jay :)

hi i’m jay. 22. she/her. love marvel, shows, & art :)

[sophedicts]

GUSTAV KLIMT — “The Kiss” (1908-1909)

“Klimt creates the image of a perfect union between man and woman with both merging together. Here, man and woman connect with the earth and the cosmos, guided by the power holding everything together: love.” “Then let me love you. My love for you is greater than anything I have felt before…I will be bound to you in every way that counts. And should we have a child, our child will feel our love magnified.”

[delambelles]

FRANCESCA BRIDGERTON + Motherhood/Infertility in Bridgerton Season Four

+ bonus

[barnes1o7]

god she loved john so deeply ohhhh my poor franny 😭 i want her to be happy again so badly

[normoouse]

i think something that hit me so hard was how everyone helped Francesca through her grief in the ways she needed, like Benedict playing her a pianoforte tune to make her laugh, all the siblings enthusiastically discussing the biscuit recipe during the reception, even Sophie giving her an excuse to leave the gathering when she was clearly overwhelmed, they just know her so well!!! even when she claimed that John was the one that finally understood her, you can see how much love and care her family has for her, even if sometimes they’re a bit confused

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[mydairpercabeth]

Just saw someone say the Bridgerton family are like Queen Charlotte’s sims and I cannot stop wheezing

[imnotreallyherejustlurking]

benedict really is the diamond of the season he spends the time honing in on his accomplishments such as dancing, drawing, pianoforte, french, kite mending, public speaking, home preparation; showing he's worthy parent material with how good he is with his younger siblings, all in relentless persuit of a worthy suitor who spends time acting like she's not affected while he's practically on his knees begging and crying "please do not call what happened between us a mistake" i'm manically cackling.

[seraphicghost]

hyacinth will always be his first baby

[jjadmanii]

fran having to deal with figuring out her sexuality, questioning herself as a woman bc of her infertility issues, suddenly losing her husband, finally falling pregnant just to lose her child too, being stripped of her titles, and watching the only person that understands her grief run away from her.. im

[artficlly]

marvel masterlist 18+ content, mdni .ᐟ mostly bucky x reader or the occasional stucky x reader. works have triggering themes or include smut, please proceed with caution. full warning lists on each fic. i don't have a taglist, if you want to be notified when i post updates to series or upload new one-shots please follow @artficlly-archive and turn on post notifications. ** means fic includes smut.

𓇢𓆸 ― SERIES

smog & spirits - fantasy 1920s gang au ** [on going - 50k words] mob!bucky x witch!reader bucky barnes, the leader of sootstone's smog boys, needs a favour. a nasty curse has been cast on him, and he needs a witch to help him break it.

lessons in lovemaking ** [on going - 60k words] bucky x blackwidow!reader you and bucky barnes go undercover as a married couple, but when a fake kiss gets too real, he unexpectedly finishes in his pants—leaving you both stunned.

𓇢𓆸 ― MINI-SERIES

a dish served cold - western au [complete - 30k words] outlaw!bucky x reader after the murder of your pa, you go on a journey to find justice. fate brings you to crimson junction for a reason, and that reason is bucky barnes. 

wolves at the gate - viking au ** [on going] jarl!bucky x jarl's daughter!reader your twin is dead. your home is full of strangers. now your father wants peace, and you are the price—married off to the jarl bucky, a man who is your sworn enemy.

the price of passage - sci-fi au ** [on going] bountyhunter!bucky x healer!reader a deadly off-planet plague forces you into an uneasy alliance with the infamous bounty hunter bucky barnes. you need his ship, he wants something in return. and in the galaxy, nothing comes without strings attached.

𓇢𓆸 ― ONE-SHOTS

me & the devil - western au [11k words] outlaw!bucky x saloon girl!reader the diamondback saloon and hotel has always attracted bad men, and bucky barnes happens to be one of them.

king of pentacles - western au ** [6k words] outlaw!bucky x fortune teller!reader when your travelling circus rolls into town, you are warned that bucky barnes is the outlaw who rules these lands. you plan to keep your distance, but he and his men can not resist a little entertainment.

sweetpea - post-apocalyptic au ** [9k words] retired!hero!bucky x fem!reader after the riftborn war, bucky barnes seeks to retire from his past as a hero and settle down, you might just be the peace he’s been looking for all along.

read between the lines - college au [2k words] frat!jock!bucky x cheerleader!reader tutoring bucky barnes was already distracting enough, but leaving your diary in his room? that is a whole new problem.

his girls [2k words] bucky x fem!reader alpine barely tolerates anyone but bucky, so when she curls up in your lap without a second thought, the team is left reeling—especially when it leads to the not-so-subtle revelation that you and bucky have been sneaking around for months.

close quarters - fantasy au [9k words] bucky x fem!reader when you're assigned a brooding escort for your journey north, the last thing you expect is to be sharing a cramped sleeper car with him.

the art of pretending [12k words] ** bucky x agent!reader being mentored by bucky is nothing short of torture; he’s cold, infuriating, and impossible to please. but when a mission gone wrong leaves you stranded in a freezing safehouse together, you start to wonder if all that supposed hatred has just been hiding something else entirely

this is (not) okay [9k words] ** bucky x personal assistant!reader personal assistant rules: don’t crush on bucky barnes. definitely don’t misinterpret a flower delivery and spiral into silent heartbreak, and absolutely never ever get stuck alone with him in an elevator.

show me again [17k words] ** bucky x mutant!reader you were born a mutant, gifted with the power to manipulate bodily sensations. until now, you've only ever used it to cause pain. but now, stuck in a remote safehouse with bucky for the next few months, tension crackles between you. when you finally confess that your ability can also bring pleasure, he looks at you differently, more than a little curious to experience it first-hand. 

nothing but hunger [~400 words] bucky x reader being stuck in a blizzard causes bucky to reveal some information about his time as the winter soldier

letters of devotion - band au [6.4k words] ** drummer!bucky x waitress!reader you sent filthy, anonymous letters and nudes to the drummer of your favourite band, never expecting he’d read them. never expecting he’d keep them. never expecting he’d show up at your diner one night, more than eager to fulfil your fantasies.

hide & seek - thunderbolts* au [4.6k words] ** tb*!bucky x fem!reader a simple game of hide and seek for bragging rights turns heated when you and bucky cram into the same hiding spot.

[bruisedsoupp-deactivated2026020]

thinking about bestfriend!steve  ༝

it really did start with “just making out.” one tipsy movie night at his place, you’re both laughing about how long it’s been since either of you got laid, and suddenly he brings the idea up, “…wanna practice? like—purely hypothetical. so we don’t embarrass ourselves next time.” you roll your eyes but you’re already shifting closer. first kiss is clumsy and giggly. second one isn’t. by the third he’s got you straddling his lap on the couch, big hands squeezing your thighs, kissing you like he’s starving and you’re the only thing on the menu.

he’s the one who first suggests “prepping you.” says it so casually: “just wanna make sure you’re taken care of if some asshole ever gets lucky, y’know?” fingers you slow and focused on his couch, telling you to “relax, baby, i’ve got you” every time you tense up. he’s annoyingly good at it—watches your face the whole time, asks quiet little questions like “this okay?” and “here?” until you’re shaking and soaking his hand, whispering his name like a prayer.

the first time you return the favor he tries to act chill about it. fails miserably. you’re on your knees between his spread thighs, his jeans shoved down just enough, and the second your mouth touches him he lets out this broken “fuck—sweetheart—” and his head thumps back against the wall. his hand ends up cradling the back of your head—not pushing, just holding—like he’s scared you’ll disappear if he lets go. he comes embarrassingly fast and spends the next ten minutes apologizing and kissing you stupid.

after that first blowjob there’s no going back to “just friends.” now every sleepover has an unspoken rule: clothes come off at some point. he eats you out like it’s his new favorite hobby—spreads you on his bed, hooks your legs over his shoulders, groans into your cunt every time you pull his hair. calls you “pretty” and “perfect” against your clit until you’re crying his name.

he gets possessive in the quietest ways. starts leaving hickeys in places your work clothes can’t hide. when you whine about it he just smirks and goes “good. let ‘em know you’re taken care of.” you call him a caveman. he fucks you harder that night.

the first time he slides inside you raw (after weeks of “just the tip” torture), he almost blacks out. buries his face in your neck muttering “fuck, fuck, you feel—fuuck, baby—” and has to stop moving completely for a minute so he doesn’t come instantly. you tease him mercilessly. he punishes you by fucking you slow and deep until you’re begging, tears in your eyes, telling him you can’t take it anymore. he still doesn’t speed up—just keeps that devastating rhythm while whispering “yes you can, you’re doing so good f’me.”

you both pretend it’s still casual. you’ll be watching a movie, his hand will slip under your shorts, two fingers curling inside you while he pretends to pay attention to the screen. you’ll be making breakfast in his kitchen wearing nothing but his jersey and he’ll bend you over the counter without a word. neither of you says “i love you” yet—but he fucks you like he’s been in love with you since sophomore year.

he’s obsessed with coming inside you now. every time. growls “gonna fill you up, baby—fuck—gonna keep you dripping with me” while his hips stutter and he pins your wrists above your head. afterward he stays buried deep, kissing you lazy and sloppy, telling you to “just stay for a little while, yeah?”

you’re still “best friends.”

you just happen to be the kind that regularly fuck each other stupid.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

ao3 turns 16 today.

reblog if you’re older than archive of our own

[cursedheartsclub]

hii just curious if the “open” in your asks box thing means your requests are open?? if they’re not feel free to ignore this but if they ARE open, i have a request for a bucky fic/drabble?!

reader who’s been dating bucky for about six months and things are going really well but the pace is slow bc they’re both nervous about a new relationship. reader who hasn’t been with anyone in any capacity in years and things come to a head when one night they’re hanging out and heading to bed and things just…get heated. likeeee 3x05 tsitp bonrad level heated…that scene has me thinking severe insane thoughts and i need to see something similar with bucky 😭😭🙏

not sure if you’re still writing for bucky? but your bucky works were how i originally found you (though i’ve stayed for clark and joaquin and you’ve even got me reading your john works (which is crazy bc i’m not usually a john gal!)) and your writing is INCREDIBLE!! i look forward to having a second between life and work to sit down and read your new stuff whenever u publish hehe i like your fics to save them to find them again later :)) anyway! hope you’re having a good week and i love your work!!

The night feels ordinary in every way until it doesn’t.

It’s late. Later than either of you intended. The TV is still on, low and flickering, casting muted color across the bedroom walls. You’re tucked under the blankets, side by side, the weight of the day pressing pleasantly into your bones. There’s nothing unusual about this moment: you’ve done this dozens of times over the past six months. Six months of dinners, of movie nights, of easy silences that don’t feel heavy. Six months of slow, careful touches that always stop just shy of burning.

You roll onto your side, already smiling at the sight of him. Bucky’s lying on his back, hair loose, chest rising in a steady rhythm. He looks so relaxed it makes your heart ache; a man who’s spent decades wound tight finally soft enough to rest. His gaze slides toward you, and the corners of his mouth twitch up into that small, private smile he reserves just for you.

“Hi,” you whisper.

His voice is rough from sleep when he answers. “Hi.”

You lean in for your goodnight kiss, nothing new, nothing dramatic. Just the usual brush of your lips against his, soft and certain, a ritual you’ve both come to depend on. But this time, he doesn’t pull back.

His hand lifts, palm cupping your cheek, thumb stroking gently along the line of your jaw. The touch is warm, grounding. Instead of letting the kiss end, he deepens it. Just slightly at first, testing, his lips parting to catch yours again. Then a little more, tongue brushing yours with a careful hesitation that makes your stomach flutter.

The sound you make is low, muffled, buried in your chest. It slips through the cracks of his restraint. The sound he makes in response? It vibrates into your mouth, down your spine, curling heat in your belly. You shiver, not from cold, but from the raw honesty of it. He wants you. He’s always wanted you. And for the first time, he’s letting it show.

You don’t pull away. You tilt closer instead, fingers curling into his shirt, holding him there. That small act of permission is all it takes.

The kiss spirals, slow at first, then deeper, hungrier. His thumb trembles where it strokes your cheek. His other hand, the cool weight of metal, rests tentatively at your hip, anchoring you. Your mouths part and find each other again, clumsy with need, your breaths tangling in between. He tastes like mint toothpaste and the faint sweetness of the wine you shared earlier, familiar and dizzying all at once.

By the time you break apart, both of you are flushed, breathing ragged. His forehead drops to yours, damp strands of hair brushing your skin. His chest heaves like he’s just run a mile, but his hands stay steady where they hold you, one cradling your face, the other still hovering carefully at your hip, like he’s afraid to press too hard.

“Not yet, doll,” he whispers, the words rough and aching. His lips ghost against your temple as he says it, like he’s apologizing and pleading all at once. “Don’t wanna rush this. Not with you.”

You close your eyes, your own pulse thundering in your ears. You don’t argue. Because you feel it too: the way the line you’ve both been toeing is trembling now, splintering, moments away from breaking.

He kisses your cheek, softer this time, then settles back, pulling you against his chest with a protective arm. His heartbeat thuds beneath your ear, steadying even as yours races on.

Sleep doesn’t come quickly for either of you. Not with the memory of his mouth still burning on yours. Not with the knowledge that tonight, something shifted.

The dam has cracked.

And both of you know it’s only a matter of time before it breaks.

-

The next week feels different.

You don’t talk about that night. Neither of you names it, neither of you dares to poke at the fragile shell of patience that’s barely holding. But it lingers between you, a hum just under the skin, a spark waiting for the right touch.

Every brush of his hand now feels deliberate, even when it isn’t. Passing him in the kitchen, the heat of his palm against the small of your back lingers too long, warm even through fabric. When your fingers graze his while you’re walking together, the contact feels electric, humming down to your bones. You glance at him, and he’s already looking away, jaw tight, ears tinged red like he’s been caught.

It’s worse in the quiet moments.

He stares more often. You can feel it. You’ll be talking, rambling about something trivial, grocery lists or a story from your day, and his eyes flick down, lingering at your mouth. He doesn’t realize he’s doing it until you pause, and then he blinks hard, looking away, embarrassed. The pink in his ears betrays him every time.

And you’re no better. You catch yourself watching the lines of his throat when he swallows, the way his shirt clings across his shoulders, the way his fingers flex unconsciously against his thigh when he’s restless. You ache with the thought of sliding your hand over his, of closing the distance you both pretend isn’t there.

Movie nights are the worst.

You stretch out on the couch, your legs draped across his lap like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He rests a hand absentmindedly on your calf, rubbing small, lazy circles with his thumb. It should be nothing. It is nothing. Except you can feel the tension coiled in him, the rigid line of his thighs beneath you, the way he won’t quite meet your eye when you glance at him.

His thumb slows sometimes, presses harder, then pulls back like he’s caught himself. You bite back a smile, pretending not to notice, though your whole body feels attuned to every small movement he makes.

One evening, you drift off during the second movie. The room is dim, the TV screen flickering blue shadows across the walls, and the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath your cheek lulls you to sleep.

You wake to something featherlight against your hair. His breath first, warm and shaky. Then his lips, pressing the faintest kiss into the crown of your head.

Your eyes stay closed, but your heart stutters.

And then you hear it. His voice, low and frayed, whispered into your hair like a secret he can’t hold in anymore.

“Don’t know how much longer I can be good…”

Your pulse jumps. Heat floods you from the inside out. You keep still, your breathing even, but your entire body feels awake, buzzing. His arm tightens slightly around your shoulders, as if to steady himself, as if he knows he’s already on the edge of something dangerous.

You fall asleep again, eventually. But the words haunt you, burning bright in your chest, refusing to let go.

And you know, with a certainty that makes your stomach twist, that this slow burn can’t last forever.

-

It’s late. The kind of late where the wine in the glasses is more candle than liquid, catching the dim glow of the lamp, softening everything around you. The record player hums in the corner, low and scratchy, some old jazz tune weaving through the silence like smoke. The apartment feels warm, hazy, like the whole world outside has gone to sleep.

You’re cross-legged on the couch, one knee tucked under you, leaning against a throw pillow while Bucky lounges beside you, sprawled with one ankle resting on his opposite knee. He looks undone by comfort. Henley sleeves pushed to his elbows, hair messy from running his hands through it, socked feet tapping faintly with the rhythm.

You’re tipsy, not drunk, enough that laughter comes easier, that the edges of your nerves feel fuzzy. He says something, dry, sarcastic in a way that’s all his, and it pulls a laugh out of you, loud and unrestrained. You reach out without thinking, fingers curling around his forearm.

His arm is solid under your touch, heat burning through fabric, muscle flexing just slightly where you hold him. And you’re still laughing, leaning closer, your face tipped toward his, so close that your breath brushes his cheek.

That’s when it happens.

His mouth is on yours before you can even register the shift. Not careful, not soft. Messy. Desperate. His lips crush into yours like he’s been starving, teeth grazing, tongue sweeping in with a groan that rumbles through his chest and straight into yours.

You gasp into it, the sound torn out of you, and his hand is immediately at your hip, bracketing you, gripping tight like he’s terrified you’ll slip away. His metal hand joins, fingers splayed, cool against the thin fabric of your shirt, steadying you as he kisses you deeper, harder.

“Bucky…” you breathe against his mouth, voice breaking, your hands clutching at his shoulders. “Oh, Bucky.”

The sound unravels him. His groan vibrates against your lips, low and raw, and then you’re moving, he’s tugging, guiding, and suddenly you’re half in his lap, straddling him. His hands slide up your thighs, anchoring you there, while his mouth trails down, feverish, along your jaw, your throat.

He sucks at the soft skin just beneath your ear, his teeth scraping lightly before his tongue soothes over it. The vibration of his groan against your neck makes you arch into him, shivering at the heat pooling low in your belly. You tug at his hair, helpless, and he bites down just enough to make you gasp.

His breath is hot, uneven, words pressed into your skin between kisses. “God, doll… you have no idea what you do to me.”

Your head tips back, eyes closed, every nerve lit up under his mouth. His hands tighten at your hips, sliding you forward until you can feel the press of him through his sweats, hard and insistent. The friction drags a whimper out of you, muffled into his shoulder.

“Fuck,” he groans, snapping his hips up once, reflex, desperation, before catching himself, forehead pressing hard into the crook of your neck. He’s trembling, his chest heaving against yours, hair sticking to his temples.

When he pulls back enough to look at you, he’s wrecked. His hair is mussed, falling loose into his eyes. His lips are swollen, red, glistening. His pupils are blown wide, drowning the blue. He looks at you like he’s barely holding on, like you’re the only thing tethering him to sanity.

“If we keep this up…” His voice is hoarse, guttural. He swallows hard, eyes flicking down to your mouth again. “I’m not lettin’ you outta my bed tonight.”

Your pulse stutters, your breath ragged as you bite your lip, dizzy from his scent. Soap, sweat, wine, him. You whisper it, shaky but certain, “Then don’t.”

He curses, low and sharp, the word vibrating against your skin as he buries his face in your neck again. His teeth graze your collarbone, his breath hot, uneven. His hands tighten at your hips once more, like he’s seconds from giving in, like the dam has already broken.

But then, slowly, with a groan that sounds like it physically hurts him, he forces himself still. His lips press once, soft this time, to your neck. “Next time, doll,” he whispers, his voice frayed, desperate. “I promise.”

You can feel the tremor in his chest, the way his whole body strains against the restraint he’s clinging to by threads. You’re still straddling him, lips swollen, throats slick with sweat and kisses, when he finally pulls you against his chest, holding you there like if he lets go he’ll lose everything.

And you believe him.

Next time.

-

The tower is quiet at night.

That kind of silence you only get when the city’s hum fades into the background, when all the missions and chaos are behind you for a day, when the people who usually fill these halls are finally sleeping.

Bucky’s already in bed when you slip into his room. His lamp is still on, low and golden, casting shadows over his bare arms and the mess of hair falling across his forehead. He looks up, surprised at first, then soft, always soft when it’s you.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks, voice husky from exhaustion.

You shake your head, crossing the room on bare feet. You’re wearing one of his shirts, the hem brushing the tops of your thighs, sleeves swallowing your hands. His eyes track the sight, widening slightly before he drags them back up to your face, throat bobbing.

You slip under the covers, and he makes room instantly, lifting an arm for you to curl against his chest. It’s easy, familiar. You breathe in his scent. Soap, clean cotton, the faint metallic tang that never fully leaves him, and sigh against his skin.

It starts like it always does.

A kiss, soft, slow. His lips brushing yours like they’re checking permission. His hand sliding to cradle the back of your head, thumb stroking your temple. Another kiss, deeper this time. A third, longer, his tongue teasing the seam of your lips until you let him in.

You shift closer, your knee brushing his hip, and his breath stutters. His hands roam carefully, tracing the line of your waist, the curve of your thigh, never greedy, always tentative. Every brush of his fingertips feels like fire.

It should stop there. It always has. But tonight...tonight you can’t.

Your fingers fist in the front of his shirt, tugging, pulling him closer until your chest presses flush to his. You break the kiss just long enough to breathe, “I want this. I want you.”

Everything stills.

Bucky’s body locks beneath you, every muscle coiled tight, his chest heaving. His eyes search yours in the dim light, desperate, vulnerable, afraid. He’s looking for doubt, for hesitation, for any reason to stop.

You let him see it all: the need, the certainty, the ache that’s been building for months.

When he finds no hesitation, something in him breaks. His face softens into something almost reverent, like you’re handing him the whole world. “Okay, doll,” he whispers, voice trembling. “Okay.”

The next kiss is different.

It’s not cautious anymore. It’s deep, consuming, his hands finally gripping your waist like he can’t hold back. He rolls you onto your back, his mouth never leaving yours, kissing you with the kind of hunger that’s been clawing at him for months.

His hands worship you, slow, reverent, hungry. The heat of his palms smoothing over your waist, gliding up your ribs, down your thighs, tracing every curve as though he’s memorizing you piece by piece. His touch is both grounding and maddening, calloused fingers catching on the hem of his shirt you’re wearing, the pads of his thumbs grazing bare skin and leaving fire in their wake.

His mouth follows, scattering kisses like offerings. Across your throat, down the hollow of your collarbone, dragging over your sternum, biting just enough at the curve of your shoulder to make you gasp. Every press of his lips is a prayer, every murmur against your skin a confession. “So beautiful… mine… been waitin’ for this, doll. For you.”

