honey bunnie

side blog & reblog account || 22, istp, gemini she/they | eng

[bunnie-babe]

i’d be a homie hopper for the 141 😩

[semper-nox]

The Long Game

Summary: Steve Rogers spent three years becoming the safest place in your world. He never told you he was in love with you. He never told you he was quietly, patiently shaping every path so that when you finally said yes, there would be no one else left in the room.

Wordcount: 20.9k (fml)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female Reader (no use of y/n)

Warnings: MDNI, mutual pining, slow burn, best friends to lovers, unresolved sexual tension, emotional constipation, Steve Rogers is bad at feelings, soft dom! Steve Rogers, possessive Steve Rogers, protective Steve Rogers, jealous Steve Rogers, emotional / soft manipulation, consent is explicit but the path was carefully engineered, first time, virgin! Reader, loss of virginity, gentle sex, intense sex, prolonged sex edging, orgasm denial (brief), mutliple orgasms, fingering, oral sex is teased, p in v, cockwarming (brief), use of sex toys, vibrator Captain America rubber duck, mirror sex, hand on throat (non-choking), praise kink, possessiveness, aftercare morning, yearning, little plot and lot of smut, happy ending

A/N: someone begged me to make this post happen with Steve, and I had already been thinking about it so I wrote it. It went through 2 versions, one was less smutty (but still) and then I went and shot myself in the foot and added 2k of pure smut. You're welcome.

Masterlist

You were the one who taught him how to be alive in the wrong century.

Steve remembered it in pieces, the early days – the way you remember an illness once you're well. The apartment they'd put him in, all clean lines and hostile silence. The list of things he was supposed to catch up on, as if a man could read his way back into belonging. The way the world had gone loud and bright and merciless while he'd slept, and everyone he spoke to treated him like an artifact, careful, reverent, a little afraid.

Everyone but you.

You'd been assigned to him, more or less. Some liaison arrangement, a name on a form. You were supposed to help him with the practical things – the phone, the money, the hundred small humiliations of a world that assumed he already knew. And on the first day you'd taken one look at the list they'd given you, the tidy little curriculum for reassembling Captain America, and you'd folded it in half and dropped it in the trash and said, “Okay. Forget all that. What do you actually want to know?”

He'd stared at you.

Nobody had asked him that.

Not once.

Not what do you need to be able to do but what do you want.

He hadn't had an answer ready. So you'd made him one. You'd started small – coffee, the good kind, from the place on the corner that you swore by and he came to swear by too. Music, but not the important music, not the canon they kept trying to hand him; you played him ridiculous things, songs about nothing, and laughed when he frowned, and slowly, slowly, the frown had learned to be a smile again.

You were the one who made the century small enough to hold.

And here was the thing Steve knew about himself, the thing he did not say out loud, the thing that lived underneath his gratitude like rebar under concrete: he had studied you.

He didn't think of it that way, not usually. But it was what he'd done. In those first raw months, when the whole world was noise, you had been the one clear signal, and he had turned the full force of his attention on you the way he'd once turned it on a map before a drop. He'd learned you. Your moods, your tells, the particular quality your silence took on when you were happy versus when you were hiding something. The way you took your coffee. The two friends you'd cut out of your life and the reasons. The exact register of your laugh when it was real and the slightly higher one you used when you were being polite.

He told himself it was love. Attention like that – surely that was love.

He didn't examine, too closely, the part of him that had always been most at peace when he knew a thing well enough to move it.

Two years. Then three. Somewhere in there the assignment had quietly dissolved and left behind the realest thing in his life. You were his best friend. That word was true and he leaned on it. Best friend. He said it to himself like a boundary. Like a wall he was keeping up.

He was very good at keeping up walls right until the moment he decided to take one down.

Here was the thing Steve did not know, in all his careful study, for all his reconnaissance.

You were in love with him.

You had been for longer than you'd admit to yourself, and much longer than you'd ever admit to him. It had come on the way these things do – not a lightning strike but a slow tide, a rising, until one day you'd looked at him laughing in your kitchen over some song you'd played to torment him and realized the water was already at your throat.

You never told him. Of course you never told him.

You had your reasons, and they were the mirror image of his, though neither of you would ever know it. You were his best friend. You were the person who'd caught him when he fell out of the sky and into the wrong life, and you were not going to be the one who made it weird, who wanted more, who looked at Captain America – at Steve, your Steve, who left his socks on your radiator and argued with you about films – and dared to think mine.

So you held it.

You got good at holding it.

You dated other people, sometimes, in a distracted half-hearted way, and none of it took, and you told yourself that was just how it was for you, that you were picky, that you'd never met the right anyone.

You had. That was the joke of it. You'd met him and made his coffee for three years and never told him and never would.

Steve missed all of it.

He missed it because he wasn't looking for it – because in his model of you, the one he'd built so carefully, you were the sun and he was the man grateful for the warmth, and the sun didn't want, the sun just shone. He had never once let himself imagine that the way you touched his arm when you laughed might be the same thing that lived in him, held just as still, just as hidden.

But here was where the missing got complicated. Here was where a decent man's blindness started to shade into something else.

Because Steve, not knowing you loved him, still could not stand the men who tried to love you.

There'd been a few, over the years. A colleague of yours who'd asked you to dinner. A man from your building. Someone you'd met at a wedding and lit up about for a week. And every single time, without ever once raising his voice, without ever doing a single thing you could point to, Steve had found himself in the middle of it.

Nothing so crude as forbidding. He'd never. He was your friend; he only wanted you happy – he told himself this constantly, and the telling had the slightly overworked quality of a man reinforcing a floor he suspects won't hold weight.

But he'd ask questions. Gentle ones.

The colleague – did he seem like he really listened to you, or did he just wait for his turn to talk? The man from the building – didn't it seem a little convenient, how fast he was moving? The wedding one – and here Steve had been at his best, his most careful – Steve had simply been around, more than usual, that whole week. Present. Attentive. Making your apartment the warmest place you could be, so that the pull of somewhere colder and newer never quite caught.

He'd tell himself he was protecting you. Looking out for you. That was what a friend did.

He never let himself finish the other sentence. The one that went: and if I keep you close enough, keep the warmth turned up high enough, no one else ever gets a real hold on you.

He never finished it. But he ran the strategy all the same, the way a body breathes without being told. A man who had spent a war learning that you don't win by attacking – you win by controlling the ground, by patience, by making sure that when the moment comes, it comes on terrain you've already shaped.

He was playing a long game. He'd have been horrified to hear it called that. He'd have believed, sincerely, hand on heart, that he was just being a good friend.

That was what made it work. On you. On himself.

It came out on a night that was like a hundred other nights, which was why it caught you both off guard.

Rain. Your apartment. The second bottle of wine, opened with the specific recklessness of two people who have nowhere to be in the morning. Some film playing that neither of you was watching. You were sprawled on the couch with your feet tucked under his thigh, the way you'd been sitting for years, a closeness so worn-in that neither of you flinched at it anymore.

He was watching your profile in the blue light of the screen. He did that more than you knew.

You'd been talking about a man. A recent one – a date, two dates, a third that had ended at your door with a question you'd answered by saying goodnight and stepping inside alone. You were telling it as a funny story. You were good at that, turning the ache of your own life into something you could laugh at from a safe distance.

“–and I could tell he thought that was it, you know,” you were saying.

“Like, third date, obviously. He had the whole face on. And I just–”

You made a small helpless gesture with your wine glass.

"I couldn't.”

“Because you didn't want to,” Steve said. Carefully. Reading you.

“Because I never do.”

You said it lightly, but something had shifted under it, some floor giving way, and you'd had exactly enough wine to keep walking out onto it.

“That's the– okay. Don't make it a thing.”

“I won't make it a thing.”

“I mean it, Steve.”

“I know you mean it.”

You looked at him for a long moment, and he held very still, the way he'd learned to, and then you laughed – the higher laugh, the covering one – and said it.

“I've never actually had sex. With anyone. Full stop.”

You waved the glass again, a whole life dismissed in a gesture.

“There. The world's oldest– whatever. It just never happened. And now it's this whole–”

“You're not old,” he said, automatically, and it came out rougher than he meant.

“–thing in my head,” you finished, ignoring him, because you needed to get to the end of it now that you'd started. “And I don't want you to think it's because I'm– God, some blushing innocent girl. I'm not. I know what I like. I've had a lot of time to figure out what I like.”

You said it with a flash of something almost defiant, and he watched your mouth make the words and felt the room tilt.

“I just never let anyone– that far. That's all. It stopped being about the thing and started being about who gets to–”

You stopped.

You looked into your wine.

“Who gets to be the one,” you finished, quiet now. “And nobody ever was.”

Steve did not move.

Outside, the rain kept on. The film murmured to itself, unwatched. Your feet were still tucked warm under his thigh and he was aware of every point of contact between you like a man aware of a live wire.

He should have said something kind and friendly and safe. He had a whole vocabulary for that. That's nothing to be embarrassed about. The right person will come along. You deserve someone who understands what a gift that is.

He didn't say any of it.

Because something had happened in him in the space of your last three sentences, something fast and total and quiet as a door closing, and it had rearranged him from the inside, and when he opened his mouth he honestly did not know what was going to come out.

Who gets to be the one.

And nobody ever was.

Here was what happened inside Steve Rogers in that moment, and this was the truth of him, the part he'd spend a long time not admitting even after he'd admitted everything else.

His first feeling was not tenderness.

Tenderness came. It came a half-second later and it was real, an ache at the thought of you carrying this, at the flash of defiance you'd needed to defend yourself against a hurt no one had even landed yet.

But the first thing – the very first thing, the thing that arrived before he could dress it in anything better – was mine.

Not a word.

Faster than a word.

A kind of heat that went through his whole body and closed a fist around something at the base of him.

The knowledge, sudden and absolute, that there was a first, still, out there in your future – a man, some man, some faceless deserving man who'd get to be the one – and that Steve wanted, with a violence that frightened him, for that man not to exist.

He didn't want you to have a first who wasn't him.

He examined the thought, in the fractional silence, the way you'd turn a strange coin in your fingers. He was good at examining his own thoughts; the war had made him honest, at least in the privacy of his skull.

And what he found, under the tenderness, under the years of best-friend and the sun doesn't want, was this: he didn't just want to be your first.

He wanted to be your last.

That was the shape of it.

Not a night.

Not a favor.

Not some noble one-time kindness to spare you a lesser man.

He wanted to be the one and stay the one, wanted to close the door behind him and have there be no more afters, wanted – the word came to him plainly, and he didn't flinch from it the way he should have – to keep you.

A quieter man might have been ashamed.

Steve was ashamed, distantly, the way you register weather through a window.

But mostly, God help him, mostly he was clear. Clearer than he'd been in three years. All that careful holding-still, all those walls, all the times he'd told himself the sun didn't want – it fell away, and what was left was appetite with a strategy attached, and the strategy came to him already half-built, because some part of him had been building it for a long, long time.

He couldn't just tell you. He knew that in the same breath. If he told you now – best friend, wine, rain, your feet warm under his thigh – you'd panic. You'd rebuild the wall between you before he finished the sentence. He knew you. He knew you the way he knew the load of a shield in his hand, and he knew that the direct assault would lose.

So he wouldn't make the direct assault.

He'd do what he was good at. He'd shape the ground.

He looked at you, and he let none of it show – not the heat, not the mine, not the plan already assembling itself behind his steady friendly eyes – and when he spoke his voice was gentle, and warm, and exactly, precisely the voice of a man who wanted nothing for himself.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

You did.

“You didn't do anything wrong,” he told you. “Waiting for someone who's the one. That's not a thing that's wrong with you.”

He let a beat pass.

Let it land.

Then, easy, almost offhand, planting the first seed so lightly you'd never feel the soil move, “Honestly? I think it says you've got better sense than everyone I know. You held out for it to matter. Most people would kill to have done that.”

Something eased in your face. He watched it ease. He'd known it would.

“You think?” you said.

“I know,” he said.

And he smiled at you – the good smile, the one you'd rebuilt out of a broken century, the one you trusted absolutely – and he tucked the blanket a little more snugly over your feet where they rested against him, a small warm gesture of a man taking care of his friend, and inside the calm cathedral of himself Steve Rogers began, quietly and without any hurry at all, to plan how he was going to become the one.

He had time.

That was the beauty of it.

He was patient; the war had taught him patience, and love had taught him more.

He'd move slow. He'd move so slow you'd never see it as moving. He'd make himself the warmest place in your whole cold new world, warmer than any man who ever asked you to dinner, so that when the moment came – and he'd know the moment, he'd make the moment – it would feel to you like the most natural thing in the world.

Like your own idea.

Like coming home.

He'd give you a first you didn't have to be brave for.

And once he was your first – once you'd let him that far, further than you'd ever let anyone – well…

He didn't let himself finish that one either. But the shape of it sat warm and certain in his chest as the rain came down, and your feet were tucked against him, and the film played on, unwatched, telling its little story to no one.

First, he thought, watching your profile in the blue light.

And last.

You had no idea. You leaned your head back against the arm of the couch and let his kindness settle over you like the blanket, grateful, unguarded, feeling – for the first time all night – completely safe.

You were, of course, exactly the opposite of safe.

You'd never been more thoroughly in someone's sights in your life.

But it felt like being loved. It felt, from the inside, precisely like being loved.

That was the whole trouble with Steve Rogers.

It always did.

He didn't move for three weeks.

That was the part no one would have believed of him, if anyone had been watching – and no one was, that was rather the point.

Three weeks of nothing.

Three weeks of being, in every visible particular, exactly the friend he'd always been.

But underneath, he was watering what he'd planted.

He did it so gently you'd never have called it anything. He simply returned to the thing, now and then, from oblique angles.

A film you watched together where a couple waited years for each other, and Steve, offhand, eyes on the screen, “See, that's the thing people don't get. Waiting for the right one isn't weakness. It's the opposite.”

He didn't look at you when he said it.

He didn't have to.

He felt you go still beside him, felt the words go in and find the soil he'd already turned.

A week later, a friend of yours got engaged, and you were happy for her and a little raw underneath, and Steve was there for that too – present, warm, and somewhere in the evening he said, easy as anything,

“You know what I've always thought about you? You're not waiting because you're scared. You're waiting because you know what it should feel like. That's rare. Most people just settle.”

You know what it should feel like.

He watched the sentence do its work over the following days.

He was patient.

He'd learned in a war that the ground does most of the fighting for you, if you shape it right and wait.

And you – you didn't know you were being shaped.

You only knew that lately, when the old ache came, the one about being the last of your friends to have never, Steve's voice was there in your head to meet it. Not making you feel broken. Making you feel chosen by your own restraint.

Turning the wound into something almost like pride.

You didn't notice that the voice comforting you and the ache it comforted had started coming from the same place.

That was the craft of it. He didn't just want to be your first. He wanted you to arrive at him feeling like it was the wisest thing you'd ever done.

He chose the night the way he'd once chosen drop zones.

He didn't force it.

He waited for the conditions and let them assemble, and when they did – a Friday, rain again because the rain was on his side, a week where you'd been tired and worn thin and had said, twice, that you just wanted to be somewhere that felt safe – he simply made sure the somewhere was him.

He cooked.

He didn't usually cook; he made a point of it now, and made a point of it looking effortless, so that you'd arrive at his door and be met with warmth and food and low light and the particular gravity of a room that has been made ready for you without ever announcing that it has.

You didn't notice the candle.

You noticed you felt better the second you were through the door, and you didn't ask why, because that was what his apartment always did to you, and you'd never once wondered whether that was an accident.

It was not an accident. It had never been an accident.

You ate. You drank a little – not much; he watched that too, careful, because he did not want a version of this you could tell yourself later hadn't been real.

He wanted you clear.

He wanted you to choose it. The choosing was the whole prize.

And he let the evening soften into the shape it always took, you curled into the corner of his couch, him near, the rain, the low light, the safety he'd built for you brick by brick over three years and you'd never once seen the trowel.

He waited until you brought it up yourself.

He'd known you would. He'd shaped the whole night so you would. And you did – sideways, the way you always came at the tender things, some joke about the engaged friend, about being the last one standing, and the laugh you used to armor it.

He didn't laugh with you this time.

He let a silence open instead. And into the silence, gently, like setting something down that he'd been carrying a long way, Steve said:

“Can I tell you something I've been thinking?”

He'd rehearsed it.

Of course he'd rehearsed it.

He'd rehearsed it in the shower and on his runs and lying awake, editing, the way he'd rehearsed the last one, except this time he'd learned from watching you for three weeks exactly which words would land and which would spook you, and he'd built the speech to your specifications without you ever knowing you'd given them.

But he delivered it like a man thinking out loud.

That was the art.

Nothing rehearsed.

Just a friend, arriving in real time at a hard, honest thing.

He started with you. Always start with them; make it about them.

He said he hated that you carried this like a weight. That someone had made it a wound. That you were the least broken person he knew and it killed him a little that you didn't see it.

He watched your face soften and open.

Then he moved – one careful step, so smooth it didn't feel like a step at all.

He said the thing he was about to say, he was only saying because he was your friend. That he needed you to hear it that way. No expectations. Nothing owed. Nothing changed. He needed to say that part first, he said, because otherwise he'd lose his nerve.

Nothing changed.

The oldest lie in his arsenal, and he laid it down first, deliberately, because a lie told up front lowers the guard against everything after it.

And then – gentle, reluctant, a man dragging the words up against his own modesty, a performance so good he half-believed it himself – he offered.

He said he didn't want your first to be someone who'd be careless with it. Someone who'd take a thing that mattered and not understand that it mattered.

He said the word he'd built the whole campaign on, the one he'd planted in you three weeks ago and watered ever since – someone who makes it matter – and he watched it land in the exact soil he'd prepared, watched you recognize your own comfort in his mouth, watched it feel to you like being understood.

He said, if you ever wanted – if it would take the weight off – it could be him.

Because he was your friend.

Because he'd be gentle.

Because he'd take care of you, and make it good, and never once make you feel like the thing that man had made you feel.

He ran the whole thing so warm, so selfless, so entirely about you, that the want underneath it never showed – the mine, the first and last, the fist that had closed at the base of him three weeks ago and never once let go.

He kept all of that behind his steady friendly eyes, where he kept everything, and he let you see only the kindness.

And then he stopped.

And he let the silence do the last of the work.

He'd learned, in a war, that you don't take the ground. You make the ground so untenable that the other side walks into your arms believing it was their idea.

He watched your face. He read every flicker of it. He'd been reading it for three years.

He saw the moment you decided.

He saw it before you knew it yourself.

“Okay,” you said.

Quiet. Barely more than breath.

But he heard it land in the room like a struck bell, and something in his chest surged so hard he had to hold his face still against it.

“Yeah?” he said.

Soft.

Careful.

Give it back to them gently, let them feel it was freely given.

“Yeah.”

You laughed a little, shaky, and it wasn't the armored laugh, it was a real one, undefended, and it went through him like sunlight through the wrong century.

“God. Yeah. I– with you. It should be– of course it should be you. Who else would I–”

Who else.

He'd built that, too.

The whole architecture of who else. Three years of being the warmest place in your world so that when the question came there'd be no other answer in the room.

It had worked. It had all worked. He should have felt like a man who'd won.

He did feel that. He felt it low and hot and certain.

But he felt, too – and this surprised him, this he hadn't planned for – a swell of something enormous and unbearably tender, because you'd said of course it should be you with your whole open face, and for one vertiginous second he forgot the campaign entirely and was just a man in love who'd been told yes.

That was the strange thing about Steve Rogers.

Even the manipulation ran on something real.

Especially the manipulation.

He reached over.

He took your hand – didn't pull you, didn't move toward the bedroom, didn't do a single thing to break the spell by making it suddenly, crudely, about the act.

He'd thought about this part, too.

He was not going to rush you. Rushing you was for lesser men, the careless ones, the ones he'd spent three years defining himself against.

He was going to hold you right here, on this threshold, in the warm ruin of your yes, and he was going to let it be enormous.

Because if the first thing after your yes was a scramble toward a bedroom, some part of you might flinch, might feel it become transactional, might wake up.

He wasn't going to let you wake up.

So he just held your hand.

And looked at you.

And let the moment stretch until it was almost too much to bear, until the whole air of the room had changed, gone thick and slow and charged, until you could feel your own heartbeat in your throat.

“We don't have to do anything right now,” he said, low.

And you'd have sworn – you did swear, to yourself, in that moment – that it was the kindest thing anyone had ever said to you.

You didn't hear the other thing in it.

The patience of a man who'd waited three weeks and could wait one more hour, because he knew that making you wait now, holding you here trembling on the edge of it, was going to make everything after so much more completely his.

“I know,” you said. “I just– can we just–”

“Yeah,” he said. “We can.”

And he settled back, and drew you in against his side, and you let yourself be drawn, your yes still ringing in the air between you like the note after a bell, unspent, everything still ahead of you, nothing crossed yet.

His heart was slamming.

Yours was too.

Neither of you moved toward the door that both of you were now, unmistakably, going to walk through.

He looked down at the top of your head, tucked against him, trusting, chosen, caught.

First, he thought, and this time he let himself finish it, slow, savoring it, the whole long game folding shut around you like a hand.

And last.

The rain came down. The candle he was sure you hadn't noticed burned lower. And Steve Rogers held you on the threshold he'd spent three weeks building you toward, and did not, for one more perfect suspended minute, move.

It wasn't that night. That was the first thing that surprised you.

You'd said yes on his couch, in the warm ruin of the rain, and some part of you had braced for the rest of it to happen then and there – for him to lead you to his bed while the yes was still ringing.

He didn't.

He held you on the threshold and let it be enormous and then, when the candle had burned low and the hour had gone soft, he'd walked you to the door and kissed your forehead and said goodnight.

You'd lain awake most of that night not knowing whether to be relieved or bereft.

What you didn't understand – what you wouldn't understand for a long time – was that the waiting was also his.

That a man who has spent three weeks and one careful evening bringing you exactly here does not squander it on a single unplanned night.

He wanted it chosen.

He wanted you to walk toward it in daylight, awake, sober, with days to change your mind and no wine to blame – because a yes you could take back and didn't was worth infinitely more to him than a yes he'd caught you in.

So the days passed.

Four of them.

And they were strange, luminous, unbearable days.

Because now it was between you.

He'd hand you a coffee and your fingers would brush and you'd both go quiet a half-second too long.

He'd text you something stupid and you'd read it eleven times.

The whole architecture of your friendship, three years of it, had been picked up and set down one degree to the left, and everything looked the same and nothing was.

Now it lived in every ordinary thing.

He'd hand you a coffee and your fingers would brush and you'd both go quiet a half-second too long. He'd text you something stupid and you'd read it eleven times. The whole architecture of your friendship, three years of it, had been picked up and set down one degree to the left, and everything looked the same and nothing was.

And this was the part that undid you – he talked to you about it. Like it was ordinary. Like it was allowed.

“I don't want it to be weird,” he said, on the phone, on the second night, his voice low in your ear in the dark.

“I want you to actually think about it. What you want. How you want it. If you change your mind at any point, even walking in the door, even after– you tell me and it stops. I mean that.”

“I know you mean it” you said, and you did, and that was somehow the most dangerous part of all.

“And if you don't change your mind,” he went on, careful, “then– Friday? Your place?”

Your place.

He'd chosen that too, though you didn't clock it.

Your bed. Your room. Somewhere you'd feel safe, somewhere that was yours – so that when he took it, it would feel like being kept rather than taken.

“Friday,” you said. “My place.”

You heard him breathe out, slow, on the other end of the line. You thought it was nerves.

It was a man watching the last piece of a very long game slide quietly into place.

“Friday,” he agreed. “I'll bring dinner. We don't have to rush anything. We've got all the time in the world.”

He said that a lot, that week. All the time in the world. You thought it was reassurance.

It was a promise.

You just didn't know yet what he was promising.

On Thursday, you were off all evening, and he clocked it inside four minutes.

That was the trouble with being known by Steve Rogers. Three years of a man studying your face the way other people study scripture, and there was nowhere left in you to hide a mood. You'd arrived at his door on the third day with takeout and a smile that didn't reach anywhere, and you'd been fine, determinedly fine, aggressively fine, all through dinner.

He let you be fine for an hour and a half. He was patient like that.

Then he put down his fork and said, “Okay. What is it.”

“What's what?”

“You've laughed at three things tonight and you didn't mean any of them.”

You looked at him. He looked back, unmoving, with that terrible mild patience of his, the one that had gotten more out of you over three years than any interrogation ever could.

“It's nothing.”

“It's not nothing. You've been chewing on something since you got here.” He tilted his head. “Is it Friday?”

And there it was, said out loud, in his kitchen, over cold noodles. Friday. The word had been sitting between you for three days like a lit fuse and neither of you had touched it.

“No,” you said.

Then, “Sort of.”

Then, because his eyebrows had gone up a quarter inch and that was somehow worse than any question, “It's stupid. Steve, it's genuinely stupid, can we not–”

“You're allowed to change your mind.” He said it fast, and something in his voice had gone very slightly wrong at the edges. “I meant that. Any point. You don't have to have a reason, you just say the word and it's–”

“That's not it either.”

He waited.

God, he was good at waiting.

He'd sit there all night.

He'd sit there for a week.

And the silence he made was never cold or expectant, it was warm and patient and completely unbearable, and it pulled things out of you the way heat pulls water.

You cracked in about nine seconds.

“How many people have you slept with?”

Steve blinked.

Whatever he'd been braced for, it hadn't been that. You watched him actually recalibrate – watched the careful machine of him stop, reverse, and start again in an entirely different direction.

“...Why?”

“Forget it–”

“No. Hey.” He leaned forward. “No, I'm not– I'm not dodging. I'm asking why, because I want to answer the actual question and I don't know what it is yet.”

You put your hands over your face.

“Because you've done this,” you said, into your palms. “That's the– okay, look. You've had women. Obviously you've had women, you're–” a helpless gesture at all of him, “–that, and it's been three years, and you're not a monk, and I never asked because it wasn't my business, and now it's Friday and it is my business, sort of, and I keep–”

You stopped.

“You keep what,” he said quietly.

“I keep thinking about them.” Your voice had gone small. “Whoever they were. That they knew what they were doing. That they were– that you have something to compare me to and I've got nothing, I've got nothing, I don't know how to do a single part of this and you're going to be so–”

“Don't say bored.”

“I was going to say disappointed.”

Something crossed his face that you couldn't read.

He got up. Came around the table. Crouched down beside your chair so that he was lower than you, looking up, which was a thing he did sometimes and which you'd never once been able to withstand.

“Okay,” he said. “Ask me properly. I'll answer anything. Straight.”

So you did, because you'd already humiliated yourself and there was nothing left to protect.

“How many?”

“Few.” He said it without flinching. “Since the ice– three. One that lasted about eight months, back at the start. Two that didn't last at all.” A pause. “Before the ice, none. For the record. I was a hundred and ten pounds and nobody was interested, and then there was a war on.”

“Eight months.”

“Eight months.”

“Did you love her?”

He considered it. He didn't rush to say no, which somehow you respected and hated in equal measure.

“I wanted to,” he said finally.

“I tried pretty hard. She was kind, and she deserved better than a man who was – ” He stopped. Restarted. “I wasn't really there. She said that, actually. At the end. She said it was like living with someone who was waiting for a phone call.”

You didn't understand, then, what he was telling you.

You would, later. On a grey morning, in the clear light, with all the pieces laid out. You'd count backwards and realize that the eight months had ended about two years ago, right about the time a man had looked up in this kitchen and noticed the shape of your hands, and you'd understand exactly what phone call he'd been waiting for.

But that was later. Right then you just sat there feeling worse.

“Great,” you said. “So there's an eight-month person. Who presumably knew how to–”

“Hey.”

“–and I'm going to be lying there like a–”

“Hey.” His hands closed over yours in your lap. “Look at me. You want the straight answer? Here's the straight answer. I can't remember her face without trying.”

You went quiet.

“That's not me being cruel about her,” he said. “She was a good person and she didn't do anything wrong. It's just true. I've had three, and I couldn't tell you one specific thing about a single one of those nights, and I've been sitting in this apartment for three days now unable to think about anything except–”

He stopped.

Very suddenly. Like a man who has walked to the exact edge of a cliff at speed and put his heel down just in time.

The kitchen was very quiet.

“Except what?” you asked.

Here was what was happening inside Steve Rogers at that moment, and it was not what you thought.

He was cornered. Genuinely cornered, for the first time in three years of careful navigation – and by his own hand, which was the galling part.

Because he'd built this whole thing on a lie of omission.

I'm doing this for you. No expectations. Nothing changes.

He'd told you it was a kindness, and the trouble with telling someone it's a kindness is that it makes them the charity case, and now you were sitting in his kitchen with your hands shaking under his, believing you were a favor he was doing, believing there were better women in his past that you'd be measured against.

And he could fix it.

Instantly.

One sentence would fix it, and the sentence was I have wanted you for two years and there has never been anyone else in the room, not once, not ever, they were all just places I was standing while I waited for you.

He couldn't say it.

Not yet.

Not three days out, not with the whole thing balanced this delicately, not when saying it now might spook you into calling Friday off – because he knew you, he knew what you did when something got too big, you ran, you laughed it off and rebuilt the wall and he'd have to spend another year getting back to here.

So he did the thing he was best at.

He told you the truth – as much of it as he could afford, and not one word more. He gave you the edge of it and let you believe the edge was the whole.

“Except you,” he said.

Your breath caught.

“That's– Steve–”

“Three days,” he said, low. “I haven't slept much. I keep–”

He shook his head, and the frustration in it was completely real, which was what made it work.

“You think you've got nothing to offer. You think you're gonna disappoint me. I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to tell you that I've been half out of my mind since Friday got put on the table and it's got nothing to do with being helpful.”

“But you said–”

“I know what I said.”

You stared at him.

He held your gaze and let you look, and he let just enough of it show – not all of it, never all of it, but enough. Enough that something in your chest turned over hard.

“I don't understand,” you said.

“I know.” He squeezed your hands. “You don't have to yet.”

And then he moved you off it – deftly, warmly, the way he moved you off everything.

“Here's the part I do want you to hear,” he said, “because it's the part that's actually true and I need you to stop carrying it. Ready?”

You nodded.

“There's nothing to be good at.”

“That's not–”

“There isn't.” He said it with total conviction.

“That's a thing people made up to sell you something. Nobody's grading it. There's no technique that matters more than–” he searched for it, “– than the person actually wanting to be there. That's it. That's the whole thing. And the idea that you'd need to perform for me, that you'd be lying there worried you're not–”

He broke off, and something flashed across his face that you'd never seen before, something with a great deal of heat in it.

“That's not going to be a problem,” he said. “I promise you that's not going to be a problem.”

“You can't know that.”

“I can,” he said. “I do.”

And there was such flat, absolute, unarguable certainty in it – the certainty of a man who has run this scenario in his head several hundred times and knows precisely how it goes – that you felt the ground shift under you.

“Okay,” you said faintly.

“And for what it's worth.” He got up, sat back down in his own chair, and reached over to steal a piece of your food, so casual, so ordinary, so completely deliberate. “The comparison thing works both ways.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged, eyes on his plate.

“Means they're not the ones who spent three years learning what your face does,” he said. “So I'd say I'm at something of an advantage.”

You laughed. It surprised you, coming out.

He smiled at his plate, and let you laugh, and did not look up – because if you'd seen his face in that moment, all the careful work would have been for nothing.

Three years learning what your face does.

He'd told you the truth. He kept doing that, all week, in small unbearable increments – offering you the actual shape of it in pieces you weren't yet able to assemble, so that later, when you finally could, you would understand that he had never once lied.

Only ever waited for you to catch up.

“Friday,” you said.

“Friday,” he agreed.

And he thought, watching you go back to your food with your shoulders finally loose and every day after that, if I've done this right.

Friday came the way you'd been half-dreading and half-dying for it to come.

He arrived with food and you barely ate it. You both knew you wouldn't, really; the dinner was a courtesy, a soft place to land the first hour, a way to let your nerves burn down to embers before anything else.

He was good at that.

He was good at making you feel like there was no clock, even as he watched the evening move exactly where he'd meant it to.

He kissed you standing, in the middle of your living room, with the rain going on the windows and the dinner neither of you had eaten gone cold behind you.

He took your face in both hands to do it.

That was the thing that undid you first – not the kiss, the hands.

The way he framed your jaw between them, thumbs along your cheekbones, tilting you up like something he'd been given permission to hold at last.

Careful.

Almost formal.

As if after three years of not being allowed, he intended to do this properly.

The kiss was soft.

Softer than you'd expected from a man that size. He kissed you like he had all night – because he did, because he'd made sure of it – slow closed-mouth presses that asked and asked and never once pushed. His breath was warm on your upper lip. His thumb moved once against your cheek.

You'd waited three years for this. Three years of standing in kitchens and doorways and not letting yourself, and now it was happening and it was gentle, and something in you went molten and impatient all at once.

So you bit him.

Not hard. Just caught his lower lip between your teeth and pulled, a small deliberate provocation, more instinct than plan.

Steve made a sound like he'd been struck.

And the careful thing broke.

It happened fast. His hands left your face and found you properly – one at your waist, one at the small of your back – and he moved you, three steps, no effort at all, until your shoulders met the wall.

Not hard.

He'd never put you into a wall hard. But the ease of it, the sheer thoughtless strength of being relocated by a man who could do it without straining, punched a moan straight out of you before you'd decided to make one.

Because you felt him then. All of him, all at once. The whole solid front of him pressed flush against you from chest to hip, and it was so much – so much more real than anything you’d ever conjured alone in the dark – that your knees genuinely went. You could feel the thick, heavy line of his cock already hard against your stomach, straining against his jeans, and the heat of it made your mouth go dry.

