shadows to leave only this tangible, throbbing now.
His hand sought yours then, fingers lacing through in a gentle clasp, holding it to his chest. His eyes remained fixed on yours, unwavering, as the link between you swelled, drawing you inexorably closer, the air thick with the musk of skin and desire.
"I need you." Need this.
You began to move in earnest, seeking that elusive rhythm, lifting and lowering with growing intent, testing angles until one ignited sparks along your nerves, the perfect tilt that pressed him against that sensitive ridge inside, sending waves of bliss radiating outward.
Moans spilled from your lips, unbidden and raw, mingling with his deeper groans as your joined hands tightened, knuckles whitening in the grip, a lifeline amid the rising tide.
As the tension coiled tighter, words tumbled from your lips, fragmented and urgent.
That's when his free hand migrated to your hip, palm curving possessively yet tenderly, urging on. Steve's hips canting upward to meet your descent, chasing the electric friction that bound you, his thrusts measured but insistent, amplifying the glide and pull.
"Bloody hell," you panted, your voice a breathless rasp as you matched his rhythm, thrusting down with that rolling sway, bodies syncing in a seamless rhythm of push and pull. The soft, rhythmic patter of skin meeting skin was muffled by the gathering dampness of sweat, your breaths splintering into shared, desperate gasps that filled the quiet room.
"Ste-Steve... I'm- I'm close," you stammered, your gaze locking onto his, raw in the admission. The heat in your core was building to an unbearable peak, every slide of him against your inner walls sending fresh sparks skittering through you.
His eyes darkened further, a flicker of fierce tenderness crossing his face as he squeezed your joined hands, his thumb brushing over your knuckles in a steadying caress.
"Yeah? Let go for me," he urged, voice low and gravelly, laced with his own straining desire. "I've got you- right here." His free hand on your hip tightened just enough to guide, not control, rocking up to meet you with a deliberate thrust that hit that perfect spot, drawing a keening whimper from your throat.
You nodded, words failing as the sensation overwhelmed. The world narrowed to this: the press of his body beneath yours, the way he filled you so completely, the electric hum of connection that made every nerve sing. His responding groan vibrated through you, encouraging, as he tilted his hips again, amplifying the friction until you teetered on the brink.
"Steve- oh God, yes," you gasped, the plea instinctive as pleasure surged, cresting like a wave finally breaking, crashing over you in shuddering pulses that left you arching, trembling. Your cry was raw, half-muffled against his neck as ecstasy tore through you, waves of bliss rippling outward, your body clenching around him in rhythmic, milking contractions that pulled him along.
He followed with a deep, guttural groan, his grip on your hand fierce as he spilled inside you, the warm flood of his release mingling with your own in a slick, intimate rush that grounded you both in the haze. "That's it... perfect," he breathed, voice wrecked with satisfaction, his body shuddering beneath yours as the aftershocks faded.
Boneless, you slumped forward onto his chest, the steady thrum of his heartbeat a soothing anchor against your ear. For a moment you didn’t move at all, content to just breathe him in the salt of sweat, the faint clean hint of his soap, the warm, human weight of him.
With gentle strength, Steve eased you onto your side, taking care not to break the contact between you. His arms wrapped around you in a protective cocoon, one hand settling low at your waist, the other splayed between your shoulder blades. His lips brushed soft, absent kisses into your hair, more instinct than intent, like he needed the reassurance of you just as much as you needed his.
You stayed there in the quiet aftermath, bodies tangled together, the two of you gone still in that way that wasn’t tension but release. Your leg hooked over his without thinking, anchoring yourself more firmly against him. You felt… heavy, but not in the way you were used to.
Not weighed down.
Grounded.
You were more aware of your own body than you could remember being in a long time, of the pleasant ache in your muscles, the slow looseness in your limbs, the steady expansion and fall of your chest as your breathing matched his. Heat radiated off Steve like a banked fire, seeping into your skin wherever you touched. You adjusted his hold on you slightly, guiding his hand higher along your ribs until it rested where the rise and fall of your breathing was most obvious.
He let you move him without resistance, his palm spreading there, thumb tracing one last, lazy arc against your side.
"That alright?" he murmured, voice roughened by exhaustion and something softer.
"Yeah," you said, surprising yourself with how certain it sounded. "Helps."
Your hand rested against his chest in answer. You could feel his heartbeat under your palm; slower now, but steady.
Real. When was the last time you’d felt this solid?
Steve’s fingers traced idle patterns along your arm, absent and thoughtful, the touch more soothing than searching.
"It’s alright if this doesn’t happen again," you heard yourself say into the quiet, the words low, almost swallowed by the steady drum of rain.
His hand stilled for a beat.
"Do you want it not to?" Steve asked softly.
You hesitated, rubbing your cheek lightly against his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin and the subtle rumble of his breath beneath your ear.
"Yes," you admitted. "It might not be a bad thing to let this go on for a bit." You swallowed, choosing the words carefully. "We both know the limits. I’m not expecting more than what this is. I’m not…" You blew out a faint breath. "I’m not unrealistic. But the connection feels good. Being here feels good."
Steve didn’t argue.
Instead, he slid his hand down along your arm until he found your fingers, gently drawing your hand away from his chest. He turned it over in his grasp, thumb brushing over the inside of your wrist in slow, absent strokes, as if reassuring himself of your heartbeat there.
"It feels good to me too." Agreeing quietly.
You watched his thumb move over your pulse for a moment.
"You think Sam’s going to say something?" you asked, the corner of your mouth twitching despite the exhaustion pulling at you.
Steve huffed a tired almost-laugh. "Oh, he’ll say something." A pause. "At me, mostly. Not at you."
"Promise?" you murmured.
His fingers tightened around yours, the grip warm and sure.
"You can toss him out if he does."
He threaded your fingers together then, interlocking them, your joined hands resting over his sternum. You felt the steady beat beneath both your palms now.
"This really is nice," you sighed, letting more of your weight sink into him as he guided your hands back down against his chest.
Steve turned his head, rubbing his nose lightly into your hair. The gesture was soft, unthinking. He pressed a chaste kiss near your forehead, lips barely brushing your skin.
"You’re not that out of practice, by the way," you added, voice drowsy but sincere. "In case you were worried."
That finally pulled a small, honest laugh from him, low and rough around the edges.
"Good to know," he murmured.
Outside, the rain still tapped softly against the windows.
Inside the room, everything felt calmer than it had in a long time.
Not fixed.
Not permanent.
But real.
You let your eyes close, letting the warmth and weight and quiet pull you under.
For tonight, at least, you didn’t feel like you were just haunting your life anymore.
There are a few things that simply aren't understandable in the universe. Things that push the boundaries of what we know, and understand.
Things like how, even through the Winter Soldier programming, Bucky was still able to find you.
Things like how, no matter how hard the world tried, they were never to keep you apart.
Author's Note
I'm going through stuff so you guys get another mini-series. We're starting in 2010s Winter Solider era, and then we'll be going over the years with some canon divergence.
Chapter List
Chapter 1 - The Sins
Chapter 2 - The Limbo
Chapter 3 - The Purgatory
Chapter 4 - The Ascent
Chapter 5 - The Paradise
✮ synopsis: he's the winter soldier, and you're just you. but when your skin touches his, he becomes bucky barnes again.
(or: the soulmate fic where touch is everything and bucky barnes will fight his way back to you, one broken memory at a time.)
✮ pairing: ca:tws!bucky x soulmate!reader
✮ disclaimers: fem!reader, soulmates, violence/action sequences, graphic descriptions of torture/memory wiping, PTSD, panic attacks, dissociation, past torture, brainwashing, heavy angst, touch deprivation, references to past violence/assassinations, hurt/comfort, fluff, eventual happy ending, bucky is down horrendously bad
✮ warnings: (18+) MDNI, explicit sexual content, unprotected sex, p in v, oral (f receiving), overstimulation, multiple orgasms, soul bond sex (enhanced sensations), touch-starved bucky, possessive behavior, marking/bruising, praise kink, body worship, emotional sex, crying during sex (in a good way), size kink if you squint, bucky has a dirty filthy mouth
✮ word count: 14.3k
✮ a/n: re-uploading all my fics to this blog so i'm posting a ca:tws-era oldie but goodie (the last 4k of this is straight smut, so if that's not your cup of tea feel free to stop at the **)
bonus drabble 1
bonus drabble 2
series masterlist
The library basement feels like a crypt tonight—all dead air and fluorescent buzz that makes your molars ache.
You've been down here so long your bones have started to match the temperature of the concrete, cold seeping through your jeans where you've been sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by a semi-circle of photocopied articles that all essentially say the same nothing in different ways.
3:17 AM according to your phone, which you check compulsively every twenty minutes like maybe time will take pity and skip forward to your deadline. The security guard made his last round two hours ago—Gerald? Gary? Something with a G—his whistling fading up the stairwell along with any pretense that you're not completely alone down here.
Your neck cracks when you roll it, vertebrae protesting the last six hours of hunching over sources that shouldn't be this hard to parse. But your advisor had smiled that sharp little smile when assigning this topic, the one that says let's see if you're really cut out for this, and spite is a hell of a motivator.
Even if your eyes are burning. Even if the coffee tastes like battery acid. Even if your soul bond has been aching since midnight with that peculiar emptiness you've learned to ignore.
The lights flicker—building's older than sin, held together by asbestos and prayer—but the air changes with it. Shifts. Like all the oxygen just remembered it had somewhere else to be.
Your fingers still on the keyboard mid-sentence.
Don't be stupid. It's a basement. In a library. The scariest thing down here is your browser history.
But your body knows things your mind pretends it doesn't. Every hair follicle suddenly awake, skin prickling with the kind of ancient warning that kept humans from being eaten in the dark. Your heartbeat kicks up, stuttering from normal to concerned between one breath and the next.