You arch beneath him, body trembling with each brush of his mouth, his beard rasping across sensitive skin. He kisses the edge of your shirt down, nosing at it, groaning when you lift your arms so he can strip it over your head. His eyes rake over you, blue blown wide, pupils swallowing the light, and you swear you’ve never seen anyone look so undone.

“Sweetheart…” His voice breaks, reverent, ruined. “You don’t even know what you do to me.”

Your answer is a whimper, fingers tugging at his hair, dragging him back down to your mouth. The kiss is clumsy, wet, desperate. You can taste the faint tang of wine still lingering on his tongue, mixed with the salt of his sweat, the warmth of his breath.

When his hand finally slides lower, past your ribs, over the soft plane of your stomach, you shiver so hard it makes him pause. He studies your face, searching for hesitation, but you nod, tugging his wrist closer, desperate.

His flesh hand dips lower, knuckles brushing the inside of your thigh. His thumb strokes slow, teasing circles over the thin cotton between your legs, and you cry out into his mouth, clutching at his shoulders.

“Bucky…” His name comes out as a plea, raw and breathless. “Oh, Bucky, please...”

That’s when his restraint splinters.

His mouth claims yours again, bruising and needy, while his fingers slip beneath the fabric, finally touching you where you’re aching most. His groan is guttural, shuddering out of his chest, as though the slick heat of you might undo him entirely.

“Jesus, doll,” he mutters against your mouth, his breath shaking. “So wet for me. Been starvin’ for this…”

His fingers circle slow, deliberate, coaxing you open. Every stroke is patient, almost reverent, as though he’s savoring the way you writhe, the way your hips buck up helplessly to meet him. When he presses one thick finger inside, sliding deep, you sob his name, nails digging crescent moons into his shoulders.

He kisses the tears from your lashes, whispering rough praise between each thrust of his hand. “That’s it, sweetheart. Just like that. Feels good, doesn’t it? Been waitin’ so long to touch you here.”

He works you open carefully, adding a second finger, stretching you wider until you’re keening into his mouth. His thumb circles your clit in lazy strokes, and when he curls his fingers just right, your back bows off the bed.

“Bucky!” you cry, voice hoarse, raw.

He groans raggedly, teeth catching your throat. “Say it again,” he begs. “Say my name, doll.”

“Bucky, please, oh!”

The sound wrecks him. His fingers move faster, plunging deep, pressing against every tender spot inside you until your body is trembling, your hands clawing at the sheets, your mouth spilling broken pleas. The obscene wet sounds of his fingers thrusting into you fill the room, mingling with your gasps, your choked cries.

He never looks away. His gaze is locked on your face, your parted lips, your flushed skin. “Look at you,” he rasps, kissing your cheek, your jaw. “So perfect for me… mine… all mine.”

The room is thick with your gasps, your whimpers, the obscene sound of his fingers working you open. The mattress creaks beneath you both, sheets twisting in your fists as he drives you higher, closer, unrelenting in his worship.

The orgasm tears through you suddenly, violently, your body bowing off the mattress as your cry echoes in the room. You clamp down around his fingers, sobbing his name like a prayer. He groans, watching you unravel, kissing you through it, his tongue tasting every sound you make.

By the time he pulls his hand away, his fingers wet, his breath ragged, you’re trembling, your body aching for more. He shifts over you, his metal hand catching both of yours and pinning them above your head, his weight pressing you down into the mattress.

His forehead drops to yours, sweat already slicking his hairline, his chest heaving like he’s been holding his breath for months. His voice breaks as he lines himself up, the head of him pressing against you, the pressure making you gasp before he’s even inside.

“Gonna take care of you, doll,” he rasps, so low, so rough it’s almost a growl. His thumb strokes your cheek as though the gentleness can balance the raw hunger in his voice. “Gonna give you everything I’ve been holding back.”

When he pushes in, it’s slow. Agonizingly slow. But the stretch makes your body quake. Your breath shatters into fragments, your nails digging crescents into his shoulders. He groans, guttural and wrecked, the sound echoing through his chest where it presses to yours.

“Fuck. So tight, sweetheart,” he mutters, words strained through clenched teeth. “You’re gonna ruin me.”

Your back bows off the mattress, hips rolling desperately to take more of him. Your voice is fractured, holy, a prayer on your tongue. “Bucky! Oh, Bucky, please!!”

That’s what breaks him.

His restraint snaps, shattering like glass under too much weight. His grip on your wrists tightens, pinning your hands to the mattress above your head, metal fingers laced with yours as if anchoring himself to you. His hips roll forward, slow but deep, deliberate thrusts that drag him over every nerve inside you.

Each movement wrings a new cry from your throat. The sound of your gasps fills the room, sharp, needy, pleading, and he drinks them down like air, kissing you between every thrust, his tongue tangling with yours until your head spins.

He kisses the tears that slip from your lashes, tasting your desperation on his lips. “That’s it, doll,” he whispers against your skin, his breath hot and ragged. “Take me. Let me have you. Feels so good. You don’t even know.”

The rhythm builds, slow and deliberate, but each thrust feels like a tidal wave, like he’s burying himself deeper inside you than anyone ever has. His mouth finds your throat, biting lightly, groaning into the slick heat of your skin.

“Mine,” he growls, the word vibrating against your pulse. “Always been mine.”

You writhe beneath him, your body clenching tight, desperate for more, and he groans raggedly, forehead pressing back to yours. “You’re killin’ me, doll. Rolling those hips like that. You’re gonna drive me insane.”

Your name is a broken plea on his lips, and his is a prayer on yours, spilling again and again. “Bucky, please, don’t stop. Oh god, Bucky!”

The wet, obscene slide of him inside you mixes with the creak of the mattress, the slap of skin, the shaky breaths and choked cries that tumble from you both. The air is heavy with sweat, the faint salt of it slick on your skin, his hair sticking damp to his temples as he ruts into you with slow, devastating precision.

When your orgasm crests, it’s overwhelming. Your back arches high, hands straining against his hold, body clenching so tight around him that you sob his name like it’s the only word you know.

“Bucky—oh, fuck—Bucky!”

His head drops to your shoulder, and his cry tears out of him, raw, broken, strangled as he grinds deep, spilling inside you, hips stuttering against yours. His body trembles with the force of it, clutching you so tightly it’s as if he could fuse you together.

Even then, he doesn’t let go of your hands. His grip is steady, unyielding, his mouth pressing frantic, reverent kisses into your damp skin. His voice is hoarse, ruined, but sure as he murmurs, “Always wanted you. Always gonna want you.”

And you hold him just as tightly, both of you trembling, both of you undone.

The dam is gone. The flood swallows you whole.

[cursedheartsclub]

Oral History

clark kent x reader

Summary: Clark Kent is sweet. Respectful. Barely swears. Which is why you cannot stop thinking about what his ex drunkenly told Jimmy Olsen at trivia night: that Clark, apparently, is an oral god.

You try to ignore it. You spiral. You investigate. For journalism. Obviously.

Word count: 12k

T/w: 18+, mdni, reader is down horrendous lmao, Slow burn, friends to lovers, investigative journalism, a very thorough confirmation of the rumor, oral f. receiving, fingering, journalism banter, penetrative sex, overstimulation, mild dom!Clark, praise kink

“Wait. Clark?” You ask, staring across the bullpen unsure if you misheard or if Jimmy Olsen really just said what you think he did.

He doesn’t even look up from his slice of sad, congealed pizza. Just shrugs casually like he didn’t just drop a nuclear bomb on your conversation. “That’s what she said. The man’s apparently… gifted.”

There’s a full moment of silence where even Lois stops typing and starts processing what just left Jimmy’s mouth.

You slowly set your pen down. “Gifted,” you echo. “As in…?” But you already know. You’re just stalling. Hoping there’s a punchline. A twist. A clarification that doesn’t make your brain combust.

Jimmy, ever the menace, waggles his eyebrows. “Orally gifted.”

Lois makes a strangled sound behind her monitor. “Jesus Christ. Smallville? Really?”

“Right?” Jimmy says, too pleased with himself. “Trivia night. That bar over on Ninth. His ex got three margaritas in and just—boom. Confession central. She said she’s still not over him. Said no one compares. Said she…well, I won’t quote directly, but it involved sobbing and phrases like ‘life-altering’ and ‘transcendent tongue.’”

You stare at him.

“Clark Kent?” Your voice cracks on the second word.

Jimmy grins. “Clark ‘Aw Shucks’ Kent. Wouldn’t’ve believed it myself, but she was very convincing.”

Across the room, Lois mutters, “My therapist is going to love this.”

You don’t respond. You’re too busy staring down at your notes, except your eyes are unfocused and your brain is a runaway train with no brakes.

Clark Kent.

Your coworker. Your friend. The man who still says “golly” unironically. Who blushes when the vending machine snacks get stuck and he has to ask for help. Who holds doors, compliments dogs, and types like he’s afraid the keyboard might get its feelings hurt.

That Clark Kent?

Gifted?

Like… mouth gifted?

You shift in your chair. Something about the word makes heat crawl up your neck.

You remember the way his lips part when he’s concentrating, when he’s reading a copy upside-down or over your shoulder. The way he bites his pen cap when he’s thinking. The way his mouth wraps around his spoon at lunch, slow and absentminded, like he’s not even aware of what he’s doing.

You shake your head. No. Absolutely not. This is a trap. A weird joke. There’s no way your sweet, clumsy, six-foot-four cinnamon roll of a coworker is secretly a sex god. It’s Clark. He blushes when you compliment his ties.

He says gosh darn it when he drops things or accidentally says something that could be perceived as even slightly mean.

But still…

Now you’re picturing it.

Clark on his knees, glasses slightly askew and fogged over, mouth open and reverent. Hands steady and strong. His voice low and coaxing. You’re doing so good, sweetheart. Just let me do all the work—yeah, just like that. So good for me.

You press your thighs together under the desk.

Lois is watching you. “You okay?” She asks.

You nod too fast. “Fine. Great. Normal. Completely normal.”

Jimmy keeps talking. Something about how the trivia night spiraled, how the bartender had to cut the ex off after she started rating Clark’s technique by category: pressure, consistency, enthusiasm.

You barely hear it. Your ears are ringing loudly. It’s like your brain is buffering.

You suddenly remember every time Clark has murmured something soft near your ear, every time his voice dipped an octave when he said your name. The time he caught you in the rain without an umbrella and insisted on walking you home, water soaking through his shirt, hair curling against his forehead. And you didn’t even look. Like a saint.

But you’re looking now. Retrospectively. And respectfully (sort of). In high definition.

Lois snaps her laptop shut. “Okay, I’m leaving before this spirals into something I can’t un-hear.”

Jimmy is laughing. You don’t move.

Clark texts the group thread a few minutes later:

Press conference ran long. Want me to bring back snacks?

You stare at the message. It might as well say Want me to ruin your life with my mouth?

Lois types back chips and anything chocolate. Jimmy sends a GIF of a raccoon stealing an entire pizza.

You don’t reply. You literally can’t. Your hands are slightly shaky and your brain has conjured up a very detailed image of Clark Kent’s head between your thighs under your desk, barely fitting his large frame beneath the wood, and now everything’s ruined.

-

Later, when Clark shows up holding a grocery bag, rain-damp and smiling like he didn’t just waltz into the middle of your psychological unraveling, you can barely look at him.

The newsroom door swings open with a quiet hiss, wind curling at the threshold. He steps through it like something out of a slow-motion montage. Glasses fogged at the edges, dark curls damp and clinging to his forehead, coat shoulders darkened by rain. He’s flushed from the walk, a faint red climbing his cheeks, and he’s got that same boyish, bashful look he always wears when he thinks he’s done something thoughtful.

He’s holding a grocery bag like it’s an offering.

You sit very still behind your desk, fingers stilling over your keyboard as he approaches.

“I wasn’t sure if you were still here,” he says, voice warm and slightly breathless, like he jogged the last block. “But I figured… just in case.”

He reaches into the bag, rustling plastic, and pulls out a bottle of your favorite drink. The obscure seasonal one you can never find. The one the gas station down the street practically only stocks one of since you can rarely get your hands on it.

“They were almost out,” he says, smiling as he hands it to you. “Got the last one.”

(What you don’t know is that he flew to several different gas stations just to find you that one drink.)

His fingers brush yours when you take it. Just the barest contact. Skin against skin, warm and calloused and impossibly gentle. Like even now, even after however many late nights and coffee runs and shared glances across the bullpen, he’s still afraid he might hold you too hard and scare you off.

And that shouldn’t do anything to you. It’s just Clark. Sweet, considerate, hopelessly dorky Clark.

But your brain, traitorous and hungry, flashes to the way Jimmy said it. Gifted. The way she apparently sobbed at trivia night. The way Clark’s mouth looked just a little pinker than usual, lips parted as he caught his breath.

You don’t meet his eyes. Your grip on the bottle tightens like it might anchor you back to sanity.

“Thanks,” you murmur. Your voice sounds wrong in your own throat. Too soft. Too high. Like someone caught in the middle of a daydream they really weren’t supposed to be having. “That’s… really nice of you.”

He smiles wider. “You always look for it when we do snack runs. Figured I’d do the legwork.”

You nod and think you might pass out at the thought of giving him some leg work.

You don’t hear what Lois says as she stands to pack up, taking her snacks from Clark. You don’t hear Jimmy teasing something under his breath. Your ears are filled with static and Clark’s presence. His warmth, his scent (something clean, like rain and cedar and laundry detergent), the faint scrape of his nails against the paper bag as he adjusts it in his arms.

“I’m gonna…” You gesture vaguely toward the hallway. “Bathroom.”

He nods, stepping aside. Ever the gentleman.

You practically flee.

The moment the door shuts behind you, you press your palms flat to the cool porcelain of the sink and lean in hard. You don’t look up yet. Not when your chest is still heaving like you ran a mile and your thighs are clenched tight in a desperate, involuntary ache.

You turn the faucet on and thrust your hands beneath the water, cold and sharp as it rushes over your wrists. It bites your skin, a jolt to the nerves, but it does something. Not enough to make you sane again, but enough to stop your knees from giving out.

The mirror mocks you when you finally dare to look.

You’re flushed. Lips parted. Eyes glassy with thoughts that have nothing to do with press conferences or deadlines or articles still sitting in your drafts folder.

You breathe in deep.

You are not going to think about it anymore.

You are not going to let a dumb rumor derail your professionalism. You are not going to picture his mouth anywhere near your thighs. You are not going to think about how big his hands are or how good he is with them or how they’d look spreading you open or how his ex apparently still cries when she thinks about the way he—

You squeeze your eyes shut.

You are a grown woman. You are a professional journalist. You have deadlines and standards and no time for spiraling horniness over your best friend’s mouth.

You are not going to fantasize about Clark Kent.

You open your eyes and stare yourself down in the mirror.

You’re a liar.

And your hands are still trembling.

-

“You’ve been weird around Clark lately.”

“Have I?” you ask, too fast.

You sip your coffee to avoid elaborating. It’s cold. Empty. You’ve just been pretending to drink it for three minutes. You can feel Lois’s stare over the rim of your mug like a sniper scope.

You try to play it cool, but cool is a word you no longer understand. Not when Clark shows up each morning with damp curls and soft smiles and low “mornin’, sweetheart” murmurs that hit you like a fucking tranquilizer dart to the spine. Not when he hums while stirring sugar into his coffee or pushes his sleeves up to the elbow to carry a box of papers and you catch yourself staring at the veins in his forearms like a woman unhinged.

He hasn’t done anything wrong. Not really. If anything, he’s being his usual Clark self! So sweet and soft-spoken, relentlessly considerate. And maybe that’s the problem. You’re not used to your best friend occupying space in your head like this. Not used to the way your thoughts stutter every time he bites into something juicy. A peach, a plum, the fucking cherry from Lois’s yogurt cup. You’re not used to the way your thighs ache when he accidentally sucks a bit of pen ink off his finger and you catch the briefest glimpse of tongue, pink and wet and God-fearing.

You try to be normal but you overcompensate. Hard. You bring him drinks. Compliment his shirts. Tease him for being a square like you always do, except this time, when you say, “God, you’re such a Boy Scout,” it comes out breathless and weird and he looks at you sideways like he heard something you didn’t mean to say out loud.

You’re careful. Okay. You try to be careful. But it only takes a few days for your brain to short-circuit permanently.

At one point, you and Clark are drafting headlines side by side, shoulders brushing, low banter, his voice soft in your ear, and when he leans in behind you to whisper a suggestion, your whole body shivers. Visibly. Pathetically. Like a haunted Victorian maiden.

He pauses, his voice warm at your nape as he whispers, “You cold?”

You bolt. “Bathroom. Sorry!”

He doesn’t press. He never does. He’s too polite. Too good. Too Clark.

The mirror is once again your enemy. Cold water on the wrists doesn’t help this time. Nothing does.

You try to last a few more days. You try not to think about it. You fail every hour. Every time he smiles at you. Every time he tugs his glasses down a little to rub at his brow or frowns in concentration or licks the salt off a pretzel. You are haunted. You are in hell. You are wet at work and it is his fault.

That night, you fold. You press your face into your pillow and slip your hand beneath the waistband of your sleep shorts and imagine. His voice. His mouth. His hands gripping your thighs, firm and reverent. Whispering things into your skin. I got you, baby. You just let go for me. Want to be good for you. And when you cum—fast, hard, embarrassingly desperate—you feel the shame roll in like thunderclouds.

Clark is your friend. Your coworker. He looks out for you when you’re sick and once helped your grandma reset her water heater because he just knows how to do stuff like that.

And apparently other stuff.

With his mouth.

Fuck.

You are so. Incredibly. Doomed.

But then your brain does what it always does when it can’t stop obsessing. It reframes. It rationalizes. It weaponizes curiosity.

You are, after all, a journalist.

You chase leads. You vet your sources. You fact-check until your eyes bleed. You are trained to notice patterns and contradictions, to sniff out truth from noise, to dig through dirt and disinformation and find the core of something. And what you have now? What you’ve been given?

Is a lead. A whispered rumor. A salacious, staggering, potentially life-altering claim.

Clark Kent. Clark, your walking golden retriever of a coworker, the man who once blushed because you said he looked “nice” in navy blue, is apparently a legend with his mouth. A God-tier, Olympic-caliber, “no one else compares” type of lover.

You’ve heard it now. Can’t unhear it. Can’t unknow it.

You’ve run the mental diagnostics. Tried to make the data match the subject. Tried to rewatch the internal slideshow of Clark in his natural habitats: pressing his glasses up his nose, saying “golly,” covering your coffee tab with a sheepish shrug like it’s a felony.

None of it aligns. None of it should align. And yet…You’ve seen his hands. Long fingers. Gentle touch. Steady grip. You’ve seen his lips. Full. Soft. Focused. You’ve heard that voice, when it dips low and careful, when it wraps around your name like it’s something holy.

And maybe, maybe, the puzzle pieces do fit. Not in the way you’d expect. Not in any way you’re prepared for. And that’s when it hits you like the crash of a wave you didn’t see coming: the sheer, staggering need to know. Not want. Not wish. Need.

It’s practically professional at this point.

You sit at your desk in the ghost-quiet newsroom, half-eaten takeout beside you and the buzz of fluorescent lights overhead, and your brain starts composing headlines like it’s on deadline.

“Mild-Mannered Reporter, Midnight Mouth Maestro.”

“Clark Kent and the Case of the Devastating Cunnilingus.”

You rub at your temples. You’ve lost it. You’re gone. Broken. The Pulitzer’s never coming now. God, at this rate you might never come either. Not without thinking about Clark Kent’s mouth.

But still, you lean back in your chair, heart thudding against your ribs like a warning bell, and let the thought settle. There’s only one way to know for sure. No secondhand testimony. No assumptions.

You need evidence. A primary source. First-person observation.

For science. For journalism. For the truth.

The phrase echoes in your skull like a siren song: Clark Kent eats pussy like a champ. And somewhere in the deepest, most depraved corner of your mind, a little voice. your inner editor, probably, says, Well… if you don’t report this story, someone else might.

You close your eyes.

You inhale.

You exhale.

You whisper it like a prayer. Like a plea. Like a final descent into madness, God help me.

Because you are going to seduce your best friend.

You are going to investigate his mouth and you are going to write the hell out of this story.

Even if it ruins you.

Especially if it ruins you.

-

You start small.

A skirt hem an inch shorter than usual. Nothing scandalous, just enough to make you feel aware of the breeze against the backs of your knees. A touch of lipstick, warmer than your usual shade. The kind that makes your lips look just a little bit bitten.

You start brushing your fingers against him in passing, accidental, then… less accidental. A casual hand on his forearm when you pass him a printout. The press of your fingers at his wrist when you reach for the same notepad. A palm flat between his shoulder blades as you squeeze by behind him, your body lingering just a second too long before you move on.

You stretch at your desk, arms overhead, spine arching. Completely overexaggerated, very theatrical. You sigh dramatically. He glances up and you pretend not to notice.

You lean over his desk during edits, purposefully slow, aware of how your blouse dips, how the fabric gapes just a little at the neckline when you angle your shoulders forward. You feel his eyes. See them flicker, just for a moment to your breasts, and then dart back to his screen.

It’s subtle at first. Barely a flutter in the newsroom’s carefully balanced ecosystem, but it’s deliberate. Calculated. A controlled experiment in desire.

You lace conversations with carefully planted landmines. A well-timed, “I just think communication is everything, you know? Especially when it comes to giving, not just receiving. It’s important when writing, too, duh, Kent.”

A “good partners are the ones who really listen. Just like good interviewers.”

A “sometimes, it’s not about how fast you go. It’s about how thorough you are. In an investigation, what else would I be talking about?”

All dropped like casual observations. All while sipping from your coffee cup like you haven’t just flung a match into dry brush.

Clark always blinks. Always takes just a moment longer than necessary to respond. He hums, or nods, or tilts his head like he’s considering it. Like he knows you’re playing a game and hasn’t quite decided whether or not he wants to play it too.

Clark plays dumb. At first.

He says things like “Gee, you think so?” when you compliment him in front of Lois. Grins when you call him charming, like he’s never heard the word and is still trying it on for size. He shifts in his chair when you lean close, laughs under his breath when you call him a goody two-shoes, and taps his pen against his knee like he’s working something out.

But then he starts doing things back. He starts calling you sweetheart again, but slower now. Smoother. He says it when no one else is around. Says it like it’s a question, like he’s waiting to see what it does to you.