“Fuck,” he breathed against your mouth, voice rough. “‘M sorry. Been waiting three years to feel you like this. Sorry, too much?”

“Don't you dare apologize.”

He laughed, wrecked, and kissed you again, and this time it wasn't soft at all.

It went hot in the space of a breath.

His mouth opened over yours and yours opened under his and it stopped being careful entirely – teeth catching, tongues sliding, the graceless wet urgency of two people who have waited far too long for a thing and have suddenly stopped being polite about it

He kissed you like he was trying to get through you. You kissed him back like you'd been drowning.

His hands didn’t stay still. One kept its grip at your waist, fingers spanning half your ribcage, holding you exactly where he wanted you against the wall. The other went into your hair and held – cradling your skull, tilting your head where he needed it, giving him the angle he wanted so he could fuck his tongue into your mouth deeper.

You couldn't breathe properly.

Neither could he.

Between kisses there were these ragged half-seconds where you both just gasped into each other's mouths, foreheads pressed, and then one of you would go back in like it hurt not to.

And then he slid his thigh between yours.

You didn’t even register it happening. One second there was space and the next there was the hard, thick muscle of his leg pressed up tight between your thighs, taking your weight, holding you up when your legs had stopped bothering. The seam of your jeans dragged right against your clit with every tiny shift, and you were already so wet the fabric felt soaked through.

You made a sound into his mouth. He swallowed it.

“There it is,” he murmured, rough, dragging his mouth along your jaw. “There’s that sound. God, you have no idea– three years I’ve wondered what you’d sound like when you finally stopped holding back. Three years I’ve thought about getting my hands on you and finding out.”

He didn't finish it. He bit the side of your throat instead, open-mouthed and greedy, and you keened.

He’d meant it to be slower.

That was the thing. He’d planned this – of course he’d planned this, he’d been planning it for months, every careful conversation, every soft offer to “make sure it was someone who actually gave a damn” – and in the plan this part was fifteen minutes of taking the edge off your nerves before he moved you toward the bedroom and began, slowly, methodically, the careful hours of work he’d mapped out in his head.

He was managing it. Just about. His control was fraying but it was holding.

And then he felt you move.

He went absolutely still.

Not stopped-kissing still.

Something deeper.

A stillness that started somewhere behind his sternum and spread outward, because his body had just registered a piece of information his mind was three full seconds behind on.

You were rocking against his thigh.

Small. Slow. An unhurried little roll of your hips, back and forward, grinding your cunt against the hard muscle of his leg, seeking the pressure of him, entirely without instruction – and when he made himself pull back an inch to look at you, he understood in one glance that you had no idea you were doing it.

None. Not a shred of awareness.

Your eyes were half open and gone somewhere far away. Your mouth was red and swollen and slack from him, still parted, still chasing. Both your hands were buried in his hair, fisted tight enough to sting. And your hips just kept going, small helpless movements, riding the muscle of his thigh with the unthinking single-mindedness of a body that had stopped consulting anybody about what it wanted.

You weren't performing. You weren't trying to be anything. You weren't even present enough to be embarrassed.

Steve stared at you.

Something enormous turned over in his chest.

Because here was the thing he had never allowed himself to properly imagine, not in three years, not in a single one of the shameful careful fantasies he'd built and dismantled in the dark: that you might want him like this.

Not sweetly. Not gratefully. Not as a favor accepted from a good friend.

Like an appetite. Like a woman with a body that knew exactly what it was after and had gotten tired of waiting.

She's not innocent, he thought, dazed. God help me. She’s just never been touched. And she wants it. She wants me.

And he almost let it happen.

He came so close. Every animal part of him wanted to press his thigh up harder and hold you there and watch you come apart against him in your own hallway – and for one long second his hand actually moved to your hip to help, fingers digging in, guiding the roll of your body so the seam of your jeans dragged tighter over your clit.

Then he stopped.

Because he'd promised himself something four days ago, lying awake, rehearsing.

Not against a wall. Not in a hallway with her shoes still on.

Not the first time.

He had spent three years getting here and he was not going to spend the first thing you ever felt from another person on a rushed ten minutes in a corridor. He wanted you on a bed. He wanted hours. He wanted to watch your face when he finally pushed inside you.

So he took his thigh away.

The sound you made was awful.

A high, thin, wrecked little whine, muffled against his throat, so entirely undone and so completely unlike anything you’d ever let him hear that it nearly finished him where he stood. Your hips kept moving anyway, chasing the pressure that was no longer there, cunt clenching around nothing.

“I know,” he breathed. “I know. I know, sweetheart– you were right there, weren’t you? I felt it. You were gonna come on my leg like that.”

“Steve–” You were shaking. Your hips were still moving, mindless. “Please, I was– I was almost–”

“I know you were.” His voice was barely holding together. His hands slid down, gripped the backs of your thighs hard enough to leave marks. “That’s exactly why I’m not letting you. Not here. Not like this. I’ve waited too fucking long to take you against a wall for the first time.”

And he picked you up.

Just lifted you, straight off the floor, as effortlessly as picking up a coat – and your legs went around him on pure instinct and your arms went around his neck and the sound you made this time was different, because the position had put you flush against him, directly against the thick, hard length of his cock, nothing between you now but two layers of ruined clothing.

You ground down on him without deciding to. Hard. The ridge of him dragged right against your clit through the fabric and a broken sound punched out of both of you at the same time.

He staggered half a step.

“Baby.”

“I can't– I can't stop–”

“Then don’t.” He got his mouth back on yours, kissing you as he walked, taking the whole weight of you on one forearm so the other hand could hold your face. “Don’t stop. Rub yourself on me all you want. Just don’t come. Not yet. Give me one more minute, that’s all I’m asking–”

You whimpered into his mouth and rolled your hips anyway, shameless, grinding your soaked cunt against the hard line of him with every step, and he laughed, breathless and ruined, and kept walking.

The hallway was three metres long. It took a while.

Your shirt went first – he’d got it halfway off you against the wall and you finished it, dragging it over your head, throwing it somewhere that turned out to be the kitchen. His went next, and it was you who did that too, both hands under the hem and shoving, desperate for skin. He had to set you down for two seconds to get it over his head and you both made frustrated noises about the two seconds of separation.

One of your shoes came off in the corridor. The other one you kicked at the bedroom door and it hit the frame and bounced.

He got you up again. You got your legs back around him. He walked you the last few feet with your mouth on his throat and his hands full of your ass and his belt half undone by fingers that had no business being that clumsy. You could feel how hard he was, the thick shape of him trapped against your stomach, and every step made you grind harder against it.

By the time you made it to the bed, most of it was gone. The rest went in a graceless heap somewhere between the door and the mattress – jeans, underwear, the last of your clothes – neither of you looking, neither of you caring, both of you making sounds into each other’s mouths that would have mortified you in daylight.

And then there was nothing left, and he was carrying you bare against him, skin on skin down the whole length of you. You felt the heavy, hot weight of his cock trapped between your bodies, the head of it already slick against your stomach, and you both stopped dead at the shock of it.

He held you there. Breathing hard. Forehead against yours. His hands were shaking where they gripped the backs of your thighs.

“Okay,” he managed, voice wrecked. “Okay. Look at me.”

“Okay,” you agreed. Neither of you moved. You could feel how wet you were against him, the slick heat of your cunt pressed right against the underside of his cock.

He turned to lay you down on the bed.

And stopped.

You felt it happen – felt the whole enormous frame of him go rigid, felt the change in his breathing – and you lifted your head from his shoulder to see what he was looking at.

Oh, God.

The nightstand. Half-tucked behind the lamp, where you'd meant it to live out of sight and had entirely, catastrophically forgotten it would be visible from this angle, held in these arms, naked, tonight of all nights.

Small. Yellow. Absurd.

A little rubber duck, except for the shield painted on its chest, and the tiny painted mask, and the unmistakable, ridiculous, unmissable A on its forehead.

“Oh my God.” You said it into his shoulder. “Oh my God. Steve. That's not– okay, that is not–”

“Whose is that.” Quiet. Not cold. Quiet.

“A friend gave it to me.” The words came out in a rush, muffled, desperate. “As a joke, it was a birthday thing, everyone laughed, she thought it was hilarious– because of you, obviously, because I never shut up about–”

You stopped.

You’d said too much and not nearly enough, and you were naked, wrapped around him, held off the ground by a man whose bare skin was pressed to every inch of yours – the thick, hot length of his cock trapped between your bodies, the head of it already slick against your stomach – and the horror of it and the heat of it hit you at the exact same moment and came out of you as a sound that was not a word at all.

Because you were still at the very edge. He’d taken you to the brink in your own hallway and left you there, and your whole body was still humming and furious about it, cunt still throbbing and empty, and now this – his arms, his chest, the shameful little yellow thing on the nightstand, the sheer overload of it…

You moaned. Right against his throat. Helpless. Your hips rolled once, involuntary, dragging your wetness along the underside of his cock.

He felt it. Every part of him felt it.

“A joke,” he said.

“Steve–”

“And you used it?”

The question dropped into the dark and stopped everything.

You could have lied. He felt you decide not to. He felt the truth come up through you, hot and honest, and you lifted your chin the smallest fraction – that flash of defiance that told him you were not, whatever else, some blushing innocent – and you said it.

“Yes.”

One word.

It went through him like a struck match through paper.

Because there it was – the thing he’d told himself he was too decent to feel. You’d taken him – this ridiculous painted duck-version of him, this joke, this stand-in – and in the privacy of this room, alone, in the dark, you’d spread your legs and pressed that little yellow body between them and come with his face in your head. Every other man who’d ever asked you to dinner had been turned away at the door, and the only version of anyone you had ever let into this bed had been him.

Even as a joke. Even in rubber. It had been him.

The possessiveness that took him then wasn’t a thought. It was tidal. It closed over the last of his careful decency and pulled it under without a sound.

He didn’t touch the duck. He’d get to it. He’d get to it in his own time, and the knowledge of that sat in him warm and patient and certain.

“Okay,” he said, very softly, and you heard the change in him – the way his voice dropped into something darker, rougher, almost hungry – and your breath caught. “Okay, baby. So you’ve been using me to get yourself off. For how long?”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

He laid you down.

And then he stopped, and looked at you, and didn't touch you at all.

You’d have squirmed under it if you’d had the coordination left. He was kneeling over you, braced on one arm, completely naked, cock heavy and flushed against his stomach, and he was just… looking. Taking his time about it. His eyes moving over you slowly, thoroughly, from your face down the length of your body and back up again, lingering on your breasts, the soft curve of your stomach, the wet shine between your thighs, like a man reading something he’d been told about for years and had never been allowed to see.

“Steve–”

“Give me a second.” His voice was unrecognisable – low, rough, almost reverent. “Three years I’ve imagined what you’d look like under me. Give me one second to actually see it.”

So you lay there and let him look, and watched what it did to his face, and it was almost worse than being touched. His cock twitched visibly against his stomach. A bead of precome welled at the tip and slid down the underside.

Then he took his time – which, after the hallway, after being carried, after being left shaking on the very edge of it, was almost cruel.

He touched you like a man with nowhere else in the world to be. Slow palms up the outsides of your thighs, spreading them wider. Along your ribs, thumbs spread wide so they brushed the undersides of your breasts. His mouth at your throat, your collarbone, the soft give beneath – unhurried, methodical, learning you by hand and by inches while you writhed underneath him and made sounds you’d have been mortified by in daylight. Every time his fingers drifted close to where you needed them most he pulled them away again, stroking the crease of your thigh instead, feeling how wet you’d already gotten just from being looked at.

You told him, at least three times, that you were going to lose your mind.

“I know,” he murmured, into your skin, entirely unmoved. “I know. Almost. I’ve waited three years to get my hands on you. I’m not rushing the first time I get to touch you like this.”

“You left me–”

“I did.” Not sorry. Not remotely sorry. His mouth moved lower, open and wet against the soft skin just above your navel. “I wanted the first time you came for me to be right here. In this bed. With my fingers inside you and my mouth on you so I could watch every second of it.”

“That’s–” You had to stop and breathe when his tongue dipped into your navel. “That’s a horrible thing to do to someone.”

You felt it more than heard it – the warm huff of air, the curve of his mouth.

“Probably,” he agreed. “But I’ve been hard for you since the second I walked through your door, and I’ve been thinking about this exact moment for months. You’re going to have to live with it.”

And you understood, dimly, through the fog – the way you understand a thing you won't be able to name until much later – that he was enjoying this. Not the way a man enjoys being generous. The way a man enjoys having something exactly where he wants it, after a very long wait.

And then he touched you properly, and you stopped being able to form sentences.

The first thing was the shock of how different it was.

That was what nobody had ever told you. You knew your own body – you’d had years alone in this room with nothing but time and a joke made of rubber, you weren’t some blank page – but you had never once considered that another person’s hand would feel like an entirely different category of thing.

You couldn’t predict it. That was the difference. You didn’t know what was coming next, or how long it would last, or when it would change, and your body couldn’t brace for any of it – so every single thing he did landed unguarded, straight through, nothing between you and the sensation at all.

His fingers slid through the soaking folds of you, parting them, and the sound was obscenely wet. You made a noise like you’d been hurt. His head came up instantly.

“Okay?”

“Don't stop. Don't you dare stop–”

“Not stopping.” His mouth came back to your jaw, voice rough against your skin. “Not stopping, sweetheart. Just checking. Fuck, you’re soaked. Is this all for me? Or is some of it left over from thinking about that little yellow duck while you touched yourself?”

It didn't take long. It couldn't have.

You’d been strung tight since the hallway, since before the hallway, since a Tuesday in his kitchen four days ago – and he knew it, and he used it. He read every twitch of you, every hitch of your breath, adjusting to each one, cataloguing in that ruthless observant way of his exactly what made you shake and exactly what made you sob.

Three years of watching your face for the smallest tells, put to this.

Two thick fingers circled your entrance, gathering slick, then pressed inside you in one slow, steady push. The stretch made your back arch off the bed. He curled them immediately, searching, and when he found the spot that made your whole body jolt he made a low, satisfied sound against your throat that you would think about for weeks afterward.

“There,” he said, voice dark with triumph. “There it is. That’s the place you’ve been rubbing that little duck against, isn’t it? Right here.”

“Steve–”

“I know. I’ve got it now.” Something had come into his voice that hadn’t been there before. Something certain. Something almost proprietary. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to lose it again.”

He didn’t. He held that exact angle, merciless, and worked his fingers inside you in slow, deep strokes while his thumb found your clit and rubbed firm, steady circles. It built in you fast and hot and impossible, and you had a moment of genuine panic – of I can’t, it’s too much, this is too much with someone watching – and he felt even that, because of course he did.

“Yes you can.” His forehead against your temple. His breath ragged now too; he wasn’t unaffected at all, he was breathing like he’d been running, hips shifting restlessly against the mattress so his cock dragged against your thigh. “Yes, you can. You’re going to come on my fingers exactly like this. Let me see it. Please– sweetheart, let me see what you look like when you finally let go for me–”

Then he kissed you.

And that was what finished you: his mouth over yours, swallowing every sound you made, taking them straight out of you as they came – as if he’d decided that if he couldn’t have the rest of you yet, he’d have those.

You broke apart underneath him.

He watched every second of it.

Your cunt clenched hard around his fingers in rhythmic pulses, so tight he groaned into your mouth. Slick flooded his hand. Your thighs shook violently on either side of his wrist. He kept working you through it, slower now but relentless, dragging every last tremor out of you while he watched.

He’d kept his face inches from yours the whole time for exactly that reason. He wanted the front-row seat and he took it, and he watched you come apart under his hand with an expression you had never seen on him in three years and would not be able to describe afterward – something between reverence and hunger and a kind of naked disbelief.

Three years, he was thinking. Three years and it looks like that.

It was better than the fantasy. It was so much better than the fantasy that the fantasy seemed insulting in hindsight – thin, polite, invented by a man who hadn't known anything.

When it finally released you, you were boneless. Shaking. Your hand had fisted so hard in the sheet that it took a moment to unclench. You could feel how wet his fingers still were inside you, the slow, filthy slide of them as he gently eased the intensity.

He pressed his mouth to your temple and held you through the aftershocks, murmuring things against your skin.

“There,” he said. There was wonder in it. And something much darker underneath. “There you are. That’s what you look like when you come for me. Fuck, baby. I’ve been imagining that for so long and it still wasn’t enough.”

You couldn’t speak. You couldn’t do anything but breathe.

“Okay?” he asked, voice softer now, though his fingers were still buried inside you, still moving in the slowest, laziest strokes, like he couldn’t bring himself to pull them out yet.

You managed a nod.

He kissed you again – softly this time, almost sweetly, at odds with everything – and when he drew back his eyes had gone very dark. He slowly withdrew his fingers, watched the way your body tried to clench around the emptiness, then brought them up between you so you could both see how they glistened.

“That’s one,” he murmured, and licked them clean without looking away from your face.

Something in the way he said it made your stomach drop.

He moved to shift you – hands at your hips, turning you, guiding you up onto your knees to face the mirror in the corner, beginning the thing he'd been building toward for three years–

And you caught his wrist.

He stopped instantly. Every part of him stopped. His eyes came to yours in the dark, alert, already scanning your face for the thing he'd promised he'd watch for. “Hey. Hey– we can stop, if you want to stop–”

“No.” Your fingers stayed closed around his wrist. You could barely get all the way around it. “No, I just–”

You were steadier now. That was the thing. The edge had come off; the desperate humming urgency that had run you since the hallway had finally, mercifully quieted, and in its place was something calmer and far more dangerous: you could think again. You could look at him.

And you had been wanting to touch him for three years.

You had to make yourself say it. It came out smaller than you'd meant.

“Can I touch you first?”

Steve went completely still.

And here was what you did not know, and could not have known, and would not understand until much later.

That question was not in the plan.

He'd planned everything. Every hour of the last four days, every word of the three weeks before them, three years of shaped ground and patient warmth and doors quietly closed on other men. He had run this night in his head so many times he could have recited it. He knew what he'd do, and how slowly, and in what order, and what he'd say when you got frightened, and how he'd make it painless, and exactly how he intended to ruin you for anyone who ever came after.

In none of it – not once, not in a single version – had it occurred to him that you might want to touch him.

He'd never imagined being on the receiving end. That wasn't a thing that happened to him. He was the one who gave; that was the whole architecture of him, the shield, the plan, the man who takes care of it. Nobody took care of Steve Rogers. Nobody had reached for him in seventy years and meant it.

“You–” His voice came out strange. “You want to?”

“Is that okay?”

He made a sound. It wasn't a word. He nodded, once, jerkily, like a man agreeing to something whose terms he hadn't understood.

So you touched him.

You weren’t an expert. You had no idea what you were doing and you didn’t pretend otherwise – you just put your hands on him, at last, after three years of not, after three years of that constant low ache of proximity, and you let yourself learn him.

His chest first. Flat palms, spread wide, the ridiculous solidity of him under your hands. The heat of his skin. The way the muscle jumped the second you made contact. You felt his breath go wrong immediately – a sharp, broken inhale that he tried and failed to hide.

Then slower. The line of his collarbone. The old pale seam of a scar under his ribs that you’d never seen and had no story for. The heavy shift of muscle in his shoulder when he swallowed. You mapped him the way you’d wanted to for years and never once let yourself, and every place you touched, something in him jumped. His cock, still hard and heavy between you, twitched against your stomach when your thumbs brushed over his nipples.

“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay– fuck–”

He was trembling. This enormous man, trembling under your hands like it hurt.

You put your mouth on him – his sternum, the hollow at the base of his throat, the place where his pulse was going wild – and he made a low broken sound and his hand came up to the back of your head. Not guiding. Just holding on, the way you hold onto something in weather. His fingers flexed in your hair every time your tongue dragged over his skin.

“You’re allowed,” you murmured against his throat, because you could feel how still he was making himself, how hard he was working to simply let this happen. “Steve. You’re allowed to want it. You’re allowed to feel it.”

“I don’t–” He stopped. Started again, wrecked. “I’m not used to– nobody’s– it’s been so fucking long since anyone–”

“I know.”

You didn’t, entirely.

But you felt it: the way a man goes rigid when someone is kind to him in a way he has no defense against. You’d spent three years watching him take care of everyone in his orbit. It had never once occurred to you either, until this moment, how long it had been since anyone had touched Steve Rogers just because they wanted to.

You went lower.

Your mouth traced the center line of his chest, then the hard ridges of his stomach. Your hands followed, sliding down the deep V of muscle that led straight to where he was thick and flushed and leaking against his own skin. When your fingers finally wrapped around him – tentative, learning the weight and the heat and the way he pulsed in your grip – he made a sound that was almost a sob.

He let you. For a while, he let you – and he was so unguarded about it, so vocal, so entirely undone by having hands on him after seventy years of nobody, that it went to your head like wine. Every sound he made was involuntary. Every one of them was because of you. His hips gave tiny, aborted thrusts into your fist, like he couldn’t stop them. Precome slicked your fingers. His thighs were shaking.

For now you weren’t the one being managed. He was in your hands, and he was coming apart, and you were the one doing it.

Then his hand closed around your wrist, hard.

“Stop.” Ragged. Urgent. “Stop, you have to– sweetheart, stop.”

You froze. “Did I–”

“No. God, no.” He was breathing like he’d run somewhere. His eyes were shut, his jaw locked, his whole body strung tight as a wire. His cock throbbed hot and heavy in your grip, so hard it looked almost painful. “You didn’t do anything wrong. That’s the– that’s exactly the problem. You keep going and I’m going to come in your hand like a fucking teenager and that is not how tonight is supposed to go.”

It took him a moment to get himself back. You watched him do it: the long haul of a man dragging his own control into place by main force, one breath at a time. His hand was still locked around your wrist, keeping you from stroking him again.

When he opened his eyes they were black.

“Not like that,” he said, low. “Not tonight. Tonight you get all of it. Every inch. I’m not finishing anywhere except inside you.”

“Steve–”

“Do you have any idea,” he said, and his voice had gone rough and strange, almost shaking, “how many times I’ve thought about this? How many times I’ve jerked off thinking about finally getting to push inside you and feel you take me? How many times I’ve had to stop myself from just showing up at your door and begging?”

He stopped himself. Visibly. The end of that sentence sat between you, enormous, unsaid – but the damage was already done. You could see it in his face: the raw, hungry truth he hadn’t meant to let out.

He exhaled hard through his nose, then reached up and cupped your face with both hands, thumbs stroking your cheekbones like he needed the contact to stay grounded.

“Later,” he said, quieter, but no less intense. “You can touch me as much as you want later. You can take me apart if that’s what you need. But not tonight. Tonight I need to be the one who does it. I need to be the one who takes care of you. Can you give me that?”

Later.

You'd think about it a great deal, afterward – about how many things that man had put in the box marked later, and how long the box had been full, and what it must have cost him to carry it around for three years, smiling at you over coffee.

He kissed you then, hard, and turned you.

Gentle hands on your hips, guiding, until you were kneeling up on the bed facing the tall mirror in the corner – the full-length one, the one you saw yourself in every ordinary morning, that had never once seen anything like this.

You saw yourself in it. Bare, kneeling, undone. Cheeks flushed, mouth swollen, thighs already shiny with how wet you still were.

And then you saw him rise up behind you, broad and solid, and settle in close, chest to your back, and meet your eyes in the glass.

His breath was still short. You could hear it – could feel it uneven against your shoulder, not yet recovered from what your hands had done to him – and there was something enormously satisfying about that. About having put it there. His cock, still hard and heavy, rested against the small of your back, leaving a wet smear of precome on your skin every time either of you shifted.

“I want you to see,” he murmured, low, against your ear. “I want you watching. I want you to see who’s finally touching you. Who’s going to be the first one inside you.”

He didn’t finish the thought out loud. He didn’t have to. It was already the truest thing in the room.

Then he reached over to the nightstand.

You knew what he was doing before his hand closed on it. You’d known since the way he’d looked at the little yellow duck and set it down and made you wait – and knowing didn’t help at all.

“Steve.” Your voice came out thin. “Steve, no, that’s– that’s not–”

“Mmmh-hmm.”

He picked it up.

It sat in his palm, small and yellow and absolutely ridiculous, and he turned it over once with his thumb the way he had the first time, and the sound you made was half a laugh and half a sob and entirely disbelief.

He pressed a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the side of your throat.

“No,” he said, warm and wrecked and almost amused. “No, we’re not wasting this. You used me. You put this little thing between your legs in the dark and thought about my hands, my mouth, my cock. Now I get to use it on you while you watch.”

“That’s not– it’s not the same thing–”

“It’s exactly the same thing.” His mouth moved to the shell of your ear, voice dropping even lower. “You were in this bed, in this room, in the dark, with this. Thinking about me. Coming with my name in your head.”

A pause, deliberate, cruel.

“Weren’t you?”

You didn’t answer. Your reflection in the mirror looked wrecked already – eyes wide, lips parted, chest rising too fast.

“Sweetheart.” Softer. Absolutely relentless. “Were you thinking about me when you used it?”

“…Yes.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, and there was something in it that was not amusement at all – something dark and hungry and deeply satisfied. “Yeah. Well. Now you don’t have to pretend. Now it’s actually me.”

“Steve, I can’t– I just– I just came, I can’t–”

“You can.”

Total certainty. No room in it anywhere. He was already settling the little yellow duck into place, low and sure, pressing the curved head of it right against your still-swollen clit, exactly where you’d set it yourself all those nights – and the sheer indignity of that, of him knowing precisely where, of him being right, burned through you hot and shameful and somehow made everything tighter.

“You will,” he said against your ear. “Trust me.”

And he thumbed it to life.

The sound was absurd. A small ridiculous hum in the dark, comic, the sort of noise that should have made you both laugh – and for exactly half a second it did, you felt the laugh start in your chest–

And then it landed.

On nerves still raw and singing from what he’d done to you ten minutes ago. Everything oversensitised, everything already wrung out, and your whole body went rigid and then bowed backward against his chest with a sound that had nothing funny in it at all. The vibration was sharp, focused, merciless against your clit. Your thighs jerked. A fresh rush of wetness slicked the insides of them.

The comedy burned clean out of the room.

“Steve–”

“I know.” Rough, against your nape. “Too much?”

“I don’t– I don’t know–”

“Then we’ll find out.”

His other hand came up to your throat.

Not squeezing. Never that – he’d have died first. Just there: a warm broad span across the front of your neck, no real pressure at all, only enough to keep your head level and your chin up and your eyes forward.

Only enough to keep you facing the glass.

That was the whole purpose of it, and you understood the purpose about a second after it was too late to object. You couldn’t look away. You couldn’t drop your head, couldn’t turn into his shoulder, couldn’t hide your face the way every instinct in you was screaming to – because that hand was there, patient and immovable, and it held you exactly where he wanted you.

“Watch,” he said against your nape, voice low and rough. “Look at yourself. Look at what you look like when I’ve got you like this.”

“I can’t–”

“You can.” His mouth moved down: the curve of your neck, the point of your shoulder, unhurried, worshipful, taking his time about it while the little yellow vibrator kept humming steadily against your clit. “You can, and you’re going to. That’s the whole point of tonight. I want you to see every second of it. I want you to watch yourself come apart for me.”

So you watched.

And that was the thing that undid you – not the hum, not his hands, not even the shameful little object he was holding against you. It was the mirror.

You saw your own face, flushed and open-mouthed. You saw the way your breasts moved with every shaky breath. You saw his big hand spanning your throat, his other hand working the vibrator in slow, deliberate circles that made your hips twitch helplessly. You saw how wet you were, the shine of it on your inner thighs, the way your body kept trying to rock into the vibration even though it was already too much.

You watched yourself.

Kneeling up, bare, held. Flushed all the way down to your chest. Your mouth open, your eyes glassy, your whole face wearing an expression you had never once seen on it – not in all the years of getting ready in front of this exact mirror, not ever.

You didn’t recognise her. That was the vertigo of it. There was a woman in your bedroom mirror who wanted things and was getting them, and you’d never met her.

Then you looked past her, at him.

Steve, over your shoulder. Eyes half-shut, jaw tight, the muscle in it working hard. And on his face – plain as anything in the low grey light – years of discipline coming apart in real time.

You had never seen him without it. Not once. Not in three years of coffee and films and rain on the windows. He was the most controlled human being you’d ever met and you were watching the control fail, live, in your own bedroom, because of you.

He caught you looking. His eyes came up and met yours in the glass and held.

“There,” he said quietly, voice rough. “Now you see.”

“Steve–”

“That’s what you do to me.” His hand shifted at your throat, the barest adjustment, keeping your chin up so you couldn’t look away. “Three years of that. Every time you laughed at me. Every time you sat on my couch with your feet under my leg. Every time you leaned in too close and I had to pretend I wasn’t hard. You want to know what it looked like underneath?” His mouth found your shoulder, open and hot. “That’s what it looked like. That’s what I’ve been holding back.”

You made a sound you couldn’t control – high, broken, helpless.

“There she is,” he murmured, watching it happen in the mirror with dark, hungry eyes. “Look. Look at her. Look at what you look like when I’ve got a vibrator on your clit and my cock against your ass.”

And you watched him hold you like something he’d won and couldn’t quite believe he’d won.

That was the other thing in his face – under the hunger, under the fraying discipline – a kind of stunned disbelief, as though some part of him were still standing in a kitchen three years ago watching your hands around a mug, certain this would never in a hundred lifetimes be his.

It made your chest hurt. It made everything worse. It made you want to give him absolutely anything.

Time did something strange after that.

You lost the thread of it entirely. There was only the relentless little hum of the duck against your oversensitive clit, and the rain on the windows, and his mouth moving over your shoulder, and the two of you in the glass – and every so often his voice at your ear, low and steady and coming apart at the edges, telling you exactly what he could see.

“You’re dripping. Look at that. You’re making a mess of my cock and I haven’t even been inside you yet.”

Your moans were small and helpless and you couldn’t stop them and he drank each one like it was owed to him.

Then he moved.

Not into you. Not yet. He shifted his hips and settled the thick, heavy length of himself against you instead – flush, close, unbearably present – sliding the whole of him between your slick folds without pushing in. The sound that came out of both of you at the contact was the same sound, torn from two throats at once.

He’d meant it to be a moment. Just a moment, just a taste, just enough to take the edge off the pressure that had been building in him for three weeks and three years.

It was not a moment. It went on and on.

Because the first slow drag of him against you told him something he hadn’t been prepared for, and it undid what was left of his composure in one clean stroke.

You were soaked.

Wet through, slick and hot and ready, everything he’d done to you gathered there waiting for him – and he felt it coat him as he moved, felt himself glide through the thick evidence of exactly how much you wanted this. His forehead dropped hard to your shoulder and he made a sound like he’d been punched in the gut.

“Oh– fuck, sweetheart.”

Wrecked. Barely a voice at all.

“You feel that?” He rocked again, slow, deliberate, dragging the entire thick length of his cock through the heat of you, the head of him catching on your clit with every pass, the underside of him sliding through your folds until he was shiny with you. “You feel what you’re doing to me? God. God, you’re so wet. I didn’t know you’d be this wet. I didn’t know you’d feel like this.”

He couldn’t finish the thought. His breath had gone to pieces.

He’d imagined this. That was the thing that was killing him. He had imagined this, in the dark, for years, in a shame he’d never confessed to anyone – and every single version he’d built had been a pale, polite, dishonest little thing next to the reality of you slick and shaking and arching back into him.

Because you were. That was the other thing. You weren’t just letting it happen.

You were meeting him.

He felt it the second time he moved – your hips tilting back, chasing the thick drag of him, your body seeking the friction on its own without any instruction from the wreck of your mind. Small greedy movements. Rolling up into him so that every slow thrust of his hips dragged the head of his cock right over your clit and the vibrator at the same time.

“There you go,” he breathed, and there was something dangerously close to awe in it. “There you go. Look at you. You’re– fuck, you’re riding it. You’re actually fucking yourself on my cock and you haven’t even taken me yet.”

“Steve–”

“Say it.” His voice cracked. “Say it while you watch yourself do it.”

“I want–” Your voice broke on it. The hum was still going, still relentless against your clit, and the thick slide of him through your folds was making everything tighten again already, and you could barely get the words out. “I want it. Please. Please, I want you inside me–”

The sound he made then was not a word.

And you felt him.

That was what none of your quiet nights alone had ever, ever come close to – the fact of another body, alive and undone, reacting to you.

You felt him shiver.

You felt the great controlled bulk of him – this man built to withstand things that killed other men – actually shudder against your back when you rolled your hips a certain way. You felt his arms tighten convulsively around you. You felt the tremor run the whole length of him like something coming loose.

You felt his breath, hot and broken and far too fast at your ear, catching every time you moved.

You felt his heart going like a hammer against your shoulder blade.

And you felt him twitch against you — an involuntary jerk of his cock, hard and hot and slick where he was pressed to you, a thing his body did entirely without his permission — and that was the moment it stopped being something being done to you and became something you were doing to him.

The power of it went through you like a drug.

“Oh,” you breathed, stunned, watching his face in the mirror as another full-body shiver ran through him. “Oh, you–”

“Don’t.” His voice was barely holding. “Don’t say it. If you say it I’m gonna come all over your back before I even get inside you–”

You said it anyway. You leaned back into him and turned your face and said it right against his jaw, eyes still locked on his reflection.

“You’re shaking.”

He swore.

Actually swore, a low ruined syllable against your throat, and his hips snapped forward once, hard, uncontrolled – dragging the entire thick length of his cock through your soaked folds, right over the exact place the little humming duck was working your clit – and you both cried out.