You turn.
He stands at the edge of the stacks like violence in human form.
Black tactical gear eats the light, makes him look like someone cut a hole in reality and taught it how to hunt. The mask covering the lower half of his face should make him less human, but somehow it's worse—forces you to focus on the eyes that track your movement with the kind of empty precision that makes your hindbrain scream predator predator predator.
"Oh." The sound punches out of you, high and strangled.
He doesn't speak. Doesn't need to. Just moves toward you with the kind of lethal economy that makes you understand, suddenly and completely, why rabbits freeze when hawks circle overhead. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Just purpose distilled into muscle and intent.
Your body tries—God, it tries. Scrambling backward, papers scattering, laptop sliding off your thighs to crack against the floor in what feels like slow motion. Three months of work fracturing into digital garbage as you crab-walk backward, palms slipping on photocopies, knee catching on your backpack hard enough to send you sprawling.
He crosses the space between you like it's nothing.
Like you're nothing.
His hand finds your throat before you've even processed standing, leather and pressure sending you backward into the wall hard enough to knock the air from your lungs. Old brick catches your hair, pulls it, but that barely registers against the feeling of being pinned like an insect, specimen for examination before disposal.
Both your hands fly to his wrist, fingernails catching on tactical fabric that won't give, won't move, won't budge. He's not crushing your windpipe—not yet—but the promise is there in the careful placement of his thumb, the calculated pressure that says I could, if I wanted to.
"Please—" It comes out thin, reedy. Your right hand abandons his wrist to push against his chest, trying to create distance that doesn't exist, will never exist. "I don't know what you—I'm nobody, I'm just—"
His head tilts. Minute. Considering. The eyes stay empty, stay cold, but something flickers there—assessment, maybe. Calculation. How long it will take. How quiet you'll be.
Your left hand keeps clawing at his grip while your right slides up his chest, finds the edge of his tactical vest, pushes uselessly at a shoulder that might as well be carved from stone. But the movement makes you stretch, makes your hand slip higher, past the collar of his gear, past the edge of the mask, until—
Your fingertips brush his jaw.
Skin against skin.
The world breaks apart.
Heat races from that point of contact like lightning seeking ground, if lightning could rewrite your DNA as it traveled. Every nerve ending lights up at once, not with pain but with recognition so profound it feels like drowning in reverse. Like every cell in your body suddenly remembers how to breathe.
His entire body locks. The hand at your throat spasms, loosens, and you hear him make a sound—sharp, bitten off, like someone just slid a knife between his ribs. Those empty eyes blow wide, pupils expanding until there's barely any gray left, and his chest heaves against your palm like he's just broken the surface after being underwater too long.
He rips the mask off with his free hand. Tears it away like it's burning him, revealing a face that makes your chest cavity feel too small. Sharp jaw, soft mouth, stubble that catches the shit fluorescent lighting and turns it into shadow. Beautiful in the way broken things can be beautiful, in the way that makes you want to cut yourself on the edges.
The leather glove at your throat disappears—he tears it off with his teeth, movements gone jerky and desperate where they were smooth before. Then his bare hand is cupping your face, thumb brushing your cheekbone with the kind of reverence reserved for holy things, impossible things, things that might disappear if you breathe wrong.
He pulls you forward, or maybe he falls into you—either way, your foreheads meet in the space between one heartbeat and the next. His breath fans across your face, ragged and hot, and you can feel him shaking. This man who moved like death incarnate thirty seconds ago is shaking.
"Oh," he breathes, and his voice—Christ, his voice is nothing like you imagined during those empty nights when the bond ached worst. Rough like he hasn't used it in years. Soft like he's afraid it'll break something. Accent pulling at the vowels in ways that make your chest hurt. "Oh, no. No, not—not like this."
You can't move. Can't think. Can't process anything beyond the electricity still racing through your veins, the place where his thumb traces your cheekbone like he's trying to memorize the architecture of your face through touch alone. Your hands are caught between you, one still fisted in his tactical vest, the other pressed flat against his chest where you can feel his heart hammering out a rhythm that matches yours.
He pulls back just enough to look at you, and the devastation in his eyes makes your throat close for reasons that have nothing to do with violence. Gray like winter mornings, like grief, like the moment before the sky breaks open.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, wrecked. His thumb catches the tear you didn't realize was sliding down your cheek, and the tenderness of it makes you want to scream. "I'm so fucking sorry, I didn't—I couldn't—"
"Who are you?" Your voice comes out destroyed, barely recognizable. The soul bond hums between you like a live wire, like coming home to a place that's on fire, and you don't know whether to run toward it or away.
His jaw works, muscles tightening and releasing like he's fighting something immense. When he speaks again, it's careful. Measured. Like each word costs him something irreplaceable.
"Someone who's going to disappear." His forehead presses against yours again, harder this time, desperate. Both hands frame your face now, holding you like something precious, something he's about to lose. "Someone who needs you to run. Now. Before—"
A sound echoes down the stairwell. Footsteps. Multiple sets.
The change in him is instant and terrible. The softness vanishes like it was never there, replaced by the same lethal efficiency that brought him here, but now there's something else in his eyes. Something that looks like anguish.
"Forgive me," he says, and before you can ask for what, his thumb finds a spot behind your jaw.
The world tilts. Your legs go liquid. But he catches you—of course he catches you—lowers you to the ground like you're made of spun glass while your vision tunnels to nothing.
The last thing you feel is his mouth pressed to your forehead, words whispered against your skin in a language you don't recognize but somehow understand.
I'll find you again.
I promise.
I'm sorry.
When security finds you four hours later, you have bruises on your throat that look like purple-black fingerprints, a concussion that makes the world swim, and no memory the EMTs will accept of how you ended up unconscious in a locked basement.
But you remember.
You remember the way his hands shook when he held your face. You remember the devastation in winter-gray eyes. You remember the electricity of recognition, the soul bond snapping into place only to be severed, leaving you with a phantom ache that feels like dying in slow motion.
There's a leather glove clutched in your fist that no one can pry from your fingers.
You tell them you don't remember where it came from.
You lie.
The world had always been divided into two types of people: those who'd found their match and those still waiting.
You'd grown up watching the found ones move through life with that particular brand of settled confidence, like they'd discovered some fundamental truth the rest of you were still stumbling toward.
Your mother used to tell the story at dinner parties, after her second glass of wine made her sentimental. How she'd been twenty-three, working at a bank in downtown Brooklyn, when a man came in to dispute an overdraft fee. Their hands touched when she passed back his paperwork. The bond snapped into place like a rubber band that had been stretched across decades, just waiting to contract.
She'd knocked over her coffee. He'd forgotten his own name for thirty seconds. They'd been married six months later.
"You just know," she'd say, fingers intertwined with your father's across the table. "It's like every cell in your body suddenly remembers what it was made for."
You'd wanted to believe her. Spent your eighteenth birthday waiting for that recognition to hit, for your body to suddenly make sense in a way it never had before.
But days turned to weeks turned to months, and all you felt was the same low-grade emptiness everyone without a bond carried—that constant, quiet ache of incompleteness.
By twenty-one, you'd stopped looking for it in every accidental touch.
By twenty-three, you'd convinced yourself you were one of the statistical anomalies. No bond. No match. Just you and your dissertation and a future that looked exactly like your present, only with better coffee and maybe tenure if you played your cards right.
The bruises have faded to sick yellow-green by the time you make it back to campus. Two weeks of medical leave that you spent staring at your apartment ceiling, trying to make sense of something that refuses to be made sensible. The official report sits in your email, cc'd to your advisor and the department head and probably half the university's legal team: Student found unconscious in library basement. Possible assault. No cameras functioning. Investigation ongoing.
You don't correct them. Don't mention the glove hidden in your nightstand drawer. Don't explain that the bruises on your throat match the exact span of fingers that had held your face like you were something holy, something worth breaking for.
Your body remembers even when your mind tries to forget. The soul bond, severed as quickly as it formed, has left you feeling like someone hollowed out your chest cavity with a melon baller. It's worse than before—before was just absence. This is active loss. This is knowing exactly what you're missing.
The dreams start the first night home from the hospital.
Not nightmares—that would be easier. These are soft things that leave you gasping awake at 3 AM with tears on your face and your hand pressed to your cheek where he'd touched you. Dreams where those gray eyes find yours across impossible distances. Where his hands shake as they frame your face. Where he whispers apologies in languages you don't speak but somehow understand.
Sometimes you dream of snow. Of cold so profound it burns. Of a voice saying his name—names?—until there's nothing left but the mission.
Sometimes you dream of falling. Of a train that screams through mountain passes. Of reaching for something—someone—who's always just beyond your fingertips.
But mostly you dream of that moment. The mask coming off. The devastating gentleness of his forehead against yours. The way he breathed you in like his lungs hadn't recognized oxygen until then, like you were the first real thing he'd touched in decades.
You become an expert in lying about the nightmares. "Trauma response," you tell the university-mandated therapist. "Yes, I'm processing. No, I don't remember details. Yes, I feel safe on campus."
Lies. All lies.
You remember everything. The weight of him. The contrast between violence and tenderness that shouldn't have existed in the same person. The way the soul bond had sung between you for those impossible seconds—not the gentle hum your mother described, but something desperate and raw, like two halves of something broken trying to fuse back together.
The research starts three weeks after the incident. You tell yourself it's academic curiosity. Tell yourself you're not the first person to lose a soulmate before really finding them. There are support groups. Statistics. An entire subset of psychology dedicated to severed bonds and what they do to the human psyche.
Increased rates of depression. Anxiety. Insomnia. Some subjects report physical pain at the site of initial contact. Others experience what researchers call "phantom bond syndrome"—the persistent sensation of a connection that no longer exists.