He starts brushing his hand along your lower back when he passes you in the hallway. Not every time. But when he does, it’s always just enough for you to notice and ache.

And one day, after a long stretch of shared silence, you’re chewing on your pen cap, brow furrowed over copy edits and legs crossed tight in your chair, and he leans over your shoulder, his breath warm on your neck.

“Careful with that,” he murmurs, voice low, soft as felt. “Dangerous habit.”

You freeze. The pen slips from your teeth. His voice curls around the back of your neck like smoke.

You turn your head, look up, and he’s smiling. Soft. Knowing. The kind of smile you’ve seen him use exactly once before when a source lied straight to his face and he already had the receipts.

Your stomach flips.

Because he knows. He knows. And what’s worse? He’s letting you think you still have the upper hand. He has to be. There’s no way he doesn’t.

You spiral. Quietly. Elegantly. Desperately. You start watching him even more closely. The way his mouth curls around vowels. The way his tongue darts out when he’s thinking. The way he drinks from his water bottle, tilting his head back, throat working, Adam’s apple bobbing with every swallow. You stare at his hands when he types. When he peels an orange. When he passes you a napkin with one corner folded like a triangle for no discernible reason.

You start dreaming about him.

Not always dirty. Sometimes it’s just him. Holding your hand. Brushing your hair behind your ear. Whispering your name in the dark.

But other nights it’s his mouth. Hot and firm and everywhere. Between your legs. On your stomach. Lapping into the soft place where your thigh meets your hip and telling you things like you taste so good, sweetheart, and don’t you dare run from me now.

You wake sweating and shaking, your sheets twisted and damp.

You think about calling in sick. But then you think about Clark, warm and smiling in the elevator, holding your favorite coffee, saying “morning” like it’s a secret, and you go in anyway.

You’re in too deep. You’re too far gone. And the thing that’s unsettling you the most is that you’re starting to like it.

-

You keep pushing.

A weekend happy hour turns into one too many drinks, one too many shared plates, one too many half-flirtatious “cheers” that clink too close to comfort. You’re buzzing, warm and slow in the limbs, your body syrupy with good whiskey and bad decisions, slouched into a booth with Lois and Jimmy while the bar spins softly around you.

Clark had been invited but he’d been sent on a last-minute assignment and couldn’t make it. You’d pretended not to be disappointed. You’d definitely pretended not to imagine what it would’ve felt like to slide into the booth beside him, legs pressed together, your thigh warm against his in that tiny, accidental way that would’ve driven you insane.

Instead, you’re nursing your third drink and laughing too loud at something Jimmy said about a printer jam when your phone buzzes in your hand. A text from him. Clark, asking if everything went smoothly with the event write-up.

You glance at the screen and smile.

You mean to text Lois. You really, truly mean to text Lois.

Your fingers are slow. Sloppy. Buzzed and traitorous as they move across your screen. The keyboard slides a little and autocorrect isn’t on your side and… your drunken hands are no longer attached to your fucking brain. They’re attached to your traitorous cunt.

Clark Kent texted me. The Oral God. It’s the glasses. I know it is.

You hit send.

Your brain doesn’t process what’s happened at first. It takes a second, two, maybe three, for the fog of whiskey to clear just enough to read the blue bubble again.

And then you see it.

The name at the top.

Clark Kent.

You freeze. Horrified. Paralyzed. You stare down at your phone like it’s just grown fangs. Your entire body flushes with heat. Scalp prickling, chest clenching, stomach plummeting like a trapdoor just opened beneath you.

“No,” you whisper. Out loud. “No no no no no.”

Jimmy’s talking. Lois is laughing. The world carries on like you haven’t just detonated a bomb in your own lap.

You watch the message sit there. Taunting. Bright and unedited and unmistakable. And then the fucking typing dots appear. Three little dots. Bouncing. Mocking.

You press a hand to your mouth like that might somehow physically keep the scream in. You are going to pass out. You are going to combust. You are going to become legendary newsroom lore.

Your phone buzzes again.

Is this about that trivia night thing?

You make a sound. It’s not human.

You want to melt into the floor. Crawl under the table. Launch yourself into the sun. Anything would be better than sitting here red-faced and holding your phone like a live grenade.

You try to fix it. You fire off a string of panic-texts that only make it worse

LMAO

joking

meme reference

I saw a TikTok??

Ignore me hahaha

whiskey brain!!!

that was actually Jimmy not me you know he his hahahahahahahahah

You punctuate the shame spiral with not one but two cry-laugh emojis. Two. A war crime. Something you’ve never done in a professional setting. You should be disbarred from journalism on principle.

Your phone buzzes once more.

One final reply.

Got it 😉

You stare at it. A single winky face. So casual. So simple. So loaded. You don’t know if you want to scream or faint or cry into your mozzarella sticks.

He doesn’t follow up. Doesn’t tease. Doesn’t drag you. But he also doesn’t let you off the hook.

You toss your phone face-down onto the booth bench and press your hands to your eyes. You are never drinking again. You are never texting again.

And most importantly? You are never showing your face at the Daily Planet again.

-

And after that? The game changes.

Clark starts really teasing back.

Not crudely, he’s still Clark, still gentle, still maddeningly polite in that Kansas-boy kind of way, but there’s a new edge to it. A weight behind the way he says your name. A flicker in his eyes when you lean a little too close. He lets your touches linger now and doesn’t shy away. Doesn’t flush and stammer and change the subject. No, now when your hand brushes his arm or rests against the small of his back in passing, he holds still. Leans into it. He lets it happen long enough to feel it.

There’s something else, too.

A change in his voice when you talk about relationships, especially when you let your sentences trail, when you say things like “I just think… being understood is more important than anything. In a relationship, I mean. Someone who listens, someone who pays attention to details. Someone who…”

You don’t have to finish the thought because when you look up at him, his gaze is locked on your mouth. Focused. Intent. Like he’s trying to memorize the curve of your lips, like he’s picturing them parted. Open. Responding.

It rattles you. But worst than that? It excites you.

The tension stretches between you like something alive. Something volatile. You poke at it with your words, and he starts poking back.

And then, one afternoon, it breaks a little more.

You catch him in the hallway, fresh off a phone call, tie loosened, hand raking through his hair in quiet frustration, and something in you tips. Maybe it’s the way he exhales. Maybe it’s the way his sleeves are rolled to his elbows, forearms flexing as he cradles his phone in one hand. Maybe it’s the residual heat of that winky-face text still echoing in your bones.

You press your palm to his chest, flat. It’s curious but it’s more than that… it’s deliberate. Not playful anymore.

The cotton of his dress shirt is warm beneath your hand. You can feel the slow, steady thump of his heart under your fingers, so solid and unbothered. Like he’s entirely in control. Like you’re the one who needs a reality check.

“Why do you always disappear during breaking news, Clark?” you ask. Your voice is light, but there’s something behind it. Something quiet. Something investigative.

He freezes, but not in panic. Not in fear. No, it’s calculation. For a second, something flickers across his face. Not guilt. Not surprise. Awareness. Sharp. Focused. Like a wire pulled taut.

His brow lifts slightly, mouth quirking at the corner. “You asking as a friend…” His voice dips. Just a touch. “Or a reporter?”

You tilt your head. You’re still touching him. Your palm is still flat to his chest, your fingers curled slightly against the fabric. He smells like clean soap and newsroom paper, like rain and static and something inherently Clark. Familiar. Steady.

Dangerous.

“Both?” you offer, smiling sweetly.

He chuckles, but it’s quieter than usual. Rougher. The sound curls low in your stomach. “Thought you were investigating the mouth thing, Bernstein.” He smirks a bit, leaning closer to your personal space, “Or Woodward. Whichever one was better at getting to the bottom of things.”

Your hand drops like it’s been burned.

He grins. Sharp. Easy. Devastating.

“So you do know about that,” you say, trying to keep your voice from shaking.

“Hard not to,” he replies. “After the wrong text thread.”

The silence between you thickens. You swear he’s looking at your lips again. Or maybe that’s your imagination. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s—“It was for science. Or, investigative journalism?” you blurt, cutting off your mental reverie.

His grin doesn’t falter. “I’m sure it was.”

He doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t tease or press. But as you start to walk away, your pulse still thrumming in your ears, you feel his heavy gaze slowly land on your back.

And when you glance back over your shoulder you catch him looking. Boldly, openly. His eyes flick down your body, then lift to meet yours. No apology. No embarrassment.

Just interest.

Intention.

It’s subtle, but it undoes you. Because Clark Kent knows.

And he’s starting to enjoy it.

-

Then comes the charity gala.

It’s a haze of champagne flutes and low lighting, all glittering gowns and polished marble floors. The kind of evening where you’re supposed to make nice with board members and whisper the right things to the right people and maybe snag a quote for Monday’s column. You’d worn something new, sleek and dark and fitted, maybe a little too bold for a work event, but tonight feels… different. The air is charged, and Clark’s in a black suit that fits too well and smiles too softly every time someone compliments your dress.

You lose him for most of the night. You’re working the room, laughing at half-interesting jokes, trying not to check the door every time someone walks in.

You don’t remember how it happens. Who reached first. Who asked.

One moment you’re sipping the last of your champagne near the edge of the dance floor, your heels aching and your body buzzing from a flirtation that’s been running on fumes for weeks and the next, there he is.

Clark Kent. In his tux. Glasses pushed up the bridge of his nose. A crooked smile on his mouth as he holds out a hand.

“You look like you need rescuing,” he says. His voice is warm. Steady.

“Wow, a real superhero,” you tease and take his hand before your brain can catch up to your body.

The music is soft. Something old-fashioned and slow. Strings and piano and a rhythm that tugs you gently into his space. His hand slides to your waist, broad and warm through the fabric of your dress, and your palm finds his shoulder as he pulls you in, easy and unhurried, like you’ve danced together a hundred times before.

He hums along under his breath. Not words, just the melody. Low and rich and dangerously close to your skin.

You’re close enough to smell him. Something like cedar and soap and quiet rain. Something that sinks into your bones and stays.

With every sway, your chest brushes his. Barely there. Barely touching. But it makes your breath hitch all the same. His thumb traces a slow, absent pattern over your hip, lazy, circular, grounding, and it should be innocent. It should be.

But it’s not.

Your skin is on fire. Your lungs are tight. You can feel the heat of him everywhere, seeping through the thin fabric of your dress, blooming low in your stomach, dizzying and slow.

“Careful,” you murmur, not quite looking at him. Your lips barely move. “You keep holding me like this, people are gonna talk.”

Clark’s hand shifts slightly at your waist, holding you closer, firmer. Still gentlemanly. Still polite. But there’s a message in the way his fingers press through the fabric. A message you’re desperately trying not to file under Exhibit A: Intent to Destroy Me Gently.

“Let ’em,” he says, smiling like it’s harmless, dimple popping cutely. Like you’re not melting from the inside out. “You’ve been asking a lot of questions lately. People might already be talking.”

You raise an eyebrow, trying not to show how your knees are already halfway to gone. “Just doing my job.”

“That so?”

“I’m a journalist, Kent.” You tighten your grip on his shoulder, lean in like it’s casual. It’s not. “It’s my duty to investigate rumors.”

“Oh, is that what this is?”

“Mm-hm.” Your voice drops, low and pointed. “I’m looking into a particularly… compelling story, as you know.”

He hums. “You gonna quote your source?”

“Only if he consents to an interview.”

A flicker of something darker shines in his eyes. He leans in, mouth brushing just behind your ear now, and you can feel him smile.

“Well, then,” his voice is velvet. “On the record… I’m a very good listener.”

Your heart skips. You keep your voice steady, but barely. “And off the record?”

His breath hits your skin. “Off the record…” His grip tightens ever so slightly. “You’d never doubt it again.”

Your knees buckle. It’s involuntary. Embarrassing. Heat rushes to your face, down your spine, straight between your legs, and he knows. He catches you instantly without faltering, without blinking, like he was waiting for it.

You’re clinging to his suit jacket like it’s the only solid thing in the world.

You manage, somehow, to breathe out, “You can’t just say stuff like that.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes sparkling behind his glasses, lips still too close to yours. “Off the record,” he murmurs again, “I can say whatever I want, Ms Journalist.”

And then the song ends.

He releases you slowly, deliberately, like he’s rewinding time. Like it never happened. Like he didn’t just crack open your ribcage and whisper into your soul.

He smiles politely. Bids you goodnight and walks away.

And you stand there, dazed, vibrating, ruined, clutching your recorder of a brain and praying it got it all down.

-

Later that night, you find yourself nursing your drink at the edge of the ballroom, your body still humming from the dance and doing your absolute best not to replay every second of it on loop like some starry-eyed teenager with a crush.

It’s not working.

“Okay.” Lois slides up next to you, wine glass in hand, smirk firmly in place. “You’re gonna let him take you to dinner at least, right?”

You blink. “What?”

Jimmy appears on your other side like a devil on your shoulder, expression matching Lois’s far too well. “She means Clark,” he says, popping a grape from the cheese table. “Mild-mannered reporter. Looks like he belongs in a Norman Rockwell painting. Just slow-danced you into a different dimension.”

“I-,” you start, then stop, heat crawling up your neck. “It was just a dance.”

Lois raises her brows. “Sure. And I’m just a Pulitzer finalist.”

“She was glowing,” Jimmy says, eyes wide like he’s narrating a true crime reenactment. “I’ve seen less sexual tension in French film noir.”

“Her knees buckled,” Lois adds helpfully. “I saw it happen.”

You groan, bury your face in your hands. “You guys are the worst.”

“Wrong,” Jimmy says brightly. “We’re your friends.”

“And friends don’t let friends ignore when their soulmate’s ready to risk it all in front of a nonprofit board of directors.”

Before you can respond, snark, deflection, a halfhearted plea to please never say “soulmate” again, Clark reappears.

His cheeks are flushed. His curls are damp at the temples. His bowtie is slightly askew. And there, thank God, is the version of Clark you recognize: the one who looks like he’s never felt fully comfortable in formalwear, who gets bashful under group attention, who still straightens his glasses like a nervous tic.

“Hey,” he says, ducking his head as he approaches. “What’d I miss?”

Lois practically pounces. “Nothing major. Just Jimmy and I dissecting the devastating sexual chemistry between you and our dear friend here.”

Clark stammers. “Oh. I, uh…Lois!”

Jimmy claps him on the back. “Relax, Kent. We’re just saying, if this journalism thing doesn’t pan out, you’ve got a solid backup career as a ballroom heartthrob.”

Clark’s face turns scarlet. He fiddles with his watch. Shrugs. “I-I was just trying not to step on her feet.”

You bite your lip. Something inside you aches.

Because this is the Clark you know. The one who gets flustered when you compliment his writing. The one who nervously adjusts his tie at press events. The one who talks to dogs on the street like they’re people and never lets you carry your own coffee if your hands are full.

This is your best friend.

But tonight, on that dance floor… that wasn’t just your best friend. That was someone else too. Someone confident. Grounded. Intentional. A man who pulled you into his arms and whispered things that still have your thighs clenching hours later. A man who knew exactly what he was doing and what he wanted.

And suddenly it hits you.

Not a flutter. Not a nudge.

A crash.

You like him.

You really like him.

And not just in a he’s hot and sweet and might be secretly incredible at oral way. Though, yes. That is a factor. But it’s more than that.

It’s everything.

It’s the way he dances. The way he listens. The way he catches you before you fall, even if he’s the one who made your knees go soft in the first place.

You want to know all the pieces of him. Not just the sweet ones. Not just the blushing, too-big-suit-jacket-wearing-wearing ones. You want to know what else he’s been hiding. What else he’s capable of. You want to know the man behind the glasses and the one behind the whisper.

You want all of it.

You’re so fucked.

Clark smiles at you then, small, warm, a little nervous, and your heart actually stumbles.

You smile back.

But god help you, you might be in love with your best friend.

-

The night after the gala, you don’t go home right away.

Instead, you and Clark end up where you always seem to find yourselves when everything else quiets down. Up high, away from the newsroom chaos and the noise of the city below. The rooftop of the Planet is half-rusted and windswept, the skyline cut clean against the dark. You’re both coming down from a half-botched stakeout. No source. No leads. Just cold fingers and coffee gone stale in your thermos.

The wind tugs at your coat, slipping under the hem to bite at your legs. You burrow into it a little tighter, eyes on the streetlights far below.

Beside you, Clark stands with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, coat unzipped like the chill doesn’t touch him. You wonder if he feels it at all. Probably not. His cheeks are pink from the air, hair tousled from the wind, but he looks relaxed. Calm. Like he could stand there all night.

Which is annoying.

But also hot.

Infuriatingly hot.

You glance sideways at him. “You’re holding out on me.”

He turns his head, brow furrowed, lips twitching. “About what?”

You lean back against the ledge, arms crossed. The city stretches behind you like a live wire. “Your legend,” you say simply. “Oral God Kent. I’ve yet to confirm any findings.”

For a second, his expression doesn’t change. But then his mouth curls like he’s surprised you’re still playing the game and maybe a little impressed that you haven’t flinched yet.

He looks away again, back toward the skyline. “Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places.”

You pretend to take notes. Flip your little pocket notebook open dramatically and click your pen. “Clark Kent: evasive source. Potential deflection tactic,” you glance up at him, all mock-seriousness, “flirtation.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. It’s low and short and curls in your stomach like smoke.

“I don’t flirt.”

“You do with me.”

That silences him. For a minute, all you can hear is the wind rushing over the rooftop, rustling the collar of your coat, tugging at the edges of the moment like it wants to unravel it completely.

Then he looks at you. His eyes are soft. Glasses catching the reflection of a passing plane. Lips parted like he wants to say something he hasn’t let himself say before.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I do.”

The words hit harder than they should. Maybe it’s the stillness around you. Maybe it’s the honesty in his voice, calm, certain, without bravado.

He flirts with you. You know that. You’ve been baiting him to. You’ve been bending this line so far for so long you almost forgot you were the one holding the tension.

But this? This isn’t teasing. It’s a confirmation.

An invitation.

You feel it in your throat. Tight. Hot. You hold his gaze. “You know I’m not gonna stop until I get a quote.”

He tilts his head. “A quote about what?”

“Your performance,” you smile slowly.

His breath catches, just barely. You catch the shift, the subtle way he stands a little straighter. The faint glint of something dangerous flickering behind his eyes.

“You want me to… verify the rumor?”

“I’m a journalist,” you say, voice light, tone not. “I believe in sourcing my claims.”

“And you think I’m going to just give that to you?” he murmurs, stepping a little closer. “Off the record?”

“Not give.” You look up at him. “Prove.”

The wind swirls between you, sharp and cold, but you barely feel it anymore.

Clark’s close now. Not touching, but enough that the air feels thinner. His coat flutters around his knees. His hands are still in his pockets. He’s not doing anything. And yet, you can feel him.

The warmth radiating off him. The pull of him.

The want.

And then he does something that makes your pulse spike. It’s barely a movement, but enough. He tilts his head slight and smirks.

“Sweetheart,” he says, voice low and careful and ridiculously effective, “If I gave you that story…” His eyes drop to your lips. Stay there. “You wouldn’t have the words left to write it.”

You swallow loud and hard. Your voice is hoarse when you speak again. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“Does it?”

You nod. Barely.

His gaze doesn’t leave your mouth. “You sure you’re ready to find out?”

Your heart stutters. And then, as if some cruel part of him knows you’re right at the edge, right at the tipping point, he steps back half a pace. His hands are still in his coat pockets. Smile soft. Eyes gleaming.

“Let me know when the story’s ready to run,” he says simply. Then he turns, walking back toward the stairwell.

You’re left at the ledge, breath shallow, body trembling, notebook still open in your hand. The wind cuts across your cheek.

You don’t move for a long time because Clark Kent just flirted with you like it was breathing. Because Clark Kent just promised something without touching you.

Because you want him.

And now? There’s no pretending otherwise.

-

It was supposed to just be your weekly run. Perfectly innocent, your regular post-work run. Originally it had been Clark’s idea after you complained about not enjoying running alone because of nerves. And it wasn’t his first idea either. He’d had plenty of others, especially recently. Like walking home instead of taking the train. Like splitting a coffee and pretending it isn’t a date. You’d said yes too quickly, barely thinking, like your body trusted him more than your brain did.

You’d forgotten what it feels like to run next to someone like Clark. Like gravity shifts to make room for him.

The first half is completely harmless. You’re sweaty and breathless. The run is filled with the kind of laughter that feels safe in your chest. You keep pace with him on principle, even though it’s killing you.

And then the storm breaks. No warning. No distant rumble. Just the sky cracking open above the skyline, sharp, fast, and angry.

Sheets of rain slam down, soaking through your clothes in seconds. Your tank top sticks to your skin. Your sports bra gives up entirely. Leggings glued to your thighs. Your shoes squelch with every step. Water beads down your face and into your collarbones.

Clark doesn’t flinch. He just reaches for your hand, quick, firm, and steady, and pulls you with him.

You’re laughing as you run. Laughing because this is so stupid and so cold and so unlike you. But he’s laughing too. Mouth wide, glasses fogged, hair darkened and dripping across his forehead as he tugs you around a corner and into his building’s stairwell, both of you panting, soaked, and more alive than you’ve felt in a long time.

By the time you make it to his apartment, you’re shivering. The door clicks shut behind you, and your whole body jolts from the sudden change. The heat inside presses close, wrapping around your limbs like a towel just pulled from the dryer.

His place smells like him. Cedar. Warm laundry. A faint note of books and something darker, something earth-deep and low and safe. You’ve been here before, but tonight it hits different. Tonight, it feels like stepping into his chest. His heartbeat. His gravity.

“You’re gonna freeze,” he says, already moving, always moving. He disappears down the hall and you hear him rummaging through drawers. You picture him pulling out towels and clothes until he returns with something soft that looks like a flannel in one hand and a towel in the other. “Here. Get out of those. I’ll throw them in the dryer.”

You start to protest. Some nonsense about modesty. Boundaries. Sanity.

But he turns to you, his eyes soft behind fogged lenses, hair curling at his temples, holding out the flannel that’s threadbare and worn at the collar. “I won’t peek,” he says earnestly, voice so kind it knocks the breath out of your lungs.

So you do it.

Like an idiot in love.

You peel your clothes off one piece at a time, the fabric sticking to your skin. You keep your back to him, just in case, even though he’s already disappeared into the other room. You towel off quickly and slip into the flannel. It’s soft and worn, sleeves long enough to swallow your hands. The hem hangs low enough to skim the tops of your thighs. It clings in places from the leftover rainwater on your skin. You don’t bother with pants. It doesn’t occur to you to feel shy in this moment as your damn ovaries seem to override your rational thought processes.