He caught himself instantly. Went still. Breathed hard against your neck.

“Fuck– sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“Do it again.”

He froze.

“Do it again,” you said, voice shaking but clear.

And the sound he made – half a groan, half a broken laugh, entirely destroyed – was the sound of the last strut going out of a structure that had held for three years.

He did it again.

He moved against you slow and deep and endless, the thick, heavy length of him gliding through the slick heat of you, the head of his cock catching on your clit with every pass, the underside of him coated in how wet you were. Neither of you could keep quiet anymore. His breath came ragged and open-mouthed against your neck, punctuated by low, helpless grunts he wasn’t managing to swallow – small sounds of effort, of restraint, of a man holding back something that badly wanted to be let go. Your own noises had stopped being anything you could control: high and broken and continuous, rising every time the thick drag of him lined up just right with the vibrator.

The slide of it had gone effortless. Slick and hot and perfect. Every pass of him gathered more of your wetness until the sound of it was unmistakable under the hum – the wet, filthy noise of his cock sliding through you – and it made you burn scarlet and it made you want it more.

“Listen to that,” he said hoarsely against your ear. “Listen. That’s you. That’s how fucking wet you are for me.”

“I know–”

“That’s how much you want me.” His arms had gone tight, all of him strung, the muscle standing out in his forearm where it braced across your chest. “Three years and I never– I didn’t know. I didn’t know you’d feel this good. I didn’t know you’d be this ready.”

He broke off. Rocked into you again, harder, the thick head of him catching deliberately on your entrance this time without pushing in.

“Steve.” You were shaking. “Steve, I can’t– you have to–”

“I know.”

“Please– inside me, please–”

“I know, baby.” He was panting now, openly, past hiding it. “I know. Me too. Look at me– look at me in the glass– Christ, look at us–”

You looked.

And what you saw in the mirror finished you: the two of you moving together in the low grey light, his eyes wild and blown and locked on yours in the reflection, his jaw clenched, his whole enormous frame trembling with the effort of holding at the edge for you – and you understood, with a lurch, that he was as far gone as you were. That the patient man, the careful man, the man who had planned every second of this, was hanging on by a thread thinner than yours.

“Steve,” you whispered. “Now.”

His breath stopped.

“You’re sure–”

“Now. I want you inside me. Now.”

And then–

Both of you gasped at once. The same breath, torn out of two throats. That first give, that first fraction, that first impossible inch of him finding you – the blunt, thick head of his cock pressing against your entrance and then slowly, carefully, beginning to stretch you open. The surprise of it, the sheer overwhelming fact of it after all this waiting, after three years, after four days, after a joke made of rubber that had somehow led here–

You froze. He felt you freeze.

He went utterly still behind you, buried his groan in your shoulder, and got his mouth to your ear.

“Just the tip, baby.” Rough. Ragged. Barely holding. The words slurred as if he were drunk. “'S just the tip. 'S okay. 'S okay, I've got you, look– look at us– 's just the tip, we've got all the time in the world.”

He kept you there a long time.

That was the thing you’d remember, after – not the ache, because there was almost no ache, only a deep, stretching fullness that bordered on too much – but the patience. The way he held the two of you suspended at that first impossible fraction and refused, absolutely refused, to hurry through it. A lesser man would have taken the yes and pushed deeper. Steve held it in his hands like something that might break if he breathed wrong, and he breathed carefully, and he waited.

Every time your body tensed around the newness of him – that instinctive clench, the ancient bracing of a self that had guarded this for years – he stilled. Completely. Went to stone behind you, his whole enormous frame locked around the effort of not moving another millimetre, and got his mouth to your ear, and gave you something else to feel instead.

The hum, low and shameless, where his hand held the little yellow duck tight against your clit.

The mirror, and the two of you inside it, lit silver-grey by the rain-light: your face flushed and open, his face wrecked and focused, the place where his body disappeared into yours.

His other hand at your throat – no pressure, never pressure, only warmth, only the wordless instruction of it: watch. Turning your face gently back to the glass whenever your head tried to fall, whenever your eyes threatened to close and hide from how much you were feeling.

He had redirected everything. That was the craft of it and the tenderness of it, and by now the two were the same thing. He had taken every scrap of your attention and moved it somewhere else – to the absurd little song of the toy, to the sight of yourselves, to the slow worshipful drag of his mouth along the top of your shoulder – so that when he pressed a fraction deeper, the smallest rock of his hips, the barest give of another thick inch, there was no room left anywhere in you for fear. Only more.

You never felt the stretch as anything but more.

He worked you open by inches and the inches took forever and forever was the whole point, the whole gift. Tiny movements. A rock forward, a pause held so long you thought you’d die of it, his groan buried hot in your nape, another fraction of him sinking into the tight heat of you, another pause, another. He read your breath the way he’d once read a battlefield – every catch of it, every shiver, every place your body softened or resisted – and he answered each one, adjusting, coaxing, never taking more than you’d give and always, somehow, making you want to give more.

“There you are,” he breathed once, when a long slow press drew a sound out of you that you’d never made before – high, broken, almost disbelieving. “There. Just like that. Feel how you’re taking me. I’ve got you.”

And he did. That was the thing. However this had begun – however carefully he’d shaped the ground beneath your feet for three years to bring you exactly here – right now, in the dark, with the rain on the glass, you had never in your life felt so completely, so unbearably held.

Somewhere in that endless slow undoing you felt it start to build.

You felt it gather at the base of you, low and hot and coiling – the relentless hum against your clit and the thick, stretching fullness of him and the sight of his face behind you in the mirror all winding tighter and tighter, a tension with nowhere to go, climbing past anything you’d ever managed alone in this room with a joke made of rubber. Because it had never been like this alone. Alone there had been sensation. This was him. This was three years of wanting given a body and a weight and a mouth at your ear, and it was too much, and it was not enough, and it kept climbing.

“That’s it.” His voice had gone thick, watching your face come apart in the mirror, drinking the sight of it. “That’s it– look at you– look at us– don’t look away, stay with me, let it happen–”

You came like that.

Held on the very threshold of him, the little humming thing pressed hard against your clit and only the first thick inches of his cock inside you, and it broke – it broke over you in a long bright wave that took the room with it. Your body clenched sweet and helpless and rhythmic around him, and the tight, pulsing heat of your orgasm dragged him the rest of the way home while you were still shaking, still gone, still lost in it.

So that by the time you surfaced, gasping, boneless, blinking at the two of you in the glass, he was fully seated. All of him. Buried to the hilt, his hips flush against your ass, exactly where an hour ago you’d have sworn you couldn’t take him – and you hadn’t felt a single second of the final stretch as anything but coming apart.

He held still inside you then. Every thick inch. Both of you trembling, his chest heaving against your back, his heart slamming so hard you could feel it through your own spine. You could feel the heavy pulse of him deep inside you, the way your body kept fluttering and clenching around the new fullness.

“There,” he said, wrecked, against your ear. His arms had come around you, holding you upright, holding you together. “There. All of me. See? Told you.” A rough, reverent kiss pressed to your temple, your cheekbone, the corner of your jaw. “Didn’t hurt at all. Not for a second. I wouldn’t let it. You’re perfect. You’re taking me so fucking perfectly.”

It hadn’t hurt. He’d made certain of that. He’d redirected every ounce of you so thoroughly, so deliberately, that the thing you’d carried for years as a kind of wound had passed while you were looking somewhere else entirely – and now it was simply done, gone, dissolved, replaced by the impossible fullness of him and the singing wreck of your own body, and you understood dimly that he had planned even this, this mercy, this sleight of hand, and could not for the life of you find it in yourself to mind.

Then he drew back – slow, so slow, dragging every nerve in you awake as the thick length of him slid almost all the way out – and gave you the first real stroke.

And the world went white at the edges.

Because this was different. This wasn’t the careful inching-open, the patient claiming of ground. This was him – the whole heavy length and deliberate drag and deep certainty of him filling you completely – and the sound you made didn’t even sound like your own voice, some low broken thing torn up from a part of you that had never spoken before.

He did it again. Still slow, but full now, complete, unhurried and total, burying himself to the hilt with every stroke. His forehead dropped hard to your shoulder at the feel of it, his breath shuddering out of him in broken bursts. You felt his control fraying with every deep unhurried pull, felt the discipline of three years coming loose thread by thread, and it was the single most intoxicating thing you’d ever witnessed – this vast, contained, careful man beginning, at last, to lose himself inside you.

And then, with a low rough sound of decision, he threw the duck away.

You barely registered the small absurd clatter of it hitting the floor somewhere across the room – because his hand, the one that had held it, came straight back to you, bare now, his own thick fingers finding exactly where the toy had been. And it was so much better. So much warmer, so much surer, so much more him. He rubbed firm, knowing circles over your swollen clit while he fucked you in long, deep strokes, and the dual sensation made you sob aloud and sag back against his chest.

“Don’t need it,” he muttered, half to you and half to himself, hips rolling, fingers working you with a knowledge of your body he had no right to and had somehow earned anyway. “Don’t need the fucking toy. It’s me. It’s just me now. Just us. Only ever gonna be me inside you after this–”

And you shattered again.

Just from that. Just from him – his hand and his mouth and the deep, slow, relentless certainty of his cock filling you over and over – a third orgasm, harder than the two firsts, folding you forward over the strong braced line of his arm while he held you up through all of it and worked you through every wave. He watched every last second of it in the glass with dark, greedy, disbelieving eyes, like a man who could not quite believe the thing he was seeing was real and was his.

And in the middle of it – past the roar of your own blood, past the last shred of anything guarding you, barely conscious of your own mouth moving…

“I love you,” you whispered.

It just fell out of you. You weren’t even certain you’d said it aloud. It slipped free the way breath slips free, involuntary, unbidden, the truest thing in you rising to the surface in the one moment every wall you owned was down at once.

Steve went absolutely still.

You felt it – the whole of him, stopping. His fingers on your clit. His hips. His breath. For one endless suspended second the only sound in the entire world was the rain against the glass and the ragged double-time of your own heart, and the thick pulse of him buried deep inside you.

And then something broke in him that had never broken before.

Not the strategist – that was already gone, dissolved somewhere back at the nightstand the moment you’d said yes. This was deeper. This was the last thing, the thing underneath all the other things, the belief he had quietly built his entire careful campaign on top of and never once examined in the light: the sun does not want. The sun simply shines. I am the man who gets to stand in the warmth, and I will ask for nothing, and reach for nothing, because reaching was never something I was allowed.

And you had just whispered, half-gone, not even meaning to, that the sun wanted him back.

Three years of holding still. Three years of a man convinced that the very best he could ever hope for was to live near your light and never dare to touch it. Three years of loving you in a silence so complete he’d nearly mistaken it for peace. And you’d said I love you into the dark with your whole body wrapped around his – without deciding to, without performing it, without any reason to say it but that it was simply, helplessly true – which meant it was real. Which meant it had been real for longer than tonight. Which meant that all this time, in some room of your own, behind some wall of your own, you had been holding your breath exactly the way he’d been holding his.

He lost it.

Every last thread of the control he’d carried into this room like armor – gone.

His hand left your throat – gently, gently, always gently, even now – and cupped your jaw instead, and turned you, up and back over your shoulder, until your mouth found his. And he kissed you like a man surfacing from under ice. Deep and desperate and endless. All of it at once, everything, nothing held back. He kissed you like he was trying to breathe you in, like the three years had all been leading to precisely this and he could not bear to have waited even one second longer. His hips started moving again while he kissed you, deeper, less careful, the thick length of him sliding in and out of your still-fluttering cunt with a wet, rhythmic sound that filled the room.

“Say it again,” he breathed against your mouth when he broke for air. Ragged. Wrecked. Not commanding – begging. This man who had strategized his way to your bed, reduced now to a plea. “Please. Say it again. I need– please, sweetheart, say it again.”

Your eyes came open. Wide. You heard it land in the air a full beat too late – heard your own voice replaying I love you into the quiet – and felt the panic surge up hot in your chest, the instinct to snatch it back, to laugh it off, to rebuild in a single second the wall it had taken you three years to hold…

He didn’t let you.

“No,” he murmured, and kissed it away, kissed the fear right off your open face, his hips moving harder now, deeper, the last of his restraint gone and something helpless and overflowing rising in its place. “No, no. Don’t. Don’t take it back. Don’t you dare take it back, I’ve got you–”

“Steve–” your voice cracked, “–I didn’t mean to–”

“Love.” The word broke out of him like it had been waiting three years for permission to exist. “Sweetheart. Look at me– no, not the mirror, not the glass– me. Look at me.” And he turned your face fully to his and held it there, forehead pressed to forehead, both of you coming apart in the dark, his eyes so close they were the only thing in the world. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You hear me?”

His voice cracked clean down the middle.

“I’m never letting you go. Not ever. Not after this. You don’t get away from me now– I won’t let you. I’m keeping you.”

And it wasn’t a cage, the way he said it. It wasn’t the possession that had roared through him an hour ago at the sight of a painted rubber duck. That was gone too – burned off, transfigured, remade into something rawer and simpler and completely undefended. It was a man who had lost everything once – every friend, every anchor, an entire world, a whole century swallowed by the ice – waking one more time into a life that finally, impossibly fit, and finding you at the center of it, and refusing, this time, with everything left in him, to let the cold take the thing he loved.

Keeping. Not caging. Not owning. Keeping – the way you keep the one thing you’d walk back into the freezing dark to save. The way you hold on to the single warm thing in a life that has taught you, over and over, how easily warmth is lost.

“Okay,” you gasped, past tears you didn’t fully understand, past the very last of your own unraveling, your hands scrabbling back to find his and lacing tight through his fingers, holding on like the whole world had tilted and he was the only fixed point left. “Okay. I love you. I do– I said it, I meant it, I’ve meant it for so long, I love–”

He kissed the rest of the words out of your mouth.

And the two of you went over the edge together – finally, completely, no threshold left to hold at, no careful inch left to preserve, nothing between you anymore. Not the years. Not the silence. Not the strategy or the shaped ground or the walls you’d each built so high and held so long. All of it gone at once, and only this left standing: him, and you, and the rain on the glass, and the two of you in the mirror moving like a single thing breathing.

He came with a broken, helpless sound against your mouth, burying himself as deep as he could go, pulsing hot and thick inside you while your body clenched around him in long, rhythmic waves. Your fingers stayed locked. Your foreheads stayed pressed together. Both your hearts hammered the same impossible rhythm.

And a ridiculous little yellow duck lay forgotten on the floor across the room, having done, in the end, exactly what it was always secretly for.

Afterward he held you against his chest and would not loosen his arms, and you let him – boneless, wrung clean through, wearing the heavy steady slam of his heart under your cheek like something you had been given and meant to keep.

For a long while neither of you spoke. There was only the rain, and your breathing slowly finding each other's rhythm, and the warmth of him around you like a wall built to keep out cold instead of to keep you in.

“I meant it,” he said at last, into your hair. Quiet now. Sure. No campaign left in his voice, no strategy – just the plain flat truth of a man who has stopped, finally, being careful. “All of it. Every word. The keeping part especially.”

“I know,” you murmured.

You didn't, yet. Not the whole of it – not the three years and the three weeks and the four days, not the film chosen on purpose, not the seeds planted and quietly watered, not the drop zones and the shaped terrain and the long patient war he had waged to bring you to this exact bed. That would come later. Some of it. As much of it as he would ever bring himself to tell you.

But you knew the part that mattered. You had felt it break wide open in him in the precise instant you stopped guarding your own heart – felt the whole vast careful machine of him come apart the second you said three words he'd never once let himself believe he might hear – and you knew, with the certainty of a thing felt rather than reasoned, that whatever else was true about how you'd arrived here, you had not been the only one holding your breath for three long years.

“Stay,” he said. Not a question.

“I live here,” you pointed out, muffled, smiling helplessly against his skin.

You felt his laugh move through his whole chest – low and startled and completely undone, the laugh of a man who has spent so long braced for loss that joy still catches him off guard.

“Then I'm staying,” he said, and pulled the blanket up over the both of you, and drew you in closer against him, and did not, for the rest of that long rain-soft night, let go of you even once.

The rain came down. The duck lay where it had fallen.

And Steve Rogers – who had planned everything, shaped everything, won everything he'd set out to win, and been utterly, helplessly undone anyway by the one thing he had never dared to plan for – fell asleep at last with your heartbeat beneath his hand. Kept, and keeping. And, for the first time since the ice closed over him a lifetime ago, entirely, dangerously, finally home.

You woke before he did, which never happened.

In three years you had never once beaten Steve Rogers awake – he ran at dawn, he'd been built to need less sleep than the rest of the species, he was always up and moving and quietly making coffee by the time you surfaced. But this morning you swam up out of sleep into grey light and rain-washed quiet and found him still under you, still around you, his arm heavy across your waist, his face slack and open and years younger in sleep than you'd ever seen it awake.

You lay very still and looked at him.

And in the clear unhurried light of morning, with your body pleasantly wrecked and your head finally quiet, you started – slowly, the way you turn something over that's been sitting in your hand all along – to think.

About last night. About the four days before it. About the phone call where he'd been so careful, so patient, so ready. About the candle at his place you were fairly sure you hadn't imagined. About the film, weeks ago, and the thing he'd said about waiting not being weakness. About the engaged friend and you know what it should feel like. About how, every single time you'd tried to fall for someone else in three years, you'd somehow ended up back on his couch instead, warm, safe, home, the pull of anywhere colder never quite catching.

About how the only version of anyone you'd ever let into this bed had been a joke made of rubber wearing his face.

The pieces sat there in the morning light. You looked at them.

And here is the thing you understood about yourself, in that moment, that you would maybe never say out loud: you weren't afraid.

You should have been. Some sensible part of you noted, distantly, that a wiser woman might feel a chill right now – might look at the sheer duration of it, the patience, the shaped ground, and feel like something had been done to her rather than with her. That part of you spoke up, dutifully, and then fell silent, because the rest of you had already gone somewhere else entirely.

The rest of you was on fire.

Because three years. Because he'd wanted you for three years and said nothing and built a whole quiet world to keep you in and you'd never seen it, never once, and the not-seeing didn't feel like violation this morning – it felt like being wanted on a scale you had never in your life been wanted. Steve Rogers, who did everything deliberately, who had planned wars, who never in three years did a careless thing – had spent all of it, patiently, deliberately, on you.

The thought went through you low and hot and you had to press your face into his chest to hide what it did to you.

He woke to that. To your mouth against his sternum and your heart going too fast.

“Hey,” he murmured, rough with sleep, his arm tightening. “You're up first. That's new.”

“Steve.” You didn't lift your head. You weren't sure your face could be trusted. “Can I ask you something?”

You felt him go still. Not tense, exactly – alert. The particular stillness of a man who has just registered a change in the weather.

“Yeah,” he said. Carefully.

You lifted your head then and looked at him. And you asked it plainly, watching his eyes, because you already half-knew and you wanted to see him not be able to lie to you.

“Last night. And the four days. And– all of it.” You held his gaze. “How long?”

He didn't pretend not to understand. That was the thing about him; he could shape the ground under you for three years, but he couldn't, when you looked at him straight, actually lie to your face. It was the one thing his whole careful arsenal had no answer for.

Something moved behind his eyes. A long, complicated something.

“...A while,” he said finally.

"Steve."

“A long while.” He looked away, then made himself look back, jaw tight. “Longer than I should've– longer than was fair to you, probably.”

“How long,” you said again. Softer.

And he gave you the truth, but only at the edges, the way a man confesses when confessing fully would cost more than he can pay. “Since about the second year,” he said. “Maybe before. I stopped keeping track on purpose, because keeping track felt like–” He stopped. His hand moved on your hip, absent, restless. “I told myself I didn't want anything. I got real good at telling myself that.”

“And the candle,” you said. “At your place. The other night.”

A pause.

“Yeah,” he admitted, low.

“And the film. The one about the couple who waited.”

His eyes came back to yours, and there was something almost helpless in them now, something caught. “...Yeah.”

“And you told me waiting made me smarter than everyone you knew. Right after my friend got engaged and I was – right when I was feeling it most.” You watched his face. “You knew exactly when to say that.”

He didn't answer. He didn't have to. The not-answering was its own answer, and he let it be, and he watched you take it in with an expression you'd never seen on him before – braced, unguarded, ready for the exact moment your face would change into something that would end this.

Because he thought you were going to be afraid.

He'd shown you the shape of it – half of it, the demandable half – and now he was waiting, the way a man waits under fire, for you to understand what had been done and pull away from him and be right to.

Your face did change.

Just not the way he'd braced for.

“Steve,” you breathed – and he heard it, the thing in your voice, and his eyes sharpened, because it wasn't fear at all, it was the opposite, it was low and warm and stunned and it went straight through him. “You wanted me for two years and never said anything.”

“I–”

“You planned all of it.” You'd come up onto your elbow now, over him, and there was color high in your face and your voice had dropped somewhere new. “Every part. The candle. The film. Last night. You've been – God, you've been steering me, this whole time, for years, and I never–”

“Hey.” He caught your face in his hand, alarmed now, his careful control scrambling back into place, mistaking your voice for the beginning of hurt. “Hey, listen to me, I never– I'd never make you do anything you didn't– you always could've said no, every single time, I'd have stopped, I swear to God I'd have–”

“I know,” you said.

And then you told him the truth, the one that undid him more thoroughly than any of his own confessions, the one that turned the whole morning over on its head.

“That's not– Steve. I'm not upset.”

He went still.

“I should be.” You said it wonderingly, half to yourself, watching your own reaction like it surprised you too. “I know I should be. Some part of me is standing way back there being very sensible about it.” Your hand flattened on his chest, over the hard fast slam of his heart. “But the rest of me just found out that the man I was in love with for three years spent two years quietly rearranging his entire life around keeping me, and never asked me for one single thing, and–”

Your voice caught.

“–and it doesn't scare me,” you said. “It does the opposite. It does completely the opposite.”

You watched it land in him. You watched him understand.

You watched Steve Rogers realize that the thing he'd been most afraid of – that you'd see the whole careful machine of his wanting and be repelled by it – was not going to happen. That you'd seen it, or enough of it, and that it hadn't cooled you at all. That it had lit you up.

His breath went ragged. His hand slid from your jaw into your hair.

“Say that again,” he said – the same words as last night, the same helpless plea, except now there was something dangerous waking under the wonder in his voice, something that had spent three years leashed and had just been told it never needed the leash at all.

“It doesn't scare me,” you whispered, leaning into him, your mouth almost on his. “Knowing you did all that. Knowing how long. Knowing you'd– Steve, knowing you're not going to stop–” You felt the shiver go through you at your own words. “It should. And it doesn't. It just makes me–”

He kissed you before you could finish. Hard, this time. No careful patience in it now, no ground being shaped, no strategy – just a man who had been handed permission for the one thing he'd never let himself have, which was to want you out loud, in daylight, without dressing it as kindness.

“You don't know what you're saying,” he murmured against your mouth, and it was half a warning and half a prayer, his hands already moving, already sure. “Sweetheart. You don't– if I stop pretending it was ever about being good–”

“Then stop pretending,” you said.

And felt the last of the careful, decent, three-years-holding-still Steve Rogers come apart in your hands – not into cruelty, never that, but into something honest and hungry and finally, completely unhidden – and understood, with a thrill that curled all the way down your spine, that you had just told the most patient man alive that he never had to be patient with you again.

Outside, the rain had stopped.

Somewhere on the floor, a small painted duck lay on its side, watching the ceiling, entirely redundant now.

Neither of you got up for a long, long time.

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[bunnie-babe]

i’m reblogging this now because i can’t read a 20k fic before work 💔🥀

[superbassbuck]

keep the lambs away.

pairing: lumberjack!bucky barnes x fisher!reader

warnings: 18+ NSFW, smut, mean and dark!bucky, hairy bucky, size difference, rough animalistic sex behavior, blood and wounds, animal hunting, manipulation, touch starved, breeding kink, baby trapping, pet names: “sweets, sugar, little doll”

word count: 11.4k main masterlist || 🎨 art's moodboard event

a/n: thank you @artficlly for taking the time to host such a fun, creative event for writers to enjoy! be sure to check out the other works in the masterlist!

synopsis: After a fishing trip gone terribly wrong, you find yourself stranded and stumble upon a small cabin deep in the woods. The man who lives there ends up risking his life to save yours, and you take it upon yourself to stay, return the favor, and make it up to him. But what you didn't know is that Bucky has no intention of letting you go.

Twigs and dark leaves crunched beneath the heavy stomp of your boots, each step forcing you to draw a ragged, tired breath from your overworked lungs.

Your hands gripped the straps of your backpack; the fishing gear inside clinking inside as the weight pressed into your aching spine.

You had set out with friends, a group of self-proclaimed ‘natural adventurers.’ In hindsight, that confidence was your downfall. You had done the one thing every horror movie and survival guide warns against—and that was splitting up.

From there, the trip spiraled.

You lost signal, then your footing, and somewhere in the frantic scramble through the bushes and trees, you had lost your phone.

Now, deep within the woods under a sky of oppressive gray clouds, your legs were beginning to give out. But as you shoved past a dense thicket of damp leaves, the greenery finally parted.

There, nestled in the distance, sat a small cabin. A thin ghost of smoke drifted from its chimney, dissipating into the moist air.

Finally. A small, breathless prayer to whatever deity was watching over you. You weren’t alone out here after all.

The cabin looked small from a distance, but up close, it was plenty big enough to house a whole family.

Your body surged with a newfound spark of motivation at the possibility of finally finding salvation. Maybe they had a functioning phone you could use to call for help—or better yet, a truck to drive you back to the closest town, even if it was miles and miles away.

That hopeful feeling made the gear digging into your spine feel a little lighter as you trudged uphill past the rocks and bushes, closing the gap between you and the house.

As you got closer, you took in the land.

Chopped logs were piled messily at the side of the building. There was a long, wooden table with a large cutting knife sitting on top—presumably where the family cut and prepped their meat.

Drawing in a deep breath of encouragement, you carefully climbed the first few steps of the entry stairway. You reached the porch and raised a hand to knock on the heavy wooden door.

“Hey! Who the hell are you?”

You spun around.

A man was stomping toward the porch, a fresh pile of logs tucked under one massive arm and a grime streaked axe slung over his shoulder. He was intimidating, to say the least. His features were hard and unwelcoming, framed by matted, dark hair and an unkempt beard that shadowed a sharp jawline. A sweat stained red henley clung to his broad chest and muscular forearms, which were mapped with the scars of years of manual labor.

His cold blue eyes pinned you to the spot, glaring at you with pure, unadulterated hostility.

“U-um,” you stammered, taking a quick step away from the door. “I mean no harm, sir. I’m just here to—”

“Get the fuck off my property,” he growled.

He dropped the logs—but kept a firm grip on the axe—as he marched toward you, his heavy boots grating against the dirt.

Jesus Christ. What did you get yourself into?

Just when you thought you’d finally found help, it was just your luck to stumble across an axe-murderer instead.

You quickly scrambled down the steps, raising your hands to show you came in peace.

“Sir, please!” you winced, trying to stand your ground. “I’m lost. I… I promise you. I was out on a fishing trip and I—”

“I don’t believe you,” he hissed. He approached just enough to get a good look at you, yet staying just out of arm’s reach. He nodded toward the heavy pack on your back. “Take it off.”

“… Excuse me?”

“Remove your backpack,” the man clarified harshly. “If you mean what you say, then you should have no problem with me goin’ through your stuff.”

With a hard swallow, you slowly removed your backpack as instructed. It was far too heavy to carry with just two arms, but as you strained to pass it to him, he snatched it out of your hands in one quick motion. You couldn’t help but wince at both his strength and rudeness.

He set the axe on the ground, and you finally let out a small breath of relief. He began to rummage through your pack, taking note of the fishing rods and reels, and digging through the fishing lines and tackle boxes filled with various lures. He sifted through the other emergency supplies—a flashlight, a couple of granola bars, and some first aid stuff— a bottle of rubbing alcohol and bandaids.

“See?” you huffed, a little spark of pride returning to your voice. “I told you. I was out on a fishing trip and I got lost—”

“Hands up,” he instructed, stepping toward you. “I’m goin’ to pat you down.”

You blinked. “Pat me down?” you repeated in disbelief. “For what—!”

Before you could even finish the sentence, and long before you gave him permission, two large, rough hands gripped your arms and started patting down your sleeves. You squirmed a little under his touch, but that didn’t stop him. His hands then moved to your waist, patting firmly through the fabric of your clothes.

To save yourself from the awkwardness of the inspection, you cleared your throat and gave him your name.

“…What’s yours?” you then asked.

He ignored you.

Your breath hitched and your face grew warm as his hands continued further down—to your hips, and then between your legs.

Once the man was satisfied that you weren’t a threat, he pushed himself up with a groan and finally looked you in the eye.

“Bucky.”

“Bucky,” you repeated softly. “Great. Well, now that we’ve got all this…” you motioned to yourself and your bag that he left on the ground, “sorted out, do you have a telephone I can use to call my friends?”

Bucky’s dull expression didn’t change. “No phone.”

He didn’t bother to elaborate, either.

He reached down, snatched his axe off the ground, and headed back toward his pile of wood. Thunder started to crackle in the heavy clouds above you as you hurried to grab your pack, stumbling slightly as you tried to keep up with him.

“W-wait, okay—no phone. Fine. But do you have a vehicle or something? A ride to take me back to the nearest town, perhaps?”

“No ride,” was all he said, his voice flat as he started tossing the logs into the existing pile.

What?

No ride?

You couldn’t tell if this man was telling the truth—or if he was using these clipped, short answers just to fuck with you. But as you watched him lift his axe and deliver a swing to a log with perfect precision, you realized maybe this guy didn’t have time nor energy to play around.

That conclusion was almost worse than him joking.

“I’m sorry, you don’t have a functioning phone and you don’t own a vehicle?” you questioned in disbelief. “Then how do you get around?”

You could see the irritation building in his already grumpy features.

“Everythin’ I need is right here,” he grumbled. “Catch my own food. Build my own house. Don’t need to rely on anybody else.”

Your heart started to race as panic settled in.

“Do you know where the nearest town is?” you asked, your hands tightening around the straps of your pack. “Maybe I can get there before sundown—”

Bucky looked up at the sky, taking in the thick clouds and the moisture building in the air, before he looked back down at his logs. He delivered another hard chop before answering.

“Not a good idea,” he mumbled. “Looks like a storm is comin’.”

The forecast before you left this morning had promised a sunny day—but with the clouds thickening, the possibility of rain wasn’t low.

Still, a storm sounded like an exaggeration. A light trickle, at most.

“Can you please just tell me where the closest town is? The sooner you tell me, the faster I’ll get out of your hair.” You pressed.

He set the axe down and wiped the sweat streaking his forehead with his dirty forearm. He looked at you, letting out a slow, impatient breath.

“To the south,” he pointed behind you. “Go straight until you hit the road, then make a left. Though if you leave now, you’ll get caught up in the storm ‘fore you even make it to the street.”

You looked in the direction he was pointing—all you could see was a thick density of bushes and trees. You glanced back at him and gave him a short nod.

“Thank you, sir,” you said, though you hardly meant it because he had hardly been helpful.

As you began to turn and tread through the brush toward the south, Bucky called out, making you pause for just a second.

“I’m tellin’ you, lady, s’not a good idea to leave now,” he warned. “There are some dangerous animals out there—and the storm ain’t goin’ to do you any favors.”

You didn’t listen. You had to get back home. Adjusting your heavy pack and pushing through the dense treeline, you left both the man and his warnings behind you.

For the first twenty minutes, you felt pretty confident.

The woods were quiet, and though your legs were on fire and your back was aching, you felt like you were making good progress.

Then, the first cold drop hit the back of your neck.

A light trickle followed, tapping against the leaves above you. Within minutes, the sky seemed to open up entirely. The ‘light trickle’ you had predicted transformed into a heavy downpour, turning the forest floor into a messy slurry of mud that made your boots slip with every step.

The wind began to pick up, howling through the branches and making the trees groan around you. You squinted through the fog and the heavy curtain of rain, realizing you couldn’t see more than ten feet in any direction.

You were shivering, your hair was completely drenched, and your clothes were soaked through to the bone.

Just keep going straight, you told yourself. As long as you keep going straight, you'll be fine.

Then, a low snarl crept up behind you—and that sure as hell didn’t come from the wind.

Your whole body froze. To your right, partially obscured by dense ferns, a lean, gray shape shifted. It wasn’t a coyote—no, it was far too large. It was a gray wolf, its fur matted and dark with rain, stepped into the small clearing.

“Oh… my god,” you breathed to yourself.

Your heart was beating so fast you couldn’t hear anything else. Every survival tip you had ever read vanished from your mind; the only thing you could think to do was run.

And that’s exactly what you did.

The moment your heels spun, the forest became a blurry nightmare. Your heavy pack bounced violently against your spine as you bolted, not even daring to look back. You just ran and ran, your lungs burning with every inhale.

Then, like an idiot, your boot hit a mud covered root.

Your heart leaped into your throat as your feet slipped out from under you. You let out a sharp gasp, tumbling forward until your shoulder collided hard with the trunk of a thick oak tree. The impact knocked the wind clean out of you, leaving you gasping and dazed in the mud.

A hungry growl vibrated through the air, cutting through the roar of the pouring rain. You looked up just in time to see the gray mass of the wolf taking eager steps toward you, its jaws snapping for your throat.

In a blind, frantic panic, your hand slapped against the side pocket of your backpack. Your fingers curled around the cold canister of bear spray you packed but never actually used.

You ripped it out clumsily, shoved it forward, and squeezed the trigger.