You check every box. Feel him in every room you enter, just a second too late. Wake up with your hand pressed to your face, trying to hold onto the ghost of leather and gunpowder and something metallic you couldn't place then but can't stop tasting now.
The databases give you nothing. Facial recognition software turns up empty. You sketch what you remember of his face—strong jaw, soft mouth, eyes like winter—but it feels like trying to draw music, like something essential gets lost in translation.
"Maybe he was military," Katrina suggests over coffee that tastes like disappointment. She's trying to help, your best friend since undergrad, but she looks at you with the kind of careful concern reserved for people about to break. "Special ops or something. That would explain the tactical gear."
You don't tell her about the way he moved. Don't mention that special ops soldiers don't usually have metal arms—you'd felt it when he caught you, the strange whir of plates adjusting beneath the fabric. Don't explain that whatever he was, military doesn't quite cover it.
December bleeds into January. You submit your dissertation proposal late, blame the incident, receive an extension wrapped in sympathetic looks. The bruises are long gone but you wear scarves anyway, can't stand the feeling of air against your throat where his thumb had pressed.
Your google search history becomes a testament to obsession:
But late at night, when the world sleeps and you're alone with the ache that lives between your ribs, you pull out the glove. Run your fingers over worn leather that's been softened by use and something else—care, maybe. The kind of attention that comes from having nothing else to focus on.
It smells like winter. Like violence. Like the ghost of cologne that might have been nice once, before it mixed with gunpowder and fear and whatever else clings to people who move through the world like weapons.
You press it to your face and breathe deep, eyes closed, trying to summon those impossible seconds when he'd looked at you like you were salvation and damnation all at once. When his voice had broken on an apology for something you didn't understand. When he'd promised to find you again in words you shouldn't have been able to translate but did.
The bond throbs. Phantom pain for a phantom connection.
You fold the glove carefully. Place it back in the drawer. Go to bed knowing you'll dream of gray eyes and the kind of gentleness that only comes from people who've forgotten they deserve it.
Tomorrow you'll get up. Go to class. Pretend your chest doesn't feel like someone excavated it with rusty tools. Pretend you don't scan every face on campus, looking for winter eyes and a jaw that could cut glass.
But tonight, you let yourself remember. Let yourself feel the echo of his forehead against yours, the desperate press of his mouth to your skin, the way he'd held you like you were worth breaking the world for.
I'll find you again.
You touch your throat, the memory of leather and promise.
I'm waiting.
The asset doesn't fight anymore.
Hasn't for years. Learned the hard way that resistance only makes it worse—more voltage, longer sessions, deeper cuts into whatever remains of the person he might have been.
Better to go limp. Better to let them position him like a doll, open his mouth for the rubber guard, wait for the electricity to wash it all away.
The asset craves it sometimes. The blankness. The nothing. Easier than carrying the weight of what his hands have done.
But Bucky Barnes fights.
Screams himself raw before they get the guard between his teeth. Thrashes against the restraints hard enough to bend the metal table, to make the technicians step back with wide eyes because the asset never does this, hasn't done this in fifteen years, not since they perfected the chair's calibration.
"Hold him!" Pierce's voice cuts through the chaos, sharp with irritation. "Get those restraints tightened before—"
Bucky's metal arm tears through the leather strap like tissue paper. Swings wild, catches a handler across the jaw with a crack that sends him spinning into medical equipment. Two more rush forward and he fights them with everything he has, everything he'd forgotten he could be.
Soft hands on his face. Bright eyes wide with recognition. The soul bond singing between them like coming home—
"No!" The word tears out of him, accent thick with desperation. Russian, English, something older—he doesn't know anymore, doesn't care. "Please—please, I can't—"
A needle finds his neck. Sedative, fast-acting, enough to drop an elephant. His knees buckle but he keeps fighting, keeps reaching for—what? The memory's already going slippery, falling through his fingers like water.
Someone. There was someone. Wasn't there?
"Interesting." Pierce circles him as four handlers wrestle him into the chair, voice clinical. "What happened on the mission? You terminated the target, but something affected you. The timeline's off by forty-three minutes."
Bucky's jaw works around the guard they're shoving between his teeth. Can't tell them. Won't tell them. But what is he protecting? The feeling's there—urgent, desperate, worth dying for—but the shape of it keeps shifting.
A face. Soft mouth parted in shock. The way she'd—
The electricity hits before he can finish the thought.
White-hot agony races through every nerve ending, bows his back against the restraints they've doubled, tripled. The scream locks in his throat, comes out as a sound that doesn't belong to anything human. But underneath the pain, worse than the pain, is the feeling of something essential being carved out of him.
Don't take her, some part of him begs. Take everything else, but not her, not this—
But the machine doesn't care about please. Doesn't care that he's crying—when did he start crying? The asset doesn't cry. The asset doesn't feel. But Bucky Barnes is sobbing, choking on the rubber guard as memories start to fracture and fade.
Her hand against his jaw. The world breaking open. Recognition so profound it rewrote thirty years of programming in seconds—
Another pulse. Stronger. Pierce has turned the dial past safety parameters, past sanity, past anything they've done before.
"Sir," one of the technicians ventures, nervous. "The readings—"
"Continue."
Forehead to forehead. Breathing her in. The apology scraping his throat raw because he'd never wanted to meet her like this, never wanted her to know him as a weapon first and a man second—
Gone. It's gone. He reaches for it, desperate, but there's only white noise where her face should be. Only the echo of something precious he'd held for minutes—hours?—seconds?—he doesn't know anymore.
The machine winds down. Silence except for his ragged breathing, the drip of something (blood? tears?) hitting the concrete floor.
"Asset."
He doesn't respond. Can't. There's something wrong with his chest, like someone reached in and scooped out everything that mattered.
"Asset."
Training kicks in where consciousness fails. His head lifts, eyes focusing with effort on the man in the suit. Pierce. Handler. The one who holds the leash.
"Ready to comply." The words come out broken. Mechanical. But correct.
"Mission report."
"Target eliminated. No witnesses." A pause. Something scratches at the back of his mind, urgent, important. But when he reaches for it there's nothing but static. "Extraction successful."
Pierce studies him, pale eyes narrowed. "And the deviation? You were off-schedule."
The asset blinks. Searches the white noise of his mind for an answer that makes sense. "Unexpected resistance. Handled."
"I see." Pierce doesn't look convinced, but he waves to the technicians. "Run a full cognitive recalibration. I want him stable before the next deployment."
They unstrap him eventually. He doesn't fight. Doesn't do anything but stare at his metal hand, trying to understand why it feels wrong. Why everything feels wrong. There's an ache in his chest that wasn't there before—or was it always there? He can't remember. Can't remember anything but the mission, the chair, the readiness to comply.
But that night, locked in cryo-prep, he dreams.
Fragments. Glimpses. A basement that smells like old paper and fear. Someone pressed against a wall, hands pushing at his chest. The feeling of skin against skin and the world exploding into color he didn't know existed.
He wakes with her ghost on his lips—no name, no face, just the shape of an apology in a language he's not supposed to know.
The asset reports for cryo on schedule. Lies still as they prep the chamber, ice already forming in the tubes that will freeze him until the next time he's needed. But as consciousness fades, as the cold takes him under, one thought persists:
Someone. There was someone. And I've lost them.
The machine hisses. Frost spreads across the glass.
The asset sleeps.
Bucky Barnes screams.
The Starbucks on 42nd doesn't have soul bonds on the menu, but they do have overpriced lattes and witnesses, which is why you're here instead of home, staring at your bedroom ceiling and trying to parse nightmares from memories.
Six months.
Six months of the glove under your pillow losing his scent. Six months of your advisor asking pointed questions about your "lack of focus" and your therapist prescribing sleeping pills that don't work because how do you medicate a severed soul bond?
How do you explain that you're mourning someone you knew for less than five minutes?
You're arguing with yourself about the merits of a fourth shot of espresso when the world explodes.
Glass shatters inward, the windows becoming a thousand diamonds catching afternoon light. Your coffee hits the floor—there goes eight dollars you don't have—as your body moves on instinct, dropping behind the counter with five other people who smell like fear and pumpkin spice.
Screaming. So much screaming. Cars screeching outside, the percussion of something that might be gunfire but sounds too wrong, too close, too real for a Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan.
You peek around the espresso machine and your heart forgets how to beat.
He's standing in the middle of the street like death dressed for winter. Same tactical gear, same casual violence, same way of moving that makes everyone else look like they're traveling through molasses. The mask covers the lower half of his face again, but you'd know those eyes anywhere. Have been seeing them every night for six months, after all.
A cop raises his weapon. The soldier—your soulmate, your ghost, your nightly torment—disarms him with an economy of motion that's almost beautiful. The crack of breaking fingers carries even through the shattered windows.
Get up, your brain screams. Run. Move. Do something that isn't standing here like a deer watching headlights come to claim it.
But your body has other plans. Your treacherous, soul-bonded body that recognizes his even across thirty feet of chaos and broken glass. You're moving before conscious thought catches up, stumbling through the destroyed storefront on legs that feel like they belong to someone else.
This is stupid. Monumentally stupid. The kind of stupid that gets psychology PhD candidates killed in broad daylight. But your hand is already reaching, already grasping, because maybe—
Your fingers close around his wrist.
The barest slip of skin where his sleeve has ridden up, your thumb finding his pulse like it was made for nothing else. The connection slams through you—heat and recognition and yes, finally, yes—
The gun clatters to the asphalt.
His whole body goes rigid, that same terrible stillness from before. You watch his pupils dilate, watch six months of careful nothing shatter in his eyes as a stranger crashes back into existence.