You roll the cuffs up and sit on his couch. You try to breathe through it. Down girl, you think to yourself. But the scent of him is everywhere. On your skin, in your hair, wrapped around you like a second body.

His body could be wrapped around you, an evil little voice whispers in your mind. It sounds suspiciously like Jimmy Olsen, who started this whole damn mess.

Taking a loud deep breath, you tuck your legs under you, fingers pressing into the fabric at your stomach like maybe if you hold it tight enough, it’ll quiet your heart.

When he returns, he’s drying his hair with a towel. His sweats cling low on his hips, and the shirt he’s wearing is the same soft gray cotton, rain-soaked top he had on outside. And it’s clinging. It’s so thin it might as well be a second skin. It outlines the lines of his chest, the slope of his shoulders, the cut of muscle along his arms like a sketch.

He stops in the doorway when he sees you.

You look up, flannel riding high on your thighs. Your legs bare. Damp in places that have nothing to do with rain and everything to do with him.

His breath catches.

You stare at each other, and the silence hums between you. It’s electric.

You could speak. You should. You could joke. Could make a crack about the weather. Could talk about how soaked your socks were, or the way your mascara probably looks like war paint. You could thank him. You could ask for your clothes.

But you don’t.

Because you’ve been pretending for weeks. Laughing through it. Flirting through it. Circling this thing like it hasn’t been waiting for you to make the first move.

But now? Now your skin is buzzing. Your lungs are tight. And the way his eyes flick from your face to your bare legs and back again makes you ache.

Because this is the moment. You feel it. Something inside you snaps and this time, you don’t stop it.

So, you say it outright.

“I want to know.” It’s not loud. It doesn’t need to be. The words come softly, barely above the crackle of rain still ticking against the window, barely enough to cross the space between you. But they land like a drop into still water.

Clark stills, and for a moment, you think maybe he won’t move. That maybe you’ve said too much. Pushed too far.

But then slowly he crosses the room. His steps are quiet. Unhurried. Like he doesn’t want to spook you, like he’s approaching something sacred. His eyes never leave yours, and when he reaches you, he doesn’t speak. He just sinks to the edge of the couch beside you, body close but not crowding, and lifts one hand to your jaw. His fingers are warm and steady. They brush against your cheek like he’s checking to see if you’re real. His thumb drags along your bottom lip, feather-light. You feel his breath before you feel his mouth, and by the time he leans in just enough for his forehead to touch yours you’re already shaking.

“I don’t want to wonder anymore,” you say, quieter now. “I don’t want to guess.”

He’s so close now, his knee brushing yours, his other hand settling carefully on your thigh. You feel the weight of him. The warmth of him. The way the air around you seems to shift just from his presence.

He searches your face slowly. Like he’s memorizing it. Like he’s trying to find the edge of your breath. The line between teasing and truth. He licks his lips and swallows. His thumb strokes once more over your cheek before his hand drops to your waist, firm and steady.

“If we do this,” he says gently, “we don’t go back to pretending we’re just friends, sweetheart.”

Your throat tightens. It doesn’t sound like a warning. It sounds like a vow. A choice you’re both making now that the thread between you has been pulled too tight to ignore.

You can’t think about anything except his hand on your leg. The way he’s watching you. The memory of your fantasies about his mouth between your thighs is like a livewire just beneath your skin.

“Okay,” you say.

His brow lifts, just slightly. “Okay?”

You nod. “Yeah.”

He studies you for another second. “You’re sure?”

And for the first time in weeks, you don’t flirt. You don’t deflect. You just meet his gaze and say the only thing that feels true.

“Yes.”

And then you kiss him.

It starts slow, tentative, and testing. A soft press of your lips to his, like a question you’re terrified to ask. He’s warm, gentle, steady beneath your mouth. Familiar in the most unfamiliar way.

And then he answers. With his hands. With his mouth. With the quiet groan he lets slip as he deepens the kiss.

His grip tightens on your waist, and you gasp softly as he shifts, pulling you into his lap. One smooth movement, like it’s instinct, like he needs you there. Your knees come up to either side of his hips, and suddenly he’s beneath you, solid and sure, and your chest is pressed to his.

He kisses you like he’s been waiting for this. Like it’s the only thing he’s wanted to do since the moment he met you.

You roll your hips once and he groans against your mouth, full-throated and unrestrained, like the sound’s been buried deep for too long.

His lips drag along your jaw, down the slope of your neck. “You don’t know,” he murmurs, voice rough. “You have no idea what you’ve started.”

Your breath shudders out of you. “Then show me,” you whisper. “Please.”

He pulls back, just enough to look at you. His pupils are blown. His cheeks flushed. His glasses are fogged at the edges and slipping down the bridge of his nose, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“Off the record?” he asks.

You nod. You’re light headed already and barely breathing.

“Then lay back,” he murmurs, eyes locked on yours, voice low and certain. “And let me give you the evidence you’ve been looking for.”

Your body obeys before your mind does. You shift back onto the couch cushions, heart pounding, limbs loose with want. The flannel slips down your shoulders and pools beneath you like soft surrender. You’re left in just your panties, chest rising and falling as he kneels between your legs like you’re something he’s about to worship.

He takes his time. Doesn’t rush. Doesn’t gloat. Just eases his hands up your thighs like he’s memorizing the shape of you. His glasses are still on, slipping slightly down his nose, fogging faintly, but he doesn’t take them off. Doesn’t even seem to consider it. He just looks at you, really looks, like he’s been dying to see you like this. Like he’s starving.

He bends and kisses the inside of your knee. Then higher. Then again. Again. The kisses climb your thigh, slow and warm and open-mouthed, until his breath ghosts over the thin, damp fabric of your panties. You jolt. His grip firms on your hips.

“You okay?” he asks softly, voice steady.

“Clark,” you whisper. “Please.”

That’s all it takes. He mouths at you through the fabric, and you gasp, body arching, hands flying to his hair. The first long lick sends a bolt of heat down your spine, and the second has your thighs clenching around him instinctively. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t falter. Just licks again, slow and certain, like he already knows exactly what you like.

Then he pulls back, eyes dark behind his glasses.

“Can I…?”

You nod frantically.

He slides your panties down, slow and careful like he’s unwrapping a gift before tucking them into the pocket of his sweats. And then he sees you, completely and totally bare, and groans. It’s a low and wrecked sound. Like he wasn’t prepared.

“Gosh,” he whispers. “You’re…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. He just lowers his head and presses his mouth to you like he’s been aching for it, like the world won’t spin right until he gets his tongue on your cunt and learns the shape of your pleasure by heart.

Your gasp isn’t just a sound. It’s ripped from you, involuntary, like the air itself gave out. Your hips jerk. Your legs tense. Your hands scramble for something, anything, to hold on to.

His tongue licks a slow, deliberate stripe through your folds, and your whole body arches like it’s being tuned to him. He groans at the taste like he’s just had the first bite of something forbidden and holy.

And then he does it again.

And again.

And again, until you’re shaking, until your thighs are trembling against his broad shoulders, until your head tips back and your breath leaves you in soft, shattered little moans that don’t even sound like you.

When his mouth closes over your clit, it’s gentle at first, testing, teasing, reverent. But the flicks are so precise. So rhythmic. So confident. Like he’s listening to your body, your breath, your broken little cries and following each one like sheet music.

You tangle your fingers in his hair and tug. He groans into you and the vibration makes you see stars.

His hands tighten. One anchors your hip, grounding you with strength that borders on desperate. The other presses firm and steady against your lower belly, holding you down like he knows you’re about to fly apart. That you need something to keep you tethered when it happens.

And it does.

You shatter.

Not slow. Not soft. You come like he’s pulled the truth out of your body with his mouth. Like your soul recognized his tongue and decided to rise to meet it.

It hits like heat lightning, sharp and sudden and white-hot, flashing behind your eyes and ricocheting through your limbs. Your thighs clamp around his head. Your fingers claw at his shoulders. Your back bows off the couch as his mouth never leaves you, riding the wave with you, through you, for you.

And even as your breath hiccups, as your muscles spasm and your voice breaks around a ragged moan of his name, he doesn’t stop.

His mouth lowers. His fingers slip inside you.

It’s slow and careful. The thick press of one finger first, his thumb stroking your hip, voice low and grounding, “Breathe, sweetheart.”

Then a second, stretching you open so gently you feel like you might fall apart just from the patience in it.

And when he curls them, your hips buck. The pressure is perfect. Devastating. His tongue finds your clit again in the same moment, suckling, circling, teasing you until your thighs shake and your mouth falls open with a choked sound that could be a sob.

He hums when he hears it. He likes it. You feel the low vibration of it in your core, feel it echoing against his fingers buried deep inside you. His pace doesn’t change. It builds. Grows. Deepens. Like he’s tuning you to the edge of something greater.

You’re clinging to his hair now. His shoulders. The couch. Yourself. But it’s too much and not enough and please don’t stop, and he doesn’t, not even as you pant, “Clark, oh my god, Clark! Please! ”

He lifts his head just a fraction, lips slick, voice hoarse.

“One more.”

You don’t think you can. You try to tell him, your mouth opens, but no sound comes out. Your body is already shaking. Too much. Too sensitive. Too everything.

But he just whispers again, mouth hot against your thigh, “C’mon, sweetheart. I know you can. You’re doing so good. Just one more. Give it to me.”

You break again. The second orgasm tears through you. bigger, deeper, dizzying. Your spine arches. Your thighs quiver. Your eyes blur with tears you hadn’t even realized were coming. You cry out for him, gasping his name like it’s the only word you remember how to say, like it’s your anchor to the earth.

He doesn’t stop. Not yet. His fingers keep curling inside you, working you through it, coaxing more and more and more until you’re sobbing, full-body, hiccuping sobs that melt into moans.

You think he says your name then. You think he kisses your hip. You think you say something too, about wanting him, but it’s a blur, everything soft and shuddering and electric.

And then he lifts his head. His glasses are fogged, hair mussed, lips red and wet and slightly parted. His hands are still on you. One at your hip. One cupping your thigh like he’s afraid you’ll float away.

He looks at you and brushes his thumb gently beneath your eye. “You just said…” he starts, voice hoarse, quiet, wrecked. “You said you’ve wanted this forever.”

You freeze. Your heart stops in your chest. You blink. Blink again. “I did?” you breathe, barely above a whisper.

He nods, gaze steady. Gentle. “You did.”

You should lie. Say he must have misheard you. You should laugh. You should say it was the orgasm talking, that you didn’t mean it, that this was just about the rumor, the curiosity, the investigation. But the truth is in your skin. In your chest. In the way you’re still trembling beneath his hands.

“Yeah,” you whisper. “I have.”

His smile is soft. Not cocky. Not surprised. Relieved. Like he’s been holding his breath for months and finally, finally, gets to exhale.

“You should’ve said something,” he murmurs.

You look at him. This man who knows your take out orders at more restaurants than you can count. Who saves your favorite snacks from the vending machine. Who leaves notes in your desk drawer when you’re having a bad day. Who just brought you to your knees without asking for anything in return.

“I did now,” you say, voice cracked and full of something else now.

You reach for him again and this time when he kisses you, slow and deep and filled with promise, you don’t pretend it’s about anything else. You’re the one who sighs into him this time. Loosens. Melts. Your fingers curl at the nape of his neck, and his arms slide around you. The heat of him seeps into your skin like sunlight.

He pulls back, forehead to yours, and whispers, “Come with me?”

Your nod is barely there, but it’s all he needs. He lifts you like it’s nothing, like you weigh less than a breath. One arm under your knees, the other across your back, and his eyes never leave you as he carries you down the hall. You tuck your face into his neck and inhale him, letting yourself be held.

His bedroom smells more like him than the living room did. The rain still taps against the windows, soft and rhythmic now as opposed to the heavy sheets earlier, as he sets you down on the mattress with the kind of care that makes your chest ache.

He kneels beside you. Fingers brushing your cheek. Still a little breathless. Still looking at you like you’re a miracle he didn’t believe he deserved.

“I’ve wanted this,” he says quietly, like it hurts to get out. “You. Us. For a long time.”

You blink, throat tightening. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He lets out a breath, half-laugh, half-sigh, and ducks his head, sheepishly. “Because you’re… you. And I’m just… well, me.” His hand curls at the back of his neck. “I didn’t think you saw me that way. And then…” He looks at you, brow furrowed with a tenderness that floors you. “You started teasing about the rumor. And I didn’t know if it was real. If you wanted me, or just… the idea.”

“Clark,” you start but he silences you with a chaste kiss.

“I didn’t want to ruin what we have.” His voice is low now. Barely there. “Didn’t want to give you a reason to leave.”

You sit up and take his hand, lacing your fingers through his. “I didn’t want to risk it either,” you whisper. “But I’ve been falling for you the whole time we’ve been friends.”

His blue eyes go soft, shining lightly behind his glasses. He leans in and kisses you like the world outside the bedroom doesn’t exist. And when he pulls back, voice wrecked and reverent, he whispers, “Let me love you now.”

“Please,” you nod.

He kisses you again like he’s learning your mouth from the inside out, deep and slow and filthy. Tongue sweeping against yours, steady and patient, even as your nails catch at the hem of his damp t-shirt. You’re reminded in that moment how you’re already bare and trembling. Still wet with everything he’s already given you. And he’s… completely clothed.

And now, you want him. All of him.

“Too many clothes,” you whisper against his lips, panting as your hands tug his shirt up.

But he doesn’t let you pull it off just yet. Instead, he pins your hands to the bed, gently and firmly, and drags his mouth down your throat.

“Not yet,” he murmurs, lips warm against your pulse. “I like seeing you like this.”

You shiver.

“Completely bare,” he says, pressing a kiss to your collarbone. “Completely mine.”

You groan, arching up into him. He still hasn’t taken a single piece of clothing off, and the contrast is killing you. Your naked body against all that soft cotton, his glasses still on, his shirt sticking to the curve of his back.

“You’ve been driving me crazy,” he says, dipping his mouth lower. Kissing between your breasts. Down your ribs. “Every time you smiled at me like you didn’t know what you were doing. The shorter skirts. Touching me in the office.”

“I did,” you breathe. “I knew exactly what I was doing.”

He laughs quietly, the sound coming out completely reverent, and kisses your hipbone. “Mmhm,” he murmurs. “Knew you did.” Then he moves back up, crawling over you with slow, deliberate grace, until he’s above you again, his body a solid heat over yours.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says softly. “You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this. How many nights I had to stop myself.”

You reach for him again, fingers dipping under the waistband of his sweats. “Then stop stopping,” you whisper. “I want you inside me. Now.”

His breath hitches but he listens. He stands, eyes never leaving yours. and finally strips. T-shirt peeled off over his head. Glasses set gently on the nightstand. His sweats and boxers sliding down long, muscular legs until he’s completely bare in the low lamplight.

And God. You’ve imagined, sure. But nothing could’ve prepared you for the sight of him like this. All smooth skin and broad shoulders and hard cock standing flushed and heavy against his stomach, thick and aching ans curved and already leaking at the tip.

Your thighs fall open instinctively.

He groans at the sight.

“Touch me,” you whisper.

He kneels on the bed again. One hand stroking his cock with slow, lazy pumps, while the other caresses up your thigh.

“I’ve thought about this every night for so long,” he says, breath ragged. “What you’d feel like. Sound like.” He lines himself up and looks at you, one last question in his eyes. One last chance to stop.

“Please, Clark,” you whisper with a nod.

And then he slides in, one slow inch at a time. So painfully slow, stretching you open like he’s trying to carve his name into your body.

You gasp. legs trembling, hands clutching his back. He moans as he bottoms out, forehead dropping to yours.

“Jesus baby, you’re so tight. So, so wet. Fuck,” he pants. You’ve never heard him swear like that. It wrecks you almost as much as his mouth had earlier.

He stills inside you, breath trembling, body shaking. “I’m not gonna last long,” he whispers. “You feel too good. too perfect, I’m sorry. I want to last longer for you.”

“Don’t be,” you breathe, his words making you clench around his thick cock, causing you both to let out loud groans. “Just move. Please, Clark.”

And when he does it's not fast. It’s not rough. It’s everything you’ve ever needed. Each stroke is deep and slow and reverent, like he’s trying to fuse your bodies together. His mouth never leaves your skin, pressing kisses to your jaw, your throat, your shoulder. One hand cradles your head. The other slips between your bodies to rub slow circles over your clit again. And it’s too much. It’s perfect.

“Can’t believe you’re mine,” he murmurs. “Been in love with you since the first time you smiled at me.” Your heart stutters. Your body arches. He thrusts deeper. “Wanted you every damn day,” he says, voice shaking. “And now…now you’re under me, around me, and I just,” you clench harder, nails digging hard into his back as you arch up into him, legs wrapping tightly around his hips, ankles locking against his ass. “Fuck, sweetheart, don’t… don’t do that, not if you want me to last.”

You gasp his name. Tears prick your eyes again not from pain, not from pleasure. From everything. From him. “I love you,” you whisper, the words falling out like a confession you didn’t mean to speak. You cling tighter to him, snapping your hips to meet his in perfect time.

“I know,” he whispers, eyes soft and devastating. “Me too.”

And then he kisses you through your next orgasm. Kisses you like he’s sealing it in your skin. Like he’ll never let it go.

His thrusts start to falter shortly after your orgasm. You feel it in the way his hips stutter, the way his breath catches on a broken moan against your throat. His hands tremble where they hold you, one tangled in your hair, the other gripping your hip like it’s the only thing anchoring him to this moment.

“Oh gosh,” he gasps, “baby…sweetheart, so good. Feels so good, all for me.”

You press your heels into the backs of his thighs, pulling him deeper, wrapping around him tighter, wanting to feel every second of him unraveling.

“Cum for me,” you whisper, voice frayed and reverent, your fingers stroking up the nape of his neck, threading through damp curls. “Want to feel you. Want to keep you.”

That does it. He breaks. With a choked cry, your name torn from his throat, he buries himself to the hilt one final time and cums hard, his whole body tensing above you as he spills inside you. Heat floods you, thick and warm, and you hold him through it, clutching, kissing, whispering his name over and over until the tension melts from his limbs.

He collapses on top of you, full-bodied and shaking and undone, forehead resting against yours, sweat-slick skin pressed to yours, breath ragged as he tries to catch it.

You stay like that for a long time. Breathing each other in. Letting the room tilt gently back into quiet.

Eventually, he kisses your cheek. Then your nose. Then your jaw. He shifts off of you carefully, like he’s afraid you’ll break, but only long enough to pull you against him again, your back to his chest as he spoons around you.

You sigh in content. You’ve never felt so warm, or full, or safe. And then he moves you again a few minutes later, like that wasn’t a good enough way to feel you against him. He turns you, gently guiding you onto his chest. You go willingly, melting against him like it’s your favorite place in the world. Which it might be now that you’ve experienced it.

His arm wraps around your back, hand stroking lazy, soothing lines up and down your spine. His other hand rests on your thigh where you’ve thrown it across him like you’re staking a claim.

He huffs a soft laugh when he feels it.

“Yours now, Ms Journalist?” he murmurs, teasing.

“Was there ever a question?” you mumble, lips brushing against the curve of his pec as you press a slow, possessive kiss there. He lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh. Almost a prayer. His fingers slide into your hair. Stroke gently. Lovingly.

You close your eyes.

The rain outside softens to a whisper and somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, you fall asleep on his chest, warm and full and his.

-

The morning unfolds in amber. Sunlight pours through the slats of the blinds, casting lazy golden stripes across the room and over the tangled mess of limbs on the bed.

His skin is warm under your lips. Muscle and softness and the kind of impossible heat that still hasn’t left your bones. He smells like sleep and cedar and you. Like the sweat and slick and sweetness of the night before still clinging faintly to his skin.

He’s already awake.

You can tell by the way his thumb is tracing the bare line of your hipbone in slow, lazy loops. The way his chest rises and falls with practiced calm, his heartbeat a steady rhythm beneath your ear, strong and grounding, like it always is.

“You drooled on me,” he says, voice gravel-rough and low.

You smile against his chest. “Price of admission.”

A soft chuckle rumbles beneath your cheek, not just amused, but fond. Full of something heavier. Something real. His hand slides higher, smoothing over your back, fingertips drawing invisible shapes along your spine.

Eventually, he coaxes you out of bed with a promise of hot coffee and warm breakfast, his flannel shirt exchanged for one of his oversized tees that swallows you and smells like him. You grumble. He grins. And while he disappears to the shower, you wander barefoot into the kitchen, already planning to steal another kiss the moment he returns.

You don’t have to wait long.

He heads straight to the stove when he’s done, barefoot on the tile, hair wet and curling softly over his forehead, the collar of his tee damp from where he towel-dried in a rush. His sweatpants hang low on his hips, clinging just enough to be unfair. The hem of his shirt rides up every time he stretches for the spice rack, revealing a strip of golden skin and the faintest trail of hair that disappears beneath the waistband.

You cross the room without a sound and your arms around his waist from behind. Then you stretch on your toes and press your lips to the side of his neck, right where his pulse kicks up immediately beneath your mouth.

Clark drops the spatula.

You smile against his skin, teeth just barely grazing. “Oops.”

“You’re distracting me,” he says, breath catching mid-word.

“And what are you going to do about it?” You kiss him again. Softer this time. Slower. Just because you can. Tongue darting out to taste salt and warmth, breath pooling over damp skin. You feel him shiver.

“I’m trying to make you breakfast,” he mutters.

“And you’re doing amazing, sweetie,” you whisper, words curling with amusement as your hands slide up under his shirt, palms skimming hot skin. “Five stars for effort.”

He exhales slowly. Then turns. There’s that smile again, sleep-soft, crooked, so damn pretty it makes your stomach flip. You can still see the crease from the pillow on his cheek. His lashes are wet at the tips. His eyes, though, are clear. Bright. Fixed only on you.

“You always this handsy after Pulitzer-worthy investigations?”

You bat your lashes up at him. “Just trying to… fact-check my findings.”

One brow arches. He steps in closer, nudging you gently against the edge of the counter, towering over you, voice dropping an octave. “Anything I can help clarify?”

You drag your fingers down the front of his shirt, stopping just above the waistband of his sweats. “Might need a follow-up interview.”