A cloud of stinging orange mist exploded into the air. The wolf’s head snapped back as it landed a few feet away, pawing at its face and whining as the chemicals hit its sensitive nose and eyes.

You scrambled to find your footing, your hands shaking so hard you could barely push yourself up. Just as you were about to make another break for it, a massive shadow blurred past you.

“You idiot!” he hissed angrily, his voice a ragged pant. “What did I tell you!?”

Bucky.

Anger clouded his face, his chest heaving as he gripped a knife in one large hand. Without hesitation, he launched himself at the disoriented animal. As he pounced, the wolf lashed out, its claws swiping across Bucky’s leg.

He let out a pained yell. “Ah, fuck!”

It seemed like he had done this a dozen times before, adjusting his heavy weight until he finally pinned the weakened animal into the mud. The wolf snarled, snapping its jaws blindly, but Bucky’s grip was like metal. His large, scarred hand clamped down on the back of the wolf’s neck, the veins in his forearms tensing as he forced its head into the dirt.

With a loud groan of effort, he drove the blade deep into the side of the wolf’s neck, right behind the jaw.

The animal threw out one violent kick that nearly knocked him off before Bucky adjusted his weight again, twisting the knife to sever the artery.

The wolf let out a weak wheeze before it finally stilled. Bucky remained over the carcass for a moment, his clothes soaked with rain and blood dripping down his leg. He let out a slow, steadying breath before he stood up, wiping the blade on his already dirty jeans.

He turned his cold, blue gaze toward you, and for a second, his eyes resembled the wolf’s—angry and grim.

“I told you, stupid girl,” he growled, his voice barely audible over the storm. “I fuckin’ told you.”

All of it happened in a blur.

One second, you were tumbling through the woods, just a moment away from losing your life. The next, you were standing in the middle of Bucky’s cabin. Your body felt frozen, your pulse still thrumming wildly as your drenched clothes clung to your skin like a layer of ice. You only snapped out of the haze when you felt Bucky’s hands peeling the pack off your shoulders.

When he reached for the zipper of your jacket, you flinched.

“Hey!” you gasped, your voice cracking. “What are you doing—?”

“I’m helpin’ you,” Bucky grunted, sounding offended.

“I don’t need you to remove my jacket for me,” you snapped, though your hands were shaking too hard to even find the zipper.

Bucky’s brows furrowed, and you watched his jaw tick. He looked terrifying in the dim light of the cabin—water dripped from his matted hair, his chest heaved with the earlier adrenaline of the kill, and fresh blood stained the denim of his jeans where the wolf had lashed out.

He took a step forward, closing the distance between you until he looked down at you.

“Listen, girl,” he hissed impatiently. “I just saved your goddamn life. Now here I am, lettin’ you into my home, about to offer you my damn shower—and this is what you say to me?”

You let out a shaky breath, swallowing hard against the lump in your throat. He was right. He had saved you.

Your eyes trailed down to the jagged cut on his thigh. “You’re bleeding,” you pointed out. “You need to take care of that wound, or it’ll get infected.”

Bucky only scoffed, stepping away and shaking his head at you as if you were the most frustrating thing he had ever encountered.

“Bathroom’s down the hall, make a left,” he gruffed, already turning his back on you. “And don’t take too long—I need to use it after you.”

Not wanting to risk upsetting him further, you took it upon yourself to head toward the bathroom.

The cabin was certainly large enough to house a small family, which only made you wonder more if he really lived here all alone. The walls were stripped of anything personal—no photos, no decor—aside from a few scattered post-its and scraps of paper covered in messy handwriting, tacked up with rusted nails.

As you neared the bathroom, you noticed the bedroom right next to it. The door was cracked open just barely and curiosity got the better of you.

Leaning back slightly, you caught a glimpse of his private space. It was sparse, but in the center sat what looks to be a queen sized bed. It looked massive in the small room—certainly big enough to fit another person.

“You found it?” Bucky shouted from across the cabin, snapping you back.

“Yeah—I did. Thanks!” you called back, your heart giving a small, startled jump.

After settling into the hot shower, the steam finally began to sedate the bone chilling cold from your limbs. You scrubbed the mud and gunk from your skin with the harsh lye soap. Stepping out, you quickly reached for one of the rough, oversized towels.

You had just managed to tuck the fabric securely around your chest, shivering as the cool air hit your damp skin, when the door suddenly creaked open.

“Jesus!” you yelped, clutching the towel tighter and stumbling against the counter. “Knock much?”

Bucky didn’t enter the room. He just stood stiffly in the gap of the doorway.

In his hand, he held out a bundle of folded fabric— a worn, massive white T-shirt and a pair of drawstring shorts that looked like they could fit two of you.

“Not used to company,” he mumbled. He reached out and set the pile of clothes on the edge of the sink without a single glance in your direction. “‘Sides, I’m not interestin’ in lookin’.”

He didn’t wait for a ‘thank you’ or for you to yell at him to get out. He simply pulled the door shut.

Eventually, you changed into the clothes he provided.

With every step you took out of the bathroom, the shorts threatened to slip past your hips, forcing you to yank the drawstrings tighter. The clothes didn’t smell like fabric softener, but it carried a scent that was distinctly him and the rest of the cabin— pine, and woodsmoke.

Returning to the living room, you found Bucky sitting in one of the wooden chairs, his leg propped up as he examined the angry red gashes on his thigh. He hissed, his jaw tightening as he accidentally grazed the wound with his thumb.

“Thanks for letting me use your shower,” you spoke up, catching his attention.

Your eyes caught the deep gashes on his leg.

“Do you need help?” you offered again. “I can help you clean that up. I have some antiseptics and bandages in my pack.”

Bucky didn’t look up, his fingers hovering stiffly over the torn skin.

“No need,” he said roughly, his voice strained.

It was clear to you that the adrenaline was finally wearing off and the real pain was setting in. He gripped the edges of the wooden chair, his knuckles turning white as he forced himself to stand. He took a single step, his breath hitching as he leaned heavily on his good leg, and began to limp toward the bathroom.

You frowned. “Are you sure—”

“I told you and I’ll keep tellin’ you,” he grunted through the pain, “I don’t need your help, girl.”

Then, he disappeared down the hall and shoved the door shut.

You tried to make yourself comfortable in the dim cabin, but a sudden, strangled shout of pain echoed through the walls. The sound made you jump—an involuntary yell painfully tore straight from Bucky’s throat. Something heavy hit the floor, maybe a stool? Or a basin? Then it was followed by the sound of ragged breathing and more muffled grunts.

“Bucky?” you called out, taking a careful step toward the bathroom. “Are you okay?”

There was no answer.

You stood outside the door, trying to respect his privacy, until another pained groan reached your ears. Your stomach twisted. Despite his prickly attitude, he was obviously struggling with a wound far worse than he wanted to admit—and standing here, not doing anything to help him after he saved your life, only made you feel worse.

“Bucky, I’m coming in,” you warned, your hand reaching for the doorknob.

You waited one more second, expecting him to curse at you to stay out, but the only sound was his labored breathing.

So, you took it upon yourself to push the door open.

Inside, Bucky was laid out in the tub—naked, of course.

His head lolled back against the porcelain as he fought to steady his breath. His dirty, blood stained clothes were piled in a heap on the floor, leaving trails of mud and grime everywhere. The tub was filled with soapy water, and while he was bare beneath the surface, your eyes didn’t wander—you didn’t care to look.

Your entire focus was pinned to his leg, which he had propped up on the edge of the tub.

Stripped of the dark denim, the damage was more visible. The wolf’s claws had dug deep, leaving uneven, angry furrows that were weeping blood into the water. The skin around the punctures was already beginning to puff and redden, and with the grime from the forest floor mashed into the open wounds, it looked even worse.

“Jesus,” you gasped, kneeling beside him to examine the damage. “Bucky, this looks like it’s already getting infected.”

Without giving him the chance to pull away, you reached out and pressed the back of your hand against his forehead. He was burning up—the heat radiating off his skin was alarming, a telltale sign his body was already struggling to fight the bacteria from the wolf’s claws.

“You’re overheating!”

Bucky’s eyes remained shut, his thick lashes casting long shadows against his pale, sweaty cheeks. A low, delirious mumble escaped him as his head rolled further to the side.

“...Tired,” he croaked.

Your frown deepened. “Stay right there. Don’t move,” you commanded, though it was obvious he wasn’t going anywhere.

Before he could argue, you scrambled out of the bathroom. Bucky’s vision was disoriented and blurry, his mind racing through a fog of fever.

Just my luck, huh?

He had been minding his own business until you showed up on his doorstep. His only excuse for following you was a half baked thought about picking berries to go with his meat before the storm broke—and he just happened to grab a knife, and he just happened to head south in the exact direction you walked off to.

Damn. He was a fucking idiot.

You hurried back into the bathroom, clutching the antiseptic, a roll of sterile gauze, and a small bottle of ibuprofen tightly in your hands.

You knelt by the edge of the tub again, popping the cap off the antiseptic. “This is going to sting. Just try to breathe.”

As the cool, medicinal liquid hit his cuts, Bucky’s body jerked causing the water to slosh. A sharp hiss whistled through his teeth, his fingers gripping the wet ledge of the tub. He stared at you warily through heavy, lidded eyes.

Just like the wolf he had saved you from, he looked as if he were ready to pounce.

He wasn’t used to this. For as long as he could remember, pain was something to be swallowed with a bottle of whiskey and a needle and thread. He had built his own house, caught his own food, and bled his own blood without a soul nearby to witness it.

That was the whole point of being out here.

But as you meticulously cleaned the wounds, your touch was... different.

It was soft, steady, and gentle. He hadn’t felt anything like it in years. He had forgotten what it was even like to be tended to.

Bucky’s breath hitched as he watched you focus, your bottom lip caught between your teeth in concentration as you began to wrap the clean white gauze around his thigh.

“There,” you said softly, setting the tools down and offering him a weary smile.

You looked at him as if you were expecting a thank you, but the words didn’t come.

He let out a slow, shaky breath and let his head thud back against the tub. He was a fool for letting a stranger in, a bigger fool for letting her see him like this—but as the pain started to dull into a throb, he found he didn’t really care.

Sensing his need for space, you got up slowly. “I’ll let you be. When the storm clears up, I’ll be out of your hair—for real this time.”

Just as you turned for the door, Bucky’s hand shot out of the tub, catching your wrist and splattering water across the floor.

“Take the bed tonight,” he said, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

You blinked at him. The couch? That tiny thing?

“Sorry, but your couch is far too small for someone like you,” you said, half-insulting his choice in furniture. “Besides, you need proper rest to heal up. I’ll take the couch.”

Bucky’s hand lingered around your wrist for a moment. You expected him to protest further, but it seemed his energy was finally spent.

With a tired sigh, he dropped his hand, letting it hang limply over the side of the tub.

“Fine,” he grumbled.

He had a dreadful feeling it was going to be a long night.

By the time Bucky woke up, the storm had retreated, leaving behind a world that smelled of damp earth and pine needles. Sunlight pierced through the bedroom window, cutting a sharp line across the bed where he lay alone.

He groaned, his eyes snapping open as he braced himself for the throbbing pain in his leg. He reached down, his fingers brushing against the white gauze you had wrapped around his thigh.

To his surprise, the skin wasn’t burning anymore. The fever had also broken. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, testing his strength.

There was a dull ache, sure, but he was steady enough to stand on his own.

He pulled on a clean pair of jeans and limped out into the living room, expecting to find you still curled up on that cramped, uncomfortable couch. A stray thought crossed his mind… that maybe he should’ve invited you to share the bed, but even he knew that would have been going too far for a stranger.

When he reached the living room, he found the couch empty. The rough wool blanket he had given you was folded neatly at one end, and when his eyes shifted to the corner where your heavy pack had been sitting, he found nothing but the bare floor.

His jaw tightened.

A strange, lonely feeling settled in his chest. A feeling he hadn’t felt in years and didn’t care to name. Of course you were gone. You had hiked out the moment the rain stopped, just like you said you would.

All he could do now was hope you made it to town safely.

He grabbed his boots and stepped out onto the porch, intending to finish the woodpile he abandoned yesterday. The air was crisp, and the forest was alive with the sound of dripping eaves and morning birds. He took a deep breath, turning his gaze toward the lake to check the water levels after the storm.

He froze.

Down by the lake, silhouetted against the sparkling reflection of the morning sun, was a figure. You were crouching by the water’s edge, his oversized white T-shirt tucked into those ridiculous drawstring shorts with a fishing line in your hands.

As he watched, you reached down and hoisted a small wicker basket— likely something he kept in the shed for gathering berries—and he could see the shimmer of scales thrashing inside.

By the looks of it, you had already caught three or four good-sized trout.

Bucky let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

He began to descend the porch steps, his limp much less pronounced than it had been the night before. The damp grass flattened under his boots as he made his way toward the bank, the sound of his approach masked by the gentle lapping of the lake against the stones.

“Thought you said you were leavin’,” he called out, his voice gravelly with sleep.

You jumped, nearly dropping the basket back into the water as you spun around. Your hair was a mess of tangled waves and there were smears of mud on your shins, but your eyes were bright—clear of the panic from the night before.

“Oh!” you smiled at the sight of him. “You’re still alive!” You hoisted the basket up with straining arms, making your way toward him. “I caught you some fish—you eat fish, right?”

Bucky crossed his arms over his chest. “More of a red meat kind of guy.”

“Well... fish is good for you,” you informed him, trekking past him barefoot with the heavy basket. “And I’m going to fix you up some breakfast.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed as you reached him. “Don’t waste your effort,” he huffed, still looking as grumpy as ever. “I like my breakfast done a certain way.”

You ignored him, walking right past and back toward the cabin. “You should lay back down and take it easy. Consider this a thank you for saving my life yesterday.”

“I don’t need you playing house,” Bucky mumbled grumpily, following you through the cabin and into the kitchen. “I’ve been feedin’ myself since before you were born. Put those down, I’ll do it.”

You didn’t even look back as you set the wicker basket on the wooden counter. “Sit. Down. Bucky.”

He opened his mouth to snap back—to tell you exactly whose house this was and who was in charge—but the stubborn confidence in your voice caught him off guard. Up until this moment, he pinned you as a naive, helpless girl who couldn’t survive a night without his intervention.

He huffed, sounding like a disgruntled bear, and finally lowered himself into the sturdy wooden chair at the head of the table. A low groan escaped his throat as he eased his shoulders, his injured leg pulsing— a none too friendly reminder of why he shouldn’t have been standing anyway.

From his seat, he watched you move.

“Not only can I catch fish,” you said, getting to work, “but I can also cook it well.”

The cabin, which usually felt cold and cavernous, suddenly felt smaller and more… domestic.

You moved around his kitchen, your bare feet moving across his rough floorboards. You looked ridiculous in his clothes; the hem of his white T-shirt tucked into the oversized shorts, and the sleeves rolled up in thick bundles just so you could use your hands.

He watched the sunlight catch the dampness of your hair as you began to prep the fish. The sight of a woman in his space—wearing his shirt, smelling like his soap, and ignoring his bad attitude just to make sure he was fed—hit him harder than he expected.

“Christ,” he cursed under his breath.

For most of his years, he believed isolation was his only sanctuary. But watching you, he realized things he never thought he would feel.

He liked seeing this—a beautiful woman, clean and comfortable, cooking just for him. He could already picture it, coming home from a long day of chopping wood or hunting, only to find you like this. Safe and sound.

He liked the idea of having someone to protect.

Bucky was suddenly feeling very hungry now, and it wasn’t just for the fish.

“You’re gonna burn ‘em,” he muttered, though his eyes were soft as he watched your back. “Pan needs more grease.”

“I’ve got it, Bucky,” you replied, glancing playfully over your shoulder. “Stop worrying that old head of yours.”

“Old?” Bucky grumbled, though a faint, reluctant twitch of a smile played on his lips.

You turned back to the counter as you began to slice the trout into neat fillets.

“You know,” you began, tone light and teasing, “in my friend group, they called me the Fish Whisperer. Or the Fish Butcher. One of those. It depended on how much wine was involved in the cooking process.”

You let out a small, self deprecating chuckle, turning your head to see if you could pull another reaction out of him. But as you looked back down to finish a particularly tricky cut near the bone, your damp finger slipped on the smooth handle.

The blade skidded across the scales, coming dangerously close to your thumb. You let out a sharp, panicked gasp, pulling your hand back just as the tip of the knife bit into the wooden cutting board.

“Crap—!”

Despite his injured leg, Bucky moved with that same quick, almost predatory speed you had seen in the forest.

In a heartbeat, he was already hovering over you, his large hand reaching out to steady your wrist while his other instinctively moved to your lower back to stabilize you.

“Careful, sweets,” he rumbled into a protective growl.

You swallowed hard at his sudden closeness, his chest pressing against your shoulder. His grip on your wrist was firm but careful—the touch of a man who knew exactly how much damage his hands could do and was choosing, with every ounce of his will, to be gentle.

“Bucky…” you breathed, trying to still your heartbeat. “Are… are you okay?”

You stayed frozen, feeling his warm breath against the side of your neck. He let out a shaky breath, as if trying to stabilize his own heart, his thumb tracing a slow, distracting line over where your blood rushed in your wrist.

“I… just don’t want you hurtin’ yourself,” he said slowly, his voice thick and low. “That’s all.”

Since that little mishap with the knife, the tension in the cabin was suffocatingly thick—and you weren’t entirely sure if Bucky felt it, though he was certainly the cause of it.

By the time you finished preparing breakfast, you laid everything out on the table. Even with your back turned, you could feel his shameless stare burning through the thin fabric of the white T-shirt you wore.

“Where’s the cutlery?” you asked, turning to him.

He simply shrugged, his gaze glued on you before he looked down at the food.

“Your hands are the cutlery,” he said flatly.

You didn’t think it was possible, but eating with your hands only increased the tension tenfold.

You picked carefully at the fish, trying to maintain some level of decency, but Bucky was another story entirely. He went after the meal like a ravenous animal, picking the trout apart with his bare hands. You didn’t even need to ask if he liked the food; the way he was scarfing it down told you everything you needed to know.

You swore he didn’t look away from you once.

Leaning forward with his elbows heavy on the wooden table, he used his blunt, calloused fingers to strip the flaky white meat from the bone. Every time he finished a piece, he licked his thumb and forefinger clean with a slow, wet swipe of his tongue. His eyes remained glued to yours, dark and unreadable, as he licked his lips.

All of this made a strange heat crawl up your neck, and with no napkins in sight, you eventually had no choice but to follow suit.

You hesitantly lifted your hand, licking the salty grease from your own fingertips. The moment you did, Bucky stopped chewing. He went completely still, his gaze dropping to your mouth, his dark blue eyes tracking the movement with a sudden, sharp hunger. He watched every motion, his jaw clenching as he seemed hypnotized by the way your tongue moved.

Small, was all he thought as he felt his body warm. But it’ll do.

“I suppose I should take my leave after this,” you announced mid chew. “Thank you for everything—”

“You shouldn’t,” Bucky interrupted suddenly, a piece of fish still caught between his fingers. “There might be another storm tonight.”

Your brows furrowed. Another storm? While the mountain weather was notoriously unpredictable, the sky outside was currently a clear, piercing blue.

Although he proved himself right yesterday, another storm seemed today entirely unlikely.

Pushing out of your chair and grabbing your plate, you made your way to the sink.

“Well, in that case, I should leave now. The sooner the better—”

“Good luck with that,” he huffed, his tone sharpening with what seems like restless impatience. “The mud and the terrain from yesterday’s mess will only slow you down. You’ll be lucky to make it a mile before you’re stuck again.”

He took a quick sip of his water, letting out a satisfied exhale as his gaze settled on you. “Best you wait ‘til tomorrow.”

You stood by the sink, staring out the window as you weighed your options. Your friends and family were likely worried sick, perhaps already calling for a search party, and the thought of them panicking made your chest hurt with guilt.

But then, you remembered everything that had happened yesterday.

The storm, the wolf, the bone chilling rain, and the way the world had turned into a sliding, muddy trap. Bucky was right about the terrain—if you went out there and twisted an ankle or got lost in the washouts, there wouldn’t be anyone to save you a second time.

You were completely oblivious to the way Bucky’s eyes traced your body. You didn’t notice how he was manipulating the trauma of yesterday to keep you exactly where he wanted you.

In his kitchen, in his shirt, and under his roof—permanently in his sights.

“I… I guess you’re right,” you admitted softly, finally turning back to face him. “I don’t think I have another fight in me today. If the mud is really that bad, I’d just be a liability.”

Bucky didn’t smile—that would have been too obvious—but the tension in his shoulders eased instantly.

“Smart girl,” he rumbled, picking up another piece of fish before tossing it in his mouth. “No sense in chancing it. The woods don’t give second chances twice in a row.”

“I’ll just… stay out of your way, then,” you murmured, feeling a strange mix of relief and unease. “I can help with the chores? Or the woodpile?”

Bucky hummed, pretending to ponder the offer, though he already knew exactly what he wanted out of you.

“I’ll take care of the heavy liftin’,” he explained. “You can help me clean the place a bit—or catch some more fish for dinner.”

“You liked my fish?” you asked, a soft smile tugging at your lips.

Bucky pushed himself out of the chair with a grunt and met you at the sink, handing you his plate. “Guess you were right,” he gruffed. “You can cook, sugar.”

Your face warmed at the nickname. It seemed so at odds with a man as burly and grumpy as Bucky, yet it fell from his lips so naturally.

“Okay,” you agreed, setting the plates in the basin and turning on the tap. “Anything to help lighten your load. Thank you for letting me stay another night, Bucky. I really don’t know how to repay you.”

A swell of satisfaction and pride settled in his gut.

He liked this.

No—he loved this.

“Look at you, doin’ the dishes,” he noted with a nod toward the sink. “That’s already doin’ more than enough.”

He raised his hand to give you a gentle pat on the back, though his body yearned for something more—to press a kiss to your forehead, the way a husband might for a wife.

“I’ll go fetch some firewood to keep the place warm for when that storm hits,” he said, already turning toward the door. “Just stay here. Clean up, catch the fish. Don’t want you gettin’ hurt or lost again, little doll.”

The storm might not have been coming, but as far as he was concerned, you weren’t going anywhere.

For the rest of the day, you did exactly as instructed.

Despite your insistence that he stay off his leg, Bucky spent the entire afternoon outside. While you cleaned the cabin, the thud of his axe echoed against the trees.

Eventually, you headed back down to the water, but the moment you began fishing, you felt the pierce of a gaze tracking your every move. Every time you glanced over your shoulder, you found Bucky only a few feet away, wiping sweat from his forehead, his chest heaving from the labor— but his eyes never left you.

When you moved down the shoreline, or stumbled over a slick rock, or struggled with a particularly strong fish fight, Bucky was at your side in an instant.

“Careful, sweets.”

“Mind your step. Can’t concentrate on my own work if you’re stumblin’ all over the place, little doll.”

“I saw you fall just a moment ago. Sit down—let me check your leg.”

You kept promising you were fine, but nothing seemed to soothe his protective instincts.

You didn’t want to call him suffocating—he was certainly kinder than when you came across him yesterday—but the unwarranted attention he kept giving you felt restless.

As the day bled into evening, you noticed there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.

You waited, even as you cooked dinner and set the table while Bucky washed up, but by the time the sun had completely fell below the horizon, the air remained still, dark, and clear.

There was no storm.

And it was too late to start the trek to town now.

You and Bucky were sitting at the dinner table yet again, but since the sun went down, neither of you had spoken a single word to each other.

“Hey, Bucky?” you called out.

He didn’t look up. His eyes were glued to the plate as he scarfed down the meal you made the same way he had earlier this morning. When he didn’t answer, you tried again, firmer this time.

“Bucky. There’s no storm like you said there would be.”

Bucky swiped a hand across his mouth, clearing the grease. “I guess not.”

A slow, impatient exhale left your nose. Bucky sensed your tension, and he narrowed his eyes at you, displeased. He rested both heavy forearms on the table and leaned in.

“It’s good that you stayed,” he pointed out, his voice low like a warning. “It’s better bein’ safe than sorry. You should know that by now—’specially after yesterday, sugar.”

Your frown only deepened, and Bucky’s jaw tightened. He clearly wasn’t pleased by how eager you were to leave him.

“I know,” you sighed, looking toward the dark window. “It’s just... my friends and family must be worried sick. If I had left earlier, I could have been home by now.”

“If you had left earlier, you wouldn’t have made me that delicious breakfast for savin’ your life,” Bucky reminded you, his tone sharp with impatience. He shoved his empty plate aside and leaned back in his chair, making it groan. “You should sleep in the bed tonight.”

“What?” You blinked, not quite comprehending his words. “No. Your leg still needs to heal, and that couch is far too small for you—”

“No one takes the couch,” he cut you off like a command. “We both share the bed tonight. There’s plenty of space.”

You hesitated, your gaze drifting toward the dark hallway that led to the bedroom.

The thought of sharing a bed with him—this hulking, unpredictable man, made your pulse race. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” you pointed out softly. “I’m perfectly fine on the couch, really.”

“If you’re gonna trek tomorrow morning, you’ll need all the sleep you can get.”

He pushed his chair back, the heavy wood scraping harshly against the floorboards as he stood and began to limp toward the bedroom.

“Come on,” he grunted, not even checking to see if you were following. “I’ve got a set of clothes you can change into.”

With a defeated sigh, you followed him. By the time you reached the bedroom, Bucky was already rummaging through a heavy dresser in the corner. He pulled out another oversized white T-shirt and held it out to you.

“Here.”

“And the pants?” you asked, taking the soft fabric from his hand.

“All I’ve got are sweatpants that’d be way too damn big for you,” he said, shoving the drawer shut. “Unless you want to sleep in jeans?”

You swallowed hard. Sleeping without pants? You looked down at the drawstring shorts you had been wearing all day—stained with mud and smelling of the lake from your fishing trip.

“I’ll just wear these again,” you decided.

Bucky looked at you, his expression darkening with displeasure.

“No. Those are dirty,” he gruffed. “The shirt’s big enough to be a night dress. You’ll be fine.”

His tone left no room for nos or further objections. It wasn’t a request but rather an arrangement he had already finalized in his head.

After retreating to the washroom to change into the fresh shirt, you returned to find Bucky already stretched out on the mattress, his large frame covered by the sheets, taking up half the bed as he waited for you.

The sight of you standing in the doorframe wearing nothing but his shirt made the fabric of his pajama pants feel suddenly, painfully tight. He wasn’t sure he would even survive the night with you lying right next to him.

He scooted over, clearing a space for you while trying to discreetly adjust himself beneath the quilts.

You made your way to your side of the bed, sliding under the covers and lying stiffly beside him.

You stared up at the ceiling, feeling completely out of place in the quiet, suffocating cabin. Beside you, Bucky lay perfectly comfortable.

To him, this was exactly where you belonged.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t leave today,” he said, though the apology rang a little hollow. “I was just lookin’ out for you.”

You turned your head toward him, your hair fanning out across his pillowcase. Bucky’s heart strummed in his chest at the sight of you.

He could get used to waking up to this every morning.

“It’s okay,” you reassured him with a soft, tired smile, though he could still sense the disappointment behind it. “Better safe than sorry, right?”

“Exactly right, sugar.”

From your short time knowing Bucky, it hadn’t taken long to notice just how… blatant he was with his staring. Even now, lying together shoulder to shoulder, his blue eyes were piercing right through yours.

Unreadable and unwavering.

You swallowed hard, trying to break the tension. “How’s your leg?”

“Still hurts,” he mumbled lowly. “But I’m feelin’ a lot better lyin’ next to a pretty girl.”

So much for breaking the tension.

His words, intimate and entirely unexpected, filled you with embarassment. Staring back at him, you had known from the very start how handsome he was beneath all that grumpiness, the tired eyes, and the dark shadow of stubble.

You hadn’t pegged someone like him as the flirtatious type. But as you searched his expression, you couldn’t tell if he even realized he was doing it, or if he was simply saying the first thing that came to his mind.

Averting your gaze, you stared into the dark corner of the room.

“Y-you’re ridiculous,” you stammered, breathless.

Bucky’s large, calloused hand reached out, his fingers hooking gently under your chin. He tilted your face back to him, forcing you to meet his eyes yet again.

“For tellin’ the truth?” he rumbled, his voice filling the tense air between you.

You couldn’t move, held captive by his touch and the intensity of his stare.

You watched as his eyes began a slow and hungry journey. He traced the line of your forehead, the curve of your cheek, and then dropped to your mouth, lingering there until your lips parted involuntarily to suck in a breath.

“Pretty,” he mumbled so quiet, it was like he was speaking to himself.

His gaze continued downward, looking at the delicate column of your throat, then further still, taking in the way his oversized shirt draped over your body, shifting with every shallow breath you took.

When his eyes finally snapped back to yours, they were darker than before—pupils blown wide.

“So goddamn pretty.”

“I…” you started, not quite sure what to say, “t-thank you.”

There was a moment of silence between you two, and throughout the quiet, Bucky’s hands began to be more bold in its movements. He caressed your cheek, tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear before trailing his thumb slowly over your bottom lip. He watched with a dark, satisfied grin when your breath hitched.

“You know, bein’ out here alone all these years... it makes a man yearn for things,” Bucky started to explain in a low, gravelly whisper. “Things a man like me thought he’d never have.”

“Like what?” you breathed.

“A family,” he answered with what sounded like a dreamy sigh. “I’ve seen it everywhere in these woods. Bears protectin’ their cubs, birds tendin’ to their nests. It’s the most natural, beautiful thing there is—that kind of connection. I just know havin’ somethin’ special like that... it’d finally bring me peace.”

You weren’t entirely sure where he was going with the confession, but all you felt you could do was nod and offer him sympathy.

“I hope you find that peace one day, Bucky.”

Then, his hand suddenly trailed from your cheek down to your throat, his fingers wrapping around the delicate skin of your neck in a gentle yet possessive squeeze that made you gasp.

“Feels like I already have, little doll.”

Bucky didn’t give you the chance to breathe, let alone retract the invitation he saw in your eyes.

He closed the space between you two, his mouth crashing against yours with a hunger only a man like him—starved and isolated for decades—could possess.

It wasn’t gentle at all. It was more like a claim.

His lips were rough, and his tongue swept against yours messily and hungrily. He moved like a man who hadn’t shared a kiss with a woman in his lifetime—like a man who was dying for the touch of another person.

You melted into the mattress as he moved more eagerly against you, the sheets ruffling as he hovered over you. One of his hands held you still by side of your neck while the other wandered your body through the thin fabric of his own shirt. His rough hand, warm and calloused, groped and fondled you through the flimsy white cotton, making you gasp into his mouth.

Bucky growled low in his throat as your fingers tangled into the thick, messy dark hair at the nape of his neck. His stubble tickled your skin, and the needy noises leaving his lips only made you squeeze your legs together, a deep ache beginning to build.

“Bucky,” you gasped, turning your head sharply to break the contact. You were panting, your lips swollen and tingling. “We... we shouldn’t. This is... I’m supposed to be leaving tomorrow.”

Bucky took this as an opportunity to bury his face in the crook of your neck, his hot breath searing your sensitive skin. He trailed a line of wet kisses toward your ear, his stubble grazing your jawline.

“Tomorrow’s a long way off, sugar,” he buzzed against your skin.

“Bucky, please—”

You were cut off with a sharp gasp as you felt Bucky grind his hips firmly against your leg.

Against the soft fabric of his pajama pants, he was hard, throbbing... and leaking. In the short time you two had been making out, he had already made a mess of himself in his own pants.

A shaky groan left his lips as he gripped your hip tight, making you wince slightly. “Fuck, baby,” he breathed, resting his forehead against your collarbone. “M’so hard. It hurts.”

Bucky began to rock himself—slow and shallow—against the soft heat of your leg. You couldn’t help but look down, watching the heavy outline of him throb against the fabric as he pressed into you.

“Just... we can fuck tonight—and you can forget all ‘bout me tomorrow,” he pleaded, his voice wrecked. “You can leave as early as you want—but please, darlin’. I need this.” He rocked his hips against yours again, drawing another gasp out of you. “It’s been so long.”

He drew the long hem of the shirt up and past your hip, and his breath hitched at what he saw.

“… No panties?”

Your face burned with embarrassment. “I… didn’t want to re-wear the ones I had on,” you explained, your voice small. “They’re dirty.”

You said that, but what Bucky was seeing right now felt far filthier. Your pussy, exposed and puffy and glistening, was laid out bare right in front of him—ripe and ready for the taking.

You knew exactly how this looked, and the way Bucky’s eyes darkened as they locked onto your cunt only confirmed it. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, his gaz heavy as he took in every inch of you.

Bucky quickly slid down the bed until his broad chest was wedged between your knees. You tried to pull back—mostly out of shyness—but his large hands clamped around your thighs like iron shackles, pinning you wide for him.

“Bucky, wait—!”

But you cut yourself off with an involuntary cry as his tongue flicked out and lapped at your cunt. He was relentless and wasted no time. He buried his face against you, his dark stubble grazing your sensitive inner thighs as he began to feast like a starving animal.

He was messy and loud. The wet, slapping sounds of his tongue working against you filled your ears—vulgar and completely shameless.

You had never been touched or licked like this before. You had never felt the unabashed hunger of a man’s mouth on your skin, and your body was loving every second of it.

“Oh god,” you gasped, your fingers knotting the bedsheets.

Your hips bucked up against his face, seeking more, but Bucky held you perfectly still, his thumbs digging into your skin to keep you exposed.

He let out a low, muffled growl against your clit, his tongue flickering faster and faster against the sensitive peak until you were sobbing for breath. Every time you instinctively tried to close your legs or hide from the overwhelming sensation, he only snarled, forcing you back open for him.