He moves so fast you don't process it. One second you're standing there, thumb on his pulse, the next you're spinning, back slamming into his chest as his metal arm locks across your body. The gun—when did he pick it up?—presses cold against your temple.
You stop breathing.
Around you, cops and civilians alike freeze. Weapons lower incrementally because now there's a hostage situation, now there's a girl who was stupid enough to touch the Winter Soldier and—
"Name." His voice in your ear, so quiet you almost miss it under the sirens. That sound that had haunted your dreams, rougher now, desperate. "Your name. Please."
Your lips barely move, sound threading between heartbeats. You tell him, soft as a whisper.
The gun doesn't waver. To everyone watching, he's perfectly still, a predator considering prey. But his metal thumb moves against your bare arm where your shirt has ridden up. Gentle. Deliberate. Tracing letters maybe, or just feeling, and you wonder if he can—if there are sensors in the metal that let him—
"My name is James Buchanan Barnes." Each word careful, precious, pressed into the space below your ear like a secret. Like a gift. "Bucky. My name is Bucky. I won't remember, so I need you to—you have to remember for me."
James Buchanan Barnes.
It tickles something in your memory. A history class, maybe. Something about World War II, about Captain America, about—
"What have they done to you?" The words slip out, horrified, because the pieces are trying to fit together but the picture they're making can't be right, can't be possible—
"Find me." Urgent now. His realness, his hereness makes your chest ache with completion even as your mind screams danger. "When I—after they—find me. Please. I can't—"
His voice cracks.
The gun leaves your temple.
The crack of the shot makes you flinch, but it's the cop to your left who goes down, clutching his knee, screaming. Bucky shoves you—not hard, but enough to send you stumbling into the crowd as he moves the opposite direction, using the chaos as cover.
You hit the ground hard, knees cracking against asphalt, palms scraped raw. Around you, people scatter like startled birds. Someone's hands on your shoulders, pulling you back, asking if you're hurt, if you need medical attention.
You can't answer. Can't do anything but stare at the place where he'd stood, where he'd held you, where he'd given you his name like it was the only thing he had left to give.
Your arm throbs where his metal thumb had traced patterns. When you look down, you can see the faint red marks—not bruises, just pressure. Just proof.
"Miss? Miss, we need to get you checked out—"
"I'm fine." You're not. You're the opposite of fine. You're shattering in slow motion, held together by adrenaline and the phantom feeling of his chest against your back. "I'm—he didn't hurt me."
The EMT looks skeptical. "He held a gun to your head."
"He didn't hurt me," you repeat, and you're not sure who you're trying to convince.
They take you anyway. St. Luke's emergency room, where you spend four hours being poked and prodded and questioned by people who look at you like you might break or explode. The FBI shows up eventually, two agents in bad suits who ask the same questions fifteen different ways.
"Did he say anything to you?"
My name is James Buchanan Barnes.
"No."
"Are you sure? Even something small could help."
Find me.
"He didn't say anything."
They don't believe you. You can see it in the way they exchange glances, the way their pens hover over notepads. But what are you supposed to tell them? That the most wanted man in America is your soulmate? That he gave you his name like a prayer? That even now, hours later, you can still feel the phantom press of metal against your skin?
They release you near midnight with a card and instructions to call if you remember anything. You take a cab home because the subway feels too exposed, too dangerous, like maybe he'll be there in the shadows between stops.
Your apartment is exactly as you left it. Laptop open on the counter, half a cup of cold coffee growing something ambitious by the sink. Normal. Safe.
Empty.
You sink onto your bed, still fully dressed, and pull out your phone. Your search history is already damning, but what's one more nail in the coffin?
James Buchanan Barnes
The results make your stomach drop.
Born 1917. Best friend of Steve Rogers, Captain America. Sergeant in the 107th Infantry Regiment. Fell from a train in the Alps in 1945. Presumed dead.
Except he's not dead. He's not dead because you touched him today, felt his pulse under your thumb, heard him breathing in your ear as he held you like something breakable and precious all at once.
You dig deeper. Past the official records, past the Wikipedia entries, into the conspiracy forums and leaked documents that only half-load on your shitty wifi.
The Winter Soldier.
HYDRA.
Seventy years of ghost stories.
An assassin who appears and disappears like smoke, leaving bodies in his wake.
Your soulmate is a century-old brainwashed assassin. Your soulmate is Bucky Barnes, who died in 1945. Who didn't die. Who was turned into something else, something violent and beautiful and dangerous.
Who fights back to consciousness every time you touch him only to be dragged under again.
What have they done to you?
You close your laptop. Lie back on your bed, fully clothed, and stare at the water stain on your ceiling that looks like a rabbit if you squint. Your arm still throbs where he touched you. Traced letters, maybe, or just—
You bolt upright.
Grab a pen, try to recreate the pattern from memory on your other arm. It takes three tries before the movements feel right, before the shapes resolve into something recognizable.
Numbers.
He'd traced numbers on your skin. Coordinates.
Find me, he'd said.
Your hands shake as you type them into your phone. A location upstate, middle of nowhere, the kind of place where no one would look twice at an abandoned building or hear the screams from underground.
You should leave it alone. Should forget his name, forget the numbers, forget the feeling of being whole for thirty seconds in the middle of chaos. Should be smart and safe and boring and alive.
Instead, you screenshot the location. Book a rental car for tomorrow. Pack a bag with things that might matter—the glove, pepper spray that won't do shit against a super soldier but makes you feel better, a first aid kit you probably won't get the chance to use.
Find me.
You're going to. God help you, you're going to find James Buchanan Barnes.
Even if it kills you.
(It probably will.)
(You're going anyway.)
The HYDRA facility squats in the pre-dawn darkness like something that crawled out of the Cold War and forgot to die. You're crammed in the back of a tactical van between enough weaponry to level a city block and Captain America's guilt, which somehow takes up more space.
Forty-eight hours. That's all it took from wine-drunk-email-to-vague-Avengers-PR-listing to this—body armor that doesn't fit right, your heart hammering against ceramic plates, and the ghost of coordinates still throbbing on your arm where he'd traced them.
"Two minutes to insertion." Natasha's voice crackles through comms you're not supposed to have. But Steve had insisted, jaw set in that way that apparently nobody argues with. Not even Fury.
Steve Rogers had shown up at your door with Natasha Romanoff and Nick Fury, your roommate had screamed in her towel, and you'd told them everything. About the library. About the way Bucky's entire being had shifted when you touched him, like watching someone break the surface after drowning.
About how he'd held you in that Starbucks, whispered his name against your ear like a secret, like salvation, like the only thing he had left that was his.
Steve had gone very, very still. Then: "We're finding him. We're bringing him home."
Now he's sitting across from you, shield balanced against his knee, and you can see why people follow him into impossible situations. It's not the shoulders or the jaw or the way he fills out tactical gear like he was born to it. It's the way he looks at you—not through you, not around you, but at you. Like you matter. Like your connection to his best friend makes you worth protecting.
"Remember," he says quietly, pitched below the engine noise. "The moment we find him, the moment you make contact—"
"I know." Your fingers won't stop moving, tracing and retracing the numbers Bucky left on your skin. "Skin contact. Bring him back." Don't let go."
What you don't say: What if it doesn't work this time? What if they've wiped him too many times? What if whatever's left isn't enough to—
The van stops.
Everything happens too fast after that. Doors flying open, bodies moving with practiced precision, you stumbling to keep up as Steve's hand on your elbow guides you through pre-dawn shadows toward a concrete mouth that looks like it's waiting to swallow you whole.
The facility is worse inside. All industrial fluorescents and that particular kind of silence that sounds like screaming if you listen too hard. Your soul bond, quiet for months, starts to ache with proximity—a deep, bone-level recognition that makes your teeth chatter.
"Southwest clear." Someone else, call sign you didn't catch.
"Movement in the lower levels." Another voice. "Looks like they're mobilizing—"
A sound cuts through the chatter. Not quite human. Not quite animal. Something between a scream and static that makes your hindbrain light up with warnings to run.
Steve's already moving. "That's him."
You follow because what else can you do? Down stairs that smell like rust and terror, through corridors that branch like diseased arteries. The ache in your chest intensifies with each level down, soul bond pulling taut as piano wire.
Then—
The room opens before you like a wound. Medical equipment that belongs in museums next to things that belong in nightmares. And in the center, strapped to a chair that looks more like an electric chair than anything medical—
"Bucky." Steve's voice breaks on it.
He's shirtless, sweat-slick and shaking, with enough electricity running through him to light up half of Brooklyn. His hair hangs limp around his face, and even from here you can see the way his muscles lock and release in waves as current pulses through the chair. Fresh burn marks lattice across his chest where the nodes attach, and there's blood—so much blood—dripping from where he's fought against the restraints.
There are bodies on the floor. Technicians, by their white coats. The blood is fresh enough to still be spreading.
"Stay back." Natasha has her weapon trained on him, all business. "He's still the Winter—"
Bucky's head snaps up.
His eyes find yours across twenty feet of blood and machinery.
Time stops.
Those aren't the empty eyes from the library. Aren't the desperate clarity from the coffee shop. These are something else entirely—feral and frightened and so fucking broken under all that damage. He looks like something that's been torn apart and reassembled wrong, like an animal that's been in a cage so long it's forgotten what sky looks like.
You're moving before conscious thought catches up. Dodging Steve's reaching hand, slipping past Natasha's outstretched arm. Your feet slip in blood—whose blood? His? Theirs?—but you don't stop. Can't stop. The soul bond is screaming, every cell in your body reaching for its other half.
"Don't—" Someone shouts. Might be Steve. Might be God himself. Doesn't matter.
Because Bucky's watching you approach with the kind of stillness that precedes violence. His metal arm—and this close you can see how it's grafted to flesh, red and raw and infected at the edges—flexes against the restraints. The leather creaks. His chest heaves with each breath, and there's a wild look in his eyes like he can't decide if you're real or another torture.