He hums, like he’s thinking about it. Then lifts you in one smooth, effortless motion, hands warm under your thighs as he settles you onto the counter like you weigh nothing at all. The marble is cold beneath you, but he steps in between your legs, and suddenly all you feel is him, his thighs, his hands, his heat.

Your legs fall open around him without a second thought.

He kisses you then, slow, teasing, the kind of kiss that makes your toes curl and your fingers twist into the fabric of his shirt. His mouth is warm, familiar now, but it still makes your stomach flutter like the first time.

“I have excellent retention,” he murmurs against your lips, “if you want to review last night’s data.”

You laugh, soft and breathless, and bite his bottom lip. “You’re cocky.”

He leans in closer, nuzzling your jaw. “I’ve been reviewed. Oral God confirmed.”

You smack his shoulder. “Stop reading my texts.”

“Mmhm, like you actually mean that,” he grins and kisses you again. Deeper, this time. Filthy and slow. Like you’re the only thing he wants to taste for the rest of the day.

Behind him, the toast burns. Something beeps. Neither of you notice. Or care. Because Clark’s hands are on your hips. You’re tugging at his shirt. And breakfast, apparently, can wait.

-

Weeks later, you’re back in his lap on a Sunday morning, both of you tangled up on the couch with the news playing in the background, a half-drunk mug of coffee cooling on the table.

You’re thumbing through one of his old notebooks, pretending not to read his scribbles, even though they’re suspiciously detailed for a guy who always claims he “just got lucky” with the Superman exclusives. His arm tightens around your waist. You glance up.

“You still investigating me, Bernstein?” he asks, eyes warm behind his glasses.

You smile and kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Always,” you say. “But don’t worry. This one’ll take me a while.”

And maybe it will, because right now, you have no idea he’s Superman.

You just know he’s your best friend and the man you’re in love with. But you will.

Eventually.

[louisandthedagger]

anyways!

[luke-thompsons]

#the entire superman promo was just david being obsessed about star wars

+ bonus

[baenakinskywalker]

[lolobeey]

Unauthorized Response

Thought to myself: Oh, I'll just bang out a quick one-shot and try writing smut for the first time, and it somehow turned into this monstrosity (sorry for the word count)

Pairing: Avengers!Bucky x Scientist!Reader

Summary: The experimental neurobond was an accident. Getting stuck with Bucky Barnes was just your luck. Now you’re linked—body, mind, and something worse: sexual tension. You’ve got 72 hours to resist him. And every hour, it gets harder to remember why you should...

Warnings: 18+ (mdni!). Explicit Sexual Content. Enemies to Lovers. Forced Proximity. Accidental Neurobond. Shared Dreams. Shared Physical Sensations. Angst. Mutual Pining. Female Masturbation. Oral Sex (f receiving), Dirty Talk, Vaginal Sex. Praise Kink. Creampie. Multiple Orgasms. Post Thunderbolts Setting. Fluff.

Word Count: 16k

You’re three sips into your too-hot coffee when you see him.

He’s leaning against the wall outside Lab 4, all broad shoulders and brooding posture, like some kind of noir detective who wandered into a government facility and refused to leave. Tactical black from neck to boots. That infamous metal arm crossed over his chest like it has something to say and no one brave enough to contradict it.

Tall. Sharp. Sullen.

James Buchanan Barnes.

You stop mid-step. Your brain short-circuits just long enough for the lid of your coffee cup to betray you—a small dribble of liquid lava hits the edge of your hand.

“Shit,” you hiss, wiping it on your lab coat. Not the best look, but frankly, it’s not like he can judge. You have your flaws. He has a kill count.

Captain America’s ex-best friend. The Winter Soldier turned Avenger. The human embodiment of a sealed file. Exactly what your overclocked nervous system needs at seven in the damn morning.

You don’t hate him. That would require too much emotional investment. What you feel is more like… persistent irritation mixed with a healthy dose of distrust. He’s everything you resent about agents: cocky, haunted, prone to unpredictable violence, and somehow still glorified in every agency briefing and classified report.

But more than that—it’s the Budapest symposium.

Two months ago, you were presenting a closed-door session on the ethical implications of biometric surveillance overlays in the field. You’d made a case for data-limited neural interface protocols—no deep emotion-mapping without consent, no unconscious tracking. You had charts. Citations. A damn good argument.

And Bucky Barnes? He was in the back row, arms folded, face unreadable. Before the time even came for questions, he stood up and asked—in front of a dozen international regulators—

“Aren’t you just trying to build a better leash?”

The room had gone quiet. You’d gone cold. Because the worst part was—he hadn’t been wrong.

He walked out before you could answer, leaving you to field the fallout with a thin smile and a throat full of fury. You spent the next week drafting three different sarcastic emails you never sent.

So no, you’re not thrilled to see him outside your lab. Especially not looking like a government-issued mistake you’d almost make twice.

“You’re here,” you say once your voice decides to cooperate. You hold your coffee like a weapon—or a shield. “And scowling. Which I think breaks at least two of our site protocols.”

He turns his head slightly. Those icy blue eyes flick toward you, unreadable behind the scruff and the perpetual shadow of something heavier than war. You’ve read the file. But seeing him again in person is different. Less haunted soldier, more statue carved from tension.

“Security assignment,” he says, voice low and gravel-rough. “I’m with you today.”

You blink. “Excuse me?”

“Protocol says highest-risk assets get an escort during internal breach investigations.”

And by ‘protocol’, he means Val.

You stare at him. “I thought that meant someone like Ava. Or Lena. Not…” You gesture vaguely at all of him. “This whole glowering thing.”

He doesn’t answer. Just steps forward, pushes the door open, and holds it for you with exaggerated politeness—like a gentleman or a prison warden. You’re not sure which is worse.

You walk past him muttering, “I’m not a high-risk asset. I’m a scientist who got stuck in the crossfire of a bureaucratic dick-measuring contest.”

He follows close behind, boots heavy on the linoleum. “You designed a compound that links neural responses across two brains. That’s high-risk by definition.”

You spin on your heel to face him. “It was theoretical. You know what theoretical means, right? No human trials. No deployment. No volunteers. The compound is locked down in cold storage with three redundant containment protocols.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“You sound defensive,” he goads mildly.

Your jaw drops. “I sound correct.”

He raises one eyebrow, expression neutral—which somehow makes it worse. “You always this wound up?”

You glare. “Only when former assassins are breathing down my neck before breakfast.”

He gives the faintest shrug, like it’s not worth arguing. You turn away again, heels clicking faster now as you head for the secure wing, hoping you look more in control than you feel.

God, you haven’t even had time to check your email.

The corridor stretches long and bright and sterile, lined with reinforced doors and retina scanners, every square foot designed to scream classified. You reach the final keypad and punch in your code, a practiced sequence that usually calms you. But this morning it just makes your fingers itch.

The door slides open with a quiet beep—

And the air hits you like a punch to the face.

Your nostrils flare instinctively. Sharp. Acrid. A faint metallic tang riding the edge of the ventilation.

Chemical.

You freeze. One second. Two. Your brain connects the dots a hair too late.

Gas.

“No, no, no—”

You drop your coffee—cup and all—and sprint into the lab. Your eyes lock instantly on the containment cabinet against the far wall. The red emergency light above it pulses in warning, casting the walls in sickly, flickering hues.

The cabinet—where the prototype compound is stored under triple-sealed cryo-containment—is open. Not wide. Just… cracked. A whisper of vapor hisses from its seams like breath from a sleeping monster.

You spin toward the door. “Barnes, get the door sealed—”

But he’s already inside, scanning the room, eyes sharp and military-fast, and it’s too late anyway.

The soft whoomp of emergency ventilation kicks in, the system responding to your alert. You stagger as the remaining aerosolized compound bursts into the air in a rapid pressure release—microscopic particles blooming invisible around you like a deadly fog.

You cough. Once. Twice. The taste hits the back of your throat. And then you feel it.

Not panic. Not exactly. More like a tug just behind your ribs. A subtle wrongness threading through your consciousness like a splinter sliding in the grain.

Not pain. Not fear. Something else. Something other.

You turn—and Bucky Barnes is staring at you like you’ve both just heard the same gunshot.

His pupils are blown. His stance off-kilter. He looks—

Connected. Like he feels it too.

“Oh shit,” you whisper.

Because there’s only one thing in that cabinet capable of inducing a shared neuro-emotive feedback loop between two human brains.

And now it isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s happening.

To you. And him. Together.

—-

You’re ushered into quarantine within six minutes of exposure.

By minute seven, your blood pressure has been taken, your pupils checked, and your ego thoroughly trampled by a flurry of panicked lab techs—and one very smug containment officer who keeps muttering, “Told you this was going to happen,” like your entire life’s work exists solely to vindicate his mediocre career.

By minute ten, you’re sitting on the edge of a cot in Isolation Chamber A, glaring through the reinforced glass at James Buchanan Barnes in Chamber B like you can will his lungs to stop working out of sheer spite.

He, unfortunately, looks fine.

“You don’t look like you’re dying,” he says blandly.

You fold your arms. “Neither do you. Tragic oversight.”

He doesn’t smile. Of course not. He just leans back on his cot with that frustratingly composed, ex-assassin posture. Like stillness is a performance and he’s performing it at an Olympic level.

It makes your teeth itch.

“You feel anything?” he asks, casually. Too casually. As if he’s not currently entangled in a theoretical neural tether that was never supposed to reach human trials, much less him.

You hesitate. “Not really.”

Which isn’t a lie. But it isn’t the whole truth either.

Physically, you feel fine. No nausea. No tremors. No limbic misfires. But there’s something else. A buzz under your skin. Familiar, because you modeled it. Dismissible—until it isn’t.

A quiet frequency, just at the edge of perception. Like pressure. Or breath on the back of your neck.

Mental static. Not yours.

“I feel something,” Bucky says. He frowns—an actual expression—and taps his chest once, distracted. “Not pain. Just… something else.”

You arch a brow. “Let me guess. Low-level irritation and the overwhelming urge to be left alone?”

His eyes flick to yours. “Exactly.”

You scowl. “That’s me, genius.”

He blinks. Then frowns harder. “Shit.”

You groan. “Nope. This cannot be happening. Absolutely not. No thank you.”

You stand up abruptly and start pacing. The cot creaks behind you like it also hates this.

Because this is bad. Not theoretically bad. Functionally. You know what the compound is designed to do—and how unstable it gets at full potency. This isn’t an accident. It’s a worst-case scenario.

The door hisses open.

Dr. Yen, the Chief Medical Officer of your division steps in, tablet already lit, lips pressed thin. You’ve seen that look before. It means the results are in, and you’re not going to like them.

“Vitals are stable,” she says. “No visible cellular breakdown. But limbic scans are confirming cross-resonance.”

You close your eyes. “So it’s real.”

“It’s real,” she confirms. “You’re linked.”

Across the glass, Bucky sighs. “Linked how?”

Yen barely looks up. “Emotionally. Neurologically. The aerosolized bond agent was absorbed via mucosal membranes—eyes, nose, mouth. Maximum contact.”

“You’re saying we’re… what? Reading each other’s minds?”

“Not minds,” you say automatically. “Emotional states. Neural fluctuations. Maybe low-level somatic impulses.”

She nods. “Shared dreams are possible. Mirror physiology. Elevated empathy. Possibly even localized reflex responses.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “So if she stubs her toe, I feel it?”

“Not unless your motor cortex overcompensates. Which is unlikely. For now.”

You sit back down, hard. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Yen gives you a dry look. “No, but your name’s still at the top of the protocol. I believe the phrase you used in your original paper was ‘temporary adaptive tethering of live-state neural patterns via synthetic limbic resonance.’”

You mutter, “God, I hate myself.”

“You invented the scientific version of a psychic handcuff,” Bucky says.

You glare at him. “Trust me, if I could break it off and throw it in a volcano, I would.”

He leans back again, exasperated, like this is just another mission gone sideways. But you see it now—underneath the irritation. Not just annoyance.

Curiosity. Amusement. And something quieter that you can’t place yet.

Dr. Yen taps through her readings. “We’re transferring you to Observation Room One. Together.”

“What? Why?” you ask.

“Because separating you could intensify the neurological drift. The bond is responding to proximity—removing it might trigger feedback escalation.”

You blink. “Escalation?”

“Increased bleed. Emotional volatility. Uncontrolled synching. You remember, the time we tested on mice, one started trying to dig a tunnel with its face when the other was removed.”

You stare.

Bucky sighs. “Great. Can’t wait.”

Dr. Yen continues, already halfway out the door. “I’ll monitor for spike activity. Try not to kill each other.”

The door hisses shut behind her.

You look at Bucky. He looks at you. And just like that, the hum gets louder. Not in the room. In your chest. Like the tension between you has grown teeth.

“Don’t talk to me,” you mutter, grabbing your duffel.

He smirks. “I don’t have to. You’re already broadcasting loud and clear.”

“Then prepare to suffer.”

You follow the guards out of the chamber, still vibrating with dread, loathing, and a pressure you absolutely refuse to call attraction.

He falls in step beside you.

And just before the door closes behind you, you hear him mutter, “Could be worse.”

You don’t look at him.

He finishes anyway. “You could be stuck with Walker.”

—

The room isn’t big. Two cots. One bathroom. A table with bolted-down chairs. A surveillance camera blinking red in the corner like a passive-aggressive metronome. The air’s too cold, the lights too bright, and the fluorescent hum drills straight into the base of your skull.

Everything about the room says safe and neutral. Which really means sterile. A trap.

You sit across from Bucky at the table, arms folded tight across your chest, as if sheer compression might keep your thoughts from bleeding into the air between you.

It doesn’t work.

There’s that tug behind your ribs—low, persistent, off. Not pain. Not even discomfort, really. Just… dissonance. Like your body’s tuned to the wrong frequency and can’t stop resonating. Or, more accurately: someone else is doing the vibrating, and you’re just along for the ride.

Barnes stretches out in his chair like he’s got nowhere better to be, shuffling a deck of cards with infuriating calm. His hands move slow and steady. Like he’s done this before. Like it centers him.

You don’t want to know what he needs centering from.

The silence builds, heavy and electric. Until finally, you crack.

“So,” you say, deadpan. “This is awkward.”

He doesn’t look up. Just keeps shuffling. “You think?”

“You’re taking this very well for someone who just got mentally handcuffed to basically a complete stranger.”

His jaw flexes but he only shrugs. “Not the weirdest thing that’s happened to me.”

There’s no bravado in it. Just tired truth.

You sigh. “God. What a comforting standard.”

He cuts the deck with a flick of his wrist, then holds a card out toward you without even glancing up. You narrow your eyes. Then take it anyway.

Blackjack. Of course.

“Is this how you pass time in high-security quarantine?” you mutter. “Gambling with unwilling civilians?”

“You’re not unwilling,” he replies easily. “You’re just pissed it’s your own fault you’re stuck with me, Doc.”

You open your mouth—then close it again. Because the second he says it, you feel it: a jolt of annoyance. Not just yours. A flicker of his, folded inside something steadier. Something infuriatingly composed.

Your irritation rebounds like a ricochet—hits something calm. Anchored. And softens.

You feel it. His quiet, bone-deep stillness sliding under your skin like heat through a vent. Not comforting. Not invasive. Just there.

You stare at him, breath catching. Then drop the card on the table. “God. This is real.”

He finally meets your eyes. “Yeah. It is.”

“It was just a theory. I never meant for it to get to this… But y’know, Val.”

He jerks out a nod. Your pulse kicks. “You can feel me.”

He nods once. “And you can feel me. Can’t you?”

You don’t answer right away.

Taking stock of what’s resonating through your body. A pressure you want to think is just the room, the strangeness of proximity, the humiliating weight of a containment protocol gone wrong.

But it’s not the room. It’s him.

You can feel his focus when he watches you—that heavy, unblinking heat of attention, like standing too close to a silent engine. You can feel his amusement when you snap at him, like your temper tickles something buried and patient beneath the surface. You can feel the effort it takes for him to stay back—to keep his emotional distance while you’re sitting three feet away. Like he’s building a wall in real time, plank by plank. You can feel him trying not to feel you.

Biting your lip, you take a few deep breaths, trying to calm your rapidly rising pulse. It’s intimate in the worst possible way. The kind that makes privacy a joke and pretending pointless.

Every flicker of discomfort. Of defensiveness. Of attraction—

Wait.

Your stomach flips. That wasn’t yours.

It comes in hot and sharp, a spike of want so visceral it knocks the breath out of you. Frustration tangled with something lower. Needier. You haven’t felt anything like that in months, maybe years.

For one stupid second, you want to crawl out of your skin. And then it’s gone. Or suppressed. Or masked. Or—

“You okay?” he asks.

His voice is lower now. Cautious.

You nod too fast. “Fine.”

You can tell he doesn’t buy it. Doesn’t need to. He probably feels the spike in your chest, the flicker of your pulse when it jumps. You’ve lost your poker face. And not because of the cards. God, you are never going to survive this.

“So we're just stuck here?” you ask, trying to steady your voice. “We just sit here for three days and try not to think about anything incriminating?”

He tilts his head, the corner of his mouth twitching. “That’s not really how brains work. And just a gentle reminder—you’re the one who built this little science fair nightmare.”

You groan and bury your face in your hands. “I am going to kill Dr. Yen.”

“She said it’s temporary.”

“She also said we might share dreams.”

Bucky makes a face. “Don’t dream much anymore.”

“Well, I do,” you mutter. “And I don’t need you wandering through my subconscious.”

A beat.

“You think I want you in mine?”

That shuts you up. Because no. You don’t think he wants anyone in there. Not even himself.

The silence settles again. But it’s not empty.

You can feel his discomfort now. Quiet and low-grade. But there. Wrapped around something denser. Guilt, maybe. Something that sticks. And underneath it—just barely—curiosity.

You sit back, exhaling. “We need ground rules.”

“Like what?”

“Like no thinking about sex. Or trauma. Or childhood pets.”

He snorts. “In that order?”

“Especially in that order.”

You catch the edge of a smile before he looks down again, resuming his slow, steady shuffle. The cards whisper against each other like they’re in on the joke.

You try not to notice how your chest feels a little less tight. How the noise in your head quiets when his focus drifts. How the hum beneath your skin feels less like static and more like something alive, because you’re feeling him. And—God help you—he’s feeling you.

— 

The lights never fully shut off. They dim, sure, but the surveillance camera stays on, its little red eye blinking in the corner like it’s watching your soul unravel in real time. The overhead fluorescents are on a slow cycle, just soft enough to lull your brain into thinking it can rest—until the second you close your eyes and they flicker again.

You’re not sleeping. And judging by the restless way Bucky shifts on his cot every few minutes—blankets rustling, jaw grinding—he isn’t either.

The silence is loud. Not peaceful. Not companionable. Just dense. Like the air itself is waiting for one of you to say something that will tip the whole room over the edge.

You’ve tried reading. Tried meditating. Tried breathing exercises, even though you usually hate those with a passion reserved for line-cutters and PowerPoint animations.

None of it helps. Because whatever thin emotional boundary once existed between you and Bucky Barnes has long since dissolved.

His emotions creep into you like fog—quiet, heavy, invasive. You don’t get specifics, not clearly, but the mood is unmistakable. Guilt. Anger. A bone-deep ache compressed into something sharp and humming under the surface.

You feel it. And worse—you can tell he’s trying not to let you.

You roll over for the hundredth time, then give up. Sit up. Rub your hands over your face. The room feels like it’s shrinking. Or maybe it’s just the part of your brain still screaming about boundaries.

From across the room, his voice finally cuts through the quiet.

“You feel that too?”

It’s rough. Quiet. Worn raw from disuse.

You blink into the dim. “The… what? The vague, awful sense that I’m about to start crying for no reason?”

A beat.

“Yeah,” he says. “That.”

You press your fingertips to your temples. “God, is that you or me? I can’t even tell anymore.”

“Me,” he says immediately. “Sorry.”

You shake your head, rubbing your hands down your thighs. “Don’t be.”

And you mean it. Sort of.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” you ask, still not looking up. You’re not sure which one of you will flinch harder at the offer.

He’s quiet long enough that you figure it’s a no. A nerve hit. A wall closed.

Then, “No.”

You nod, the cot creaking beneath you. “Fair.”

A breath passes.

“But I might anyway,” he mutters, so low you almost miss it.

That makes you look. He’s sitting now, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it might disappear if he looks hard enough. His vibranium fingers twitch—absent, reflexive.

“It’s like…” he starts, then stops. You wait. “When I was the Soldier, there were days I didn’t feel anything. Years, probably. Just… silence. Nothing in my head but orders.”

You stay still. Hold your breath.

“And then it all came back. All at once. Like my brain had been hoarding it in a box and someone finally kicked it open. And I couldn’t breathe under it.”

The weight of it lands between you like ash.

“And this?” He looks up at last. His face isn’t cold. It isn’t angry. It’s just tired. Raw.

“This feels like that. Too much. Too close. Like I can’t shut the door.”

Your throat tightens. Because you feel it too—his overwhelm, his fear of being seen, his instinct to slam every door before someone gets inside. It isn’t unfamiliar.

His jaw ticks. His eyes stay locked on yours. “And now you’re in my head."

“And now I’m in your head,” you echo.

There’s a beat before a low, dark laugh escapes him.

“Well. Fuck me.”

You smile—tiny, reflexive. “Tempting.”

His gaze sharpens at that. And instantly, you regret it—not because of the joke, but because of the response it pulls.

Want.

It hits like a shock to the chest. Sudden. Warm. Unmasked. Not lust. Not crude. Longing.

You flinch. Inhale sharply.

He looks away fast. “Shit. That wasn’t on purpose.”

You shoot to your feet, pulse kicking. “You’re not supposed to broadcast things like that.”

“I wasn’t!” His voice rises—gritty, strained. “I’ve been locking everything down since this started. But apparently your brain’s running on the emotional equivalent of a glass wall.”

You stare at him, heat rushing up your neck. “Jesus, Bucky.”

“You think I want you to know that I—” He cuts himself off, jaw clenching hard. Shakes his head like he’s trying to shove the feeling back down his throat.

You cross your arms tightly over your chest. “I don’t want to feel this.”

“Yeah, well, me neither.”

The silence snaps tight. You stand there, two hearts hammering in unison, locked in some terrible emotional feedback loop neither of you asked for. It doesn’t break. It pulses harder.

“I think I need a wall,” you mutter. “A mental one. Like an internal firewall.”

“I tried that already,” he says. “Didn’t hold.”