He was devouring you.

He was treating you like the prey he had spent all day stalking.

Bucky finally pulled away, letting you catch your breath. His eyes were dark and his chin was coated with your sweetness mixed with his own saliva and drool.

“Taste s’fucking good,” he groaned so deep, sounding almost frustrated. “Only makin’ it harder for me to let you go.”

He sat back on his heels, still wedged firmly between your thighs, as he pulled his shirt over his head. You watched, enamored, as his broad chest moved— every muscle flexing under the warm glow of the bedside lamp. Dark hair traced the center of his chest, trailing down to where his hands found the waistband of his pants.

He pulled them down and kicked them to the side of the bed. Lying there between your legs was a man of pure masculinity. Thick hair decorated his body, and his hand—which you already thought was massive—could barely wrap around his cock as he stroked himself to his full length.

Bucky’s jaw went slack as he fucked his hand, his eyes shamelessly taking in the way you were spread out for him in nothing but his cotton tee.

Dark, curly hair sat at the base of his cock, and from where you laid, you could smell him—the salty scent of his precum, the masculine musk of pinewood, everything that was uniquely him. It made you ache, your pussy clenching around nothing as you watched.

“You’re drippin’ all over my sheets, sugar,” Bucky grunted. “Makin’ a reaaal mess.”

“Bucky,” you breathed, pushing yourself up on your elbows. “I don’t think you… I don’t think it’ll fit—”

“No?” he cut you off.

He didn’t let you finish—he didn’t need to—but he already seemed darkened by whatever doubt you were about to voice.

“I don’t care,” he grunted, his large hands grabbing your legs and hauling you flush against him. “M’gonna make it fit.”

Your body tensed as you felt the head of Bucky’s cock poke against your entrance. He groaned at the contact, his eyes fluttering shut in relief. You were already so wet, so warm, and so inviting. And judging by how easily his tip began to slide in, it wouldn’t be long before he was buried deep in your cunt.

Bucky held himself there for a moment, bracing his weight on his forearms as he let you adjust to the stretching pressure of his tip alone.

He looked down, a dark, fond smirk pulling at his lips as he watched you squeezing your eyes shut with the effort of taking him.

“Open ‘em up, sugar,” he rumbled the command. “I want you lookin’ at me for this.”

As your eyes fluttered open, meeting his blown out blue gaze, he began to push.

“Oh—fuck, Bucky!” you gasped as he slid deeper, your tight cunt stretching painfully and perfectly around his length.

A broken groan tore from his throat, his chest heaving as he fought every urge in his nervous system to just slam himself deep inside you. He was trying so hard to hold back that his face contorted into a snarl, his muscles locking with the strain.

You mewled and whimpered as he forced his way in, each movement of his hips more strained than the last. He was struggling with the tightness of you, the stretch a dizzying mix of burn and pleasure. By the time he was halfway in, it already felt like too much.

You began to squirm, your hips shifting and doing nothing to soothe the ache in Bucky’s balls. If anything, your movements only made him groan in pleasure.

When he realized you were trying to escape his length, his hands snapped down to your hips. His fingers dug into your skin, pinning you flat against the mattress and making you yelp.

“Where the hell do you think you’re goin’?” he growled, hovering over you with a snarl that made him look terrifying under the warm lamplight. “You aren’t goin’ anywhere. I told you, darlin’—I’m makin’ it fit.”

With that, his grip tightened on your waist and he hauled you flush against his body in a ruthless motion.

Your legs shook and your eyes rolled back as his cock buried itself completely, sinking to the hilt deep inside your cunt. Your head spun with the overwhelming bliss of being filled so thoroughly.

“Haaah—!” you hissed sharply, your back arching off the bed. “B-Buck—”

Bucky’s entire body was shaking, overstimulated with a desire he hadn’t felt in years.

He hovered over you, dark strands of hair shadowing his eyes as he watched your soft legs shake and squirm beneath him. His cock—the one you claimed was too large to fit—was sunk completely inside you, twitching as it savored every desperate ripple and clench of your tight walls around his shaft.

He watched himself grind his hips against yours, slow and steady at first, letting you adjust to every inch.

“Christ,” he groaned, the sound torn from the back of his throat. “You’re takin’ me so well, little doll…”

When your whimpers finally began to break into soft, needy moans, he took it as his cue to pick up the pace.

He started drawing his hips back and thrusting faster, making your body jolt and shake against the mattress with every thrust. The sight of his cock disappearing entirely into your cunt, leaving only his dark curls pressed against your glistening slit, made him throb and leak deep inside you.

“God… feels s’much better than my hand,” he grumbled to himself.

“Bucky…” you whined softly, the sound like music to his ears. “Feels good, don’t stop.”

Bucky was hypnotized.

He looked down, his vision tunneling as he watched the way you moved helplessly beneath him. Your body was rolling with every thrust against his mattress. Your hands came up to his shoulders, soft fingers digging into his hard muscles for stability.

And when you looked at him with those soft, trusting eyes, something in his chest snapped.

“Fuck. Fuckin’ hell—you… fuckin’… goddammit—fuck!”

His hips began drawing back further before slamming all the way in, drawing a loud, sharp cry from you that only made him want to fuck you harder—right through the bedframe and against the floorboards.

Bucky felt like an animal in heat, his mind clouding with a singular, primal thought that went far beyond just getting off.

He wanted to fill you. He wanted to plant himself so deep that it would take.

“Bucky—it’s too much, ah!” you moaned, clinging to him and wrapping your legs around his waist for support, inadvertently drawing him even deeper.

That didn’t help him at all.

“Oh—fuck, sweets!” he roared, pinning his weight onto you as your legs strapped him down. “Fuck—you’re askin’ for it now.”

The thought of breeding you, of keeping you right here in the cabin he built with his very own two hands, made his blood sing. He could see it so clearly—you, rounded and heavy with his child, tits full of milk, never having to leave the safety of these woods or the protection of his arms.

Every filthy thought of a future together was met with another hard thrust inside you.

“Mine,” he growled. He was so lost in the haze of lust that his mind was a jumbled mess. The only thing he could process was the need to fuck and breed.

Fuck and breed. Fuck and breed.

To breed.

Breed. Breed…

“You’re stayin’ right here, sugar. M’gonna fill you up so full, you won’t even remember how to walk out that door.”

His words were purely possessive. If you didn’t know any better, you would think it was just dirty talk—and god, did it work. Your pussy spasmed tight around his cock as you felt yourself getting close.

“Fuuck, Bucky,” you whined, “d-don’t stop…! I’m gonna cum—”

Every gasp that left your lips fueled the dark fire in his gut and the building ache in his balls. He didn’t just want tonight; he wanted years.

He wanted the connection he had seen the animals share in the woods—he wanted a son running around this cabin and you there to be called Mama.

Your cunt clenched as you tossed your head back, letting out a loud cry that rang through the cabin as you came undone all over Bucky’s cock. The feeling was exquisite, your pussy was milking Bucky with every pulse—and at this point, your body was practically begging for Bucky to cum inside.

“I’m gonna breed you,” he rasped, the words sounding like both a warning and a promise.

His eyes were crazed and wild as he looked down at the friction where your bodies joined. “Gonna give you everythin’ you need. Just stay... stay for me, little doll. Let me put a baby in you.”

Your head was rolling back against the pillow, your face drenched in sweat as your vision swam. You were still coming undone, your mind a hazy blur.

“H-huh…?” you managed to whimper with a tired slur of your words. “W-what was that—?”

One of his hands drew up from your hip to your neck, pinning you in place, while the other found your thigh, spreading you wider and bending it back so he could pound into you deeper—making the mattress and wooden bedframe shake and bolt against the cabin wall.

“Oh my god—!”

“Don’t you worry your pretty head ‘bout it,” he grunted, his breath hot and uneven against your ear. “M’just tellin’ you how it’s gonna be. I’m gonna keep this pussy pumped so full of me, you won’t ever remember what it’s like to be without it.”

He pulled back almost all the way, dragging out the pleasure until you cried out, before slamming back in until the hairs on his pelvis hit your slit.

“You’re gonna stay right here,” he reminded you darkly. “Nothin’ but my shirts on your back so I don’t have to waste time undressin’ you. Just easy access... every time I walk through that door, I’m gonna bend you over the table, the bed, the porch... and I’m gonna remind you who you belong to.”

The filth of his words and the overstimulated stretch of your walls was nearly enough to make you pass out.

“I’m gonna fill you up every single night, little doll,” he hissed, his pace becoming uneven and desperate as he felt his own climax nearing. “Until you’re waddlin’ around this cabin carryin’ my name... carryin’ my blood. You’re never leavin’, understand? You’re mine to breed.”

When you didn’t answer right away, he lightly squeezed your throat, making you gasp.

“Understand, sweets?”

“Y-yes,” was all you could muster weakly and tiredly, not understanding enitrely as all you felt was overwhelming pleasure. “Never leaving… fill me…”

You repeated the last few words you remembered him saying, and that was your downfall.

“Yeah?” he huffed a prideful laugh, like he finally had everything he wanted right here—right beneath him. “You gonna make me a daddy?”

His heart leapt in his throat, balls drawing tight as he felt himself finally reaching the edge. This was perfect—a pretty pussy to fuck whenever he pleased, and an even prettier woman to take care of.

Bucky’s entire body buckled, and he let out a loud roar that made you flinch—it sounded more like an animal than a man. His back arched as he slammed into you one last time, burying himself so deep it made you cry out again, his pelvis bottoming out against you.

A thick, hot rush of cum flooded into you, a heavy and pulsing warmth that seemed to go on and on.

His eyes rolled back and his teeth bared in a primal snarl as his entire frame shuddered with his release. He was pumping you full, emptying every bit of himself deep into your womb.

“Fuck—baby—!” he choked out, voice strained and cracking.

He didn’t pull out, even when his cock was completely spent and overworked inside you. Even as his body stilled and his length throbbed tiredly against your used, overstimulated walls, he stayed buried to the hilt.

He panted, his heavy chest heaving against yours as he kept you pinned firmly into the mattress. He was soaking you, making a complete mess of your insides just like he promised.

“There… fuck,” he rasped, his sweaty forehead dropping to rest against yours. “Puttin’ a baby in there right now—you feel it, don’t you? You feel how much I'm givin’ you?”

You couldn’t bring yourself to answer. You had absolutely no energy left in your spent body.

All you could smell was the thick scent of sex and sweat, and the only light in the room came from the bedside lamp, which was now flickering weakly.

Then came the thunder. Rain began to pour, hitting against the cabin roof and the surrounding forest floor harshly. Bucky shifted his body, pulling you into his arms and dragging your limp body against his chest, pressing soft, and sweet kisses against your sweaty skin.

“There’s the storm, baby,” he cooed gently, his voice prideful as he proved himself right yet again.

“I told you. You aren’t goin’ anywhere.”

sitting in the drafts since new years oh nah someone save me 🥀 once again, this is my contribution for art's moodboard event hosted here! please be sure to check out the incredible writers who put out their work so far!

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[notmeolive]

⋆｡ ˚ mouth like that ᵐᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡⁱˢᵗ

lowdown ☆ you’re part of butcher’s crew, he’s the weapon they barely trust, and somewhere between missions, insults, blood, and bad decisions, soldier boy becomes the one person you should stay away from—and the one person who keeps coming back. ride or die ☆ soldier boy x reader ( f ) miles ☆ ~+50k (til the end) ride style ☆ enemies-ish to lovers ; slow slow burn danger on the trail ☆ canon-typical violence, blood/injury, weapons, strong language, crude humor, sexual tension, eventual explicit content, toxic behavior, trauma/ptsd, references to captivity and torture, emotional repression, manipulation, misogyny/sexism, morally grey choices, vought-related abuse/corruption, and complicated relationship dynamics

liv's log ☆ this has become my favorite thing to write for. and your comments make me giggle like a school girl. so thank you for being on that side. and if you're new here, enjoy the slow burn~ 🤠

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 01 — mouth like that ꫂ᭪݁ 02 — commie toy

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 03 — save the clownfish ꫂ᭪݁ 04 — volume control

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 05 — again ꫂ᭪݁ 06 — no bell

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 07 — easy ꫂ᭪݁ 08 — bed rest

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 09 — war stories ꫂ᭪݁ 10 — same thing

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 11 — loose ꫂ᭪݁ 12 — preventative maintenance

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 13 — the leash ꫂ᭪݁ 14 — walls up

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 15 — fault line ꫂ᭪݁ 16 — mean right hook

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 17 — bad idea ꫂ᭪݁ 18 — field ready

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 19 — cold storage ꫂ᭪݁ 20— still alive

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 21 — not sorry ꫂ᭪݁ 22— still standing

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 23 — unlocked ꫂ᭪݁ 24— tbt

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 25 — tbt ꫂ᭪݁ 26— tbt

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 27 — tbt ꫂ᭪݁ 28— tbt

‎ꫂ᭪݁ 29 — tbt ꫂ᭪݁ 30— tbt

taglist ☆ join here 𐚁 .ᐟ

[aquaticmercy]

The Heart is a Muscle

Summary : Benjamin Poindexter was hired to eliminate you, a former Red Room Widow. Unfortunately, he keeps putting it off because he likes going on dates with you a little too much.

Pairing : DDBA! Benjamin Poindexter x Black Widow! reader (she/her)

Warnings/tags : freak 4 freak (?), Violence, Explicit Content (Dex is a munch and kinda has an oral fixation), Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Manipulation, lowkey gunplay, crying during sex, The Red Room is mentioned to use food as a form of control, alcohol consumption. (Let me know if I miss anything.) set between DDBA s1&s2 (let me know if I missed anything!)

Word Count : 17.7k

Requested by : anon

Notes : This was written before I watched the season finale, and also inspired by a song of the same title by Gang of Youths. Enjoy!

Dex was trying to be good.

It sounded ridiculous, even in his own head. It was as if he had borrowed this part of his conscience from someone else’s life, someone who hadn’t been made into a weapon, manipulated and exploited over and over again. But still, he tried.

Being good, as it turned out, wasn’t something you could just decide. There was no moment where goodness just clicked into place, there was no sudden clarity where he understood how to live without the violence that had always defined him. He didn’t have the tools for that, so he simplified it.

He only knew how to aim, how to follow through, how to kill. So he told himself that if he pointed all of that in the right direction, it would count. It had to count. 

Bad people existed. That much was obvious. And if bad people were gone, then… that had to count for something, right?

The Anti-Vigilante Task Force were easy enough to categorize as bad. They hunted vigilantes, tried to shut down the kind of people Dex had convinced himself were doing something close to good. And vigilantes were good. They had to be. 

So if he removed the ones hunting them, if he cut those threads before they tightened around someone else’s throat, then that meant he was helping. It meant he was balancing something, somewhere, even if no one was there to see it. Even if no one thanked him. Even if the city didn’t change at all.

That was how he justified it. The only problem was that no one paid him for being good.

His rent didn’t care about intention. His bills didn’t pause because he was trying. The notice on his counter sat there, the very proof that the world moved even as he was laying down the foundations of whatever moral framework he was trying to build. Dex had been ignoring it for days, like it might disappear if he didn’t acknowledge it. 

He was staring at it when his phone buzzed.

The sound was unsettling, mostly because Dex knew that people only messaged him for one of two reasons nowadays: to threaten him (best possible outcome, he could handle it) or to give him a job. When he looked at the notification, he knew it was going to be the latter. 

The text came from an unknown sender. It was encrypted, of course. Dex picked it up slowly, thumb hovering for just a second. He frowned. He really shouldn’t. This was the part of his life he was supposed to be moving away from. He opened it anyway. 

The file loaded quickly. As he suspected, it was an anonymous contract labeled high priority, with a bounty of… oh. 

2.5 million dollars.

Dex leaned back slightly, exhaling through his nose as that figure settled into place. It was much more than rent or bills. This kind of money would give him… breathing room. It would fund his good deeds for years. It would help his progress, right?

His eyes moved down to the target profile: a Former Red Room Widow. 

Objective: extract intel regarding active Red Room operatives. 

Secondary objective: termination upon completion.

Dex’s knuckles shifted slightly as he kept reading, attention narrowing the deeper he went. This wasn't a surface-level hit, like the usual contracts pushed into his number. He usually got the odd job of eliminating a business man’s biggest competitor (he never took those anymore) or a mother giving most of her life savings to him to kill her abusive husband (he did those ones more often than not), but this wasn’t it. Whoever had put this together knew what they were doing. They layered intel, cross-referenced sightings, stitched fragments of reports into something coherent enough to act on.

And then there was the ledger. Not labeled that way, but Dex knew what he was looking at.

Target Activity Log (Condensed): Kiev — 12 confirmed targets, political dissidents turned assets. Execution, no witnesses. Istanbul — Arms broker extraction turned termination. 7 additional casualties during exfiltration. Lagos — Undercover infiltration of rival weapons trafficking ring. Operation successful. Entire network eliminated. Collateral: high. Madripoor — Unverified mission overlap with Yelena Belova. Outcome classified. Buenos Aires — Diplomatic attaché poisoning. Death delayed 48 hours to avoid suspicion. Moscow — Internal Red Room purge survivor. Multiple handlers eliminated. 

Dex’s thumb paused against the screen as he read through it again. The pattern was obvious to him in a way it wouldn’t be to anyone else. This wasn’t chaos. This wasn’t someone losing control. On the contrary, this was someone who was terrifyingly in control.

This target was a dangerous killer, and Dex didn't arrive at the conclusion lightly.

He liked patterns, needed them. They made the world more predictable to the point where he could sort through without it splintering into noise. And this file was full of patterns.

He scrolled back up, then down again, slower this time, eyes catching on the details most people would skip over: the timings, the methods. 

The target made clean exits where possible and didn’t care much about collateral. Every action fed into the next like it had been mapped out long before the target ever stepped into the room.

Dex’s jaw tightened slightly as he read through the Kiev entry again. Twelve victims. It was not a firefight. It was twelve decisions. Twelve moments where the target could have stopped and didn’t. Istanbul, seven more added during exfiltration. They were not part of the objective, but handled anyway. 

He understood that, and that meant he also understood what it took to do it.

You didn’t rack up a body count like that by accident. You didn’t walk away from operations like Madripoor, with entire networks wiped out and “high collateral” written off like a footnote, unless something in you had already accepted the outcome before it happened.

Dex leaned back slightly, phone still in his hand, thumb hovering but unmoving now.

People liked to pretend there was a line. A moment where someone chose to be good or bad and stuck to it. But that wasn’t how it worked. It was smaller than that. It was in the repetition. And this file read like repetition, over and over. It might happen in different cities and to different victims, but it always had the same result.

Dex couldn’t find signs of deviation or hesitation. There was no indication that the target ever stopped to question it.

His eyes flicked back to the ledger, this time reading the latest additions, entries that hadn’t had time to settle into history yet.

Recent Activity: Prague — Corporate intermediary tied to OXE shell accounts. Interrogation lasted 18 minutes. Target terminated. Two security casualties. No witnesses. DODC Supermax Prison — Perimeter sweep. Three armed contacts neutralized before engagement escalated. Surveillance equipment disabled. Exit undetected. New York — Intelligence courier intercepted en route to New Avengers safehouse. Package recovered. Courier terminated. Civilian exposure: none.

Right. 

The target was still active. 

“Yeah,” Dex muttered, more to himself than anything else.

That was what tipped it for him.

Because even now, even with everything he’d done, Dex felt the resistance. The part of him that tried, however poorly, to redirect what he was into a force for good.  The file didn’t show that.

It showed someone who had been made into a weapon and never really tried to put it down. That meant the target wasn’t in the same place he was. This target wasn’t trying to balance the scales like he was. 

And that made this person not a good person in a way he could act on.

His eyes looked to the image of the target, like he was trying to reconcile the almost fragile and delicate-looking features with everything he’d just read. It didn’t match. It never did. Faces rarely carried the weight of what they’d done. But the file didn’t lie. The patterns didn’t lie.

Dex exhaled slowly, and decided this person was bad.

Not because of one mission. Not because of one mistake. But because of all of it stacked together.

And at this point, in order to preserve what precious progress he had made, he’d rather kill a killer for rent than his landlord. That would be inconvenient.

His thumb moved, tapping the file open fully, letting the image expand across the screen.

And for the first time, Dex really looked at you.

—

Dex expected you to be harder to find.

Most people with a body count like yours didn’t settle. They didn’t usually stay anywhere long enough to be known, didn’t leave behind anything that could be traced twice in the same way. He expected burner phones, rotating safehouses, and multiple fake ids that dissolved the second they were used.

But you hadn’t done that.

You were… easy. He found your address almost immediately. He found your number, your card details, and your passport quite quickly. 

It took him a couple of hours to accept that it wasn’t an error in the data. Financial records were always messy, layered under shells and proxies, but not impossible. He followed the money the same way he followed anything else— patiently, methodically, letting the inconsistencies stand out instead of forcing them to make sense too quickly. One payment turned into a trail, then into repetition.

But still, he found nothing out of the ordinary. You were just a regular person living in New York, paying rent on time. Unlike him this month. 

He stared at the screen longer than he needed today. The more he followed it, the clearer it became that this wasn’t temporary, wasn’t a waypoint or a cover that would disappear in a week. You weren’t passing through. You weren’t hiding. You were living here.

The rest of the records only reinforced it. He found your utility bills, with groceries spaced out in a way that suggested routine. He found nothing excessive, nothing careless. It was almost jarring, how normal it looked on paper, for someone with a history soaked in blood.

Next, Dex visited your building and expected that to be where the illusion broke, maybe an indication that this was all a front.

There wasn’t anything.

It was just a building. Unremarkable, forgettable in the way most of the city was. There were no visible security upgrades, no controlled access beyond the standard high rise. There was nothing that suggested someone with your file should be walking in and out of it every day.

He watched long enough to be sure. You came and went at predictable times, no visible countersurveillance, no adjustments to your movements that suggested you thought you were being watched. You carried your own groceries up the steps. You held the door open for someone once, an older man who thanked you without hesitation, like you were just another tenant, just another face he recognized in passing.

Dex didn’t like that it didn’t fit the rest of you. So he kept digging, because if there was going to be a crack, it would be in the routine and… you had one.

It took him three days to map it out in full, not because it was complicated, but because it wasn’t. You woke early. You jogged through Central Park along the same route almost every morning at the same pace, like it was muscle memory. You didn’t scan constantly, didn’t treat every passerby like a potential threat. You just ran.

After that, you hadcoffee at the same place every time, the same order. 

Dex watched all of it from a distance, writing it down in his little notebook. He told himself it was for this job, that he needed to remember things accurately if he was going to finish the job. 

By the fourth day, he knew watching wasn’t enough. It never had been. Patterns only got you so far before they started turning into assumptions, and assumptions got people wrong. 

The problem was, he didn’t have a plan for that. He wasn’t a spy. He didn’t build relationships, didn’t ease his way into proximity. 

But standing across the street, watching you disappear into the crown like you’d done every morning that week, he understood one thing clearly enough: He didn’t know how he was going to do this. He just knew he had to get closer.

—

The next day, he “accidentally” ran into you on that jogging trail in Central Park.

He already knew the exact time your foot would hit the gravel. All he had to do was figure which way you were going: was it the route you’d take when you wanted to clear your head, or the one you’d take when you wanted a challenge?

He waited outside your apartment today and…. You were taking the hard route.

He followed, and his plan of taking you until you got to the cafè, where he would sit next to you, would’ve been perfect until… Dex timed it wrong.

He knew he did the second he adjusted his pace to match yours and felt the rhythm slip. He was too fast for a clean pass, too close for it to look incidental. 

This wasn’t what he was good at. There was no distance. Only proximity and the vague, uncomfortable awareness that if you were anything like the file said you were, you’d clock him immediately.

You didn’t. You just kept running.

He tried to correct it, cutting slightly across your path like he meant to pass you, like he belonged in your space. The movement was off by half a second, just enough to turn clumsy. His shoulder clipped yours, momentum carrying him forward a step too far. You caught before you could trip and looked at him like, what the hell, man?

“—shit, sorry,” Dex said quickly, breathing unevenly. He turned back, forcing himself to meet your eyes. “I didn’t… are you okay?”

Up close, everything went a little sideways.

He’d seen your photo. But a still image didn’t account for the way you actually were when you looked at him. You were focused, yes, but there was no immediate suspicion or recalculation behind your eyes. He could tell you were doing a quick assessment and—

“You’re fine,” you huffed, brushing it off like it really had been nothing.

Dex blinked once, recalibrating, trying to drag himself back to the whole point of this endeavour: Intel. 

Simple, right? 

Except now you were standing there, waiting just long enough that it demanded a response.

Right. Say something. Anything.

“Uh… there’s a coffee place just up ahead,” he heard himself say, the words coming out before he could fully filter them. “I can make it up to you. Buy you one or something.”

There was a lull of silence where even he registered what he’d just done.

That wasn’t part of any plan. That was stupid.

Dex forced himself not to react to it outwardly, even as his chest tightened in irritation. This wasn’t how he should’ve handled a target like you. He shouldn’t’ve improvised like this. What was he thinking, basically asking you out like some idiot who didn’t know what he was doing?

But you were still just looking at him.

And up close, all he could think about was how… disarming you were.

That was the word his brain landed on, unhelpfully. You made him lower their guard without realizing he was doing it. 

Dex swallowed, keeping his expression neutral, like this was intentional, like this was just another step in a plan he actually had control over.

This is for intel, he told himself, firmly. Just intel via proximity. That’s all this is.

You tilted your head slightly, considering him in a way that made him feel, for a split second, like he was the one being assessed.

“Coffee?” you repeated. 

“Yeah,” he said, a little more steady now. “Least I can do.”

“For what?” you managed an amused chuckle, and Dex could’ve sworn that hearing you make that noise lit up the world around him. “bumping into me? Is this a line?”

“I just…” he stammered, and bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ve seen you around.”

I’ve seen you around??? He mentally slapped himself. What kind of fucking stupid explanation is that? What does that have to do with anything?

Surprisingly, though, all you did was tilt your head and said, “Okay.”

Oh?

Dex forced himself to nod once, like he’d expected it, like this hadn’t just gone completely off-script.

“Okay,” he echoed, turning slightly to fall into step beside you as you started moving again.

He kept his focus forward, matching your pace, already running through what he needed to ask, what he could realistically get without pushing too hard, how to steer the conversation where he needed it to go.

And still, somewhere in the back of his mind, something felt off. Dex ignored it, because this was a job. You were a target.

And this was just the easiest way to get what he needed. Nothing more.

—

The café was small, tucked between a bookstore and a laundromat.

On the way there, you exchanged your names— he said he was “Tony,” and you, surprisingly, had given him your real name. You were easy to talk to, and you talked about the weather, the park, the surprisingly little snow last winter.

When you got to the café, Dex was relieved to see that it wasn’t too crowded, just a couple of people on laptops, a murmur of conversation, the hiss of the espresso machine every so often. Fewer variables, Fewer eyes.

You ordered first: iced latte, like you’d done it a hundred times. He followed with an Americano, mostly because he panicked and it sounded normal enough.

Now he sat across from you, fingers loosely wrapped around the glass cup, watching the condensation bead along the outside of your glass as you stirred your drink with your straw. You looked… relaxed.

You took a sip, then glanced at him over the rim, and there was mischief in your expression. A second later, you let out a giggle, tapping the straw lightly against the lid.

“So,” you said, dragging the word out just a little. “Why does Bullseye want to take me out to coffee?”

Dex choked.

It wasn’t subtle. The coffee went down the wrong way, and he had to turn his head slightly, coughing into his fist. For a split second, he thought he might actually spit it out all over you, which—thank fuck—the café being mostly empty made slightly less of a disaster.

His eyes snapped back to you.

“…You knew?” he asked.

You blinked at him like that was the stupidest question you’d heard all day, then shrugged, taking another sip like this was a casual conversation. “Of course,” you said. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know me.”

There was no accusation in it. You said it as if it was a fact.

Dex just stared at you. His brain tried to catch up, running through possibilities, angles, trying to figure out where this had gone wrong. Had you clocked him earlier? On the run? Before that? Had he missed an obvious tell?

You didn’t look alarmed. You didn’t look like you were about to bolt or reach for a weapon. If anything, you looked… curious.

“Oh,” he said, because that was all that came out at first.

Great. Perfect. Real smooth.

He forced himself to take another sip of his coffee, buying a second to gather his thoughts, to shove everything back into place where it belonged.

She’s a target. This is a job.

“Yeah,” he added, steadier now, nodding once like this hadn’t just blindsided him. “I mean—yeah. I just…” His teeth tightened for half a second before he settled on the first thing that felt even remotely usable. “I’m a fan of your work.”

You didn’t react immediately. You watched him over your drink, eyes narrowing slightly.

Dex held your eyes, forcing himself not to overcorrect, to let it breathe. Let it land.

“Right,” you said finally. You didn’t sound entirely convinced, but you let it go.

The silence stretched, but not too uncomfortably. It was just charged. You knew there was no chance of going back to a civilian conversation as you leaned back slightly, exhaling.

“Alright. No, we’re not doing this version,” you decided, more to yourself than him. Then you straightened again, meeting his eyes properly. “Can we start over?”

Dex blinked, thrown just enough to answer honestly. “I… yeah.”

You nodded once, resetting playfully. 

“Hi. You already know my name, so I’m skipping that part,” you said, gesturing vaguely with your cup. “I’m a former Red Room Widow. I live in New York now.”

You said it like a random woman introducing themself as an accountant.

Dex opened his mouth, then closed it to filter through the responses. “Hi,” he tried again, because apparently that was all he had today.

You waited.

“Hi,” he repeated, then dragged a hand down his face, exhaling through his nose. “I’m Dex. Not—” he made a vague, frustrated gesture, “not Tony, I don’t…”

Your lips twitched. “I got that.”

“Right. Yeah.” He nodded once, a bit too quickly. Then, as if he was forcing the words out his throat. “I’m… a good guy.”

The second it left his mouth, he knew how weird it sounded. You blinked at him. Then, to his surprise, you chuckled, and it was not unkind.

“Hi, Dex Not Tony,” you said, teasing him. “That’s a strong introduction.”

His mouth pressed into a thin line, but his shoulder reluctantly eased a fraction. “It’s… yeah,” he muttered. “Workshopping it.”

That earned him a small huff of laughter, and just like that, the tension changed. It was not gone completely, but it loosened enough to breathe around.

“Mm,” you hummed, tapping your straw against the rim of the glass. “Maybe workshop faster.”

That earned you the smallest exhale that might’ve been a laugh.

“So,” you went on, glancing at his drink. “Americano?” 

He looked down at it like he’d forgotten it existed. “Mmm.”

“Do you actually like that,” you took a sip of your own drink, “or did you panic-order?”

Dex hesitated, but decided against lying. “Panic-order.”

You grinned. “Thought so.”

“Yours?” he asked, nodding toward your cup.

“Iced latte. Always.”

He nodded once, filing it away without thinking. “Predictable,” he said.

“Consistent,” you corrected.

“Same thing.”

“Not even a little.” Your smile tugged a little wider, and for a second, it made your whole face look gentle in a way that didn’t match anything he’d read.

The conversation after that was not awkward, even as it came in uneven starts. You both drifted out half-finished sentences, small corrections, circling around what you weren’t saying more than what you were. But eventually, it found a rhythm. 

You talked about nothing, mostly. The weather again, somehow. The park. The café. You made an offhand comment about the coffee being great here but the pastries were better two blocks over, and Dex filed that away without meaning to. He asked a question that sounded almost normal, and you answered it like it was. 

For some reason, he could not bring himself to ask about intel. Still, neither of you got up as time stretched right before your eyes. 

“Okay,” you said after a moment, glancing at your drink, then back at him. “For the record, this is the weirdest coffee I’ve had in a while.”

“Same,” he said.

“And I’ve had coffee in worse places.”

“Same.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly, amused. “You’re just copying me now.”

There was that pause again. This time, neither of you rushed to fill it. 

You checked your phone briefly, then sighed, like you didn’t actually want to say what came next. “I should probably…” you started, gesturing vaguely toward the door. “…go.”

Dex nodded immediately. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

You stood, grabbing your jacket, then hesitated just slightly. You looked at him, like you were weighing your options, then reached into your pocket and pulled out your phone. “Give me your number.”

Dex tilted his head. “…What?”

You held it out, unfazed. “In case you decide to bump into me again,” you said. “Might as well schedule it next time.”

He stared at you for a second, like he was trying to find an explanation, a reason not to… 

Then he took the phone.

“Right,” he nodded. “Yeah.”

He put it in and handed it back. After all, he had convinced himself that it was just so he could get the intel he was supposed to do today.

“See you around, Dex Not Tony.” 

“Yeah,” he said, quieter now. “See you.”

You turned, heading for the door. The bell chimed again as you left.

Dex stayed where he was for a moment longer than necessary, staring at the space you’d just occupied, the echo of your laugh still sitting somewhere in the back of his mind.

Something about that had gone very, very wrong. Or very right

—

That night, Dex had trouble sleeping.

The apartment was too quiet, the city noise bleeding faintly through the windows, the weight of the day sitting wrong in his chest. He laid there for a while, staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation in fragments: your voice, your eyes, the way none of it lined up with the file. Eventually, he gave up trying to sleep at all. 

He sat up, reached for the notebook on his nightstand, and flipped it open. The logs he had on you were already there: Times, routes, and observations.

He stared at it for a moment, pen hovering. Then he added a new line, pressing just slightly harder than necessary: 

Likes iced lattes

—

Two days later, Dex’s phone buzzed.