You collapse on the arm of the chair. His breathing is ragged, chest heaving, and this close you can see old scars layered on new ones, a roadmap of decades of damage. Seventy years of this. Seventy years of being unmade and remade into something sharp and wrong.
Your hand reaches up, slow as you'd approach a wounded animal.
He flinches.
Actually flinches, this assassin who's probably felt every kind of pain there is. A sound escapes him—small, wounded, barely human. But when your fingertips brush his cheek—skin to skin, that electric recognition—his whole body convulses.
"Oh," you breathe, and it's inadequate, it's nothing, it's everything. Because the bond slots into place like coming home if home was a person who'd been carved hollow and filled with ghosts.
His eyes clear incrementally. Pupil contraction, focus sharpening, and then—
The noise that tears out of him is inhuman. Seventy years of grief and rage and desperate loneliness condensed into a single sound that makes your bones ache. His metal hand shatters the restraint like tissue paper, then the flesh one, and before you can process the movement he's dragging you up, up, into his lap, crushing you against his chest with desperate strength.
"You," he's saying, over and over, voice wrecked beyond recognition. "You, you, you—real, you're real, you're—"
His hands are everywhere at once. Metal fingers tangling in your hair, flesh hand splayed across your back hard enough to bruise, holding you like you might dissolve if he loosens his grip for even a second. He buries his face in the curve of your neck and the sob that escapes him is pure agony, seventy years of touch starvation hitting him all at once.
You can feel him shaking—no, not shaking, convulsing, like his body doesn't know how to process gentle touch anymore. Doesn't know what to do with softness after decades of nothing but pain.
"I'm here," you whisper against his temple, your own tears falling freely. "I'm real. I found you. I've got you."
His response is to hold you tighter, tight enough that breathing becomes difficult, but you don't care. Can't care when he's falling apart in your arms like this. The metal hand fists in your tactical vest and you hear fabric tear, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's pressing his face harder into your throat, breathing you in like you're air and he's been suffocating for seventy years.
"Thought I dreamed you." The words come out destroyed, muffled against your skin. "They said—they said I made you up. That the pain was making me see things. But you smell real. You feel—" His flesh hand slides up to cup the back of your head, holding you in place. "Please be real. Please, please be real."
"I'm real." You press your lips to his temple, just a brief touch of comfort. "James Buchanan Barnes, you're real and I'm real and I found you."
His breath hitches at his full name, and suddenly he's pulling back just enough to look at you. This close, you can see everything—the burst blood vessels in his eyes, the way his pupils can't quite focus, the decades of accumulated scars. He looks ancient. He looks young. He looks absolutely shattered.
"Don't know who that is anymore." Raw honesty, delivered while his thumbs trace your cheekbones with desperate reverence. "Don't know who I am when I'm not killing. When they're not—" He breaks off, jaw working. "I've been empty for so long. So fucking long. And then you touched me and I remembered what it felt like to be human and they took it away—"
"They can't take it away again." You frame his face with your hands, forcing him to meet your eyes. "We're leaving. Right now. Together."
"You don't understand." He's crying openly now, no shame in it, just pure emotional overflow. "Seventy years. Seventy fucking years of this chair, this room, these walls. They put me in the dark and take me out to kill and put me back and I can't—when they say the words, I disappear. Everything disappears."
"Then we don't let them say the words."
"I've killed so many people." He presses his forehead to yours hard enough to hurt, but the contact seems to calm something in him. "Children. Civilians. Good people. Bad people. So many I lost count. The things they made me do—the things I did—"
"I don't care."
"You should." His metal hand comes up to wrap around your throat, gentle but present. "This hand has strangled innocent people. These fingers have pulled triggers that ended lives. I'm not—I'm not good. I'm not worth—"
"Stop." You turn your head to press your lips to his metal palm, and the sound he makes is pure agony. "You're worth everything. You're my soulmate. You're—"
He makes a broken noise and crushes you against him again, like he's trying to crawl inside your skin. His whole body trembles with the effort of holding you close enough, like no amount of contact will ever be sufficient after seventy years of nothing.
"They're gonna wipe me again." Matter-of-fact. Resigned. "Soon as they realize what happened here. They always do. And I'll forget you again. Forget this. And next time—" His voice breaks. "Next time they'll make sure I can't touch you. They'll find ways to hurt you through me. They'll make me—"
"No." Your hands tighten on his face. "No, they won't. We're leaving. Steve's here. Natasha. We're getting you out."
"Stevie?" For the first time, his eyes flicker past you, landing on his best friend. The confusion there is heartbreaking. "But you're—you're supposed to be—"
"Hey, Buck." Steve's voice is thick with emotion. "It's me. It's really me. We're taking you home."
But Bucky's already looking back at you, like he can't bear to look away for more than seconds. His flesh hand hasn't stopped moving—tracing your face, your neck, tangling in your hair like he's trying to memorize you through touch alone.
"I don't want to forget again." It comes out small, broken. "Please. I can't do it again. Can't lose you again. It'll kill me. It'll—"
"You won't forget." You shift in his lap, wrap your arms around his neck, and he makes a sound like you've given him salvation. "I won't let them take you. I won't let them hurt you anymore. I promise."
"We need to move." Natasha's voice, soft but urgent. "Security response in two minutes."
Steve's at your side instantly, but when he reaches for Bucky, the soldier flinches back violently, metal arm coming up in defense. The only thing that keeps him from lashing out is your hand on his chest, your voice in his ear.
"It's okay. It's Steve. He's safe. He's here to help."
"Can you walk?" Steve asks, careful to keep his distance.
Bucky nods against your shoulder, but when you try to move off his lap, his arms lock around you with desperate strength.
"No." Panicked. "No, please. Need to—need to touch—"
"I'm not going anywhere." You run your fingers through his hair, and he leans into it like a cat. "We're walking out of here together. But you have to let me stand up."
It takes visible effort for him to loosen his grip. When you stand, he follows immediately, swaying slightly. He towers over you even hunched with exhaustion, and when his hand finds yours, it's with the grip of a drowning man finding driftwood.
You start moving as a unit, but Bucky can't stop touching you. His free hand keeps finding your face, your hair, your shoulder, like he needs constant confirmation you're real. At one point he stops entirely, pulls you back against his chest, and just breathes you in for several seconds while Steve and Natasha stand guard.
"Left," he says suddenly as you reach a junction, pulling you down a side corridor. "Service tunnel. I've—I've tried before. Three times. No. Four? They always—" His free hand comes up to his head, pressing against his temple.
"Hey." You squeeze his hand. "Doesn't matter. Which way?"
The service tunnel is narrow and dark. Bucky pulls you through it like muscle memory, but halfway through he stops, pressing you against the wall. His hands frame your face in the darkness.
"What if this isn't real?" Desperate. "What if I'm still in the chair? What if this is just another way they're breaking me?"
You reach up to cradle his face in return, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. "Does this feel like a dream?"
"No." He breathes the word against your mouth. "No, it feels—it feels like waking up."
The exit spills you out into pre-dawn forest. The quinjet looms out of the darkness, and for the first time in seventy years, Bucky Barnes runs toward freedom instead of away from it.
But even on the jet, even safe, he can't stop holding you. He pulls you into his lap on the bench seats, ignoring the medical team, ignoring everyone, and just holds on. His face stays buried in your neck during takeoff, his arms locked around you like prison bars in reverse—keeping the world out instead of keeping him in.
"You're free," you whisper, over and over, like a prayer. "You're free. You're safe. You're mine."
"Yours," he agrees, and finally, finally, his death grip loosens just enough for you to breathe. "Yours. Always yours. Even when I couldn't remember. Even in the dark. Somehow I was always yours."
The sun breaks the horizon as you fly toward home, and for the first time in seventy years, Bucky Barnes believes he might actually make it there.
The first time Bucky Barnes calls you at 3 AM, your body knows it's him before your mind catches up.
The phone vibrates against your nightstand, and your hand's already reaching, heart already racing—not with fear but with recognition. That soul-deep pull that's been your compass for three months now.
"Bucky?" Your voice comes out sleep-rough, concerned.
Just breathing on the other end. Ragged, like he's been running. Or fighting. The sound makes your chest tight.
"Can't—" His voice cracks like splintered wood. "Can't remember if the blood on my hands is from yesterday or a decade ago."
You're already moving, sheets tangling around your legs as you hunt for clothes in the dark. "Where are you?"
"Steve's. The Tower. I'm—" A shaky exhale that you feel in your own lungs. "I'm safe. Everyone's safe. Just needed—"
"Me." Not a question. The bond thrums with his distress, a phantom ache under your ribs. "I'm coming."
"You don't have to—"
"I'm coming."
Twenty minutes later, Happy's pulling up to the Tower's private entrance. You're wearing the first things your hands found—pajama shorts with snowflakes on them that you stole from your roommate, one of Bucky's hoodies that still smells like him (cedar and gunpowder and something indefinably him).
The elevator ride feels eternal. Your skin prickles with proximity, the bond pulling taut as you rise through the floors. By the time JARVIS deposits you on the residential level, your hands are shaking with the need to touch him, to soothe whatever's tearing him apart.
You find him on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest like he's trying to make himself smaller. His metal hand is clenched so tight you can hear the recalibration whirs, flesh hand buried in his hair. Steve hovers nearby, hands opening and closing like he wants to help but doesn't know how.
"Buck," you breathe.
His head snaps up, and oh—his eyes are winter-wild, pupils blown with panic, caught in some liminal space between then and now. You watch him catalog you in pieces: face, voice, the way you're already moving toward him like gravity's reversed its pull.