You look at him. He’s watching you again. Still. And it’s not anger on his face anymore. It’s grief.

“This is a violation of literally every HR protocol in existence,” you mumble, arms still crossed.

“Good thing I don’t work here.”

You snort. It escapes before you can stop it. And you feel it—that flicker of relief from him. Small. Fleeting. But real.

You sit down hard on the edge of your cot. “I’m not good at this.”

“Neither am I.”

“I don’t want you to feel what I’m feeling.”

“I already do.”

You fall quiet. Because, for better or worse, you’re in this together now. You don’t know what’s scarier—that he can feel your loneliness. Or that you can feel his.

—

You’re dreaming.

You know it without knowing how. It’s the stillness that gives it away. Like the air is too weightless, the light too diffuse—nothing casting shadows, nothing fully real. The kind of hush that doesn’t exist in waking life. 

You’re standing in a field you’ve never seen before. It’s not specific. Just green. A meadow with no wind, no scent, no sound. Every color softened at the edges like an unfinished rendering. It doesn’t feel like anything.

And that’s what tells you it’s yours. A liminal space. Peaceful. Barely conscious.

You close your eyes. And that’s when you feel it. A presence. A pulse.

Not in the dream—in you. Tapping against your thoughts like someone knocking softly on the inside of your skull.

Not words. Not movement. Just pressure. Steady. Coiled. Heavy with something unsaid.

Your eyes open. You turn in place, scanning the edges of the field, expecting—Nothing.

But the weight gets stronger. You feel it in your chest. Low. Familiar. Tense.

Bucky.

But you don’t see him. You just know he’s close. Or maybe not even close. Maybe just… bleeding in.

Your dream flickers.

A breeze picks up—impossible in a dream that’s never moved before. The grass ripples once, unnatural and out of sync, like the physics here are starting to break.

Your pulse stutters. And then—

It hits.

The air tears. The color drops. The field vanishes like someone cuts the feed.

And suddenly you’re underground.

A corridor. Narrow. Stained concrete walls. The ceiling is low, the light sharp blue and sterile. The air tastes like iron and rust. You stumble. Your knees scrape. You catch yourself on a wall that shouldn’t be cold, but is. It’s disorienting. Wrong. You know this isn’t your dream.

It’s his.

“Bucky?” you call out.

No answer. But the pressure behind your ribs spikes. You push forward anyway. Each step echoes. Your own, but also—his. Mismatched. Heavy. You turn a corner and see him.

He’s not looking at you. He’s walking in the opposite direction, body rigid, head bowed, like he’s being led. Or dragged.

He’s not dressed like the man you know. No tactical black. No soft tee and boots. Just bare arms and restraints. Fresh bruises. The remnants of blood not his own.

He’s not Bucky. Not here.

You try to speak but your voice fails. He turns the corner ahead. You follow.

The room you enter is stark. Cold. A chair in the center—stripped down and inhuman. Restraints hanging like dead vines. A spotlight fixed directly above it.

He’s standing beside it now, still not looking at you. The air is too still. Too thick. The bond hums so loudly you want to scream. And then he speaks.

“Don’t look.”

You freeze. His voice is quiet. Barely audible. But it’s him.

He still won’t face you.

“Bucky, this isn’t—”

“I said don’t look,” he says again. Sharper this time. A command—not to control you, but to protect himself. To hide. “You don’t want to see this.”

But it’s too late. The dream—his memory—wraps around you like wire. Sharp and invasive. You feel it like it’s your own. Not a picture. Not a scene. A flood.

Pain. Control. The snap of identity stripped away. Screams that echo without sound. The weight of command phrases burned into neural pathways like rot beneath the skin.

You stagger backward. But the bond holds. You feel it all. The moment he gave up trying to remember his name. The moment he forgot why it mattered.

“Please,” he says. He’s still facing away from you. Shoulders tense. Fists clenched.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, tears blurring the edges of the dream.

“This isn’t yours,” he grits out. “You shouldn’t be here.”

You take a step closer anyway. That makes him turn. Not all the way. Just enough for you to see it—his face. Younger. Blank. Terrified.

“I didn’t want you to see,” he gestures to himself. “This.”

“I didn’t mean to,” you say, voice shaking. “I fell asleep and… you pulled me in.”

He winces. Like that makes it worse.

“I tried not to,” he admits. “I’m sorry.”

You reach out, slowly, not to touch him—just to offer your hand. Because right now, you’re in this together. And the bond doesn’t care what either of you want.

His gaze flicks to it. Then to you. His jaw flexes. And he takes it.

The second your fingers touch, the dream shudders. The restraints flicker. The chair vanishes. The floor beneath you cracks—just hairline fractures, like the nightmare is losing hold.

“I’m still here,” you say.

“I know,” he says softly.

And then—

—

You jolt upright in your cot, heart hammering. Breath sharp. Palms sweaty.

Across the room, Bucky sits up just as fast—like something yanked him out of deep water. He’s already breathing hard, sweat darkening the collar of his shirt, jaw clenched like it might hold something back if he just bites down hard enough.

You lock eyes. Neither of you speak. Not at first. The air is thick with something raw and invisible. Or the kind of silence that settles after a confession neither of you wanted to make.

He runs a hand over his face. “So. That happened.”

“Yeah,” you rasp.

You don’t say what that was. You don’t need to. You felt it. Lived it. Not as a witness. Not even as a passenger. As a part of him. And now you can’t un-feel it. Can’t shove it into a clean corner labeled ‘his problem’. It’s in you now. In your chest. Threaded through your ribs like something grafted there on instinct.

You shift slightly, fingers curling into the edge of the blanket, grounding yourself in anything that isn’t his memory. But it doesn’t help. The emotional weight is still there, even as the dream fades. A dull ache under your skin. The echo of metal restraints and too-bright lights.

He exhales, rough and low. “I didn’t want you to see that.”

You don’t answer right away. Instead, you lie back slowly, eyes on the ceiling. Cold. Pockmarked. Real. And for the first time since this started, you stop trying to block him out. Because the truth is, you don’t want to. Even now, with the weight of what you saw still lodged somewhere between your lungs. You don’t want to pretend you didn’t see him.

“It’s not your fault,” you murmur. “That I saw it.”

“No. But it’s still mine.”

You turn your head. He’s staring at the floor now, hands braced on his knees, elbows sharp beneath the sleeves of his shirt. His metal fingers twitch slightly. Barely a motion, but it radiates with tension. You feel that, too. Of course you do.

“Do you think if we sleep again…” you start, then trail off.

He finishes it. “We’ll go back?”

You nod once.

He shrugs. “Don’t know. I’ve never had to share a nightmare before.”

You breathe in. Then out. Neither of you moves.

The hum of the overhead lights seems louder now. The surveillance camera ticks faintly in the corner. Somewhere, two hearts beat in rhythm without trying.

“I’m not tired,” you say.

He glances up at you. “Me neither.”

It’s a lie, on both ends. You can feel it in your body. The ache. The heaviness. The way your limbs sink just a little deeper into the mattress. But sleep isn’t safe now. Not when it might mean pulling each other into things neither of you are ready to carry, let alone share.

You sit up again. Curl your legs under you. Bucky shifts to do the same. It’s not planned. It just happens.

No one speaks for a while. And then—

“I’m sorry you had to,” he starts, so quietly it barely lands. “Feel that.”

The words linger, fragile but deliberate. They hang in the air like breath held too long.

Bucky doesn’t look at you. Not right away. His shoulders stay tight, his stare pinned to the floor like he’s trying to unsee what he knows you saw. 

You study him. And something shifts in your chest. It’s not sympathy. Not even admiration. It’s deeper than that. Stranger. Something close to awe—and not the clean kind. The complicated kind. The kind that unsettles.

Because now you’ve seen him. Not the soldier. Not the sarcasm and shadow. The person. The fear. The memory. The grief.

And somehow, that makes him feel… real. Not more fragile. Not smaller. Just clearer. You’re seeing him now in a way you hadn’t before. And it’s doing something to you.

Is it the link?

You want to say yes. Want to blame the synaptic bleed, the proximity, the dream. Want to label it as data and side effects and bad timing. But deep down, you’re not sure. Not anymore.

You shift. Your voice, when it comes, is quieter than before.

“Do you have them a lot?”

He stills for a beat too long. Then he exhales, the sound low.  “Used to. Nightly. For years.”

You nod, eyes tracing the seam of your blanket. “But not anymore?”

“Not like that,” he admits.

Something in your chest lifts, but only a little.

“So…” you hesitate, careful not to make it sound like anything more than what it is. 

“Was it easier this time? With me there?”

This time, he looks up. Direct. Steady. No evasion. His voice is quiet. Almost reluctant. “Yeah.”

You blink. It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t land the way it does. But it does. Because it means something. Or it might. Or maybe it only feels like it does because your brain is lit up on synthetic empathy and shared neural architecture. But still. It means something.

You nod, barely. “Okay.”

You don’t say what’s spinning in your chest: I see you now. I don’t want to look away. I don’t know if that’s you or me or both.

You can feel that he doesn’t want to ask either. Not yet. So neither of you does.

You both just sit there, in the dimmed silence. The bond—a quiet, pulsing presence between your ribs. And this time, you don’t try to shut it out. You just let yourself feel it. Feel him.

—

You wake up suddenly—hot, restless, throat dry. Your skin is flushed. Your pulse a little too fast. Your legs tangled in the blanket like you were shifting more than sleeping. It takes you a second to orient. The cot. The hum of the lights. And the slow burn pulsing under your skin.

You press your palms to your eyes. Shit.

You’re not dreaming anymore, but your body hasn’t gotten the message. Everything feels hypersensitive. Like someone turned up the volume on every nerve ending and forgot to turn it back down.

You exhale. Try to steady your breathing. But then your gaze shifts—and you see him.

Bucky’s still sitting where he was when you drifted off. Back against the wall. He looks calm, but there’s a sharpness in the set of his jaw, a tension in his posture.

He never went to sleep. He’s watching you now. Quiet. Steady. Like he already knows what you’re feeling.

You shift upright on the cot, trying to tamp it down—the warmth low in your belly, the ache that has no business being this loud, this early, in a lab-grade holding cell with your unintentional telepathic security detail.

“Did I…” you start, voice scratchy, “did I fall asleep again?”

He nods, slow. “Around four. You didn’t mean to.”

Your mouth goes dry. “Did you…?”

“No. You didn’t dream loud enough this time.”

It’s a joke. You think.

But then he tilts his head a fraction, brows drawing slightly together. “You feel… okay?”

You hesitate. Because yes. You do feel okay. You feel too okay. Your heart is kicking a little faster than it should and you know without looking in a mirror that your pupils are probably dilated.

There’s no fear. No adrenaline. Just— Want. Need. Aching. And you’re not entirely sure where it’s coming from.

“I feel… weird,” you murmur.

He shifts a little. You feel the ripple before you see it.

“Yeah,” he says. “Same.”

You glance at him again and your stomach flips. Because now that you’re paying attention, you can feel it. The thrum. The tension. That low, slow ache in your bloodstream that isn’t just yours anymore.

You clear your throat. “This doesn’t feel…emotional.”

“No,” he agrees. His voice is lower now. Rough. “It feels physical.”

Your breath catches. You both look away at the same time. The air thickens.

And then the door hisses open.

Dr. Yen steps in like a fire alarm, holding her tablet like a shield. “Morning,” she says briskly. “Vitals check.”

You sit still while she scans you. Bucky does too. Her eyes narrow slightly as she reads, her mouth pressing into a thin line.

Then she sighs. “Okay. So. Bit of a development.”

You wince, already bracing for whatever comes next.

“The bond’s progressing faster than expected. Your convergence scores are spiking well ahead of baseline. You’re already presenting signs of full-spectrum neural and somatic reciprocity.”

You blink. “Somatic?”

Yen nods. “Body-based responses. Sympathetic systems syncing. Neurochemical fluctuations. Endocrine bleed.”

You just stare.

Bucky crosses his arms. “Translation?”

“You’re not just feeling each other’s moods anymore,” Yen says. “You’re reacting to each other’s hormones.”

You freeze.

“So this…?” you ask, gesturing vaguely to your whole overheated, vibrating situation.

She nods. “Elevated oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin—both of you. You’re experiencing mutual physiological… arousal.”

You swear under your breath. Bucky exhales through his nose, sharp.

Yen scrolls. “This is accelerating. You may experience projection next. Sensory cross-talk. Physical feedback from imagined stimuli.”

You and Bucky don’t move.

“You mean—” you start.

“Yes,” she says. “If one of you starts thinking about something… the other might feel it.”

You shut your eyes. Hard. Bucky shifts.

Yen closes the tablet. “We’re working on a counter-agent. In the meantime—stay calm. Avoid escalation. Try not to, y’know, spiral.”

She gives you both a tight smile that’s not a smile and ducks out the door.

The moment it hisses shut, silence slams back into place. You don’t look at him. He doesn’t look at you. But you feel each other. Your blood still buzzes, warm and quick, like something is sparking just under the surface.

“I need a cold shower,” you mutter.

“If you’re feeling what I’m feeling,” he says, voice low and tight, “that’s not gonna help.”

Neither of you laughs. Because it’s not funny anymore.

You don’t move and neither does he. You stay on opposite cots, both too still, both too aware. You can feel the bond buzzing like a live wire behind your ribs—no longer subtle, no longer background noise.

Not just his mood. Not just tension or restraint. His thoughts. Vague, half-formed shapes brushing up against your mind like fogged glass. You don’t get detail, not really—but there’s pressure behind it. Focus. Heat.

You swallow. Hard.

He shifts again, one leg stretching out, and your eyes flick to the motion without meaning to. Just his hand. Just his thigh. Just some insane amount of muscle in a pair of extremely not regulation sweatpants. And that’s when it hits you. A spike of awareness.

Low. Sharp. Direct.

Not yours. Yours now, but not originally.

Your breath stutters. Because that wasn’t your thought. That was his. You close your eyes, but it doesn’t help.

Now you can feel it more clearly: the way his thoughts catch on your bare legs, on your neck, on the way you just bit your bottom lip without realizing it.

The image forms before you can stop it. Your body reacting to his body. His gaze. His mind. A flash of heat coils low in your stomach. You shift suddenly. Sharp, fast, like that might reset something. It doesn’t.

He feels the shift in you. You know he does. You feel his whole body tense in response. The link thrums, nearly audible in your skull.

“Stop,” you whisper, breath catching.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says, voice hoarse.

You press your palm to your sternum. It’s like trying to press out a heartbeat that isn’t even yours.

“I can feel it when you look at me like that,” you mutter.

“I’m trying not to,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Well, try harder,” you snap—but it’s shaky, breathless.

Your thighs press together unconsciously. And that, he feels. He lets out a breath—low, ragged, like it hurts to hold it.

“Don’t do that,” he says.

“Don’t what?” you snap, voice high and tight.

“That. The thing with your legs.”

You go still. And the heat spikes. The thought now forming in your head is yours. It’s real. Immediate. Something to do with him between your knees, his hands on your hips, his mouth at your throat. The sound he’d make if you pulled his shirt off. The look in his eyes when—

He jerks upright like he’s been electrocuted.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face.

You slap a hand over your own mouth, mortified. “I didn’t mean to think that.”

“I know,” he growls.

And still—your body pulses. That awful, exquisite feedback loop. Want ricocheting back and forth until you don’t know whose it was to begin with.

You drag your blanket up like its armor. “We can’t do this.”

“No,” he agrees immediately. “We can’t.”

You lock eyes. And don’t look away.

The silence that follows is different now. Charged. Taut. It’s not that the attraction is new. It’s that there’s nowhere left to hide it. No denial. No wall. Just each other. You lie back slowly, exhaling through your nose. Trying to calm your heart. Trying not to think of him. It doesn’t work.

Bucky’s breathing is heavier now. Not dramatic—but deeper. Controlled. You feel it against your own skin. You know—you know—he’s thinking about you too. But neither of you moves. Not yet.

Your heart won’t settle. It keeps pushing against your ribs like it wants to say something first. And then, before you can stop yourself:

“You drive me insane.” The words hang there. Blunt. True.

Bucky shifts slightly on his cot, but doesn’t speak.

“Not in the way you’re thinking, but okay—in that way too.” You pull the blanket tighter around you, trying to hold your voice steady. “You’re cold. Condescending. You don’t say anything unless it’s to poke a hole in something I’ve spent months building.”

His mouth twitches. “You’re a scientist who’s not used to people poking holes?”

“I’m not used to people doing it like you.” You glare at the ceiling. “You just—show up. And stare. And judge. And then disappear before I can even argue back.”

He exhales through his nose. “And you like arguing.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It feels like the point.”

You turn your head and look at him. “You didn’t even stay for the full hearing. Just blew it up and walked out.”

He meets your eyes. “Didn’t need to.”

Your chest tightens. “God. You’re impossible.”

There’s a long pause.

And then he says, quieter: “You were right, though. About the link. About what it could be.”

You blink.

“I didn’t go to that hearing to get in your way,” he says. “I went because what you said scared the hell out of me.”

“Right,” you mutter. “Thanks.”

He shakes his head. “No. I mean—it was good. You were right. You had every angle covered. You didn’t flinch. And the more I thought about it afterward…”

His eyes lift to yours.

“About you.”

Your stomach flips.

He leans forward slightly, elbows on his knees. “So when Val mentioned they needed an internal breach detail at the site—”

“You asked for this assignment,” you state, stunned.

He nods once. “Yeah.”

Silence stretches again—but now it’s different. There’s heat in it. Yes. But also something else. Something real.

Your head falls to your hands in defeat. “I don’t want to like you.”

“Yeah. That’s not working out too well for me either,” Bucky mutters lowly.

You peek up at him through your fingers. “This is a disaster.”

His mouth twitches. “A highly classified, emotionally compromising disaster.”

You stare at him. And he stares right back. Something hums between you, low and molten. Not as sharp as before—but deeper now. Grounded in knowing. Seeing. Feeling. Your eyes flick to his mouth. Just for a second. Just long enough to make it dangerous.

He sees it. Of course he does.

“Don’t,” he says softly.

“Don’t what?”

“That.”

You blink, innocent. “Look at you?”

“Look at me like that.”

You tilt your head, heart pounding. “Like what?”

“Like you want to see what else I’m hiding under these very official sweatpants.”

You suck in a sharp breath. A flush climbs up your neck before you can stop it.

“I wasn’t—”

“You were.”

You narrow your eyes. “You’re imagining things.”

“You’re broadcasting things,” he says, voice low and rough around the edges. “Loud.”

You shift on the cot and feel his breath hitch now.

It’s too much. Too close. And it’s not the bond anymore. Not entirely.

“You think about it too,” you say quietly.

He nods, once. “All the time now it seems.”

You don’t know if you want to slap him or kiss him—or let him press you back against the wall and do everything you’ve already imagined and more.

“So what the hell are we supposed to do about it?”

He smiles—just barely. It’s crooked. Dangerous.

“Nothing reckless.”

You lift a brow. “You’re telling me not to be impulsive?”

“I’m telling you not to do anything you’ll regret.”

You lean forward, like you’re settling into something casual. But you know what you’re doing. You can’t help yourself.  You know he can feel it—your heat, your hunger, your restraint wrapped in silk.

“Then maybe stop giving me reasons to want to,” you murmur, voice light. Teasing.

His jaw ticks. His eyes darken. The silence that follows is sharp. Not a pause. Not a delay. A held breath.

You smile, small and smug, and stand up slowly—too slowly.

“Anyway,” you say, heading toward the small attached bathroom, “I’m going to take a cold shower and try to remember I’m a professional with several advanced degrees.”

You stop in the doorway. Look back over your shoulder, just enough to make sure he’s still watching.

He is.

“Try not to think about me while I’m in there,” you add, voice all fake innocence. And then you shut the door behind you.

—-

The water is cold. Brutally so. You step into the spray like it’s punishment—hands braced against the tile, jaw locked, breath held.

Because you’re still trying to wrap your head around the words that just tumbled out of your mouth a minute ago and why the fuck you even said them. The heat in your body needs to burn off or be drowned, and freezing water feels like your last rational defense.

It doesn’t work.

You gasp as it hits your skin—tight, cutting, and sharp. Your nipples pebble instantly. Your muscles tighten. But the cold doesn’t pull you out of it. It sharpenes it.

Every drop feels like a shock, like a wire pulled taut under your skin. Your thighs clench. Your breath trembles. Because Bucky is still out there.

And you can still feel him. Not with your hands. Not with your eyes. But with your mind. Your body. The thread still connects you. Hot under the cold. Deep under the logic. It pulses low in your belly, electric and alive. Dragging your thoughts right back to him.

You try to redirect—try to count the tiles on the wall, name the amino acids in a protein chain, recite your grant proposal backwards.

But your body betrays you. Your hips rock, searching for friction that doesn’t exist. Your hand drags down your chest without permission, sliding over wet skin, slick nipples, the curve of your stomach.

And suddenly he’s there. Not really. Not consciously. But you feel him. Watching. Wanting.

And worse—you want him to.

You bite your lip, hard. Try to shut it down. But your hand keeps moving. Between your thighs now. Water trailing down your skin like a thousand fingertips. The ache blooming sharp and impossible. You press your palm to yourself, just for a moment. Just to quiet it.

But something flares like it’s hungry too.

Your legs almost buckle. Shit. Shit. He felt that. You pant against the tile, eyes squeezed shut.

You can feel his attention spike like a spotlight behind your eyes—his breath, his pulse, the jagged edge of his restraint grinding against yours. You try to pull back. You try. But now you’re imagining it.

The wall behind you pressing into your shoulder blades. His mouth dragging heat up your neck. One hand on your hip—no, both hands. One flesh, one metal, holding you still while he whispers how much he’s been thinking about this.

How he knew you were going to touch yourself in the shower. How he wanted to be the reason you couldn’t help it.

Your breath hitches. A whimper escapes you. Just a sound, high and desperate and real. A surge.

The sensation that hits you is dizzying—like your nerves are suddenly on fire, like your own want is being echoed back tenfold.

You slap the water off fast, heart hammering. Your skin prickles as the cold air licks over it. You lean your forehead against the tile, panting. You’re shaking. Not from the cold. Not from fear. From restraint. From everything you didn’t let yourself do. And everything you know he felt anyway.

You press your hands over your face.

“Fuck.”