He didn’t get messages he wanted to open. He didn’t need another contract— he got his hands full as is. So for a second, he just stared at it from across the room, letting it vibrate once. Unknown number.

His jaw tightened before he picked it up and unlocked it.

There was a photo of a newspaper, slightly crumpled, held down by what looked like your hand. The headline was clear enough:

THREE ANTI-VIGANTE TASK FORCE AGENTS FOUND DEAD IN ALLEY

Below it, you had texted: 

is this you?

Dex stared at the screen, figuring out exactly who it was. He read it again, trying to wrap his mind around this. His thumb hovered over the keyboard.

You knew. Or you suspected. Or you were testing him. All three were problems.

Dex exhaled slowly through his nose and typed.

Dex: no. Why would you think that?

He was lying, but then again, he was the one who’s supposed to do the interrogation here. It would be stupid to give anything away. 

He hit send before he could overthink it. Three dots appeared almost immediately.

You: just thought I’d ask

Dex frowned. That was it? No pushback? No follow-up? Did you not think he was interesting enough? 

Dex: You just ask people that? “hey did you kill three people”?

There was a pause this time. Dex found himself watching the screen, shoulders slightly tense without realizing it.

You: not usually, but you don’t usually “accidentally” run into me either so

Dex’s grip on the phone tightened just a fraction.

Right. You weren’t letting that go. Dex: I said I’ve seen you around.

He only had to wait a few seconds 

You: sure

He could hear the tone in it. That same almost-amused voice from the café. Not hostile, but curious. Dex leaned back against the wall, phone still in his hand, mind already thinking about what you knew, what you were pretending not to know.

You sent another message before he could respond.

You: also for the record, if it was you, I know you’d say no anyway

Dex managed a smile.

Dex: Probably.

You texted back just as quickly

You: so I’m choosing to believe you 🙂 You: congrats

He huffed, a dry laugh catching in his throat. This was… strange.

You weren’t pushing. You weren’t backing off either. You were just… there, talking to him like this was normal.

Dex stared at the screen for a moment longer, then typed again. 

Dex: Why’d you actually text me?

The typing bubble came and went once. Then, it stayed.

You: because I wanted to You: ??? You: do I need a better reason than that

Dex frowned slightly. That answer didn’t fit neatly anywhere that his brain could  categorize, 

Dex: People usually have reasons.

This time your reply took longer. Long enough that Dex caught himself rereading the earlier messages, analyzing tone, punctuation, timing, looking for something he might’ve missed.

You: okay, fine You: I was bored You: and you’re interesting You: better?

Dex froze.

Interesting. Was that what you thought of him?

Dex: You don’t seem like you get bored.

He could almost picture you rolling your eyes 

You: wow. you are a fan

He stared at the screen for a second, then forced himself to snap back into place. 

You were a target, he had to remind himself. Nothing more. He needed intel to pay rent, and he could only get that after he eliminated you, so… 

Dex: if you’re bored, we could go on another date

He hit send and immediately had what did you just do moment. This wasn’t part of the job. This wasn’t… date wasn’t the word he should’ve used. 

The typing bubble popped up, disappeared, and came back within three seconds. 

You: is that what that was the first time? a date??

Dex blinked.

“…No,” he muttered under his breath, already typing.

No. It was—

He stopped. What was it?

Dex: maybe?

That was all he could send. Oh, he was never playing spy after this job was done. Not ever again.

You: right You: with a guy who “sees me around”  You: very normal

Dex pressed his lips together.

Dex: Do you want to go or not?

During the wait, Dex felt something unfamiliar settle in his stomach. It was something he could only describe as butterflies. 

You: yeah sure 

His grip on the phone loosened slightly.

You: same place? or are you gonna “accidentally” run into me again?

Dex huffed.

Dex: how about the pastry place you were talking about? 

Oh so now he was paying attention to your recommendations?

You: okay. Friday?

The only thing he had on his calendar was killing task force, and that could wait, so… 

Dex: Friday works.

He tapped on his phone screen, anxiously waiting for confirmation.

You: cool You: try not to kill anyone before then. It ruins the vibe

Dex stared at that one for a second.

Dex: No promises.

There was no reply after that.

That night, in his notebook, he wrote another thing about you:

Initiates contact.

—

The second date felt different before it even started.

You were standing at the counter of the bakery when he saw you, pointing at something in the display case, smiling at the cashier like this was the easiest thing in the world. “Hey, Dex.” 

You ended up at a small table by the window, a couple of plates between you. A flaky and golden croissant, a banana-flavoured donut-like dessert dusted in powdered sugar (his choice), a molten-in-the-middle pain au chocolate, and one with custard that looked like it might fall apart if you breathed too hard near it.

Adorably, he knew you had picked too many things. Dex didn’t comment on it, but he noticed then, how you pointed without overthinking, how you changed your mind halfway through, how you added one more at the last second “just in case.”

It felt indulgent in a small, contained way. Like this was the only thing you let yourself have. 

The plate between you looked excessive now, but you nudged it toward him anyway.

“Try that one,” you said, already reaching for another.

Dex picked it up without arguing. It was… good, but he didn’t say that out loud.

You watched his face anyway, like you were waiting for the reaction.

“It’s fine,” he said.

You snorted. “Liar.”

“I’m not—”

“Don’t pretend it’s just fine,” you rolled your eyes, though you had said it with your mouth full, so it sounded more like downt pwetend it's jusft fwine.

“I’m not pretending.”

“You are.”

He hesitated, then let you win this one. “It is good,” he admitted begrudgingly.

“There it is.”

The conversation slipped into place easily after that. It was not smooth, but it didn’t catch as often. You didn’t circle each other as much. You just… talked.

You even went on for a good fifteen minutes about watching a squirrel in the park yesterday. You said something about how it would grab something, run halfway up the tree, stop, look around like it forgot what it was doing, then go back down and start over. You went on saying, it did this, like, five times, I think it lost the nut at some point but just committed to the bit.

Dex was surprised a former Red Room operative would even concern herself with things as trivial as a little rodent. He was even more surprised that he let you go on and on about it. It was as if he liked listening to you, no matter what you said. 

You reached for the sweeter pastry next, taking a bite, and Dex’s eyes automatically tracking the movement. A small smear of custard caught at the corner of your lip.

You didn’t notice. You kept talking, mid-sentence about the squirrel again, something about it being “committed to chaos, like hoarding random park objects were its hobby,” and—

Dex raised his hand before he could stop it.  “Hold on,” he said, almost a whisper.

You paused. “what…”

His thumb brushied lightly at the corner of your mouth, wiping the custard away, before licking the liquid off on his own tongue. The contact was brief and altogether too gentle for a man like him. For a second, neither of you moved.

His hand dropped back to the table. “You had…” he gestured vaguely. “Custard.”

“Oh.” You blinked once, then let out a small, surprised laugh. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Dex looked down at his hands. That felt… Unfamiliar.

He didn’t know when the last time he’d done something like that was. He didn’t know when the last time he’d wanted to.

There was this strange warmth sitting in his chest now, almost weightless. He didn’t even have a name for it.

And while he wasn’t sure he liked that, he definitely didn’t hate it.

You were the one to break the silence, coughing awkwardly like you couldn’t stand another second of silence. 

“Ummm speaking of hobbies?” you echoed, wiping your mouth just in case. “You… don’t strike me as a hobbies person.”

“I had some,” he said, easing back into the chair. Thank fuck you could carry the conversation for the both of them, because his brain had just fully stalled. 

“Past tense is concerning.” You leaned forward just a little. “What, like, knitting?”

“No.”

“Scrapbooking?”

“No.”

“Be honest,” you taunted, “I can see it.”

He almost smiled, and looked down when he said it. “Baseball.”

You paused, then nodded, like that made perfect sense.

“Yeah, I can see that,” you said, then added casually, “I used to do ballet.”

Dex blinked. He looked at you differently now. like he was trying to fit that into everything else he knew. “Oh,” he managed to say.

You shrugged. “Standard Red Room stuff.”

Dex’s posture shifted slightly, attention narrowing. 

Oh, this was it. This was what he came for. This was the thread he needed. This was the confirmation that you had been trained in HQ, right? If you had survived it, then there were doors inside you that led back to places he couldn’t access any other way. 

These were not guesses, not patterns he had to infer from distance, but direct proximity to the Red Room itself, to its methods, its remnants, its current reach. He just needed to keep you talking, keep you close, long enough to pull it apart piece by piece. So he asked, “What does that mean?”

You froze, as if a flash of memories ran through the back of your eyes. Then shook your head once. “Mm—nope.”

“What?”

“Not here,” you said lightly, but there was an immovable conviction underneath it now. “I’m not getting into that here.”

Dex watched you as held his hazel eyes. Then, just as quickly, you leaned forward, resting your chin lightly against your hand, expression shifting back from dark to a lighter tone. “Come by my place on Saturday,” you said, like it had just occurred to you. “We’ll call it our third date.”

Dex blinked. “What?”

You shrugged, completely unfazed. “If you’re really curious,” you added, a small tilt to your head. “There’s… fewer people.”

He stared at you, his eyes empty and calculating at the saw time, fingers anxiously tapping the underside of the table. This was… this was not in the plan. This was not one of his controlled outcomes. This was not…

“Okay,” he said anyway. The answer seemed to have left his mouth before he fully processed it.

“Okay,” you echoed.

And somewhere between the pastries, coffee, and conversation, he realized, a little too late… 

This doesn’t feel like a job.

—

Dex had expected a decoy. A secondary location, maybe a shell apartment. He was expecting something stripped down and impersonal, designed to be burned the second it was compromised.

Not this. Not the exact place he had already mapped out in his notebook.

So yeah, you had given him your real address.

For just a second, he wondered if this was the play. If you knew how much he knew. If this was some test he hadn’t caught onto yet.

The building was exactly what he expected. It was a high-end high rise. The doorman glanced at him once, then nodded like he’d already been cleared.

“You’re expected,” he said simply.

Dex didn’t respond, already moving past him. The elevator took him straight up.

By the time he reached your door, he had an uneasy feeling in his chest. Was this… a trap? 

He knocked, and the door opened almost immediately.

“Hi,” you said.

Dex opened his mouth to respond, but you interrupted his train of thoughts by pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, right at the scar.

Dex froze. By the time you pulled back, his brain still hadn’t caught up.

You smiled like nothing had happened, stepping aside to let him in. “Come in.”

He couldn’t find words to say, because apparently, his brain was on pause now.

Still, Dex stayed half a step behind you as you pushed the door open, his eyes already scanning past your shoulder and realised…

The place was… expensive.

Not in a loud, gaudy way. You had no gold fixtures or ridiculous statement pieces. It was intentional. It had floor-to-ceiling windows stretching across the far wall with a view that swallowed half the city. It had two bedrooms, if he researched it right.

“How…” he started, then cut himself off. What he meant to say was, how can you afford this? But decided against it. 

You didn’t seem to notice. “Make yourself comfortable,” you said, already shrugging off your jacket and tossing it onto a chair like it wasn’t worth more than half the furniture in his apartment. “I just need the bathroom. I’ll be quick.”

And just like that, you disappeared.

Dex stood there for a second longer than necessary, processing everything. 

You lived here. And not as a cover, not temporarily. There were no signs of rotation, no packed bags, no readiness to leave at a moment’s notice.

“That’s stupid,” he muttered under his breath. Or reckless. Or you were just arrogant to a fault. Maybe you just didn’t think anyone could touch you.

Dex stood still for a second, listening to the water running. He heard the slightly delayed pipes and realised you weren’t rushing. Good.

His eyes tracked the room the way they always did, scanning for inconsistencies. He didn’t try to look for what was there, but what didn’t belong. Because people like you didn’t leave things out.

Which meant if anything existed, it would be hidden. His gaze slowed down and shifted… There. A section of the wall paneling near the shelving was barely misaligned. It was not enough for anyone else to clock, but Dex didn’t miss patterns like that.

He stepped closer, fingers brushing lightly over the seam. There must be a pressure point. Eventually the panel gave just enough of a click to confirm it. Dex didn’t hesitate before easing it open.

Inside was a compact hidden compartment.

The first thing he saw was a keycard, worn at the edges. The insignia was barely visible, but he didn’t need it to be clear. He knew what it was the second he saw it: Hydra.

“Of course,” he muttered under his breath.

Red Room had a historical overlap with Hydra. Old, but not irrelevant.

It surely was a small enough thing that you wouldn’t miss it, right?

He pocketed it and moved on to the only other thing hidden in the panel: Documents. It wasn’t exactly a full archive, but it was enough.

He flipped through them, scanning fast. Inside were names of Red Room operatives. The dead ones were labeled. He assumed the ones who didn’t have a red Xs on their files were still active. 

You had annotated them too, with locations, partial intel, and movement patterns.

This was the kind of access people killed for.

His thumb moved, grabbing his phone. He flipped through quickly, taking a picture of each page, each note, each annotation. He made sure, of course, that it was legible.

This was high-level access, closer than anything he’d gotten from a distance. This… This was the job.

Then he heard the sound of water shutting off.

Shit. Dex froze. Then, he moved. He closed the folder immediately, sliding it back in.

Everything went back exactly as it was, the panel sealed until the seam disappeared into the wall again like it had never existed. By the time you stepped back into the room, he was already on the couch.

“Sorry,” you said, drying your hands casually, completely unbothered. “That took longer than I thought.”

Dex looked up at you. There was a split second, where something in his expression didn’t line up. The. it was gone.

“You’re fine,” he said evenly.

You nodded, like that settled it, and stepped closer. You dropped down onto the couch beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his, as if this was normal. As if he wasn’t here to dismantle you piece by piece. He didn’t even realise that you had a bottle of wine and two glasses on your hand. 

You leaned back slightly, turning your head toward him, “…So,” you said, more direct. “What do you want to know?”

—

It can’t be this easy right? Dex thought. 

Turns out, it was. 

Which was weird, because people like you didn’t just… hand things over. So either this was the cleanest setup he’d ever walked into, or you really didn’t think he was a threat. Neither option sat right with him. 

His fingers flexed slightly against his knee as he watched you pour two glasses of red. You handed one to him, and Dex took it quickly. “Thanks,” he said, smaller than usual.

He didn’t even usually drink anymore. He turned the stem slightly between his fingers, watching the liquid catch the light. For a brief second, his mind did what it always did: it ran through possibilities. 

It might be a sedative. It could be poison. He could handle most of that, maybe. And if he couldn’t…  Well.

He huffed quietly to himself. What the hell.

Dex took a sip. It burned a little on the way down. Not unusual, just normal wine. 

The first sign that it wasn’t poison was that you were drinking it, too. The second sign was that you didn’t react; you didn’t watch him like you were waiting for something to happen. You just leaned back into the couch and tucked your leg under yourself.

It was cute, Dex thought. You looked like a bird, nesting. He liked it.

Then, he took a deep breath and started asking questions. At first, it was light, like where did you grow up? Where were you trained?

You answered, and you sounded detached for the first couple of sentences. It was as if you were testing the limits and throwing pieces out to see what stuck.

But when the alcohol kicked in and your cheeks turned rosy pink, you spoke more candidly. About the Red Room. About being taken. About being trained.

Even Dex, who was starting to feel more bubbly, didn’t interrupt.

At first, he listened like he always did. He filtered, sorted, and pulled out what mattered. But somewhere along the way, that changed. Because you started giving less intel and more… context.

“You don’t really realize it when you’re in it,” you said, staring into your glass like the answer might be somewhere at the bottom. “It just feels normal. Like this is what life is supposed to be. You don’t question it because there’s nothing else to compare it to.”

Dex’s grip tightened slightly, and you kept going.

“They don’t just train you. They… build you. Strip everything out first. Then put back only what they need.” You gave him a small laugh.“Honestly? It’s basically a cult. You have no idea what it’s like to be manipulated like that.”

Dex looked down, and exhaled slowly through his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

You glanced at him then, and your eyes shifted. You were not shocked at all, but you recognised it as well as you would recognise kin. “Oh,” you looked down. “Right.”

Dex poured himself another glass without thinking. You kept talking, but slower now. It was less like you were explaining, more like you were… unloading. Like you didn’t have anywhere else to put it.

That’s when it clicked: This must not be a trap or a strategy, he concluded, because the reason you were telling him all of this on a third date was… because, like him, you had no one else.

You might have neighbors, maybe even actual friends. But surely, you had no one else who could possibly understand you the way he did, because who else could you possibly know in this line of work? 

That was why you decided that he was the safest place to put it.

Dex stared at the rim of his glass for a second too long. That was stupid of you. And dangerous. And—

“…And you?” you said suddenly, nudging his knee lightly with yours. “C’mon.”

He blinked, pulled back into the moment.

“If we’re trauma dumping,” you added, a crooked smile pulling at your mouth, “we might as well commit. This is probably our only chance to say it out like.” You took another sip, then shrugged. “Doesn’t exactly look like either of us go to therapy.”

Dex huffed. “Yeah,” he muttered. His brain caught up half a second later.

He shouldn’t, though, right? He shouldn’t tell you anything about him that could possibly be compromising but… The booze was getting to him. 

And, besides, what harm could trauma dumping to you be? The job ends one way: with you dead after he got all the intel. So did it really matter what you knew about him?

Dex leaned back slightly, exhaling a little. 

And then, before he could stop himself, the extra bit of liquid courage bypassed his brain, and he told you everything. 

The words came out flat at first. But the more he drank, the less he cared about what he gave away and what he did not. 

You didn’t interrupt him. You just listened. And that, more than anything, kept him talking. 

At some point, the wine started to blur the edges for you, too. Your shoulders leaned closer. Your knee stayed pressed against his. Your laughter came easier as he cynically explained being in prison, and because you felt bad when you did, you gasped and covered your mouth. 

Dex didn’t seem to mind. He even smiled, the corner of his mouth warping the pronounced scar on his cheek. At one point, you tilted your head slightly, watching him with an understanding that hadn’t been there before.

“God,” you said, almost to yourself. “We’re so fucked up.”

Then, unexpectedly, you giggled. Dex, for once, cannot help but chuckle himself. 

“Yeah.” He took another sip, “You more than me,” he added, almost immediately.

Your head snapped toward him immediately. “Excuse me?”

A faint smirk pulled at his mouth. “Y’know,” he said, “Child soldier and all.”

You stared at him for a second, before letting out a disbelieving laugh. “Really?” you shot back, leaning closer, eyes narrowing in mock offense. “I’m more fucked up?”

He lifted a shoulder slightly in a shrug.

You pointed at him with your glass. “Your boss broke your spine and you lived.”

Dex managed to roll his eyes. 

“You got thrown off a roof and you lived,” you continued, leaning in further now, your voice picking up energy. “Sounds like you’re pretty far from normal.”

Dex huffed again. “Didn’t say I was normal.”

“Mm,” you hummed, satisfied. You sipped again. 

The space between you closed without either of you noticing when it happened. Your knee pressed against his. Your shoulder brushed his arm. Neither of you moved away.

The wine kept going. Half a glass. Then another.Words came easier after that, less filtered, less controlled.

You interrupted each other more. You laughed more. You even talked over the ends of sentences like it didn’t matter who finished them. At some point, you were both smiling for no reason.

Dex didn’t realize when the room started to feel warmer. He didn’t realize when your voice started to blur slightly at the edges. He didn’t even realize when he stopped thinking about the job entirely. He just knew, at this point, that you were close. Really close.

And you looked… Pretty.

That was a stupid word. It was too simple. It didn’t cover the gnawing claws that were starting to take over his heart.  

But it was the only word his brain gave him. You were smiling at something (he didn’t even remember what) and it made you look… harmless. 

Dex felt a warmth shift in his chest. As unfamiliar as it was, he didn’t pull away from it. For a second, you looked at him, too.

Dex swallowed the last of the wine, mostly because it was the only distraction that could possibly take up all the space you had started to occupy in his mind.

The room had dimmed at the edges in that deceptive way alcohol always did. The lights seemed warmer. 

Dex didn’t usually get to this point. He knew that with uncomfortable clarity. He also knew he should stop.

You were sitting too close, closer than before, closer than necessary, your shoulder pressed lightly into his as if neither of you had noticed the distance shrinking over time.

Your voice had gone gentler, words starting to come in slower waves instead of quick exchanges. There was less explanation, more confession disguised as conversation. And he was doing the same, even if he wouldn’t have admitted it out loud.

Parts of him he usually kept locked down were just… loosening, one by one, without permission.

You laughed at something he said, he didn’t even remember what it was, and the sound stuck in his head longer than it should have. 

“You’re smiling,” you observed suddenly, tilting your head slightly like it was a fossil discovery.

“I’m not,” he said automatically.

You hummed, unconvinced. “You are.”

He should’ve corrected you. Instead, his eyes drifted without meaning to, down to your mouth when you spoke again. The way your words drooped at the edges when you were tired, or tipsy, or both. For the love of god, he could not get over you the way you kept licking your lip absentmindedly, like you weren’t even aware of it.

It made something in his brain go pop.

You noticed. “…What?” you asked, pouting adorably.

Dex didn’t answer right away. Because, really, there was no tactical reason for him to be looking at you like this. There was no intel angle. No extraction logic. No job framework he could hide behind.

It was just you. And him. And the space between you that didn’t feel like space anymore.

He leaned in before he could reassemble himself. He hadn’t planned on doing it. It wasn’t even a decision he consciously made, really. 

It was, for lack of better word, gravity. As if he was a meteor falling into your orbit. 

For a while, you didn’t move away. 

Your breath caught in your throat, but you stayed there, watching him come closer instead of stopping it. Your eyes flicked down once, like you were considering it too.

Dex stopped just short of you. He wanted, no needed— to know you wanted it, too. 

Still, he was close enough that he could feel your breath now. Close enough that if either of you moved even a fraction—

That would be it. The line would be crossed.

You lifted your hand slowly, but you were not pushing him away. You weren’t pulling him closer, either. Your palm was hovering for a moment against his chest like you were testing whether this was real.

Dex didn’t move. Neither did you.

You exhaled. It was a small, almost reluctant sound. “…Dex,” you murmured, and his name sounded different like that. His eyes flicked to yours again.

Too close. This was way too close.

Your eyes dropped again to his mouth again, and stayed there. For a second, he could clearly see that fraction of hesitation where neither of you could pretend anymore that you weren’t thinking the same thing.

Dex leaned in that final inch… but you didn’t meet him halfway. Gently, your hand pressed into his chest.

“Mm,” you murmured softly, almost like you were trying to convince yourself this was wrong. Then you pushed him back.

“No,” you said, breath hitching slightly, but your smile was still there, playful, light. “It’s only our third date.”

Dex blinked, still a little too close, like he hadn’t fully processed the words.

You laughed under your breath, giving him a small shove to create space.

“Besides,” you added, eyes flicking down to his mouth for just a second before meeting his again, “I want you to kiss me when you’re sober.”

Oh.

He leaned back this time, letting out a deep breath. There was only one way he could describe how he felt, and that was disappointment. 

Oh, well. What else can he do?

“Yeah,” he managed to say. “Okay.”

Still, he didn’t move far, and neither did you.

And of course, his thoughts, intrusive as they always are, decided to ruin the only tender moment he had in years.  

You have enough. Kill her. 

Honestly, he had more than enough intel on the Red Room. Even the old Hydra keycard was a welcome addition to his anonymous employer’s request. It would most definitely make up for anything else they could have possibly wanted. 

What are you waiting for? Kill her. 

It was definitely more than what that had bargained for. So yeah, he could do it now. 

He had clocked many sharp objects he could throw at you— from your vase to a cheese knife you left out on the island kitchen. He didn’t even need a gun. 

Kill her.

And no, you wouldn’t even see it coming. His fingers flexed slightly against his leg.

Kill her.

But then he made the mistake of looking at you. And from there on out, all he could think was… 

I want another date.

No. He shouldn’t want that, right?

Kill her.

He didn’t want that either. 

But… he needed the money, and you had a body count higher than the Empire State Building. Killing you would make sense right? It would help balance the scales, right?

Right? 

Would it still make sense, even after you laid your heart and soul to him? Would it still make sense, even after he realised you were brought up as an enslaved child soldier? 

Kill her. 

No, he told himself, Not yet.

I want just one more date. 

And to Dex, that was reason enough not to kill you. Yet. 

—

Dex didn’t go to rest when he got home.

The second the door shut behind him, he frowned, burying his head in his hands before pulling himself together. He had called forth the part of him that knew what to do, what this was, what it had to be.

He pulled the notebook out before he’d even taken his jacket off.

He sat down, pen moving across paper. It started the way it always did: Structured and efficient. Intel, in detail.

He wrote of the interior of your apartment; top floor, two-bedroom, open sightlines, minimal obstruction points. Entry points limited. Windows large but not easily accessible from exterior. Security: building-controlled, doorman compliant, prior clearance confirmed.

He flipped the page. He wrote about the hidden compartment: wall panel, right side of shelving unit. Pressure point activation. Contents: Hydra-era keycard, confirmed overlap with Red Room operations. Documents: active survivor list, partial intel, movement logs. Photographic evidence captured.

Another page. This was where he started writing about your routine vulnerabilities, your Behavioral patterns. Trust threshold: high. Counter-surveillance: minimal to non-existent. Open, disarming, prone to disclosure under informal conditions.

His handwriting stayed tight. 

2.5 million dollars would only come after you were dead. That would fund his makeshift crusade for years to come. It was important work he was doing, balancing the scales. 

Dex paused, just for a second. Then he kept going.

Timeline: Saturday meeting. Entry granted without resistance. Physical proximity established quickly. Target displays—

His pen slowed to a stop. It hovered there, a warmth blooming in his chest. Dex frowned slightly, staring at the page like it had changed on him.

Then, almost absentmindedly, he wrote… she kissed me on the cheek, right on the scar.

The pen froze again.

That wasn’t— He exhaled, teeth clenching. —this wasn’t important. 

But still, he crossed nothing out. He just moved on.

Target displays lowered threat perception in close proximity. Conversational drift toward—

His handwriting had changed. Not messy, just less rigid.

… her past. She smells like vanilla. not perfume. Most likely clean laundry and sugar from baking.

Dex blinked. He looked at the lines then at the rest of the page.

What the fuck.

He flipped to the next page like that would fix it.

Red wine is her favourite.

His grip on the pen tightened slightly.

He should stop. This wasn’t relevant. None of the last couple sentences was relevant. Dex leaned back slightly in his chair, staring at the notebook in his lap.

He had everything he needed. He didn’t need to write anything else.

Dex scoffed quietly under his breath. Had he gone soft? 

Then, without really deciding to, he added one more line underneath it…

She laughed when she said “we’re so fucked up.”

He stared at it for a second longer than necessary. Then he snapped the notebook shut.

—

The restaurant for the fourth date was nicer than most places he even bothered to go to nowadays. But if this was going to be your last meal, he might as well make it memorable.

It had soft blue lights, a low hum of voices, the whoosh of knives behind the counter. Dex noticed all of it the second he stepped in, cataloguing angles and exits, the reflective panel behind the chef that gave him a partial view of the room without turning his head.

You need to kill her today.

He exhaled slowly through his nose and followed the host to the table.

When you sat down across from him, smiling like you hadn’t just walked straight into the middle of your own funeral, the room blurred at the edges for Dex.

“Hi,” you said with a smile

Kiss her.

He blinked once, forcing his brain back into place. “Hi.”

You tilted your head slightly, studying him like you always did, like you were trying to solve a puzzle with a missing piece. “You look like you’ve been here for a while.”

“I haven’t.”

“You definitely have.”

“Maybe five minutes.” That was a lie. He had been there for more than ten, cataloging what he could possibly use to finish the job.

You smiled, pleased. “Knew it.”

She’s faking it. She actually likes me. Kill her.

Dex picked up the menu just to give his hands something to do. “You’re late.”

“I’m two minutes late,” you corrected, leaning forward slightly to peek at what he was looking at instead of opening your own. “And I brought personality, so it cancels out.”

He huffed, hiding a smile. “That’s not how that works.”

“It is.” You insisted, tapping the menu. “Also, you picked sushi? I didn’t think you were a sushi person.”

“I’m not.” He immediately said. 

You blinked. “Then why…”

“Seemed efficient.” What he meant was; it’s a nice meal. You deserve a nice meal for the last day of your life. It’s efficient for him, who had an array of ceramic and silverware to kill you with.

You stared at him for a second, then broke into a grin. “You picked it based on efficiency.”

“Yes.”

“That is the least romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty.

He didn’t do either.

“You’re still here,” he pointed out instead.

“Yeah,” you said easily, settling back in your seat. “Because I actually like you.”

Liar. Kill her.

Somewhere between you stealing sushi off his plate and laughing at how aggressively he held chopsticks, you asked, almost casually, “You know anything about the ports here?” Dex paused slightly at that, eyes flicking up to yours over his glass. 

The question should’ve put him more on edge than it did, but you just looked curious, relaxed, like this was normal conversation. “Not much,” he admitted after a second. “Fisk uses them to move things through there sometimes.” 

You hummed thoughtfully, listening closely, and Dex found himself talking a little more than he probably should’ve just because you kept looking at him like that.

After a while, though, he managed to change the topic. Work was getting a little old. He found himself wanting to talk about you. “You always order too much.”

You lit up like he’d just handed you a piece of chocolate. “Oh, we’re judging now?”

“I’m observing.”

“Rude,” you said, already scanning the menu. “Also, it’s not too much, it’s strategic.”

“Strategic how?” He tilted his head, genuinely curious.

You shrugged, but there was a stillness underneath it. “You ever go hungry enough that your brain just… rewires? Like you don’t trust ‘enough’ anymore?”

Dex had never felt that way before. He wondered if you were indulgent because you had gone through missions with little food. Would you have gotten days without it, a week maybe? Your Buenos Aires mission was six days, your Lagos mission was seven days. Was it those missions?

How did you even survive? 

She’s a widow. She’s a weapon. She’s a person.

“…Yeah,” he said anyway.

Your eyes flicked up to his, and recognition passed between you. “Yeah,” you echoed. Then you nudged the menu toward him. “So I’ll over-order. It’s fine. We deserve it.”

We’re so fucked up. Kill her. Kiss her.

He nodded once. “Okay.”

You spent the next ten minutes ordering together, leaning over the table, arguing quietly over rolls like it mattered.

“Okay, this one,” you said, pointing. “We’re getting this.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“It has too much…. whatever that is.”

“That is eel,” you squinted.

“Exactly,” he shrugged.

“It’s just eel,” you pointed out. “You’ve eaten weirder things.”

He paused. “That’s not the point.”

You grinned. “I have enough of an appetite for the both of us.”

Kill her. Kiss her.

“…Fine,” he said, pushing his intrusive thoughts away.

You beamed. 

By the time the food arrived, the conversation had settled. You didn’t hold back when you ate, and you never did. You leaned forward, talking between bites, pointed things out like it mattered that he experienced them properly.

“Try this,” you said, holding your chopsticks out toward him without thinking.

Dex looked at it, then at you. You didn’t even realize what he was going to do to you.

Kiss her. Kill her.

He leaned forward and took the bite. Your eyes stayed on his face, waiting.

“It’s good,” he admitted.

“I know,” you said immediately, all too pleased with yourself.

He shook his head slightly.

She’s dangerous. She could kill you. Kill her first.

You wiped a bit of sauce off your thumb absentmindedly and kept talking. “We used to have this thing—training-wise—where they’d reward you with food if you hit certain targets.”

Dex’s attention shifted immediately.

There it is. Focus.

“Targets?” he repeated.

You winced slightly. “Okay, that sounded worse out loud.”

He didn’t respond.

You laughed, a little self-aware. “I mean—it was worse. But at the time it felt like a game, you know? Like ‘hit this, get that.’ Pavlov, but with putting bullets between your classmates' eyes.”

You popped another piece into your mouth like you hadn’t just said that.

She’s a monster. She’s a victim. She’s both. Kill her.

“Do you ever miss that?” he asked before he could stop himself.

You tilted your head, chuckling at the absurdity of the question. “The food or the brainwashing?”

“Either.”

You smiled faintly. “Sometimes I miss knowing exactly what I was supposed to be.”

That…. He understood.

Kill her. Ask her about OXE. Ask her about the DODC. Kiss her.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me too.”

You didn’t make a big deal out of it. Instead, you just nudged his foot under the table. “Hey,” you said, lighter now. “At least now we get sushi instead of, like… boiled cabbage or whatever.”

His lips formed the ghost of a smile. “I didn’t get cabbage.”

“Oh, sorry,” you deadpanned. “Did your government program have better catering?”

“No.”

You grinned. “Then you get it.”

He did. He really, really did.

You started talking about stupid things again—bad takeout, a guy you saw trying to fight a pigeon, the way you animated everything just enough to make it feel real.

Dex found himself watching your mouth when you talked.

Kiss her. Kill her. She’s faking it. She actually likes me.

He picked up his chopsticks again, turning them slightly between his fingers. These would be a good weapon to finish you off. He had calculated the angle, trajectory, and distance. He could do it from across the table. It would be clean, straight through the throat.

You wouldn’t even—

You laughed suddenly, bright and unguarded, and it snapped the thought clean in half.

“Earth to Dex?”

He blinked, refocusing on the world around him. 

You were looking at him like you’d caught his mind somewhere far away.

“What?” he said.

“You spaced out,” you said, narrowing your eyes slightly. “That was intense. Should I be concerned?”

Kill her. Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty.

“No,” he said, coughing a little

You leaned forward slightly, studying him. “You do that a lot. Go somewhere else.”

He held your stare, feeling like an utter fucking coward. “I’m here,” he said. It came out quieter than he meant it to.

Your eyes softened. After that, you kept talking, and he kept listening, but the thoughts didn’t stop.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s a Black Widow. She’s killed for corrupt governments. She’s taken down entire networks. She could kill you. Kill her. Kiss her.