You don't speak. Don't need to. Just fold yourself onto the couch beside him, close enough that the line of your body presses against his from shoulder to hip. His flesh hand finds yours immediately, desperate, fingers lacing between yours like maybe if he holds tight enough he won't drift away.
The effect is immediate—a full-body shudder, his breathing starting to sync with yours. The bond hums, warm honey spreading through your veins. Steve makes a sound—relief wrapped in something more complicated—and quietly retreats.
"Sorry," Bucky murmurs after a moment. His thumb finds your pulse point, traces it like he's counting heartbeats. "Shouldn't have woken you."
"Yes, you should have." No reproach, just fact. "That's what this is."
He turns to look at you then, really look, and you watch him surface by degrees. His metal hand comes up without conscious thought, fingertips ghosting along your jaw with impossible gentleness. The cool metal makes you shiver, but you lean into it, letting him map the reality of you.
"There you are," he whispers.
Something fractures inside you. He pulls you in—careful, always so careful with you—until your foreheads touch. His breathing ghosts across your lips, and you stay suspended in that space, sharing air and warmth and the indescribable thing that ties soul to soul.
It becomes your new normal.
The calls come at all hours. Sometimes Steve's the one calling, voice carefully controlled: "Can you come? He's asking for you." Sometimes it's Natasha, brusque but not unkind: "Barnes needs you." Once, memorably, it's Tony: "Your touch-starved assassin is having a moment. Also, he may have broken my espresso machine."
You always go.
The team adapts to your presence like you're a new piece of furniture—necessary, functional, occasionally in the way. You learn to read Bucky's tells from across a room: the way his eyes go distant when memory bleeds through, the micro-flinches when sound becomes too much, the careful way he holds himself when he's fragmenting.
But more than that, you learn the language his body speaks when it's seeking yours.
He's always careful at first, tentative as a feral cat learning to accept kindness. A brush of fingers, testing. The barest press of his palm to yours. But once that first contact is made, something in him unravels.
He touches you like he's mapping a new world.
It starts innocuous enough—fingers tangled together during movie nights, his thumb painting absent patterns on your wrist. His hand finds the small of your back when you walk, not possessive but anchoring, like he needs proof you're real. He pulls you between his knees when he's sitting, arms banding around your waist, chin notching over your shoulder while you chat with Sam about nothing important.
But as weeks become months, the touches grow bolder. Hungrier.
"Does it bother you?" he asks one afternoon.
He's had a brutal therapy session—three hours of guided recall that left him shaking and grey-faced. You'd spent the past hour with his head in your lap, your fingers carding through his hair while he pieced himself back together. His flesh hand has found its way under your shirt, palm spread wide over your ribs, and his metal fingers trace delicate patterns on the inside of your wrist.
"Does what bother me?"
"This." He gestures vaguely at the negative space between you that stopped existing weeks ago. "How much I need—" He stops. Swallows. Tries again. "How I can't stop touching you."
The question deserves honesty, so you give it consideration. Think about how your life has restructured itself around these points of contact. How you've started wearing layers just so there's always fabric to push aside, skin to find. How your body anticipates his touch now, turns toward him without conscious thought.
"No," you say finally. "It doesn't bother me."
He studies your face with those searching eyes, looking for the polite lie. You let him look, keeping your expression open.
"I've been thinking," you continue, adjusting so you can see him better. His hand immediately shifts, fingers splaying wider across your ribs like he needs more contact to make up for the movement. "About touch. About deprivation."
A muscle in his jaw ticks.
"Seventy years," you say softly. "Seventy years where touch meant pain. Programming. Violence. Where hands on you meant—"
"Stop." Rough. His hand presses harder against your ribs, feeling your heartbeat.
"—so is it any wonder you're hungry for something else? Something good?"
His exhale shudders out of him. "The doctors say it's codependence."
"The doctors haven't had their souls systematically unmade and remade." You cover his flesh hand with yours, pressing it more firmly against your skin. "You're not codependent, Bucky. You're human. You're healing. And if touch helps—"
"It's not just that it helps." The words come out jagged, confessional. "I want—" His metal hand comes up, traces the line of your throat with one careful finger. "I want to touch you all the time. Want to know the texture of every inch of your skin. Want to map you like territory, like—" He cuts himself off, jaw clenching.
Heat pools low in your stomach, but you keep your voice steady. "Like what?"
"Like you're mine." Barely audible. His eyes won't meet yours. "Like I have any right to—"
"You do." You turn into him more fully, catch his face between your palms. His eyes flutter closed, and he leans into the touch like a man starved. "You have every right. We're soulmates, Bucky. That means something."
"What if I never get better?" Raw, honest. "What if I always need this? Need you?"
"Then you'll always have me."
His eyes snap open, winter-blue and desperate. "You can't promise that."
"Watch me."
The trial is excruciating. You watch from designated seating as Bucky sits statue-still, hair pulled back severe, wearing a suit that makes him look like someone else entirely. They read names, show photographs, detail missions that exist in his memory like shattered glass—some pieces clear, others reflecting nothing but blood.
The days he testifies, he comes to you after.
Never speaks about it. Just shows up at your door looking hollowed out, and you let him in without questions. He wraps himself around you like you're the only solid thing in a tilting world, face buried in the curve of your neck, breathing you in like oxygen.
These are the times his hands grow bold.
Not inappropriate—never that. But searching. He maps you like a cartographer charting new territory. Palms skimming your sides, memorizing the curve of waist to hip. Fingers tracing the ladder of your ribs through thin fabric. Metal thumb finding the hollow of your throat where your pulse flutters hummingbird-quick.
"I need—" he'll say against your skin, words muffled and desperate.
"I know," you always answer. "Take what you need."
So he does. His flesh hand slips under your shirt, finds the warm plane of your stomach, spreads wide like he's trying to absorb your steadiness through osmosis. His metal fingers trace patterns on whatever skin he can find—the inside of your wrist, the nape of your neck, the sensitive spot behind your ear that makes you shiver.
Sometimes you'll find his hand at your sternum, metal fingers splayed over your heartbeat like he's using it to calibrate his own. Sometimes he'll trace the boundary where clothing meets skin, fingertips ghosting under hems and necklines but never pushing further, just needing to know there's softness underneath, that not everything in the world has sharp edges.
"Is this okay?" he asks every time, even as his touch grows more familiar, more certain.
"Yes," you answer every time, even as your skin heats and your breath catches and you want—
You want.
"So are you two fucking yet?"
You choke on your coffee, hot liquid searing your throat. Across the kitchen, Bucky's shoulders go rigid where he's making eggs with the kind of focus usually reserved for defusing explosives.
"Tony," Steve says, warning clear in his voice.
"What? It's a legitimate question. All that touching, the eye-fucking across every room, the way Barnes goes feral if anyone else so much as—"
"We're not." Your face burns. "That's not—we haven't—"
Tony's eyebrows achieve escape velocity. "You're telling me you've been playing the world's most intense game of grabass for three months and haven't—"
"Stark." Bucky's voice is winter-quiet, dangerous in the way that makes smart people reevaluate their life choices.
But Tony's never been accused of survival instincts. "I'm just saying, that level of sexual tension could power—"
The plate in Bucky's metal hand shatters.
Silence rings out, broken only by the drip of egg yolk hitting tile.
"I'll just." Tony backs toward the door, hands raised. "Workshop. Important things. Very important things."
He's gone before anyone can blink, leaving you, Bucky, and Steve in a kitchen that suddenly feels airless. Bucky stares at the ceramic shards in his hand like they've personally betrayed him.
"Buck—" Steve starts.
"I need air."
He's out the door before you can process the movement, leaving you with cooling eggs and Tony's words hanging in the air like smoke.
Steve sighs, the sound of a man who's aged a century in the last minute. "He's an idiot. Tony, I mean. Though Buck's also—" He stops. Runs a hand through his hair. "This is none of my business."
"But?"
"But." Steve fixes you with those earnest eyes that probably ended wars. "He thinks he's protecting you. From himself. From what he's done. He doesn't think he deserves—" A gesture encompasses you, the kitchen, the entire situation.
"That's not his decision to make."
"No," Steve agrees. "But when has that ever stopped him?"
You find Bucky on the roof because of course that's where he goes. He's sitting on the edge, legs dangling over nothing, and your heart does something complicated in your chest.
"Most people have their existential crises at ground level," you say, settling beside him carefully.
His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but close. "Most people haven't fallen off a train."
"Fair point."
The city spreads below like a circuit board, all light and movement and life. Without looking, his hand finds yours, fingers interlacing with the ease of long practice. The bond settles, that constant thrum of rightness that comes with skin meeting skin.
"Tony's not wrong," he says eventually.
You wait, let him find the words in his own time.
"I think about it." His voice is carefully controlled, but you can feel the tremor in his hand. "Touching you. Not just—not just to ground myself. Not for the bond. I think about touching you because I want to. Because you're—"
He stops. His throat works, and when he speaks again, his voice is rougher. "Because you're beautiful. And kind. And you laugh at my terrible jokes even when they're not funny. You come when I call at 3 AM. You let me put my hands on you even though these same hands have—"
"Bucky—"
"I dream about it." The confession comes out raw. "Dream about kissing you. About how you'd taste. How you'd feel. Wake up with your name in my mouth and my hands reaching for you, and it's not about the bond, it's about—" He turns to look at you then, eyes dark with something that makes your breath catch. "It's about how much I want you. How much I want things I have no right to want."
"What if," you say, voice steadier than your pulse, "I want those same things?"
His breathing stutters. "You don't. You can't."
"Don't tell me what I want." You turn toward him fully, free hand coming up to his jaw. He leans into it helplessly, eyes falling closed. "I know exactly what I want. Who I want."