You stay like that for a long moment. Trying to breathe. Trying to pull yourself back into your body. Into the present. But even now, with the water off and your hands gripping the edge of the sink, you can feel the bond pulsing low behind your navel like it’s waiting. Like he’s waiting. And worst of all— You’re thinking about opening the door.

You want to know if he’s sitting there as wrecked as you are.

But you don’t yet. You reach for the towel. Wipe your face. Pull it tight around your body like it might hold you together. And you promise yourself you’ll be calm when you step back out there.

You wait a full minute before stepping out of the bathroom. You make sure your skin is mostly dry, your breathing sort of steady, and your towel tightly secured like a barrier that might still mean something. You open the door like you’re composed. You’re not. But it doesn’t matter.

Because the second you step into the room, you know. Bucky’s posture is wrecked. No more monk-like stillness. No more composed soldier routine. He’s pacing. Shoulders tense. Shirt clinging to him in places like he’s been sweating. His jaw is tight. His hands—both of them—are curled into fists like he’s holding back from breaking something. Or doing something.

His head snaps up the second he sees you. And then—he stops moving altogether. Freezes.

You feel it before he says a word: the punch of arousal, the crash of restraint, the friction of denial and desire grinding together behind his ribs like a blade.

His eyes sweep over you. Just once. Slowly.

The towel. The water still glistening along your collarbone. The flush on your cheeks that has nothing to do with temperature.

You feel his restraint falter—just for a breath—and it slams into your chest like a jolt of electricity.

“You…” he says, then stops. Swallows. His voice is hoarse. “That wasn’t fair.”

You blink, playing innocent. “What wasn’t?”

He steps forward once. Not touching. Not even close. But the bond pulls at you like gravity.

“You know what,” he says, voice low. “You know exactly what.”

Your heart pounds.

“So you felt that,” you say lightly, trying not to lose your footing on the slick edge of this moment.

He lets out a sharp breath. “You think I somehow didn’t feel that?”

The tension crackles between you—raw and thick and already past the point of pretending.

“I tried to shut it down,” you murmur.

He laughs. Just once. Bitter and breathless. “Yeah, I could tell ya tried really hard, sweetheart.”

You grip the edge of the towel a little tighter. “So what, you just sat there and…?”

His gaze drops to your mouth. And stays there.

You feel the burn of it behind your knees, in the pit of your stomach, deep between your thighs where the ache hasn’t fully gone away.

Your voice comes out smaller than you mean for it to. “And?”

His jaw clenches. His nostrils flare. You feel him fighting it again—fighting you. But he doesn’t lie.

“I wanted to come in there.”

The breath leaves your lungs in a shudder.

“I wanted to touch you,” he says, stepping closer. His voice drops lower. “Everywhere you were touching yourself.”

You swallow hard.

“But I didn’t,” he adds roughly.

You look up at him. “Why?”

His eyes search yours. Not angry. Not even pleading. Just—holding back.

“Because if I had…” He exhales, jaw tight. “I wouldn’t have stopped.”

The silence that follows isn’t empty. Your body hums. Your fingers dig into the towel like it’s the last shield between you and a decision you might not be ready to unmake. And all you can do is whisper:

“…Okay.”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t touch you. But something shifts in his posture—like he’s caught between instinct and decision, body wired forward even as his mind throws up a stop sign.

You see it all happen. The way his eyes flick to your mouth. The way his breaths become deeper. The way every muscle in him says yes while the rest of him fights to say no.

And then, finally—he steps back. One short, sharp step. Like distance will save either of you.

“Shit,” he mutters, dragging a hand through his hair. “We can’t.”

Your heart punches your ribs. “Why not?”

He doesn’t look at you right away. Just shakes his head, pacing once, hands flexing.

“You just came out of the shower like that, thinking what you were thinking, and I—” He stops. “I felt everything. You know that, right?” he repeats yet again.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“I know. And that’s the fucking problem.”

You blink. “So what, now you’re mad about it?”

“No,” he snaps. “I’m not mad. I’m trying not to lose my goddamn mind.”

You fold your arms over the towel. “You think this is easy for me?”

“I think our minds are so fried that we can’t tell what’s ours and what’s this,” he bites, gesturing between you two. “And if I touch you right now, I don’t know whose choice I’m making. Yours, mine, or the damn compound’s.”

That stops you. Because he’s right. Because you don’t even know anymore.

His voice drops. Still rough. Still wrecked.

“I’m not gonna take advantage of something that’s most likely not real. Not with you.”

You shift your weight, heartbeat hammering. You want to argue. You want to push. But part of you respects the hell out of it. So you just nod once. Clipped.

“Fine.”

His mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. More like restraint in physical form.

“Fine.”

And that’s it. You don’t close the distance. You don’t say anything else. You just turn away, heart still racing, skin still hot, towel still clutched like armor, and try like hell to pretend your body isn’t already halfway to betraying you again.

—-

Just perfect. Now there’s only a few more hours of pretending you’re not fully horny for the government-assigned menace in the corner.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the cot, earbuds in, blasting white noise loud enough to drown out your own thoughts—and hopefully his. It doesn’t work.

You can still feel him pacing. The slow, deliberate kind, like he’s working something out of his system. Like he’s hunting a problem he can’t solve. You can feel the heat of his attention every time your shirt rides up when you stretch. Every time you shift just a little too far sideways and your thigh brushes bare against cool air.

Every time your breath catches and his does, too. You know what he’s thinking. Or trying not to think.

So you decide to mess with him.

You think louder—sweet and smug, like you’re painting it across the bond on purpose: That shirt looks really good on you, soldier.

He flinches. Physically. And then stops pacing.

You smirk, tug the hem of your shirt down with exaggerated innocence. Small victories.

But then he drops to the floor and starts doing pushups. Which is so not fair.

You glance over and immediately regret it. His shirt stretches across his back like it’s apologizing to no one. Sweat clings at the collar. His arms flex, contract, flex again—slow and steady. Every controlled breath pushes heat through the bond.

You are trying to read a report. You are actively attempting productivity. But it’s hard when every line blurs around the mental image of his hands braced on either side of your head. You close the file. Try again.

He switches to pull-ups on an overhead bar. You throw your tablet at the wall.

“You’re doing that on purpose.”

He doesn’t stop. “Doing what?”

“Weaponizing your arms.”

His mouth twitches. “Maybe I’m just trying to stay in shape.”

You scowl. “This is psychological warfare.”

“You started it.”

You grab a pillow and launch it at his head. He dodges without breaking rhythm.

“Unbelievable.”

Later, you fall asleep. Not on purpose. Just long enough for your body to betray you. The dream is hot. Too hot. Lips at your throat, a mouth on your hipbone, hands everywhere you shouldn’t want them. You wake up gasping, sweat pooling at the base of your spine.

And he’s watching you. Sitting in the corner, arms folded, expression like stone. Except for his eyes. His eyes are a slow burn. He doesn’t say anything. But you feel it. The echo of your dream still pinging between you. Not graphic—just emotional residue. A leftover ache.

And maybe the worst part is: you feel his too.

The loneliness under it. The way he felt it right along with you. The part of him that wanted it to be real. To be his hands. His mouth. His weight on top of you instead of the memory of a shared hallucination. You shift on the cot, heart still pounding.

“Did you…?” you ask.

He doesn’t move. Just nods once. “Yeah.”

You pull your knees to your chest and try not to shake.

Five hours in, you almost lose it.

You’re pretending to read again. You’re biting the inside of your cheek to keep your breathing steady. He’s sitting on the other cot now, towel around his neck, shirt wrung out and tossed somewhere in the corner like it wronged him personally. His skin is flushed. His forearms are braced on his knees. His head is tipped back slightly.

You can feel it through the bond—he’s trying not to think about how your skin looked glistening after the shower. Trying not to remember the sound you made. You try to be good. You really do. But then you snap.

“You have to stop thinking about my mouth.”

You don’t even look up. You don’t have to. There’s a long pause.

“I’m not,” he says.

You glance over. He’s biting his lip. You both groan.

He covers his face with one hand. “Okay, you have to stop doing the thing with your tongue.”

“What thing?”

He waves a hand vaguely. “That thing you do when you’re concentrating. You lick your bottom lip slowly like you’re trying to kill me.”

You throw a blanket at him. He catches it with a smug little grin, but you feel the way his chest tightens under it. The way he’s fighting not to lean into the tether—into the pull of you.

You flop onto your cot face-first. “This is the worst horny hostage situation I’ve ever been in.”

“Been in many?”

You scream a muffled “FUCK” into the mattress.

His chuckle is low. Rough. Warm.

It rolls down your spine like a confession you weren’t ready to hear. And when your hand slips between your thighs a minute later, just to relieve the pressure, just to breathe, you feel his breath hitch in your mind.

“Stop.” His voice cuts through the air, hoarse. Strained. Not angry—pleading.

You freeze. But don’t pull away.

“I can’t,” you whisper.

A pause. Heavy. Loaded.

“You can.”

You roll your head toward him, half-lidded, flushed, and exhale: “Then say it.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Tell me not to touch myself,” you say. “But say it like you mean it.”

You feel his restraint buckle. The desire choking the back of his throat. You move your hand again, slow, under the blanket. The wet slide of your fingers deliberate.

“You already know what I’m thinking,” he grits out.

“Say it anyway.”

He’s still across the room, sitting rigid on the cot, fists clenched on his knees like it’s the only way to stop himself from moving.

You close your eyes and moan—quiet, bitten-off. You can’t help it. 

And that’s when it breaks him.

“God,” he growls. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

“I have some idea,” you tease back and squeeze your eyes shut.

And in your mind, you can feel a switch flip in his.

There’s a sudden metallic crack—a sharp, violent sound that echoes off the walls. Your eyes fly open. The security camera in the corner is shattered—glass fractured, wires exposed, the red recording light extinguished. His chest is heaving, fists clenched like he didn’t even think before moving.

“I want to be over there,” he rushes out hoarsely. “I want to rip that sheet off and watch you fall apart for me.”

Your breath stops but he keeps going, like his tongue is unable to stop.

“I want your legs open. Want your fingers soaked because you were thinking about my mouth.”

He rises, takes one step forward, then stops himself—grabbing the edge of the table like it might anchor him. You whimper.

“I’d put my hand between your thighs,” he says, lower now. Rougher. “Press my fingers into you until you begged me to fuck you.”

Your mind hums, white hot. You feel it in your ribs, your spine, your throat.

“You’d take it, wouldn’t you?” he murmurs. “All of it. My fingers, my cock—”

You cry out softly, thighs twitching, chasing friction.

“I’d have your back arched and your hands in my hair and you wouldn’t even be able to say my name without sobbing.”

You grind down harder now, pulse pounding in your ears. You feel him feeling you—his hips twitching, cock hard and aching, brain flooded with everything you’re giving him.

“Touch your clit,” he commands.

You do. Gasping. The pleasure punches through your body like a current.

“Just like that,” he says, voice shaking. “Rub slow. You don’t need to come yet. I want to hear you say what you want.”

“You already know,” you choke out.

“Tell me, doll,” he says again, dark, wanting. “Tell me how wet you are.”

You almost sob. “So wet—Jesus—Bucky—”

“That’s it,” he says. “Let me hear it. I want every filthy sound you’ve got.”

You move faster, breath catching, the heat coiling tight and hard and close.

“I’d eat you out so slowly you’d scream. Then fuck you with my fingers until you begged for more. You want that?”

“Yes.”

“You want my cock?”

“Yes.”

“You want me to come in you, fill you, make you feel it for hours?”

Your whole body locks—back arching, legs tightening—

And you shatter.

White-hot pleasure rips through you, shattering like glass behind your ribs—louder and deeper than anything you’ve ever felt. It’s not just the orgasm. It’s also his body responding to yours, his want echoing through every nerve ending like a second heartbeat.

You can feel what you’re doing to him. The hunger. The ache. The way his restraint unravels with every sound you make, every twitch of your fingers.

The bond lights up like an explosion—flooding both of you. There’s no separation. No inside or outside. Just youandhimyouandhimyouandhim in one long, gasping pulse of release.

His groan is feral. Raw. Wrecked. You’re still trembling when you open your eyes. And he’s right there.

Closer than he was. Right in front of you. Breathing hard, eyes dark, hands clenched like it took everything in him not to touch you. Not to throw himself into the wreckage and keep going.

He’s about to move. About to drop to his knees. About to make good on every filthy promise he just breathed into your bones—

Then a chime sounds at the door.

You both freeze. A beat. Then Dr. Yen’s voice comes crisply over the intercom.

“Just a heads up—I’ll be entering the room in ten seconds for dampener prep. Try to look less… elevated.”

You let out a strangled noise and yank the blanket over your face, legs still shaking.

The door hisses open. Light spills in. Footsteps. Dr. Yen walks in like she didn’t just catch you mid-meltdown.

“Good evening,” she says, clipboard in hand, eyes respectfully trained downward. “Time for neural dampener administration.”

Bucky turns away like he’s been gut-punched. You lie there in silence, half-covered, half-exposed, pulse still thundering.

Dr. Yen pauses. Looks up.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just watch both your biometric readings spike like you ran a marathon while getting tased.”

You groan louder.

She sighs. “I’ll return in ten minutes with the equipment. Maybe try some breathing exercises.”

She turns and walks out, boots clicking.

The door shuts, and the silence she leaves behind could crush a mountain. You’re both wrecked. Glowing. Silent.  Not comfortable. Not even heavy. But pressurized. You shift on the cot. Pick at the edge of the blanket, like you’re unthreading a thought. You cough once. Clear your throat.

“So…” you say. Then instantly regret it.

Bucky doesn’t look up from where he’s now sitting, arms braced, jaw tight. His eyes are fixed on some invisible point across the room.

You try again, softer this time. “That was… intense.” Still nothing.

You roll your eyes at yourself. “God, sorry. That sounded like the end of a bad first date.”

Finally, his voice cuts through the silence. Low. Flat.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

You blink. “What, the part where you told me everything you wanted to do to me while I was—?”

He exhales sharply. “Don’t.”

You pause. Watch him. “Why?”

“Because it wasn’t fair,” he mutters. “I didn’t have to make it worse.”

“You didn’t make it worse.”

He glances at you. Briefly.

And you feel it—what he won’t say. The guilt. The self-loathing. The fear that he wanted it more than he should’ve, and the shame that he let himself say so.

You try to keep your voice light. “It hasn’t been all bad, you know. Feeling like this.”

Something flickers in him—shame, maybe. Sadness. But it’s gone before you can name it.

“It’s not real,” he says. “You know that.”

You shift again. “You think I can’t tell the difference?”

“I don’t know, Doc. But you should. You wrote the fucking book on it!” He’s not angry. Just tired. 

“You’re reacting to a synthetic neurochemical tether.” He says it like he’s quoting a file. “It wires your empathy straight into mine and floods your body with cross-sensory feedback. Of course it feels like something.”

“Yeah,” you say. “It feels like you. Like… warm static. I didn’t think I’d get used to it, but I have.”

His jaw clenches.

Something bracing inside him tickles through your bones. Like he’s locking the door before you even finish knocking.

You hesitate, before adding, carefully, “Maybe that’s not so terrible.”

He turns toward you now, finally, and there’s something in his face—tired, closed off, already half gone.

“Look,” he sighs. “In a few hours, you’re going to feel normal again. This’ll wear off, we’ll detox. And you’ll go back to thinking I’m a prick.”

You stare at him. “Is that really what you think I’m going to walk away with?”

“It’s what I’ll walk away with,” he says.

How certain he is bounces back at you. The way he’s already convinced himself this was a mistake. Not just a misstep, but a flaw in his wiring. Something he’s trying to undo before it’s too late and your resolve starts to melt.

His voice softens, but not in a comforting way. In that quiet, beaten-down way that says he’s already written the ending and doesn’t want to hear another version.

“I crossed a line,” he says. “And you’re going to wake up tomorrow and wish I hadn’t.”

You feel it. In your ribs, your throat, your teeth. Not the tension from before—but a dull, hollow echo of finality. He believes this.

You don’t answer. There’s nothing left to say that won’t bounce off the wall he’s putting back up. You nod once. Slowly. Then lie back on the cot and turn your face to the wall. The link hums faintly behind your ribs—tender, uncertain. But you don’t follow it. You just let the silence settle between you again. Thicker than before. Colder. Final.

—

You’re sitting across from him when the door opens. Same cots. Same sterile walls. Same ten feet of silence between you. You haven’t looked at him but you still feel him linked. Quiet, almost gentle now. Like it knows it’s dying. A breath too deep. A flicker of guilt. A spike of regret. It doesn’t matter that he won’t meet your eyes.

Dr. Yen steps into the room with her tablet in one hand and a hard-sided case in the other. She’s in scrubs this time. Hair tied back. Movements clipped and practiced.

You don’t speak. Neither does he.

The case opens with a soft click. Two injectors inside, small and sleek. She pulls one out and checks the dosage. 

“Once administered, the dampener will suppress all synthetic limbic resonance. You’ll feel a shift within thirty seconds. Disassociation. Numbness. Maybe a little nausea.”

You exhale through your nose.

“And then?”

She meets your eyes. “Then the link breaks.”

You nod. She walks to you first.

“Roll up your sleeve,” she says gently.

You do. The motion feels surreal—like you’re watching yourself from somewhere outside your body. She presses the injector to the soft skin inside your elbow.

You take a breath, hold it. Click. A whisper of compressed air. Cold floods your arm instantly—icy, clinical, creeping up your bicep like frostbite. It spreads into your shoulder, your neck, your spine.

And then—

Something inside you flickers. The hum. The warmth. Him. It begins to fade. Not all at once. It drains. Like light slipping out of a room. Like someone slowly turning the volume knob on a song you didn’t know you’d memorized. You feel the difference before you can process it. Your thoughts stop echoing. Your heartbeat feels… alone.

Bucky says nothing when it’s his turn. He doesn’t ask what it’ll feel like. He doesn’t hesitate. Just rolls up his sleeve, still pitched forward. Dr. Yen administers his dose with quiet efficiency. Click. Hiss. And then it’s quiet again. Except it’s not the same.

Because now, the silence is dead. No hum. No pulse. No emotional feedback or flicker of awareness. No him. He’s still there, physically. Still sitting across from you. Still wearing the same black T-shirt, the same unreadable expression. But you can’t feel him anymore. And the absence hits harder than you expect.

Dr. Yen checks the readings on her tablet. Taps a few buttons. Then nods.

“That’s it,” she says. “Connection is terminated.”

You nod, slowly. There’s a ringing in your ears that wasn’t there before.

Yen doesn’t linger. She packs up and walks out without another word. The door hisses shut behind her. And that’s it. It’s over.

You look at him. He’s not looking at you. There’s no warmth where your chest used to light up every time he almost met your gaze. Now it’s just empty space. You wait. A beat. Two.

He finally stands. Moves like he’s stiff. Or maybe he’s just trying to control the way his body reacts now that you can’t feel it.

His eyes flick toward you, just once. And then away.

At the door, hand hovering near the panel, he pauses. Just long enough to let hope get in one last swing.

“You’ll feel like yourself again soon.”

You blink. Straighten slightly. But before you can respond, he’s already gone. The door shuts behind him. And this time, you feel nothing at all.

—

Two weeks later and you definitely don’t feel like yourself again. Everyone said you would. That the dampener would work, that your neural pathways would recalibrate, that within a few days you’d forget what it felt like to share your mind with someone else.

They were wrong. The silence is worse than the bond ever was.

It isn’t just quiet—it’s hollow. There are no phantom thoughts, no flickers of static behind your ribs. No heat curling in your stomach when someone else walks in the room. You’re not buzzing anymore. You’re just… still.

You’ve tried to distract yourself. Buried yourself in lab reports. Filed updates. Pretended the whole thing was a chemical anomaly that didn’t matter.

You haven’t heard from him. You haven’t reached out, either.

Mostly because you’re not sure what you’d say—and partly because the last time you saw him, he all but told you that everything you felt was fake. You were still deciding whether to be mad or hurt when Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s name lit up your encrypted line.

And now here you are. Walking into the new Avengers Tower for a mandatory debriefing.

You strut through the sleek white corridor with polished concrete floors, reinforced glass walls, surveillance cameras tucked into every corner. A place designed to look like freedom and security, while quietly reminding everyone who’s in charge. And Val’s definitely in charge.

You press your thumb to the biometric reader. The door clicks open. And then you’re in the room.

Seven chairs. One long table. Your team’s already there—Dr. Yen, Dr. Deenan, and Dr. Morales, seated stiffly with laptops open and half-expressed concern on their faces. You nod to them, then catch sight of the others.

The New Avengers. Ava’s leaning back with her boots up on the chair next to her, scanning her phone like she’d rather be anywhere else. Yelena twirls a pen in her fingers while whispering something to Bob, who stifles a laugh. Alexei ie eating something from a foil pouch. John Walker’s in full uniform, arms crossed, eyes narrowed like he’s waiting to be pissed off.

And at the head of the table—Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. She smiles when she sees you. It doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Doctor,” she purrs. “Right on time. We were just getting to the fun part.”

You arch an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize this was a party.”

Val gestures to the empty seat across from her. “Take a load off.”

You sit. The chair’s cold. So is the room.

She taps her tablet, and the wall monitor comes to life—schematics, biofeedback logs, simulated overlays of two bodies in sync.

Yours. And his. Your heart gives a tiny, involuntary jolt.

“We’ve reviewed your data,” Val says. “The bonding agent was more successful than projected. Real-time empathic mirroring. Linked adrenaline response. Even synchronized aggression modulation. Fascinating.”

You glance at your team. No one meets your eye.

“Fascinating doesn’t mean safe,” you say.

“No,” Val agrees, tapping to the next slide, “but it does mean viable.”

Your stomach drops.

She keeps going. “We’ve had early conversations with R&D. We think we can refine it. Pull the limbic entanglement into tighter constraints. Give our agents an edge in the field. Total tactical unity. Real-time mental synchronicity in squads of two to five. Imagine it.”

“I’d rather not,” you say flatly.

Val tilts her head. “That’s surprising. You invented it.”

You cross your arms. “I invented a theory. Not a weapon. That compound was never designed for field ops. It was meant to test artificial empathy synthesis in high-stress environments. I never signed off on deployment.”

“You didn’t have to,” she replies, sweet as poison. “You tested it. That’s what matters.”

Your jaw tightens. “What do you want from me?”

Val smiles.

“I want you to stabilize it.”

The room goes quiet.

You don’t answer.

Because your fingers have curled into fists under the table, and the muscle in your jaw is working too hard.