He watched the way your fingers curled around your glass, the way you leaned closer when you got excited about a topic, the way your voice softened when you cared. 

He imagined reaching across the table, but this time not to put a piece of cutlery through your windpipe.

Instead, he imagined reaching out with his hand, touching your wrist. He imagined pulling you closer, kissing you.

—

When the bill landed between you, Dex felt his chest pulled tight, like a thread being yanked too hard. 

His hand moved first, grabbing it before you could even look properly. “I’ve got it,” he said, but it came out quieter than he meant, like the words had to push past thorns  lodged in his throat. You started to protest, but he cut in, “I want to.” 

That part slipped out, honest in a way he didn’t like. His fingers fumbled just slightly as he pulled his card out, a barely-there tremor that shouldn’t exist in a man like him, and he focused hard on the motion—insert, wait, sign—because that was simple, and that was something he understood. 

Kill her.

He could do it after this. He would. After all, that was the plan. But when he glanced up, you were watching him. and it threw everything off balance in a way that made his chest feel too full.

His thoughts only sped up after that. 

Kill her. She needs to go. She’s a monster. She’s a widow. She’s a fucking Black Widow. She could kill you. Kill her. She’s faking it. She’s dangerous.

He signed the receipt, but his grip was wrong. It was too tight, the paper crinkling under his thumb. When he set the pen down, his eyes betrayed him. They dropped to your mouth without permission. 

It wasn't strategic. It wasn’t calculated. It was instinct, human and stupid all the same.  

He imagined leaning forward instead of walking away, closing the distance instead of planning your doom, your lips against his instead of blood on his hands.

Focus.

His breath caught, and he looked away like that would fix it, like he could force himself back into the job he was supposed to do. 

He needed to do it. Now. Outside. 

He slipped a metal chopstick into his pocket. 

But the idea of ending it before he knew what your lips taste like made him recoil.

Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty. Kiss her. Kill her. She’s a bad person. She’s dangerous. She’s so fucking pretty. She actually likes you. Kiss her. Kill her. Focus.

He stood too quickly, the chair scraping harshly against the floor, and reached for his jacket like movement might help ground him. It didn’t. You stood too, close enough that your arm brushed his.

He could still do it but his eyes betrayed him again, flicking to your lips like he was starving for something he didn’t deserve.

The realization hit all at once: he didn’t want to kill you before he kissed you. 

He needed that first. Just once. 

“I’ll walk you home,” he said, and the words came out before he could stop them. You looked up at him, surprised. When you said “Okay,” it didn’t make anything easier. It just gave him more time to ruin himself, one step at a time, chasing something he shouldn’t want before he did what he came here to do.

Kiss her. Then kill her.

—

The street outside your building felt eerily quiet, like the world had thinned down to just the two of you and the glow of the lobby lights behind glass. The doorman had the day off, you mentioned. There were no footsteps. No interruptions. 

Good. No witnesses.

Dex barely registered the thought this time. It flickered and passed, swallowed immediately by the thundering anxiety brewing in his mind.

Kill her.

“Hey,” you said. It was absurd, really, how shy you sounded.

He gulped. “Hey.”

His heart melted when a smile tugged at your mouth.

“I think,” you started, stepping just a little closer, your voice lowering like it was meant only for him, “you earned it.”

Dex didn’t get to ask what that meant, because you stepped in, closing that last inch of space like it meant nothing, and your lips met his…and everything in him just gave way.

His hand dropped from his pocket instantly, the weapon forgotten as his fingers caught your waist instead, pulling you closer like he was afraid you’d disappear. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was only warm for half a second before it deepened, before he leaned into it with a careful urgency that didn’t belong to him.

Kiss her like you mean it.  

When you pulled back slightly, just to breathe, just to smile that pleased smile that made your whole face light up, he followed. He actually chased your lips, closing the distance again before you could get far, like he couldn’t stand the idea of it ending already. His hand slid higher, thumb brushing your jaw, tilting your face just enough to kiss you again. It was slower this time but no less hungry, like he was trying to memorize it.

You tasted… fuck! Sweet.

His brain latched onto it immediately, irrational and completely useless: Strawberries and cream. Probably lip gloss, but it didn’t matter to Dex. 

Kiss her like you fucking mean it. 

He smiled into it. It felt wrong on him, but he couldn’t stop it, not when you leaned into him like that, not when your fingers curled into his jacket like you wanted him just as much.

Kill her.

The thought slammed back in hard enough to almost make him flinch. His hand paused at your side. He knew the metal chopstick was still in his pocket.

Do it now.

He could, theoretically.  You were right there. You were more than close enough. More importantly, you were trusting enough.

One movement, and you would be dead. He would cradle your lifeless body in your arms and the last thing you would ever do was… kiss him. 

“I’ll see you soon?” you asked hazily when you finally pulled back, your voice carrying the echo of the kiss.

Dex froze.

You were smiling at him. You were not suspicious or guarded. You were just…  hopeful. And all he could think about was the way you’d kissed him. The way you’d let him.

Kill her.

His fingers curled in his pocket, brushing the metal again. He imagined it: a quick thrust, handled efficiently…

No. Not like that. I can’t kill her like that.

It was too slow, too messy. You’d bleed. You’d feel it. You’d die a slow, painful death…

She didn’t deserve that.

That was it. That was his excuse this time.

You deserved to die a quick, painless death. Maybe a shot in the back of the head when you weren’t looking. Just… bang! 

His chest ached at the thought. He was still leaning toward you, like part of him hadn’t caught up yet, like he might kiss you again if you gave him half a second more.

“I—yeah,” he said, voice, rougher around the edges. “You will.”

You smiled like that was enough. Like he hadn’t just made a decision that should’ve gone the other way.

Dex stood there for a second longer than necessary, like he was trying to memorize you again. He thought about your mouth, your eyes. the way you were still a little flushed… Then he stepped back, because if he didn’t—

Kiss her.

He almost did.

Instead, he let you go. And when he got home, all he wrote in the notebook was:

She tastes like strawberries and cream. 

—

The park on a Sunday felt too bright for what Dex had come to do.

Sunlight filtered through the trees in shifting patterns, the grass warm and uneven beneath the blanket he had brought.

It was your idea, “a picnic!” said so casually over the phone, like it was something people like you did, like it didn’t involve him sitting across from you with a gun tucked under his shirt, pressed against his side like a second heartbeat.

He’d decided before he even got there, that today, he was going to kill you.

It ends today. Kill her.

Then you showed up. And the world tilted for him.

You were wearing a sundress that moved with you when you walked. It wasn’t tactical, it wasn’t anything like the person he’d read about in that file. You looked… beautiful.

Kill her.

He swallowed it down. “You look…” he started, then stopped, like the word wouldn’t come out right.

You tilted your head, smiling. “What?”

His eyes dragged over you again before he could stop himself. “Nice,” he settled on.

It was insufficient. He knew it.

You laughed anyway, pleased, like you hadn’t just undone him.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s a weapon.

He swallowed, hard, forcing himself to look away, to move, to do something before he stood there staring like an idiot. He dropped down onto the blanket he’d set up, hands already busy unpacking what he’d brought.

You noticed immediately. “You brought strawberries and cream?” You asked in disbelief. 

Dex shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, like he hadn’t thought about it too much. “You like sweet things.”

You went quiet for a second. “I…” you started, “I do.”

He didn’t look at you. If he did, he’d…

Kiss her. Kill her. Focus.

You sat across from him, smoothing your dress under your legs, and that was so normal it made his chest ache.

For a while it was just conversation, the kind that didn’t feel like work. You started with small things, normal things. Then, maybe out of morbid curiosity, you asked him about Fisk, almost casually, like it was something you were only half-remembering. Dex hesitated before answering, more out of instinct than suspicion.

Red Hook came up next, and that made him pause longer, because it wasn’t the kind of thing people usually asked about in passing. Still, he gave you what he had, watching you the whole time for a reaction that never really came. You just nodded along like it made sense to be talking about it like this, and that made him talk more than he should have.

But how could he focus on any of that when his mind…

Shoot her in the head.

“I’ve never done this before,” you said after a moment, glancing around. “A picnic, I mean.”

That caught Dex off guard. “What?”

You huffed a small laugh, a little embarrassed. “Yeah. Not like this, anyway.” You picked at the edge of the blanket. “We used to pretend, though. In the Red Room.”

You said it so lightly. Like it wasn’t something that should gut him. “In the basement of the facility I was raised in,” you went on. “Some of the girls would lay out scraps of cloth, call it grass.” You smiled, but it was fragile. “We’d share whatever we could steal from the kitchen and pretend it was… nice.”

Dex stared at you.

Kill her. She’s a Black Widow. She’s killed people. She’s—

“You deserved better,” he said.

You looked up at him, surprised. Then you smiled. “Yeah,” you said, after a second of consideration. “I think so too.”

Make it quick, coward.

He grabbed a strawberry just to have something to do with his hands, dipped it into the cream, and held it out toward you. It was an imitation of what you had done with sushi the other night. 

You chuckled, then leaned forward, taking it gently, your lips brushing his fingers just slightly.

Kiss her.

He watched you bite into it, watched the way your mouth curved, the way your eyes closed like you were enjoying it. Cream caught at the edge of your lips, but you didn’t notice. And that was it.

Kiss her. Indulge.

He leaned in because he couldn’t help it. He did it slowly, like he was giving you time to stop him.

You didn’t.

Your lips met his, and it was not rushed, not desperate like before. His hand came up to your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek as he tilted your face slightly, deepening it just enough to feel you respond, just enough to feel you lean into him.

You don’t deserve her. Kill her. Get it over with. 

His chest tightened painfully as he pulled back, breathing uneven, forehead almost brushing yours.

You smiled at him, a little dazed, and he knew. He couldn’t do it here. Not like this.

He leaned back fully, dragging a hand through his hair, trying to put himself back together. “I don’t…” he started, then stopped.

You tilted your head. “What?”

He looked at you again, and felt his heart break in real time. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said.

You were now confused and a little unsure. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” he said immediately, more panicked than he meant to. “No. It’s not that.”

Kill her. Do it right.

He let out a deep breath. “Come back to mine,” he said.

Fucking coward. What are you waiting for?  She’s a terrible person. She’s killed more people than you. 

Your brows lifted slightly. “Your place?”

He nodded once.

If he did it there, it would be quiet. He would still make it quick and painless. And afterwards… he could mourn you in peace. He could hold your body as he cried into your neck. And maybe, some part of you would stay with him forever. 

“Yeah,” he said, voice smaller now. “I just… want more time with you.”

That part wasn’t a lie.

You studied him for a second, then you smiled the same trusting smile. “Okay,” you said.

And just like that, you followed him home.

—

The walk should have been simple. It was a straight line, a familiar route, nothing Dex hadn’t done a hundred times before without thinking. 

But inside his head, his thoughts were deafening.

Kill her.

It wasn’t a thought anymore. It was a command, pressing in from all sides until it felt like it might split him open from the inside.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s lying. She’s done this before. You know what she is.

His jaw tightened, teeth grinding together as he kept walking, forcing his steps to stay even. You were beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his every few strides, like you hadn’t noticed the tension winding tighter and tighter in him.

Kill her. Do it before she does it first.

The words didn’t fade after they came anymore. They repeated, layered and stacked on top of each other until they stopped sounding like language and started sounding like pressure.

Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

But then, another voice cut through.

Kiss her.

It didn’t argue. It pulled.

Kiss her again. Don’t let this end. She chose you. She’s still here.

His breath hitched slightly, chest tightening as the two sides collided, over and over, faster now, louder now, until there was no space between them.

Kill her. Kiss her. KILL HER. KISS HER.

It built and built, escalating into unbearable noise. They clawed and scraped and demanded all at once. His fingers twitched at his side, curling slightly like they were reaching for an answer, like his body was trying to decide for him.

One pull of the trigger. That’s all it would take, that’s—

Then, he felt your hand slip into his.

And for the first time in a long time, his brain was… quiet. 

It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t forceful. It was almost tentative at first, how your fingers trace his thumb lightly before settling into his palm like you’d done it a thousand times before. Like you hadn’t even considered that you shouldn’t.

Dex stopped breathing. His step faltered, just slightly, like his body didn’t quite know how to move without the noise driving it forward.

The commands that had been screaming seconds ago, the overlapping voices, the relentless pressure…they just ceased. As if you had reached inside his head and flipped a switch.

Dex stood there for half a second too long. His mind, which had been a constant storm of instruction and contradiction, felt… clear.

His fingers closed around yours slowly, almost cautiously, like he was afraid the moment would shatter.

You didn’t pull away. You didn’t even hesitate. You just… walked with him. 

And the quiet stayed. Step after step, it stayed.

By the time you reached his building, a fact had already settled into place inside his chest. He didn’t have to argue with himself about it. There was no internal debate, no weighing of outcomes or consequences.

He just knew he wasn’t going to kill you anymore.

Not tonight. Not later. Not at all.

Good person be damned. Bad person be damned. Rent be fucking damned. Whatever fragile system he’d built to justify what he did, none of it held any weight here, not anymore.

He wasn’t looking for redemption, and he wasn’t chasing some shallow kind of bliss that killing you might give him. That had never really been the point, no matter how many times he told himself it was. He just wanted you.

And it was a primal, wild want. 

He wanted your mouth on his again. He just wanted you to kiss him deeply and show him everything he’d missed, everything he’d never been given.

Dex slowed as he reached his door, keys already in his hand, but he didn’t unlock it right away. Instead, his eyes dropped briefly to where your fingers were still threaded with his. Then he looked at you. And there was nothing in his head telling him what to do anymore.

His thumb brushed lightly over your knuckles, a small, almost absent motion, before he finally unlocked the door. “Come in.”

—

His apartment was nothing like yours. In was just one open space, a bed pushed too close to the wall, a kitchen that barely separated itself from the rest of the room. No personality, no indulgence other than you. 

You didn’t say anything, though. No teasing comment, no subtle comparison, just that same acceptance you always gave him, like this was enough. Like he was enough.

Dex barely gave you time to take it in. The second the door shut behind you, he lost any semblance of restraint. 

His hand caught your waist and pulled you into him, his mouth crashing against yours with a kind of hunger that didn’t belong to a man who was ever in control. The kiss was messy, as if he was trying to take something he didn’t know how to ask for.

You gasped against him, your hands coming up to his chest, then his shoulders, leveling him and undoing him all at once. 

He walked you backward without breaking contact. One step, then another, until the back of your knees hit the bed and you fell onto it with. He followed instantly, like space between you was unbearable.

His hands were everywhere, your neck, your sides, your thigh, like he needed to confirm you were real, that you were still here, that you hadn’t disappeared the second he let himself want you this much. And then you felt him shudder just a bit, shoulder shaking. 

You pulled back just enough to look at him, your breath uneven, your hands coming up to his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones.

“Dex?” you whispered, concern threading through everything. “What’s wrong? ”

“Nothing,” he insisted, almost defensive. “Nothing.”

But his eyes were glassy. He swallowed hard, like he was trying to force it down, trying to push it away before you could see it. After all, he didn’t know how to explain it.

How would he even begin to explain that you made his head quiet? That just being near you feels like something he’s never had before? That he doesn’t know what this is, but it’s too much and not enough at the same time?

“I’m fine,” he added, but it didn’t sound convincing. Not even to himself.

You said his name again, gentler this time. 

And that was it. That was the last thing holding him together.

“I wanna taste you,” he said honestly, almost reverently. 

You were caught slightly off guard. A small, breathy laugh escaped you. “You’ve kissed me before.”

But he shook his head, his big hands already frantically bunching the fabric of your sundress with an urgency that didn’t feel casual anymore. It felt like a need. Like an instinct he couldn’t hold back even if he tried. One hand gripped on your ass as the other hooked on the waistband of your panties, tugging it down desperately.

“No,” he said, voice deeper now. “I want to taste you.”

Oh.

Your breath hitched, but you didn’t stop him. You didn’t pull away. You let him move closer, let him guide you, let him fall on his knees like he was praying to a goddess in the altar of an ancient temple. You let him take that space between your legs as he wondered how much sweeter you could get. 

Here, he could at least pretend that he hadn’t been thinking about killing you not that long ago.

Dex sank lower, slower now, like he was trying to learn you, not take from you. His hands steadied himself against your thighs, his forehead dipping for just a second like he needed to breathe you in. He felt… wrecked.

His breath hitched softly as he leaned closer, the space between your heat and him shrinking until there was almost nothing left and then—

click.

It was quiet, but unmistakably the sound of safety coming off. 

Every instinct he had lit up at once, snapping back into place so violently it almost hurt. His body froze, breath catching.

He lifted his head slowly. And there you were, with a gun pointed at his head.

It was small, and easy to hide, the red room insignia etched to the side. You probably pulled from that little purse you always carried like it was just an accessory.

Of course.

Dex didn’t reach for anything. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even try to put space between you. He just… looked at you.

And instead of anger, his chest folded in on itself. What he felt was closer to heartbreak than it was rage. Because for one stupid, moment he had naively believed you felt safe with him.

“…Oh,” he said softly.

The gun wasn’t the most horrifying part. It was the fact that even now, even with the metallic click of the safety still ringing in his ears, even with death staring him directly in the face, Dex could not stop looking at you.

You were sprawled beneath him on his bed, dress dragged up your thighs by his own hands, your breathing still uneven from the way he had kissed you seconds earlier. Your lips were swollen and puffy. Your chest rose and fell too quickly. One of your sandal straps hung loose around your ankle where he’d nearly pulled you apart getting you onto the mattress. And somehow… he still wanted you so badly it physically hurt.

How could he be this fucking stupid?

He should’ve known. Especially with questions about Red Hook. The ports. Fisk. That was why you kept asking.

Every little question over food and coffee and pastries. Every casual mention between laughter. Every moment he thought you were trying to know him better—

No. You were working. Just like him.

Your employer wanted information, and you had been sent to pull it out of him piece by piece while he sat there completely fucking mesmerized by you.

And now you had what they needed. Or maybe they realised he didn’t know enough to be valuable. That was worse, because it meant that he was just another loose end.

His stomach twisted hard enough to hurt. Not because you’d played him, because some pathetic, starving part of him had genuinely believed this had stopped being a job somewhere along the way. That maybe the way you kissed him outside your building had been real. That maybe when you held his hand and silenced every screaming voice in his head, it had meant something to you too.

Humiliating. Absolutely humiliating.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

It you had looked cold, detached, amused, even cruel, this would have been easier. He would have known where to put it. Would have known how to hate you properly. But you looked devastated.

Your hand trembled slightly around the weapon pointed at him, and your eyes kept betraying you, flicking down to his mouth before snapping back up again. You looked like you hated this.

“I…” You swallowed. “You’re not useful to OXE anymore.”

He had known something felt off. He just hadn’t cared enough to stop. He just wanted you more than he wanted to survive.

Dex let out a shaky breath that almost sounded like laughter. “Fuck,” he murmured softly, and you twitched, feeling his breath on your naked core. 

You flinched immediately. “No. Don’t do that.”

His eyes flicked back to yours.

“Don’t act like this was just me manipulating you,” you said, and your voice cracked slightly now. “I know there was a contract on me. I know you got sent it. I know about the gun under your shirt. Don’t you dare pretend like you weren’t planning to kill me too.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Because what could he even say? You were right.

The notebook was sitting in his apartment right now, pages and pages documenting your routines, your apartment, your vulnerabilities.

He had memorized the ways to kill you before he ever memorized the sound of your laugh.

And all this time, you had let him follow you, let him think he was in control in that “accidental run in” in Central Park, when you were planning to eliminate him, too. 

And somehow, the two of you still ended up tangled together on his bed, half-dressed and breathing hard from kissing each other like starving people.

Dex’s gaze dropped involuntarily to your thighs, to the skin exposed beneath the ruined hem of your dress. To the way your body was still open for him despite the gun in your hand.

Fuck.

His fingers tightened unconsciously where they still gripped the fabric pooled around your hips.

You looked vulnerable.

And the absolute worst fucking part was that he still wanted to bury himself between your legs so badly he could barely think straight. Even now. Even knowing this was the end.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

“You know what’s pathetic?” he asked quietly.

Your brows pulled together slightly.

Dex looked up at you from between your thighs, eyes dark and wet and unbearably earnest. “I still want to taste you.”

Your breath caught audibly.

“There’s a gun pointed at my head,” he whispered in disbelief. “and all I can think about is that I never got to know what you taste like.”

“Dex…” you breathed shakily.

But he shook his head immediately. “No, listen,” he said quickly. “I know what this is. I know what happens next.”

You looked away for half a second. That almost destroyed him, because he realized then that you didn’t actually want to kill him either. And that made him want you even more.

God, I’m so sick.

“I know you’re gonna kill me because it’s the job,” he continued. “Fine. I get it.” His eyes dropped again helplessly to the way your thighs trembled around him, then back up. “But Christ…” His voice cracked. “Just let me have this first.”

Dex looked humiliated and ruined all the same. And still completely sincere.

“I could die happy,” he admitted. “Just… let me taste you first, sweetheart.”

Your hand trembled. Not enough to miss, but just enough that Dex noticed.

The barrel of the gun was pressed against the center of his forehead now, cool metal against flushed skin, and still he didn’t move away from you. 

“Do it, then,” you whispered.

You swallowed hard, trying to steady yourself, trying to force your hand not to shake while he knelt there between your thighs looking at you like this was the closest thing to worship he had ever known. Amazed that even like this, you were soaked for him.

“Fucking do it,” you said again, almost pleading now. “Before I…”

Before you what? Changed your mind? Cried? Dropped the gun?

Dex could see every possibility running through your brain all at once.

His hands slid down your thighs reverently.  “You’re shaking,” he murmured quietly.

“So are you.”

That almost made him smile.

The apartment felt impossibly small around the two of you. The warm yellow light above the kitchen sink made you look divine, coupled by the sound of your uneven breathing. The mattress dipped beneath your weight every time you shifted. Dex tilted his head slightly against the gun like he was accepting his fate. Accepting you.

That should have terrified him. Instead, all he could think about was how beautiful you looked above him— dress ruined, eyes glossy with tears you clearly didn’t want him seeing.

He had wanted you from the beginning, even if he hadn’t admitted it. But this was something else entirely. This hurt.

Dex tilted his head just enough to press a slow kiss against the inside of your thigh, and the sound you made nearly destroyed him. 

His eyes flicked up immediately, watching your reaction with awe. He couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch you like this. Like he couldn’t believe you were reacting to him this way.

Dex kissed higher, and your hand flew to his hair immediately, fingers tangling there hard enough to pull a rough sound from his throat in return. He moaned against you.

The vibration of it shot through you so suddenly your back arched off the mattress, breath breaking apart, embarrassingly needy.

Dex's eyes kept fluttering shut every time you touched his hair, every time your thighs trembled around him, every time another helpless sound escaped you. He looked less like a man in control and more like a vampire feeding on his first prey. It was overwhelming.

Every time you twitched or gasped or tried to pull away from how intense it felt, he noticed immediately. He adjusted immediately, making you feel good mattered more than breathing. Like your pleasure mattered more to him than the gun pressed to his skull.

And fuck, did his tongue feel so fucking good. You could barely think straight. The room blurred at the edges, your thoughts dissolving one by one. Every nerve in your body felt lit raw, burning hotter and hotter every time he moaned pathetically against you again like he couldn’t help himself.

Dex sounded addicted to you already. He was too consumed by you and the sounds you were making now. They were small broken noises you clearly hated letting out but couldn’t stop anymore. Too consumed by the way your body kept reacting stronger and stronger beneath him despite your obvious attempts to stay composed.

Your hands tightened helplessly in his hair as another wave hit you, harder this time, your thighs trembling violently around his shoulders. “Dex—” you gasped brokenly.

He looked up instantly at the sound of his name. His eyes were blown wide. His lips swollen from kissing your skin. Hair ruined beneath your fingers. 

Then he sank back down, a man eating his last meal. He needed it to be a feast. 

Too much. It was too much.

Your body tightened all at once, every nerve pulling taut as pleasure crashed through you so hard it hurt. A sob tore from your throat before you could stop it, your entire body shaking as you finally came apart beneath him. Dex held onto you through all of it.

Your fingers slipped from his hair eventually, weak now, trembling as you tried desperately to catch your breath. Tears blurred your vision completely by the time the waves finally started easing enough for you to think again.

Dex pulled back immediately the second he realized you were crying harder.

“Hey,” he whispered instantly, breathing unevenly as he came back up toward you. His hands slid shakily to your waist, then higher, like he didn’t know where to touch to make sure you were okay. “Hey— look at me.”

You were still trembling beneath him, chest heaving as you struggled to come down from the drug-like high of the orgasm he gave you, the barrel of your gun on his temple now.

His thumb brushed shakily beneath your eye, catching tears against the pad of his finger. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, like the idea genuinely horrified him.

“Fuck—no,” you sputtered immediately, breath still wrecked as you stared at him through blurred vision. “Dex, fuck! How could you even say that?”

The concern on his face was so raw it physically ached to look at.

You were still shaking, your body trembling, your thighs dripping with spit and arousal like neither of you knew how to stop this anymore. 

You could trace every conversation backward now, see all the moments you carefully guided him toward the information you needed while he sat across from you like some fucking idiot who came to the conclusion you actually liked him. Except… 

You had fallen utterly in love with him.

Somewhere between the pastries and the wine and him writing down your coffee order in that stupid little notebook of his, the job had become real. Somewhere between him kissing you and him looking at you like your body wasn’t shameful or weaponized or ruined… you had stopped wanting this to end. 

And now here he was. Kneeling between your thighs with your gun to his head and your taste still on his mouth, looking at you like he’d die grateful if you asked him to.

It was as if, somewhere deep down, Benjamin Poindexter truly believed that if loving you ended in death, then maybe that was simply the closest thing he would ever get to being loved at all. That thought almost made you vomit from grief.

Your breathing broke unevenly as you stared down at him.

He still had one hand on your thigh, so fucking gentle.

“I don’t understand you,” you admitted shakily.

A sad smile ghosted across his mouth at that. He was exhausted. “I don’t either.”

You let out this awful sound halfway between a laugh and a sob as tears spilled harder down your face. “Fuck, Dex,” you choked out, “you were supposed to be a job.”

“So were you.”

You swallowed hard enough it hurt. “I should kill you,” you whispered suddenly. The sentence sounded wrong coming out now, like it was collapsing under its own weight before it even reached his ears.

Dex lowered his forehead slightly more firmly against the barrel of the gun, offering himself to you. He readjusted it, making sure that if you shot him now, it would be painless, like he was going to do to you. 

“Do it,” he whispered. “It’s what you were sent to do.” He sounded like he genuinely believed his life was worth less than your mission.

Your vision blurred hard. “I can’t,” you whispered.

He exhaled through his nose. “Yes, you can.”

“No!” You shouted out, panicked. “Don’t fucking… don’t even try to make this easier!”

When your finger jerked against the trigger, Dex still wouldn’t move. Fuck, he really trusted you to end it quick, did he? Even with doom pressed cold against his skin.

Your eyes squeezed shut hard enough to ache. You tried to force yourself back into training, back into discipline, back into the little girl who would get extra pieces of scrap food if she finished her mission well enough. 

But all you could feel was him. His mouth on your skin. The way he’d looked at you while you fell apart beneath him. The way he kept loving you despite knowing exactly what you were. “I’m gonna…” you whispered shakily, but you couldn’t finish the sentence.

You didn’t want to kill him. And that was the first truly selfish thing you had ever wanted.

You pulled the trigger anyway, and the gun went off.

The sound exploded through the apartment violently enough to shake the walls, but the bullet slammed into the floor behind him instead. You had missed a point blank shot intentionally. 

Your hand dropped. You stared at the damage of the splintering wood, breathing hard, horror rushing through your body all at once like ice water. “Oh my god,” you choked.

Dex thought he was dead.

For one longs excruciating second. He truly thought you had killed him. When he realised he wasn’t, he said your name immediately, climbing up the bed toward you “Hey, look at me.”

You genuinely couldn’t. Your entire body started shaking harder now, all the adrenaline and terror and grief finally catching up at once. “I can’t fucking do this,” you sobbed. “I can’t… I can’t—”

Dex cradled your face in both hands immediately.

“I’m a monster,” you whispered brokenly. “Dex, I’m a fucking monster.”

Dex said nothing. He only leaned forward slowly and kissed the tears from your cheeks one by one, like guilt itself had become holy.

And suddenly you understood something terrible about him: He does not love cautiously, nor rationally.

Every ounce of affection he gave came directly from the part of him that had been hurt the most. His soul had been beaten bloody and kept reaching anyway. The heart is a muscle, and his had torn itself apart trying to hold both of you afloat.

“You don’t get to say that like you’re different from me,” he whimpered against your skin.

Your breath hitched and that was when he kissed you like he was trying to pour every shattered piece of himself into your mouth before the world took it away again.

When his mouth parted against yours, you could still taste yourself on him. That made it more devastating. This ruined, trembling man was still carrying evidence of your pleasure on his tongue while he kissed you like you were worth saving.

Dex made a small sound against your mouth when you started crying harder, and suddenly his hands were everywhere, trying to hold you together physically because he didn’t know how else to do it.

His forehead dropped against yours when he pulled away. “We’re both monsters,” he whispered.

But it didn’t sound cruel. It sounded heartbreakingly close to love.

—end.

[hopelessghostr]

This was so hot what the fuck

[notgaybuckybarnes]

WILSON BETHEL Daredevil: Born Again 2.07 "The Hateful Darkness"

[captainfern]

Catch Me If You Can

Benjamin 'Bullseye' Poindexter x fem!reader

✿ dex chases you through the woods and despite your best efforts, he catches you. he always catches you. ✿ 18+ ✿ wc: 3.7k ✿ cw: fem!reader, DDBA!dex, established relationship, predator-prey, SMUT, outdoor sex, unprotected piv, the chase is foreplay, dry-humping, slight knife play?, pussy pronouns, one (1) pussy slap, pet names (baby, sweet girl), praise!!, dirty talk!!!, dex is obsessed with you, possessive!dex (duh), strong language, british english author tries her best with american english 😔

a/n: needed to write for this man so bad. also, i'm a 'dex hits the right spot every single time' truther just as much as i'm a 'dex whimpers when he comes' truther soooo yeah i hope you enjoy :)

A myriad of noises surround you as you sprint through the woods, a cold wind biting at the warm skin of your face. Birds call high above with mournful laments that carry across the breeze as you dodge between trees. Leaves rustle where the wind whispers through them. Branches creak where they sway in dance-like movements above you.

The rapid beating of your heart is loud in your ears too, and you can barely hear yourself think over your own laboured breathing.

Just get to the lake, you think as you try your best not to stumble over an exposed tree root. Just get to the lake and you’ll be safe.

You’ve traipsed through this thick expanse of woodland more times than you can count, and many summers gone you have spent splashing in the shallows of the lake. A secluded spot off the beaten track, away from prying eyes and the constant noise of the city.

So you know you’re not far.

You know that the glittering blue surface of the lake will present itself to you in less than a quarter of a mile. You know the invisible track you’re following will lead you right to its shingled shore and you’ll be safe.

Your heart hammers wildly against your sternum, and you slow for just a second, arm reaching out to grip the trunk of a nearby tree. Your hand splays across it as cold air fills your lungs. Burning legs threaten to pull you to the ground, but you swallow down the lingering taste of defeat as you settle yourself.

You just need a second.

A sharp whistle fills the quiet woodland—a projectile rocketing through the air. You yelp when a loud thunk follows, and your head whips around to find a sleek black knife embedded in the tree trunk, directly in the gap between your thumb and index finger. You jerk your hand away, eyes drawing wide as you realise you can’t hear him. Over all the natural noises—the birds, the wind, the crinkling of leaves—you can’t hear him. Can’t hear his footfall, or his breathing, or the leisurely unsheathing of his blades.

You take off running again, leaving the knife protruding from the tree.

Another high-pitched whistle overwhelms the peace of the woods. A blade flies past your ear so quickly you barely see it, so close you almost feel it. It lands in the trunk of another tree ahead of you, and you weave around it, your entire body thrumming with adrenaline.

Ahead, the surface of the lake glimmers between the trees.

You’re so close you can smell the fresh water.

You can’t help the smile that splits across your face. You’re almost there.

You hear two more blades coming, but you don’t see them and you don’t know where they land.

Not until it’s too late.

Two blades, slightly larger than the first pair, ricochet perfectly from a thick-trunked tree nearby and rocket upwards several yards in front of you. They slice clean through a low-hanging branch and, with a splintering crack, the branch snaps and topples. Your smile drops, something sinking deep into the pit of your stomach, as you skid to a stop to avoid the branch that crashes to the ground in front of you.

Your steps falter, but you attempt to leap over the felled limb anyway.

You can’t.

Mid-air, a hand seizes the back of your shirt and pulls you backwards. You curse loudly, body hot and heart threatening to break out past your ribs, as you’re pulled through the air and brought to the ground. You let out a shout, but a large hand clamps across your mouth as you’re flattened against the woodland floor, a strong body trapping you amongst dead leaves and spongey moss.

“Aw, you were so close,” Dex whispers, his other hand pinning your hips down to prevent you from squirming. You narrow your eyes at him, and he laughs. “Don’t look at me like that. I told you y’wouldn’t make it.”

You say something against his palm, but it’s unintelligible. He removes his hand, resting it on your warm cheek instead.

“You cheated,” you grumble, hands finding where his biceps contract beneath his compression shirt. “You didn’t count to a hundred.”