"I'm held together with duct tape and trauma," he says, but his resolve is crumbling. You can see it in the way he presses harder into your palm. "I can't take you on normal dates. Can't promise I won't have panic attacks. Can't even sleep through the night without—"
"I don't want normal." Your thumb traces his cheekbone, feels him shudder. "I want you. Every piece, every edge, every nightmare and bad day. I want the man who hums old songs when he thinks no one's listening. Who makes terrible eggs but keeps trying. Who touches me like I'm something precious and looks at me like I'm a miracle."
"You are," he breathes. "You're—"
You kiss him.
Or maybe he kisses you.
Maybe you meet in the middle, drawn together by forces older than choice.
The first press of lips is tentative, a question asked and answered in the same breath. His flesh hand comes up to cradle your face, and the tenderness of it makes your chest ache. But then you make a sound—small, needy—and something in him breaks.
Or maybe something in him finally fixes itself.
His metal arm bands around your waist, pulls you against him with desperate strength. The kiss deepens, and oh, you understand now why people write symphonies and wage wars. Because Bucky Barnes kisses like he's drowning and you're air, like he's been starving for seventy years and you're sustenance, like maybe the universe knew exactly what it was doing when it tied your souls together.
He kisses you like he's trying to crawl inside your skin.
His tongue traces the seam of your lips and you open for him without thought, and the sound he makes—broken, grateful—sends heat racing down your spine. He tastes like coffee and something indefinably him, and you chase that taste deeper, hands fisting in his shirt.
He doesn't surface for air. Doesn't pause. Just tilts his head to find a better angle and kisses you deeper, harder, like he's trying to memorize the shape of your mouth, the texture of your sighs. His metal hand spans your lower back, pulling you impossibly closer, while his flesh hand maps your face, thumb stroking your cheek even as his mouth devastates you.
You're half in his lap now, twisted awkwardly on the ledge, and you don't care. Can't care about anything beyond the heat of his mouth, the way he groans when you nip at his lower lip, the way his hands shake where they hold you.
"Wanted this," he gasps against your mouth, not pulling back enough to actually stop kissing you. "Wanted you. Before I even knew you. So long, so fucking long—"
You answer by sliding your hands into his hair, nails scraping his scalp, and he shudders against you, kiss going a little sloppy and desperate. He's not cold, not controlled, not careful. He's burning, pressing against you like he wants to fuse at the molecular level, like the soul bond isn't enough and never could be.
When you finally break apart—only because oxygen is apparently necessary—you're both wrecked. His lips are swollen, eyes dark and dazed. You probably look the same. His forehead drops to yours, and you can feel him trembling against you, all that careful control finally, beautifully shattered.
"Okay?" His voice is destroyed, rough like he's been screaming.
"So far past okay," you manage. "Though your timing—we're on a roof, Barnes."
He laughs, the sound surprised out of him, and presses kisses to your cheeks, your jaw, the corner of your mouth like he can't quite stop now that he's started. "Sorry. I'll plan better next time."
"Next time?" You're going for teasing but it comes out breathless, hopeful.
His eyes find yours, and the intensity there steals any words you might have had. "Every time. Any time. All the time, if you'll—if you want—"
You press your mouth to his again, swallowing whatever self-deprecating thing he was about to say. He makes a noise of pure relief and hauls you closer, and you think maybe Tony Stark has exactly one good point in his entire existence.
Not that you'll ever tell him.
**
The science had been clinical, sterile words on a page that you'd skimmed in college while nursing a hangover and trying to make sense of your Behavioral Psych reading.
Academic language that utterly failed to capture this—Bucky's mouth hot and slick and desperate against your throat while his hands relearn territory they've been mapping under cotton and denim for months, each touch sending electricity racing down your spine like lightning seeking ground.
"Fucking finally," he growls against your pulse point, and you feel the words more than hear them, vibrating through skin into bone, into the very marrow of you. His metal hand spans your ribs, each individual plate recalibrating against your skin with tiny whirs and clicks, like even the machinery of him is trying to get closer.
"You know what it's been like? Having you close enough to smell, to taste in the air, but not—Christ, the way you tremble each time I touch you, like you're starving for it—"
You try to form words but he's already peeling your shirt away with hands that shake despite their practiced efficiency, and the first full press of his bare chest to yours—scarred skin against soft, furnace heat against cool air—whites out anything resembling higher thought.
The soul bond doesn't just sing—it screams, every nerve ending recognizing its other half and lighting up like a constellation, like a neural map catching fire.
"Oh," you gasp, and it's inadequate, it's nothing, but Bucky goes rigid above you like you've shot electricity straight through his spine.
"Yeah," he agrees, voice absolutely wrecked. His forehead drops to your shoulder, dog tags dragging cold metal across your overheated chest as he pants against your skin, each exhale making you shiver. "Yeah, that's—fuck, is it always gonna feel like this? Like touching a live wire, just—"
"More," you manage, arching into him until there's no space left between your bodies, and you feel his control splinter like ice under pressure.
His mouth finds yours again, hungry and graceless, all that careful restraint from months of chaste touches finally, blessedly gone. His tongue slides against yours and you taste coffee and something metallic—blood maybe, from where he's been biting his lip. When you nip at his bottom lip he makes a sound like something wounded, something primal, hips rolling into yours with zero finesse, just pure need, his cock hard and insistent through too many layers of fabric.
"Sensitive," he warns against your mouth, but it comes out more like a plea, like he's begging you to understand. "Everything's dialed up to eleven, I can—I can hear your blood moving in your veins. Can feel every place you're warm and wet and—fuck—" His whole body shudders when you rake your nails down his back.
Your fingers find the scarred terrain of his back and he actually whimpers, muscles rolling under your touch like water, like something liquid and desperate. That's when the second revelation hits: whatever you're feeling, he's feeling it magnified. Seventy years of sensory deprivation plus enhanced everything plus a soul bond that's been stretched taut for months—
"Gonna lose my mind," he mutters, mouthing at your jaw, your throat, anywhere he can reach, leaving wet trails that cool in the air and make you shiver. His stubble scrapes against sensitive skin and you gasp, hips bucking up involuntarily. "Already lost it. Lost it the second you touched me in that library. Do you know? Do you have any fucking idea what it's like, having someone reach inside your skull and turn all the lights on? Like going from black and white to color, like—Jesus—"
His flesh hand fumbles with your pants, clumsy with urgency, while his metal hand grips your hip hard enough to leave marks—and god, you hope it does, hope you wear his fingerprints for days. The button pops free and he makes a victorious sound that might be funny if you weren't so desperate, if you weren't already so wet you can feel it soaking through your underwear.
His hand slides lower, fingers slipping beneath elastic, and when he finds you soaked and swollen, the noise that punches out of him is pure animal—a growl that starts in his chest and rumbles through both your bodies where they're pressed together.
"Christ." His fingers slip through wetness, exploratory and reverent, and you can feel the tremor in his hand. "This is—this is for me? You get like this just from—" He circles your clit with his thumb and you cry out, hips jerking. "Fuck, you're dripping. Can feel your pulse in your cunt, baby. So swollen, so ready—"
"From you," you gasp, grinding down against his hand as he slides two fingers inside without warning. The stretch makes you moan, makes your walls clench around him immediately. "Always from you. Only from you."
Something fractures in his expression—something raw and possessive and desperately vulnerable all at once. He hooks his fingers, finding that spot that makes your vision white out, and watches your face like he's cataloging miracles, like he's mapping the geography of your pleasure. "Say that again."
"Only you." It comes out breathless, edged with desperation as he finds a rhythm that has your thighs shaking, has wet sounds filling the air between you. "Only ever you, Bucky, please—"
"No." His thumb finds your clit and circles with devastating precision, pressure just the right side of too much. "Not yet. Not when I've been imagining this for—do you know how many times I've jerked off in the shower thinking about this? About how you'd sound when you're desperate? How you'd taste?" He adds a third finger, stretching you wider, and grins dark and feral when you sob. "Bet you thought about it too. Bet you touched yourself thinking about me, didn't you? Tell me."
"Yes," you admit, face burning, and his pupils blow even wider.
He drops to his knees between your thighs suddenly, metal hand holding you open like something precious, like an offering. The first swipe of his tongue has you jackknifing off the bed, but he just pins you down with his metal arm across your hips and does it again, slower, a long drag from entrance to clit that has you seeing stars.
"Fuckin' knew it," he groans against you, and the vibration of his voice makes you clench around nothing. "Knew you'd taste like heaven. Like mine. Knew you'd shake for me just like this." He spreads you wider with his fingers, looking at you with dark eyes. "So pretty. So perfect." He spits on your cunt, watching it mix with your wetness, and the filthy intimacy of it makes you moan. "Gonna ruin you for anyone else. Gonna make it so you can't come without thinking of my mouth, my fingers, my cock."
His words dissolve into action, mouth working you over with single-minded focus. He eats you out like he's starving, like he's dying, all lips and tongue and just the edge of teeth. The soul bond makes it devastating—you don't just feel the physical sensation, you feel his hunger, his satisfaction at finally being allowed to give pleasure instead of pain. His metal fingers dig into your thigh hard enough to bruise and you hope they do, hope you wear his marks for days, hope everyone who sees them knows exactly who put them there.
"Close," you warn, though he probably knows—can probably taste it in the way your cunt's clenching, feel it in the bond that's gone molten between you. Your thighs are shaking, muscles pulled so tight they hurt, and there's a sound filling the room that you distantly realize is you, making noises you've never made before.
He pulls back just enough to speak, lips glossy with your wetness, chin soaked, eyes wild. "Yeah? You gonna come on my tongue? Gonna let me taste it?" He slides three fingers in, curling with devastating intent, and your back arches off the bed. "Come on, sweetheart. Give it up. Let me have it, don't be greedy."