Val’s smile sharpens. “Don’t make that face. You’re not the first brilliant mind to regret what they’ve built. That’s why we’ve brought in oversight.”

You glance around the table, pulse ticking higher. “This is oversight?”

Val gestures lazily toward the door. “Speak of the devil.”

It opens. He walks in. Bucky.

Same stride. Same black tactical pants. Same expression that says he’d rather be anywhere else. But not quite the same. Tighter. Like something inside him is coiled and hasn’t uncoiled since the dampener. You sit straighter without meaning to. He doesn’t look at you. Just nods to the room like it’s a formality. Takes the seat across the table from you, beside Ava, who gives him a quick look. You can feel the space between you stretch like a fault line.

Val keeps going, too casual.

“As most of you know, Sergeant Barnes was one of the two bonded during the prototype incident.”

No one speaks. Ava tilts her head, intrigued. Alexei is still chewing. John looks like he’s waiting to laugh. Bob’s the only one scribbling anything down.

Val turns toward Bucky, her voice silk-wrapped steel. “You submitted a full statement. Care to summarize for the room?”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.

“It’s not stable.”

“Define ‘not stable.’”

He looks directly at her now. “There’s no shut-off switch.”

Val smiles like she’s waiting for that. “The dampener worked.”

“Eventually.”

You feel a tug in your chest—but not from the bond. Just memory. Just him.

Val leans back. “Let’s talk about the psychological aftermath.”

You freeze. So does he.

“I read your report,” Val continues. “There were some… interesting observations. About your partner.”

You glance at him, breath catching. He doesn’t speak. Val does.

“‘Responsive. Precise. Too quick to hide discomfort behind sarcasm. Wants to be in control but softens under pressure. Harder to ignore than expected.’”

You stare at her. Then at him. He’s not meeting your eyes. His jaw is tight.

Val keeps reading, but her eyes are on you. “‘I think she felt it too. I think we both wanted it to stop, and neither of us wanted it to stop.’”

The room is silent. No one breathes.

She closes the file with a tap and smiles. “Romantic. Almost poetic.”

Bucky shifts in his chair. “That wasn’t meant for discussion.”

Val keeps going, tapping her tablet again. “Of course, Sergeant Barnes wasn’t the only one who filed a report.”

Your eyes narrow. She scrolls casually. “Let’s see here…”

Your team shifts awkwardly. Ava raises an brow. Walker leans back, already skeptical.

“Ah—found it,” Val says, lips twitching. “‘Post-dampener vitals returned to pre-bond baseline within 48 hours. No lingering physical effects. Subject reports successful cognitive decoupling.’” She glances at you. “Very clinical so far.”

You say nothing. Your throat is tight.

Val continues reading, voice just loud enough to carry. “‘Subject notes difficulty adjusting to emotional silence. Persistent phantom resonance. Reports occasional insomnia, sensory misfires, and…’” She slows. “‘…a recurring sense of loss with no identifiable origin.’”

You feel the breath leave your lungs.

Val looks up, smile gone. Her tone shifts—mocking, just slightly. “‘It’s strange. I should be relieved to have myself back. But some part of me feels like it’s still looking for him.’”

The silence in the room shifts. Heavy. Sharp. Bucky turns to look at you. Not subtly. Not just a glance. He looks at you like you’ve just said something dangerous. Like you’ve handed him a key he didn’t know he was allowed to touch.

You look back. And for the first time since the bond broke—you really see him seeing you.

But then his expression shutters. Clean. Cold. Gone. Like he’s pulled the wall back up in one brutal breath.

Val closes the file with a flick of her fingers. 

“Well. This answers my question. If it worked that fast on two unsuspecting individuals—one emotionally distant, the other the one who wrote the damn rules about boundaries—what do we think it’ll do to a trained field team under fire?”

You exhale through your nose. “You’re not trying to refine it. You’re trying to weaponize it.”

Val shrugs. “Tomato, tomahto.”

Your pulse spikes. “You want to use forced bonding as a tactical tool. You want soldiers to feel each other die in real time, feel pain that isn’t theirs, emotions that aren’t theirs—”

“They’ll be trained.”

“They’ll be broken.”

Now the room shifts. Ava sits forward. Yelena’s brow lifts. Even Walker glances sideways at Val.

Val only smiles. “Everyone breaks differently, doctor. That’s the point.”

You can’t help it. You turn to Bucky. He’s looking down. Still silent. Still locked. But you know that posture. You’ve felt it. The way he retreats. The way he steels himself before walking away.

Val’s voice cuts back in. “Final reports are due in forty-eight hours. Including yours, Doctor. Whether you cooperate or not, this is moving forward.”

You don’t answer. She rises. The others begin to move.

But Bucky doesn’t. Not until the last chair scrapes back. Then he stands. And walks out without looking back. This time, you don’t hesitate.

You catch him in the hallway just outside the briefing room.

“Barnes.”

He keeps walking, boots steady on the polished floor like you’re not behind him, like he didn’t just bolt from a public dissection of your most private thoughts. You pick up the pace.

“I said—”

“Don’t,” he mutters without turning. “Not here.”

You follow anyway. Right past the security checkpoint. Into the common area of the residential wing.

Then you hear them. Voices behind you—low, not subtle. Bob. Alexei. You’d bet money Walker’s loitering just out of view, arms crossed and dying for gossip.

“Wow,” Yelena says from behind the coffee bar. “Very dramatic storm-off. Ten out of ten.”

Bucky still doesn’t stop. You catch up beside him, matching his pace. “You’re seriously going to act like none of that meant anything?”

“I’m not doing this in front of an audience,” he snaps, still not looking at you.

You ignore it. “What did you think was going to happen? You walk away and I just go back to being a line item in your report?”

He reaches the end of the hallway. Stops. Jaw locked. Hands at his sides.

“I’m not doing this,” he says again, quieter now. Less sharp. More tired.

You hesitate.  And then you say it—just low enough for him to really hear it.

“Bucky, please.”

His head turns. Slow. Measured. Like he didn’t expect you to use his name. Like it broke through something.

You stare up at him. One beat. Two. And then he grabs your wrist—not rough, not rushed—and pulls you with him through the nearest door.

His quarters. The lock clicks behind you. He doesn’t let go. You’re both breathing too hard for how little either of you has moved. His fingers tighten around your wrist.

“I don’t need a debrief,” he says flatly. “Whatever Val’s hoping you’ll get out of this—”

“Don’t do that,” you say.

His shoulders go rigid. “Do what.”

“Shut me out.”

He finally turns. And the look on his face makes your heart falter.

He’s not angry. He’s gutted.

“I told you, once this wore off—”

“I didn’t say it because of the link,” you snap. “I said it because it’s true.”

He shakes his head. “You think it’s true. Because it’s recent. Because you’re still sorting it out.”

“No,” you say. “I said it because I miss you. Because I can’t sleep. Because the silence feels worse than the noise ever did.”

He goes quiet. You take a step closer.

“And don’t tell me it’s not real. Don’t tell me it’s just feedback. I’ve been through every model of post-synthetic resonance in the literature. This isn’t detox.”

Bucky stares at you like he wants to believe you. Like he’s aching to. But the wall is still up. Tighter than ever.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “You’re going to walk out of here and get over it. And I’m going to remember everything I said. Everything I wanted. And wish I hadn’t said a goddamn word.”

That knocks the air out of you. You feel the urge to step back—but you don’t. You root yourself there.

“I’m not over it,” you say, quietly. “And I don’t want to be.”

He looks at you. Really looks. And something shifts in him. But he still doesn’t move. So you step closer. Not too close. Just enough to make it clear you’re not afraid of the space between you. Not anymore. You don’t touch him. Not yet.

“I’ve spent two weeks trying to shut you out of my head,” you murmur. “Pretending I didn’t miss you. That I wasn’t checking every hallway and every email, wondering if you’d say something.”

He exhales sharply through his nose and looks down.

“And when you didn’t,” you add, voice tighter now, “I told myself you were just being careful. That you were trying to do the right thing.”

A pause. Then, lower.

“But maybe it was just easier for you.”

That hits. You see it—right in his eyes. Still, he doesn’t speak. So you finish it.

“Either you felt what I felt or you didn’t,” you say, chin lifting. “But don’t stand there and act like it was just some side effect. Like all of it—everything between us—was just my body misfiring.”

You take a final step closer to him.

“I know who you are now—not just the version you show, not the file, not the soldier. You. I felt every part you tried to hide. And it only made me want you more. And if that was all fake, I don’t know what the hell is real anymore.”

That’s when he moves.

It’s not gentle. It’s not rehearsed. It’s like something inside him snaps, and before you can take another breath, his hands are in your hair, his mouth crashing against yours like he’s been holding back for years—not weeks.

You stumble into him with a gasp, grabbing the front of his shirt like you need it to stay standing. His kiss is rough, hungry, almost frantic—like he’s trying to erase the silence with his teeth.

He spins you, walks you backwards until your shoulders hit the door, and then he’s bracing one arm beside your head, the other sliding down to your hip like he needs to feel you, all of you, right now.

You kiss him back with everything you’ve been holding in. Anger. Frustration. Hunger. Something dangerously close to relief. He pulls back just long enough to look at you, lips swollen, breathing hard.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he says, hoarse.

“Yes,” you whisper, dragging your fingers down the line of his stomach. “I do.”

His mouth reclaims yours. This time, the kiss is slower. Hungrier. Less desperation, more purpose. His tongue traces the shape of your lips, parting them before diving in. His hands move, rough and reverent. Skimming your jaw, down your neck, across your chest. They slide beneath your shirt, palms splayed wide like he’s trying to cover all of you at once, like he can’t decide what to touch first. You feel the heat of him through every inch of fabric, and it lights you up from the inside.

He hesitates Just a little. Like it costs him something to stop. A breath caught in his throat. Fingers curling into fists where they’d just been on your ribs. Everything is vibrating with want. No bond. No compound tether. Just this. Just him. And he’s shaking. Not visibly. But you feel it in his breath. In the way his hands flex when they grip your hips. Like he’s holding back with every ounce of control he has left.

“You sure?” he rasps, low and wrecked.

You nod. He doesn’t move. So you press your mouth to his ear. 

“Bucky,” you whisper. “I’ve been sure since I looked you in the eye and told you not to think about sex.”

He exhales, a bit shaky, but lifts you, guiding you backward toward the bed. Walking you slow and blind, like he’s memorized every inch of you and he’s finally getting to touch what he learned.

You hit the mattress. He’s on you a second later, crowding you down with the weight of his body, the strength of his stare.

“Don’t move,” he murmurs, mouth brushing your cheek. “I want to see you.”

Your heart stutters as he starts to undress you. Slow at first, like he’s unwrapping something fragile. Fingers dragging over skin with intention. Mouth kissing every new inch he uncovers.

“You’re fuckin’ beautiful, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “You don’t even know what you do to me.”

You whimper, hands reaching, but he pins your wrists lightly to the bed.

“Let me,” he says. “You’ve had your hands on yourself enough, haven’t you?”

Your face burns but your thighs twitch. He clocks it.

“Oh, you liked that,” he murmurs, voice like velvet. “Liked making me feel it. Every fuckin’ second.”

“Bucky—”

“You wanna know what it did to me?” he asks, trailing his fingers down your stomach, your hip, your thigh. “The way you touched yourself? Knowing I couldn’t stop you. Couldn’t help you. Couldn’t taste you.”

Your breath hitches as his lips graze your inner thigh.

“I almost lost it, doll.”

He groans as he spreads you open, thumb teasing, mouth following. He’s slow at first. Too slow. Licking soft circles like he’s memorizing the shape of your pleasure.

And then he dives in.

Moans into you like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. Holds your thighs apart, firm and unrelenting, while his tongue works in perfect rhythm. Watching you. Murmuring praise between licks and gasps. Your hips twitch, a whimper slipping through your clenched teeth.

“Already?” he murmurs, breath hot against you. “You that close, sweetheart?”

You try to answer, but it’s useless.

“God, look at you,” he groans. “So fucking wet.”

You arch up in response, gasping.

“Needy little thing,” he laughs, brushing his fingers through your folds. “Bet this is all you’ve been thinking about the past two weeks, huh?”

He plunges a finger inside of you and curls, as do your toes while you rasp out.

“Bucky, please!”

“You gonna fall apart for me, doll?” he murmurs against you, the words so filthy and tender they almost make you cry. “I want it. Want to feel you shake. Want to taste every bit of it.”

He flicks his tongue in tight circles, then flattens it low and slow. Adding another finger to your weeping core. Your hips start to shake, lifting off the bed. He feels it and grips you tighter.

“Don’t fight it,” he gasps into you. “Don’t you fucking dare. That’s mine.”

He sucks hard—just once—and your vision whites out. You try to warn him. A gasp, a stuttered breath, a twist of your hips. But it’s already too late. You come with a cry, fists clutching the sheets, legs locked around his shoulders, everything inside you unraveling at once.

It’s too much. Too sharp. Too good. And he groans into you like he’s the one coming. You’re limp, gasping, still shaking—and he’s still there, mouth wet, fingers brushing your hip.

“Shit,” you breathe. “That was…”

He kisses the inside of your thigh. Then again, a little higher.

“You’re not done yet,” he says, voice thick with hunger. “Not even close.”

He keeps going, softer now—just enough to draw the aftershocks out of you, murmuring things you can barely hear over your own heartbeat.

“So perfect. So fuckin’ sweet”

You blink through the stars behind your eyes, chest rising in fast, uneven bursts.

“Bucky—”

He finally comes up for air, his eyes are darker with something deeper than just heat as his gaze locks on yours. And for a second, neither of you moves.

You’re still panting, still wrecked from his mouth and fingers, but there’s something in the way he looks at you now. Like he’s trying to memorize you, even as his restraint starts to crack again.

“Still with me, sweetheart?” he murmurs, voice hoarse.

You nod, breath caught in your throat.

“Good,” he says, fingers sliding up your sides. “Because I’m not done learning how you fall apart.”

You whine when he pulls away. But when his own shirt comes off, followed by the rest, your breath stutters—because even now, with the link broken, you’re still wrecked by your need for him.

Not like before. Not a shared mind or emotion. But like muscle memory. Like your skin knows him now. His mouth tilts up—barely a smile, more like relief bleeding through restraint.

Then he climbs your body like he owns it, skin dragging over skin. Not rushing. Savoring. Like he’s been starving for you and doesn’t want to miss a single fucking bite. His chest brushes yours—bare, flushed—and you both exhale hard, the contact so electric it knocks the air from your lungs.

You reach for him, aching, but he catches your wrists—not to stop you. To feel you. To anchor himself. His thumbs press into your palms, grounding hard.

“You still want this?” he murmurs.

You nod. But that’s not enough. Not for either of you.

“Yes,” you breathe. “I want you.”

He kisses you like he means to brand it into you, deep and claiming. His whole body comes down over yours, pinning you into the mattress with his weight like he’s trying to fuck the memory of him into your bones.

His hand trails down your side, over your hip, gripping your thigh with purpose. Holding you there, keeping you open for him.

“You feel that?” he whispers against your jaw, slowly dragging his cock against your sensitive heat. “That’s real. Not chemicals. Not the compound.”

You nod again, blinking up at him.

“I felt you before, doll,” he murmurs, pressing the head against your entrance. “But now? Now I get to have you.”

Then he pushes in slowly. Inch by inch as it steals the air from your lungs, not realizing how you could ever feel this full. He’s everywhere. It’s not artificial. It’s just him. Just this. And it’s overwhelming in a completely different way.

“God, you feel so fuckin’ good,” he groans, as his hips finally meet yours. “Like you were made for me.”

He moves slow at first, watching your face, chasing every gasp, every arch of your body. Letting you relax into the stretch as he drags himself in and out of you. Your body answers him before your mouth can. Nails digging into his shoulder. The pressure already building, faster this time, hotter. And he feels it, responding with a low, rough growl in your ear.

“Got used to feeling everything,” he murmurs. “Now I’ve gotta earn it. Every sound. Every twitch of those perfect fuckin’ hips.”

You can’t even speak. You moan, hips tilting up, greedy for more.

“That’s right,” he breathes, rougher now. “Show me.”

He rocks into you again, harder this time. You gasp, cry out softly against his shoulder. 

“Bucky—please—”

“You begging already?” he groans, continuing to pound you deeper into the mattress. “Thought I was just a side effect.”

“You weren’t.”

He freezes, just for a moment. Kisses you again, softer now, but more desperate.

“Say it again.” His forehead presses to yours.

You touch his face, thumb brushing the hard line of his jaw. “You weren’t.”

He exhales like it hurts.

“You gonna come for me again, sweetheart?”

You whimper, helpless as your walls begin to flutter around him.

“Yeah, you are,” he breathes. “I can feel it. So tight around me already.”

And the way he looks at you—wrecked and reverent and just this side of feral—makes your whole body stutter. You want it. Want to be ruined by him. Claimed by him.

You tighten around him again, and his hips snap harder. His hand slips between your bodies. Finds your clit. Zeroes in without mercy.

“Give it to me,” he whispers into your throat. “Let me feel you fall apart.”

It hits like a freight train—loud and messy and devastating. Your back arches, your breath catches, and you cry out his name like it’s the only word you’ve got left.

He fucks you through it—long, dragging thrusts that keep you trembling. Your body’s oversensitive now, every nerve frayed, but he doesn’t stop. Keeps going, holding you there like he’s afraid you’ll vanish.

“Bucky,” you moan, hand in his hair, nails dragging over his scalp.

He breaths into your mouth—kissing you like he’s starving.

“You drive me fuckin’ crazy,” he pants. “You know that?”

You whimper, thighs shaking.

“I tried to keep it together,” he growls, voice ragged. “I tried—”

Every thrust is brutal now. Precise. Shattering.

“Fuck,” he breaths. “When you were—”

“Buck—”

He kisses you again, biting your lip. His hand moves between you again, thumb rubbing fast and perfect.

“God, baby—” His voice cracks. “You’re gonna make me fuckin’ lose it.”

“Then lose it,” you whisper. “I want you to.”

He growls your name, broken and wrecked, hips jerking once, twice—And you shatter. It slams through you—raw, loud, everything burning at the edges. Your body seizes, clenching around him, sobbing his name as you fall apart in his arms.

He buries himself inside you. You feel the heat. The flood. The way he tries to hold himself together and can’t. He’s trembling over you, muscles locked tight, jaw clenched as he pulses deep in you, riding it out with a low, wrecked moan.

You’re both gasping now. Shaking. Tangled up and clinging. And still—he doesn’t pull away. He stays. Forehead to yours, still buried deep, arms wrapped around you like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded.

“I’ve never thought—” he starts, voice ragged. “That wasn’t just—”

You touch his face, soft now. “I know.”

Because you do. This wasn’t adrenaline. Wasn’t science. Wasn’t the bond. It was him. It was you. He lifts his head slowly. Looks at you like he’s still afraid to believe it. So you cup his face, kiss his temple, and whisper, “Don’t you dare vanish on me now.”

His throat works, jaw clenches. But he doesn’t run.

He stays right where he is. Wrapped around you.

—-

The room is warm. Quiet. You’re lying on your back, one leg tangled with his, the sheets kicked halfway off the bed. Bucky’s fingers skim slow circles over your hip, like he hasn’t figured out how to stop touching you yet. Or doesn’t want to. You stare at the ceiling.

“Tell me again how this wasn’t a terrible idea,” you murmur.

He huffs out a laugh. “It was a terrible idea.”

“Oh, good,” you say. “So we’re on the same page.”

He shifts, rolling just enough to look at you. His hair is a mess, his chest still rising a little fast, like he hasn’t fully come down. There’s a smudge of dried sweat at his temple and your teeth marks fading on his neck, and you have the completely inappropriate urge to kiss both.

“Can’t believe I got to sleep with the woman who called me a glorified blunt object,” he says dryly.

You smirk. “Wasn’t planning to sleep with the guy who implied my life’s work was an emotional leash.”

“Touché.”

You sigh. Close your eyes for a second. The weight of it all—what came before, what you just crossed into—settles somewhere behind your ribs. He’s still watching you when you open them again.

“I’ll deal with Val,” he says suddenly. “If she tries to pull anything with the compound, I’ll shut it down.”

You blink. “You’re serious.”

“I usually am.”

You study him for a beat. “You don’t have to fight my battles, Barnes.”

“No,” he says. “But I want to.”

Something about the way he says it. Casual and quiet, like it isn’t a big deal, makes your stomach tighten. He’s not pushing. Not performing. He just means it. You shift closer, resting your chin on his chest. “You know, if you’d told me two weeks ago I’d end up in your bed—”

“You would’ve laughed in my face.”

“I did laugh in your face.”

“You told me I looked like a government-issued mistake.”

You snort. “Well. You kind of did.”

He smirks, fingers brushing a line along your spine. “Still think I’m a mistake?”

You glance up at him. He’s smiling, but it’s tentative. Like he’s not sure if you’ll dodge or hit back. So you lean up, kiss him—soft, but real. Honest.

“Maybe not a mistake,” you whisper against his mouth. “Maybe just… statistically improbable.”

He laughs against your lips. You both fall back into the pillows, tangled up and far too warm, but neither of you moves.

Eventually he murmurs, “This thing between us—whatever it is—it’s real now, right?”

You stretch a leg over his, sighing. “I mean, if it’s not, then I’m still having incredibly vivid sex dreams while awake.”

“That’s flattering.”

“That’s science.”

He kisses your forehead and mumbles, “Then let’s see what happens without science.”

You let that settle. No neurobond. No link. No forced proximity. Just choice. You curl in closer. And this time, when you breathe him in, you don’t feel afraid.

Just steady. Just… okay. You smile. And he feels it.

[unwastelandunbaby]

thinking david corenswet is hot is the most embarrassing reputation ruining annoying thing I could have done tbh like ohhh my god really tall big muscles dark hair and blue eyes kind man is hot. god fucking really. are you fucking stupid I hate myself. oh you think superman is hot? fucking superman? groundbreaking type shit going on here oh my god he’s tall should we tell everyone he’s tall and his jaw is nice wow she thinks the attractive man is attractive you and everyone else. is pizza your favorite food too. fuck you. everyone look at her she thinks SUPERMAN is hot boundaries are really being pushed over here should we get her a medal because she thinks Mr Smile is easy on the eyes. “hear me out” and it’s a fucking marching band. should we call people magazine. vanilla. I DISGUST myself. summer blockbuster. I should be killed