“Baby, I counted to three hundred,” Dex replies, leaning down. With a pleased hum, his hand finds your jaw and angles your head up so he can drag his nose down the column of your throat. You whine, acutely aware your skin is dewy with sweat, but Dex just inhales before his lips part and he sucks a kiss to where your neck joins your shoulder. “God, you smell so fuckin’ good.”

“Dex,” you whisper. His body is a hot press against yours, and you wriggle as that heat permeates your body. Where his hand rests on your hip, you feel his thumb hook into the waistband of your pants. “Dex, please.”

A low rumble leaves his throat as he mouths down your neck, the mass of his thighs spreading your legs apart. He seems to ignore you though as he licks down your neck, his pelvis resting firmly against yours. Slowly, he ruts his hips and you feel the hard length of his cock beneath the layers. It makes your stomach swoop, and a pleasant sort of heat fills you like molasses.

“You can’t run from me,” he suddenly says, pulling his face out of your neck. His pupils are blown wide, eyes appearing near black as he peers down at you. You blink up at him, and your doe-like expression has his cock jumping where it presses to you. He groans. “Oh, my sweet girl, just look at you.”

You bite your lip to temper your own groan as he pulls back, the cool woodland air suddenly biting against your skin. Dex kneels between your spread legs and pulls your pants from your body with such force you’re dragged through the leaves. A small noise of surprise leaves your mouth before Dex is surging forward again.

His mouth slams to yours and swallows the tail-end of your little exclamation, and your hands immediately find the strong expanse of his shoulders as he holds himself over you. The kiss is not gentle in the slightest: your teeth knock together as he pushes against you, his tongue a firm swipe across your lips before he breaches inside. Thick, warm, overwhelming as his tongue flicks across yours, over the points of your molars as well, like he’s committing the taste of you to memory.

Dex moans into your mouth as he ruts his clothed cock against the gusset of your underwear, your core burning hot beneath the flimsy cotton, arousal pooling wet where he slides against you. You wonder, as your tongues meet over and over, if he can feel it. You wonder if Dex can feel the way your underwear grows damp with your desire.

Leaves rustle around you as Dex pulls back, your mouths connected by a thin string of saliva. You breathe harshly into each other’s space, just staring at one another as his hips rock and your legs twitch with each subtle rut against your covered clit.

The string of spit snaps when he speaks. “You’re fucking soaked, aren’t you?”

You burn at his words, trying to turn your head. He doesn’t let you—shooting a hand down to grab your jaw and force your head back. With a firm roll of his hips, the thick silhouette of his cock presses down harshly on your clit, and this time, you can’t hold back the mewl that tumbles from your lips.

“You don’t get to look away from me,” Dex utters, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to your lips, smothering another of your whimpers when the print of his cock slides over you again. When he pulls back, you watch him unsheath another knife from his belt.

He sits back on his heels, putting a bit of space between your bodies as he looks down. A vulpine smile creeps across his face when he sees how wet you are. The gusset of your underwear is dark with your arousal, and something primal in the back of his mind urges him to lean down and suck the fabric into his mouth.

He quashes the urge though, taking his knife and pressing the flat of the blade against you. The steel is cold and biting, and you yowl as he holds it firmly against you. You writhe in the leaves, and he grins at you all the while, gently sliding the flat of his knife up and down your clothed core.

“Dex, wait, please—” You whine, back arching when Dex pushes just a little bit firmer. Your sentence dies on your lips as you choke yourself on a moan, and Dex delights in the way your hips twitch and your legs attempt to close around him. But the mass of his body keeps them spread. You breathe out, “Please.”

“You’ve ruined your pretty little panties,” he whispers, almost to himself, as he ignores your pleading and withdraws his knife. He takes the tip of it—dangerously sharp—and touches it ever-so-slightly to the little bump of your clit beneath the material. You suck in a breath, and Dex’s grin widens when he feels you stiffen. “Made such a mess, huh?”

He removes the knife, and you exhale.

But without warning, two thick fingers hook through the elastic that rests in the bend of your thigh. Rough knuckles press firmly to the wet split of your pussy before he gives your underwear a little tug, then slashes his knife through them. 

You yelp as he cuts through the gusset. “Dex!”

Dex sheaths the knife. “You ruined them, baby.”

“But you just cut—!”

You’re cut off when those same two fingers of his split open the folds of your pussy and the cool air of the forest braces against you. You watch him with fluttering eyelids as he leers down at where he spreads you, watching the slick drip from your hole. He can’t help but chuckle to himself, shaking his head.

“She’s drooling for me,” he whispers, almost bewildered. He brings his fingers down to run a tight circle over your hole, and his eyes snap to your face momentarily as your entire body shudders, a moan slipping from you. 

Your eyes close, and that’s when his fingers vanish—only for four more to land against you in a firm smack. You rip your eyes open, a stuttered moan of his name filling the air, and you send a few birds flying from their roosts as it echoes.

“Look at me,” Dex tells you, a small dip in his brow. His breathing is laboured when his fingers find your core again, rubbing your hole in soothing circles as you tremble beneath him. When your eyes find his, he moans. “There we go.”

His hand flies to shuck his pants and underwear down, his breathing becoming more and more ragged as his cock hangs free. You moan as he grasps himself at the base and fists himself, spreading your slick across the shaft. His hips pitch forward, and he slaps the ruddy tip against your swollen clit.

“Fucking hell,” Dex hisses, dragging the tip through your wet folds. He does this a few times, rutting against you, splitting you open with the length of his cock. The vein on the underside rubs against you in just the right way that you arch off the ground, leaves crinkling. As you do this, Dex draws the head of his cock down until he can press it right against your hole. “Here we go, baby. Let’s make ‘em kiss a little.”

He bites his bottom lip, brows drawing together as he pushes the tip against your drooling hole. The moan that leaves your mouth has his balls twitching, with something drawing tight in the base of his stomach, and he repeats the movement: pushing the flushed tip of his cock against your slick hole, pushing in just enough to make your breath hitch, before pulling out.

He watches with swollen pupils as a small string of your slick pulls taut from your pussy to the head of his cock. It severs when he fists himself, and he watches instead as a pearl of pre-cum beads at his slit. He swipes it against you, running his cock back through your folds again, relishing in the dull electric current that passes down his spine.

He feels like a live wire.

“Dex,” you call to him, your hands gripping the ground around you uselessly as you arch and writhe, attempting to chase his contact.

“I’m right here, baby,” Dex whimpers, mouth dropping open when he finally slides his cock back down to your hole. This time, he notches the head fully in one gentle rock of his hips, and he bends down to kiss you when you whine at the stretch. Your pussy flutters around him, and he swears he could have come right then and there. He pulls back, pecking the corner of your mouth. “Here we go, baby, here we go. Open up for me.”

Pressure builds tight in your belly as Dex pushes in. His cock splits you open, the heat of your cunt opening up for him as he moves in. His spine tingles—if he was any more of a freak, it might’ve started glowing—as your walls part for him, slick and warm against the thick of his cock. You mould around him, clay-like in the way you take him. It makes him stutter around a moan as you flutter and tighten, sucking him in like you always did.

“That’s it, that’s a good girl,” he coos as you whimper, hips finally joining with yours. His balls rest heavy against the curve of your arse. They twitch when your fingers find his shoulders, your nails needling through the fabric that obscures them. He groans loudly, and it bounces from tree to tree. “Y’always take me so well.”

You mumble something, but it’s lost in the pleasure fogging your brain. Dex is still, resting so deep inside you that you swear you can feel him in your guts. Your heart hammers wildly against your sternum, skin dewy with sweat as your adrenaline rush continues to linger.

“Yeah,” Dex continues after a beat, stretching back to watch as he pulls his cock from you. The head rests sheathed in the heat of your cunt, silken and soft and so incredibly warm around him. He smiles down at you. “Yeah, she always takes me so well. Pussy’s a dream, isn’t she, baby?”

You hum out a dizzied moan as he ruts back in. Even when you try to expect it, it always catches you off guard: the head of his cock slams directly into that spongy spot inside you that has you seeing stars. There’s no preamble, there’s no search. He knows exactly where he needs to go, and he hits his target hard.

You clutch him tightly. “Oh, fuck, Dex, baby, that’s—uh—”

“Oh I know, sweet girl, I know,” Dex rambles as he holds himself over you, legs caught around his hips as he sets his pace. You’re dripping around him, and each of his thrusts elicit wet plap-plap-plap’s that seem loud over the blood pumping in your ears. Your cunt drools out with his movements, slick leaking down the curve of your arse. Dex breathes through a hoarse groan. “Fucking Christ, baby, just listen to her. She’s a mouthy girl today, huh?”

The pressure in your belly builds, stretching tightly like a rubber band as you listen to the pornographically wet shlicks of your cunt.

You can’t find the words to answer him. But you scarcely can in times like this. His pillowtalk always strikes you dumb, and all you can do is lie there and take his cock and enjoy the way he rambles.

You do give him a pathetic little whine in response though, and he replies with another vicious smile that deepens the lines around his eyes.

“You know she is,” he tells you as he rocks you into the soft earth beneath you. “Got all worked up while I chased you through the woods, didn’t you? Got your pussy drooling knowing I was hunting you, didn’t it?”

You heat up with your embarrassment, and the moan that fights its way out of your chest doesn’t feel like your own. “Dex, I—”

“Y’thought you could outrun me…” Dex ignores you. His cock nudges up near the plug of your womb, and your stomach clenches tightly as your legs begin to tremble. He continues, undeterred by the meek whimpers he’s pulling from you. “Y’thought you could—run—from—me.”

He speaks as he thrusts. They’re heavy hitting, and he drills you into the leaves and moss as you yowl. The sound is fittingly animalistic for the setting, like the mangled bleating of a lamb as it’s pursued by a wolf: maw red, eyes hungry.

You feel him in your stomach. He fills you so much, so perfectly, you swear he knocks the air from your lungs. The grunts and groans that fall from his lips don’t help either, and you find yourself gasping as your release looms, cresting like a wave.

Dex watches you, sweat beading high on his forehead as he takes what he needs. With something flashing in his eyes, he takes a hand and presses down on the softness of your lower belly. Your eyes roll, a splintered moan finding life in the cool air above you.

“You feel me in your tummy, baby?” He asks, tone hinged across a whine. His big hand splays across your womb. “Fuck, m’so—m’so deep. You feel my cock in here?”

When you broached this predator-prey situation to him, you never imagined it would end up quite like this.

You moan. “Fuck, y-yeah, baby—m’so full.”

Dex moans, much like yours. He sits back now, taking your hips in two hands. His thrusts build in speed and he’s hitting you deep—the right spot every single time. He pulls you back onto him, panting like a dog as you tighten. He can feel the way your legs quiver either side of him too, and he watches as your entire body begins to shake.

You’re teetering right on the edge of release. The rubber band in the pit of your stomach is pulling so tight it’s almost painful, and there’s a solid sort of pleasure in your spine that’s waiting to fissure. To crack, and splinter, and burst into a million pieces.

And Dex wants it too.

He wants to feel you come around his cock and squeeze him within an inch of his life. He wants to feel you pulse around him, thrum around him, milk him for all he’s worth.

“You wanna come?” He asks you quietly, and it’s surprisingly soft in comparison to his thrusts. His cock doesn’t relent and you begin to feel dizzy with your rising pleasure, your muscle fibres burning with it.

You nod hurriedly. “Please, Dex. M’so close, I just need—”

“I know what my sweet girl needs,” Dex mutters and, still using one hand to fuck you down onto his cock, his other hand winds down and finds the swollen pearl of your clit. 

Two fingers find it straight away, and he draws a pattern of shapes across it as you sob his name. You’re chanting his name and his ego soars, his balls pulling tight at the way you say it: “Dex, Dex, oh fuck, Dex, please—!”

You’re spiralling. The rubber band is pulling tight, tight, tight.

“Let me feel you,” he says. “Come for me, baby. Let me feel you.”

The band snaps.

You arch as you come, squeezing around his cock as your hands scrape down the taut muscles of his shoulders. You cry for him, his name the only intelligible word rolling off your tongue as your pussy spasms around him. Heat floods your entire body, the pressure in the base of your spine fragmenting as your legs seize around him, pulling him even tighter against you. It’s a heavy pleasure that pulls you under, and you find yourself gasping as Dex fucks you through it, and you’re so dazed that you don’t notice he’s writing his full name against your clit.

As your orgasm crests and fizzles, Dex takes two hands and plants them on your waist. With a deep growl, he holds you to him, forcing himself into the hilt as his own pleasure snaps like bone. He comes right against your cervix with a jerk of his hips.

“Take it, baby, take it, ah, fuck, fuck—” Dex rocks downward and buries his face into the crook of your neck, moaning your name as he spills, body flattening atop yours. 

His cum fills you while his cock twitches, and he whimpers like he’s hurt as his balls tighten and his entire body flushes hot. You whine, scratching your nails down his back as his hips give a few feeble rolls before he stills, plugging his cum inside you. He kisses your neck lazily as you both settle into the natural silence of the woods.

“Dex…” You whisper, and he turns his head just as you do.

Your mouths slot together. The kiss is slower, more gentle. It’s the gentle lapping of the lake against the shingled shore. It’s the whisper of the cool autumn breeze and the chittering of dried leaves across the ground. Your tongues meet, wet and warm and slow, and he whines softly into it as you give his a playful suck before his head falls back.

“We should do this more often,” you tell him, and he huffs, pressing his mouth back to yours. His teeth skim over your lip. Not quite a bite, but it’s enough to realise he’s a mutt with a bone that he’s willing and ready to sink his teeth into. You pull away again as one of your hands finds the back of his head, threading through his soft hair. You give it a gentle tug and he offers you a small, desperate whimper. “Next time, you’re not going to catch me.”

Dex’s eyes scan your face, and you feel his cock jerk inside of you. He smiles, and your stomach comes alive with nervous butterflies.

“I’ll catch you every time,” he whispers, and he allows you to plant a kiss to the scar on his cheek. He hums, pleased as his cock gives another pathetic jolt inside you. “You can’t run from me, baby. I’ll always catch you.”

———

bro who wants this !?!?

(me)

tags 🌿

@breakspearz @targaryenstar @pepzilover @genya1617 @st4rmborn @sun-snatcher @ancientbeing10

[ladybvllseye]

I NEED HIM SO BAD

PLEASE GOD

[scissorhvnds]

      𝘀𝗰𝘂𝗳𝗳 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝘀

── 𝗪𝗔𝗟𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗡

                        𝗧𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗜 𝗦𝗘𝗘 𝗔 𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗕𝗢𝗪 ── 

𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴! mechanic!jason todd x reader

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆! when your car breaks down, your best friend, tim drake, sends you to the best mechanic he knows - his brother, jason todd. what you expect is for your car to get fixed. what you don't expect, is to fall in love with the mechanic who exhilarates your heart and angers you to no end.

𝘁𝗮𝗴𝘀! this is an alternate universe!!! there is no specific place mentioned, but there are descriptions of geography and nature, inaccurate car stuff, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, multiple chapters, jason is self-deprecating af, romance, smut! cliche tropes as well yall im corny af

𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁!

𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁! @batwngs , @boo-123456 , @xuzui , @starshine-girl , @brinawing , @jasontoddsthunderthigh , @outpostsworld , @xx-kino-v , @currentblasphemy , @m-0ona , @vayabenson , @deadbeatphobos , @igotcrabs4u , @anne-chloe , @inesvisible , @ftkats , @branchesofmagic , @wrldbloom , @pantone2617c , @loserinadress , @optimisticalmondbananabiscuit , @sweet-cherry-kisses , @lovelymilijana , @starrydustedwinter , @wisefuncherryblossom , @wiishies , @apocal-ips , @bungunz , @pinklyred , @sluttybiscuitbabes , @venus-bby , @st4rl1ghtgrays0n , @vami

01.

02.

03.

04.

... & more!

𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗿𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁!

tba....!

an: new series! im so excited for you to meet them!

[ruerecs]

I

CANT

BE

NORMAL

ABOUT HIM .

[manonwillpower]

Guys I’m horn- I mean hungry. I’m so horn- god damn I’m hungry.

[itszarinaig]

I've already made this post for other tags, but I'm making it again for the tags I didn't include. There are these two accounts (Jujutsukisen, Jujustsukaisen4 and Moviehub3) that have been stealing content from other creators, and changing the links for gambling and porn sites. While it originally started in the jjk community, it has shifted to Jason Todd x reader, Dick Grayson, Bucky Barnes, Steve Harrington, Gachiakuta, among others and it just keeps spreading.

It's really annoying seeing their posts all over random tags, and it's definitely not fair to the original authors. So, please report the posts and the accounts.

Idk what the fuck Tumblr is waiting for, but at some point they have to take the amount of reports seriously 😭

(English is not my first language, so, forgive me if smth if phrased weirdly).

[teklarnnn]

ugh gosh I need to lick Jason's abs

[helaintoloki]

Dissonance

Chapter 1: The Night We Met

pairing: Winter Soldier x reader

warnings: depictions of violence, mentions of blood, death, strangulation

a/n: woo first chapter of the new series! taglist is open and the playlist has been updated (located on the masterlist)

summary: The Winter Soldier is given a new mission, and your quiet life comes to an abrupt halt

Siberia, 1964

The cool air burns his lungs when he takes his first breath. His gasps are greedy, as if remembering how to breathe for the first time, but the muzzle wrapped around his jaw makes the task feel almost impossible. Goosebumps trail along his skin as the mist begins to clear and the fresh air begins to infiltrate his chamber. Two soldiers grab him then, and he doesn’t have it in him to fight back as they drag his limp body towards the medical wing.

The stale fluorescent lights that hang from the ceiling are nauseatingly blinding as his eyes struggle to adjust to the sudden intrusion of his vision. The voices around him come in and out like a vacant fog, but he can still make out the harshness of their tone as they bark out orders to one another. He thinks these voices are new, and he faintly wonders how much time has passed since he’d last been released from his icy cage. Such thoughts are abruptly interrupted as the soldiers slam his body down into a metal chair, their fingers working quickly to strap him down as if afraid he might suddenly become coherent and snap their necks with a single vice like grip. Judging by the rapid beating of their hearts and the sweat that perspires on their faces in spite of the cold climate, he knows such an incident has occurred before.

The medical staff rushes around him as they check his vitals and stabilize his body from the sudden change in climate. He doesn’t realize the mind wiping has begun until he’s writhing in agonizing pain as his brain is reset to mold him into the unfeeling soldier they’ve trained him to be. The electricity ceases, the red journal opens, and the same code he’s heard so many times before is recited until only a vacant haze remains in his mind. He feels nothing but a restless unease until his handler speaks, and he’s quick to fall in line as if someone had flipped a switch inside of him. He speaks, voice gravelly from disuse and sounding foreign to his own ears, but the words easily fall past his lips all the same.

“Ready to comply.”

“Welcome back, Soldat,” the handler greets unfeelingly. A manilla folder is callously dropped onto his lap, and he takes great care in opening the files to access the details of his mission. A picture of a graying man is the first piece of information to catch his attention, the elder’s features solemn despite the paranoia clear in his eyes. The text beside him states he is a retired archeologist turned recluse hiding in a quiet Mexican town so secluded you can’t spot it on any ordinary map. ‘Priority level target’ is written in bold red lettering across the photograph, and it doesn’t take the soldier long to understand what is expected of him from this next mission.

“Everyone thought he was crazy,” the handler explains with a dry chuckle, “a failed researcher grasping at straws, but his work has proven to be true. This man has discovered the key to everlasting life, the cure to any and every sickness, the remedy to a dying man’s ailments— and he’s chosen to keep it all to himself.”

Another picture is presented to him then, and despite the graininess he’s able to make out an intricately carved stone the size of his palm. The etchings on its surface make it appear ancient and foreign to modern times, and it’s unlike anything he’s ever encountered on any mission before.

“This totem is the key to near immortality, healing anyone that holds it in their grasp to perfect health. It was said to be nothing but a figment of ancient folklore, but it’s real, and this man has it. Your mission is to extract the totem by any means necessary. Kill the scientist and anyone that stands in your way. No witnesses. This assignment is your most important yet— should you succeed, Hydra will live forever.”

The impassioned sentiments of the handler send chills down his spine as his mind races to process the onslaught of information that has just been dumped upon him despite only being conscious for a short while. His chest rises and falls in time with the rapid beating of his heart, and he swallows any doubts that dare try to make their way up his throat. He can do nothing but give a single nod of determination as he wills his steely gaze to meet the eyes of his superior. He’s never failed a mission before.

“Hail Hydra.”

And this one will be no different.

~~~

Guanajuato, Mexico

You’ve just finished the last of your soup when your grandfather sets his newspaper aside and looks upon you with a fond smile. Your home is quiet and tranquil, just as it is every evening when you sit down for dinner, but such stillness is a luxury in your grandfather’s eyes. He’s worked tirelessly to keep you safe from danger and free from want, and every dinner that passes, no matter how mundane, is a victory in his eyes.

“I have a surprise for you,” he tells you with a mirthful smile, “in my bag hanging on the coat rack. I found it while I was in town buying groceries.”

You look at him with piqued interest, and when he gives you a single nod you leave your place at the table in search of his bag. You assume it must be a pastry from your favorite bakery in town or a new item of clothing, but you’re shocked to discover a vinyl record sits waiting for you inside.

“Grandfather, how did you get this?” You exclaim through a gasp, delicately brushing your fingers along the cover in admiration. The Ronettes smile up at you as you gaze upon the cover art with awe before looking back at the man. “I hope it wasn’t too much!”

“Don’t worry about that,” he assures you gently, “I only want you to be happy. This life of ours isn’t easy, but I know how much you love music, and I’ll do all I can to make it feel less lonely for you here.”

You hum pensively in response to his profession as you lower your head in quiet defeat. You try not to dwell too often on the fact that the only person you’ve ever spoken a word to is your grandfather, and the only home you’ve ever known is the walls of your cottage tucked away in the outskirts of a secluded town. You’ve never traveled anywhere further than the garden out back, never had a friend, never gone into the city to buy groceries. You know why you can never leave here, and while you’ll do anything to keep yourself and your grandfather safe, you’ll never be able to cease the longing ache you feel in your chest every time you receive a new album.

“May I be excused?” You request quietly. He offers you a wordless nod of approval, and without saying anything more you rush up the creaky stairs to your bedroom in eager anticipation. You haven’t received a new record in some time, so you’re excited to finally have new music to listen to.

You quietly shut the door behind you once you’re in your room before making your trek towards the window to pull back the frill curtains. There’s a full moon out and the stars twinkle beautifully over the expanse of grass stretched out beyond your home. Everything is quiet, and without a second thought you return to opening your new record and placing it on the turntable. Your movements are careful as you set the needle down, the speakers crackling to life as the disc begins to spin and the music begins to play.

You dance about your room as you change into your comfiest nightgown and put your clothes into the hamper. You try to convince yourself that you’re just like any other young woman your age listening to the Ronettes while she uses the wash bowl to clean her face after dinner. You feel a sense of unbearable guilt any time you begin to grow restless of being in this cottage; your grandfather sacrificed so much for you to be here, and you never want him to feel like his efforts are unappreciated or resented. Besides, what waits for you outside is a far worse fate than being cooped up with the man who’s raised you since birth.

You’re not sure how long you’ve been lost in thought sitting at your vanity, but you’re abruptly startled out of your rumination by the sound of the front door bursting open. You gasp, heart immediately leaping up your throat as you quickly rise from your chair to grab your robe so you may go downstairs and investigate. However, the sound of your grandfather’s desperate shouts has you standing frozen in place. Your blood goes cold, lips parting in quiet fear and eyes wide with panic at his frantic pleas.

“N-No! No, please, I don’t have it! It’s gone! Don’t do this, please! Don’t-“

A single gunshot rings out through the house. The sudden silence is deafening, and all you can hear is the ringing in your ears accompanied by the blood rushing to your head. You feel like you’re going to throw up, your entire body uncomfortably cold while your eyes sting with tears that steadily fall onto the plush carpet beneath your feet. Your mouth opens with a silent sob, but you’re given no time to grieve. You can hear the stairs start to creak as heavy footsteps begin to ascend towards your room, and you know whoever had infiltrated your home is now coming for you next.

You scramble frantically around the room in search of a weapon to defend yourself, and the only thing you can get your hands on is the letter opener on your desk. You clumsily throw yourself into your closet and will the doors to close, immediately sliding to the floor and pressing yourself against the wall. One hand firmly clasps the handle of the blade while the other is pressed tightly against your mouth to muffle the sounds of your labored breathing. The footsteps pause outside your door, and in the quiet you pathetically realize you’d forgotten to turn off the record player. They know you’re in here, and it will only be a matter of time before they find you.

Despite the unbearable ringing in your ears you’re able to hear the low groaning of the door hinges as it’s pushed open. Your chest is heaving, and you can hardly see past the tears that continue to well in your eyes, but by some miracle you’re able to remain quiet. You might not be able to stay hidden for long, but you hope the element of surprise will at least help your chances of survival. Each thud across the carpet sends a jolt of panic down your spine, your knuckles turning white from the sheer force of your grip on the letter opener.

Just moments ago you’d been enjoying your favorite meal with your grandfather like you did every day before. Now he was dead, his body waiting for you downstairs while you hoped to whatever God was out there for some form of salvation. You didn’t want to die- you couldn’t die. You hadn’t seen the rest of the world, hadn’t gotten the chance to meet new faces and explore what life had to offer beyond the cottage. In spite of everything, you hope you can at least put up a good fight before they try to kill you.

The footsteps suddenly halt in front of the closet door, the owner’s silhouette casting a shadow through the shutters that blankets you in complete darkness. You hold your breath, not daring to make a sound and hoping the drums of the Ronette’s song still sounding from the record player drowns out the hammering of your heart. Neither of you makes a move, and some naive part of you believes they won’t think to open the closet and will give up on their search of your bedroom.

The assailant’s hand shoots out and begins to jiggle the knob. You can’t help the gasp that leaves you then, the sound only agitating their movements further. The door is locked, but by the ferocity in which the shadow pulls at the door you have a feeling it won’t keep them out for long. The door is ripped off its hinges, and without a moment’s hesitation you lunge forward.

You move without thinking, too afraid to face the intruder and too frantic to aim for your target. Your attack is successful in lodging the letter opener through his suit and into his skin, but your blind aiming results in you stabbing into his shoulder instead of his chest. In spite of your poor attempt, it effectively catches the man off guard and gives you a window of opportunity to escape. You quickly move around him and make a mad dash for the door, but you only make it a foot out of the closet before he has you in his grasp.

His fingers catch your hair in a vice like grip and yank backward with all of his might. You cry out in agony, your scalp aflame and your neck feeling like it might snap from the whiplash. He tosses you onto the ground as if you weigh nothing, and you aren’t given a fighting chance as he immediately cages you in between his legs and reaches for your throat. Your eyes go wide with panic at the feel of his hands slowly squeezing the breath from your lungs, and you use all the fight you have left within you to try and pry yourself from his grip.

“Oh, since the day I saw you, I have been waiting for you! You know I will adore you ‘till eternity…”

You manage to hear the distant voice of Ronnie Spector past the ringing of your ears and vaguely recall the dinner you’d shared with your grandfather just hours ago. It had started just like any other night, but now you found yourself mere seconds away from death. Had you known it would be the last meal you’d have together, you would have sat with him longer and asked about his day. You realize bleakly that at least if he manages to kill you you’ll be reunited with him soon.

“Where is it!” The stranger growls through gritted teeth. You can’t answer even if you wanted to, a sob being the only thing you manage to get past your constricted throat. Your cries only seem to infuriate him further, and through your tears you can make out his calloused features and icy stare. His eyes are the softest blue you’ve ever seen despite the wrath they hold, but you can’t make out much more due to the muzzle he dons and the curtain of hair that hides his features.

The room begins to spin and your throat feels like it’s on fire, and still you scramble to come up with a way to save yourself despite the reality facing you now.

No one is coming to save you.

~~~

The doctor goes down without a fight, not that the soldier had ever believed otherwise. By the frightened recognition in his eyes the Asset knew his arrival had been a dreaded but expected one. No one can hide from Hydra for long, and it would only have been a matter of time before his secret was discovered. He sweeps the entire first floor for any sign of the totem only to come up empty handed, but he hasn’t lost hope yet. He knows it must be in the house somewhere, otherwise Hydra wouldn’t have bothered to waste the resources necessary to free him from his frozen prison.

A faint melody cascades down the stairs into the dark hallway, prompting the assailant to move cautiously towards the sound. A gentle glow emits from the cracks of the closed door above, and he can hear the subtle creaks in the floorboards from the unknown inhabitant. Nowhere in the files was it mentioned that the doctor had an accomplice with him in hiding, but the newly discovered detail did not detour the soldier from his mission. The totem must be somewhere in that bedroom, and he’s prepared to kill whoever stands in his way.

The stairs groan beneath him with each step he takes, his heavy boots thudding deafeningly against the wooden floors. He wants his victim to know he’s coming, to strike panic into their hearts so they freeze like a deer caught in headlights and have no time to prepare for his approach. The Winter Soldier always finds his target, so there is no point in fighting what is to come.

The door is unlocked, allowing him easy access to the bedroom. The plush violet carpet beneath him softens his footsteps as he surveys the area for any signs of life. The room looks seemingly empty, the only movement coming from the frilly curtains fluttering in time with the breeze that wafts through the open window. He makes his way towards the frame, peering out into the dark for any sign of movement in case his target had managed to escape, but there is no one.

“The night we met I knew I needed you so…”

The melodic voice pulls him away from the window as he moves towards the record player resting upon the nightstand. The vinyl crackles to life with each spin of the turntable, but the sound of music is not enough to mask the rapid beating of his target’s heart. His enhanced hearing allows him to easily pick up on what the average person would miss, and the subtle sound easily leads him to their hiding spot.

He follows the ragged breathing towards the closet tucked away in the corner of the bedroom. The cracks in the shutters aren’t large enough to allow him a view of his victim, but the rush of their blood overpowers the music that continues to play in his presence. These doors are all that separate him from the totem, and it is this thought that spurs him forward to yank at the knob. A panicked gasp comes from inside, only fueling his sense of urgency as he finally tires of fighting the lock and instead rips the door off of its hinges.

A young woman surges forward from the darkness with a strained cry of determination, and before the soldier has time to react a metal blade is suddenly lodged into his shoulder. He yells out in annoyance and discomfort at the feeling of the weapon digging between flesh and bone, but it isn’t enough to disarm him. She uses the abrupt distraction as a means of escape, but she barely makes it past his towering frame before his arm shoots out and grabs hold of her hair. She cries out in agony at the assault as he yanks her backward and slams her onto the floor. Her body thuds clumsily across the carpet, the chaos causing the needle to gratingly skid across the vinyl.

“Be my, be my baby! My one- So won’t you please, be my, be my baby! My one and only baby!”

He straddles her floundering figure, knees closing in on her ribs to prevent any chance of escape while his hands make quick work of wrapping around her neck. She wheezes, eyes wide in panic while her arms flail wildly through the air for some form of purchase against him. One hand helplessly tries to pry his fingers away from her throat while the other beats desperately against his torso. He feels nothing, no pain from her pathetically weak fist or turmoil for the brutality he uses against her meek form, only a calloused determination to find the totem and complete his mission.

“Where is it?” He growls through gritted teeth, voice coarse from long periods of disuse. She can only offer an incoherent sob for an answer as she continues to fight against him. Tears fall down her delicate cheeks, and while the thought disappears just as quickly as it had arrived in his mind, he finds himself admiring the beauty in her pain. It wasn’t her fault she’d been caught in the crossfire of his mission, but his orders were clear, and he’d rather take her life than risk the wrath of his superiors should he disobey them.

Her inability to give him the answer he desires only spurs his anger further, and he finds himself growing impatient at her fruitless tempts to fight him off.

“Give up the totem, stupid girl or I’ll-!”

His threats are abruptly disrupted by the sudden feeling of her fingers digging into his stab wound. He shouts in protest but his hold only grows tighter around her neck. She convulses beneath him at the pressure, eyes beginning to roll back as the oxygen leaves her lungs, but her grip remains strong. Oddly, he notices the sudden painful intrusion begins to ebb away in spite of the pressure she maintains against the wound. He knows he should feel agonizing pain considering it’s a tactic he’s used himself before, but there’s nothing but a dull ache.

Her hand falls limp at her side as she finally succumbs to the lack of oxygen, and he’s quick to release his hold as he rises from the ground and moves away from her figure. Pensively, he presses his own hand against the lesion only to feel nothing. The entry point is gone, and all that remains is dried blood and a tear in his tactical suit. The stab wound seems to have just disappeared, as if healed magically on its own.

His frenzied stare shifts down to the carpet where her unconscious figure lies, her bloodied fingers twitching against the fabric of her baby blue nightgown. Her chest rises and falls slowly with each ragged breath she takes, and when he looks upon the column of her throat he notices the bruising of his fingerprints left behind on her skin is beginning to fade into nothing. Her touch had healed him, and now she appeared to be healing herself. The Soldier’s brows furrow in uncertainty and confusion as he attempts to put the pieces together.

A grave realization comes to him then, stomach pooling with dread as he quickly collapses to his knees beside her to examine her bruising more closely. With the gentlest touch he’s ever managed on a mission, he languidly forces her head to lull to the side to get a better view of her throat. The bruising on her neck has vanished completely, and the sight is more than enough proof to confirm his suspicions. The powers Hydra has been searching for all these years lie in this very room. The doctor was telling the truth— there is no totem.

There is only the girl.

[1toomanyfictionalbfs]

need to be in a zoro/sanji sandwich BAD right now

[bullseyegoon]

i really like the hip thing he does. For no particular reason.