You shatter with a sound that might be his name, might be pure noise. The orgasm rolls through you in waves, each crest higher than the last, and he works you through it mercilessly, not letting up even when you try to squirm away from oversensitivity. Through the bond you feel his echoing pleasure—not physical, not yet, but something bone-deep and satisfied and proud.
"Atta girl," he murmurs against your inner thigh, pressing kisses to sweat-slick skin while his fingers still move lazily inside you, drawing out aftershocks. "So fucking beautiful. Look at you, all fucked out and soft and mine. Could do this for hours. Will do this for hours. Keep you here, coming apart on my hands, my mouth, until you're so sensitive you cry, until you forget there was ever a time we weren't—"
"Bucky." You tug at his hair, need making your voice rough despite the orgasm still sparking through your nerves. "Get up here. Need you inside me. Need—"
He's moving before you finish, shucking his pants with graceless efficiency. The first glimpse of his cock—thick and long and leaking steadily—makes your mouth water and your cunt clench with fresh want. When you reach for him he catches your wrist, gentle but firm.
"Next time," he promises, reading your intent with unnerving accuracy. His voice is strained, like he's hanging on by a thread. "Let you taste me next time. Let you choke on it, fuck that pretty mouth until you're drooling, until—" He cuts himself off with visible effort, chest heaving. "But right now I need—if I don't get inside you in the next ten seconds I'm gonna fucking die—"
"So do it." You spread your legs wider, shameless, showing him how wet and open you are, how ready. "Come on, sergeant. Follow through."
His control snaps audibly. He's on you between one breath and the next, pinning you down with his weight, cock nudging at your entrance. The head catches on your rim and you both groan, but he stops there, trembling with effort, forehead pressed to yours.
"Look at me." It's not a request—it's a command, rough and desperate. You force your eyes open, meet his gaze—winter blue swallowed by black, raw and vulnerable and fierce. "Need to see you when I—need to know you're here, that you're real, that this is—"
"Real," you confirm, wrapping your legs around his waist, heels digging into his ass to urge him forward. "I'm real. You're real. This is—oh fuck—"
He pushes inside in one long, devastating slide, and the world reconstitutes itself around this moment. Around the stretch and burn and perfect fullness of him, around the broken sound he makes against your throat—half sob, half growl—around the soul bond lighting up like a supernova, like every nerve ending suddenly discovering what it was made for.
"Fuck." His metal hand grips the headboard hard enough to crack wood, splinters raining down. "Fuck, you're—tight. So fucking tight. Hot. Perfect. Can feel—God fucking damn, I can feel everything. Can feel how good it is for you, can feel how your cunt's trying to pull me deeper—" He shifts his hips and hits something devastating inside you, makes you clench around him involuntarily.
He laughs, breathless. "Yeah, right there. That's it, isn't it, baby? Right fucking there."
He moves experimentally, just a slow roll of hips, and you both moan at the drag of him inside you, at how your bodies fit together like they were made for this, only this. The angle is perfect—he's reading your body's responses in real-time, adjusting until every thrust has you climbing higher, until you're making noises that would embarrass you if you could think.
"Not gonna last," he warns, rhythm already getting ragged, desperate. Sweat drips from his forehead onto your chest, mixing with the sheen already there. "Not this time. Too much, too long waiting, too—the way you feel—" His flesh hand finds your throat, rests there warm and possessive, thumb pressing just enough to make your pulse flutter. "Like velvet. Like coming home. Like I could fuck you forever and it would never be enough—"
"Don't care." You pull his head down, bite at his jaw hard enough to leave marks just to feel him shudder, to watch his control fracture further. "Just want you. Just need—"
"Tell me." His grip on your throat tightens fractionally, not enough to restrict breathing but enough to make you aware, to make you feel it. "Tell me what you need. Want to give you everything. Want to be so good for you, sweetheart. Want to make up for every night you went to bed empty when you should've been—"
"Full of you," you finish, and his hips stutter, lose rhythm entirely for a moment.
"Yeah?" His thumb presses against your pulse, feeling how fast your heart's racing. "That what you need? Need me to fill you up? Keep you full and fucked out and dripping with my come? Make sure everyone knows you're mine, that I'm the only one who gets to—"
"Yes." You're beyond shame, beyond anything but the building pressure where he's driving into you harder now, each thrust shoving you up the bed. The wet sounds of your bodies meeting fill the room, obscene and perfect. "Yes, Bucky, please—"
"Say my name again." He's fucking you harder now, chasing his release with single-minded intensity. The bed frame creaks ominously with each thrust. "Want to hear it when you come. Want to feel it when you—fuck, you're clenching around me, baby. You close? You gonna come on my cock? Gonna be good for me?"
You nod frantically, words lost to the slide of him inside you, the relentless pressure against that perfect spot, the way his pubic bone grinds against your clit with each thrust. His metal fingers find your clit, cold against overheated flesh, and the contrast makes you scream.
"That's it," he growls, working your clit in tight circles while maintaining that punishing rhythm. "Come for me. Come on my cock like a good girl. Let me feel it, let me—fuck, there it is, I can feel it starting, you're getting so tight—"
You come with his name on your lips, back arching off the bed so hard you think you might snap in half. The orgasm slams through you like a freight train, like dying and being reborn, every muscle locking up as pleasure whites out your vision. The bond makes it circular—your pleasure slamming into him and reflecting back, amplified, until you're both shaking with it, until you can't tell where you end and he begins.
"Oh fuck—" His rhythm breaks entirely, becomes something desperate and animal. "Fuck, I'm gonna—gonna fill you up, gonna—"
"Inside." You dig your nails into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood, hold him deep even as oversensitivity makes you want to squirm away. "Want to feel it. Want all of it."
He comes with a sound that's half your name, half prayer, half roar, hips grinding deep as he spills inside you. You feel it all—not just the physical sensation of his cock pulsing, filling you with warmth, but the emotional avalanche through the bond. Relief and want and mine mine mine and something that feels dangerously close to devotion, to worship, to complete and utter belonging.
He fucks you through it, shallow little thrusts like he can't help himself, like his body won't stop even though he's already given you everything. Each movement makes more come leak out around his cock, makes wet sounds that have you hiding your face in his shoulder, embarrassed and aroused in equal measure.
The aftershocks last forever, little sparks of shared pleasure that have you both gasping, twitching, clutching at each other like lifelines. When he finally stills, he doesn't pull out, just shifts enough that his weight isn't crushing you, keeping you plugged full of him.
"Stay," he mumbles into your neck, words slurred like he's drunk. "Just—stay exactly like this. Please. Need to—need to keep you full. Need to know you're here, that this is real, that I get to—"
"Not going anywhere." You card your fingers through his sweat-damp hair, feel him shiver at the gentle touch after all that intensity. "Never going anywhere. You're stuck with me, Barnes."
His arms tighten around you, and you can feel his smile against your skin, feel the way his cock twitches inside you with renewed interest. "Good. Because now that I know what this feels like, what you feel like—" He rocks his hips experimentally, and you both groan as you feel his come shift inside you, feel how wet and open you are. "We're not leaving this bed for a week. Gonna fuck you in every position I've imagined. Gonna map every inch of your body with my mouth. Gonna find out exactly how many times I can make you come before you beg me to stop—"
"What about—"
He kisses you quiet, slow and thorough and filthy, tongue fucking into your mouth in a pale imitation of what his cock just did. When he pulls back, his eyes are dark with promise and his cock is fully hard inside you again, enhanced recovery time making itself known.
"Nothing else matters," he says simply, starting to move again, slow and deep and devastating. You're so sensitive it borders on too much, but the soul bond floods you with his pleasure, his desperate need, and suddenly you're right there with him again. "Just this. Just us. Just how many times I can make you come before sunrise. How full I can keep you. How loud I can make you scream."
You clench around him involuntarily and his eyes flutter closed, hips stuttering.
"Gonna kill me," he mutters, picking up speed, the wet sounds even more obscene now with his come easing the way. "Seventy years of nothing and now—" A particularly deep thrust has you seeing stars. "Now I've got a soulmate who looks at me like I'm worth something, who touches me like I'm not a weapon, who lets me use her however I need—"
"Who loves you," you interrupt, watching his face crumble and rebuild itself, watching him fight back what looks suspiciously like tears.
"Yeah?" Barely a whisper, so vulnerable it makes your chest ache.
"Yeah." You pull him down for another kiss, pouring everything you can't say into the contact, letting him feel it through the bond. "So much. So long. Even before I knew you, I think I loved you. Think I was waiting for you."
He makes a broken sound and starts fucking you in earnest, like a man possessed, like he's trying to climb inside you and never leave. "Say it again."
"I love you."
"Again." Harder now, each thrust shoving you up the bed.
"I love you, Bucky Barnes."
He fucks you like a promise, like a prayer, like maybe if he does it right the universe will let him keep this. You come apart under him again and again, until time becomes meaningless, until the only reality is where you're joined, where the soul bond burns brightest, where his come leaks out of you with each thrust only to be fucked back in, marking you inside and out as his.
When exhaustion finally claims you both, he's still inside you, still hard, wrapped around you like armor and apology all at once. You're going to be sore tomorrow—hell, you're sore now—but you wouldn't move for anything.
The last thing you feel before sleep takes you is his lips against your temple, his voice rough with wonder and satisfaction:
"Love you too, sweetheart. More than I've got words for. More than I probably should. Gonna spend the rest of my life showing you, if you'll let me. Gonna take such good care of you. My girl. My soulmate. Mine."
"Yours," you mumble, already drifting, clenching around him one last time just to feel him shudder.
His arms tighten, and you feel his smile against your skin, feel the way his cock twitches inside you with interest despite everything.
"Forever," he promises.
"Forever."
Outside, Brooklyn wakes to another morning, unaware that two souls have finally, fully, found their way home.
