Summary: Someone can only handle so much before they become numb. Can only handle so much hurt and anger before it consumes them. You couldn't, wouldn't, become that. You had to get away. You did. And met him.
Can you see me in the dark? - complete
Summary: A loyal companion helps find your rescue when you happen to take your evening walk in an unfamiliar park.
Blessed be thy Corpse. - pending
Summary: when a knights quest leads him on a darkened path to Necropolis-an undead world he was told to fear-he must find salvation with an unlikely ally. A descendant of Nephalem bloodline, you welcome the wounded knight. Only to learn within light and darkness, can be balance. (Moodboard Event by @artficlly )
Left Alone - pending
Summary: In a world where Bucky is free from Hydra, and stays free. His brain is still healing, the triggers still linger, but no one is hunting him. It’s just him, his small apartment in Bucharest, and a pretty florist who makes his head, and heart, calm.
Need a Ride? - complete
Summary: After a shit night out with coworkers, you catch the eye of a mysterious biker who looks every part of a dirty fantasy.
Your lives have always moved in parallel: close enough to touch, yet separated by an irreconcilable distance. Bucky is a prince and you are his sister's lady-in-waiting. But love ignores rank, and so does the kingdom's newest desire-inducing substance.
▸ PAIRING: Prince!Bucky Barnes x Lady-in-Waiting!Reader
▸ WARNINGS: NSFW 18+, dubcon because of sex pollen, so much yearning, slight hurt/comfort, public sex, porn with too much plot tbh, possessive!bucky, degradation, filthy talk that border on dubcon but know that she wants to be there as much as him, breeding kink, insecurities, both virgins, bucky is nasty and a lil mean under the influence, probably a lot of historical inaccuracies
▸ WORD COUNT: 16.1K
▸ A/N: "this will be a short pwp," i say, famous last words. thank you so much to @iamthatonefangirl and @barnesonly for organizing this collab. dedicated to @artficlly in honor of pursuit of jade episode 37 iykyk — i'm gifting you the sex pollen by the stream that we never got <3 hope you enjoy this baby of mine. if you do, please let me know your thoughts (even if they are incoherent) through reblogs, comments, and likes!!
↤ main masterlist | bwat summer masterlist
Princes James Buchanan Barnes has everything he could ever want. A palace fit for the king that he will eventually become. Mountains of jewels that shine brighter than the sun and all the stars combined. Bespoke dress uniforms made from the finest fabrics, adorned with elegant aiguillettes and medals of his valor in battles fought and won. Countless women and men alike throwing themselves at his feet for the opportunity of him even sparing them the briefest of glances.
But the only one he truly wants, the only person he truly wishes to hold, is the one thing he cannot have — and it’s you.
You’ve been destined to become Princess Becca’s helper since you were born. Your mother had served the family for two generations; you were born in the palace, raised in the hustle and bustle of the castle with all the live-in staff. You spent years refining your cooking skills in the kitchen that seemed to function twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, decades toiling away in the garden with the landscaper to take care of the queen’s prized roses, and occasionally sneaking into the palace library for a quick novel or two when your mother took her eyes off you.
It was a natural pathway for someone who wasn’t born to nobility yet was constantly surrounded by it.
Fortunately, growing up in this kingdom that is governed with kindness and compassion means that there are paths to advancement that you never anticipated, mainly becoming Becca’s lady-in-waiting. The two of you had been raised together, joint at the hip, to the point where you may not even distinguish which of you is the real princess. The king and queen had welcomed you as if you were one of their own.
Of course, you know that it’s far from the truth. Despite their accommodations and generosity, you’ve always known your place in society. There is a reason why Becca is the one covered in silver and gold, while you’re handstitching the holes in your clothes. She’s seated at a table for twelve with a wide array of dishes and pastries all created to her liking, while you join your fellow staff members for a family meal, cramped together in a table meant for half of you.
You’ve always drawn that line, regardless of how many times Becca tries to cross it.
“Come now, you must come with me to Viscountess Romanoff’s ball!” She huffs, stomping her feet as she always does when she does not get what she wants.
You let out a sigh and Becca’s face falls as she prepares herself for your disappointing response. “Princess—” she glares and you bite your tongue, “Becca, that is not my place.”
“Of course, it is! Many ladies-in-waiting go to these balls.”
“Ladies-in-waiting that were born into nobility,” you correct her with a look.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re my lady-in-waiting and I need you there to— to— fix my dress!”
You know it isn’t true — well, it is only true to the extent that Becca may become ridiculously inebriated and has to be stowed away before she can go as far as risk the royal family’s reputation, and you somehow have become the most reliable person for those circumstances.
However, there are many there that will surely keep her on her toes — literally, including her brother.
“Did you hear that? She needs you to fix her dress. You simply have to attend now.”
The interruption brings both of your attention to the door where Bucky is leaning against the doorway, a smirk curled on his lips. His eyes skip past Becca and land on you and — heaven almighty.
He drinks you in, you in your simple gown, yet his sapphire eyes warm all the same. They darken like the evening has arrived far too early and the moon is nowhere in sight. His smile dims slightly, if only for him to clamp down on the inappropriate sound that climbs up his throat.
Bucky has never been good at subtlety.
You drag your eyes away and back to the lady that you’re supposed to be waiting on. The lady who is currently huffing and puffing as she plops down on the sofa with a scowl. “Will you please convince her to come, Buck?”
He steps further into the room. The air is a little heavier, like his presence has sucked all the oxygen out of the space — but only for you. Your fingers twist quietly together in front of you as you force yourself to stand upright, force yourself to keep looking ahead when his arm brushes yours — an inappropriate proximity for a prince and a member of the staff.
Discreetly, you take one step to the side, just enough to put distance that allows you room to breathe, lest you risk Becca suspecting something transpiring between the two of you.
“You should come,” Bucky murmurs. His gaze is warm on your cheek. His blue eyes no doubt soft as they take you in.
You resist and instead address Becca. “That would be unacceptable, Pr— Becca. Please. The crown prince will be in attendance and the viscountess’ staff are more than capable. I’ve met many of them and you will be in good hands.”
“Well, the crown prince would appreciate his ability to drink the viscountess’ liquor supply for the night without worrying about whether his dear sister can control her alcohol,” Bucky chimes in, which earns a roll of the eyes from Becca.
“I can control my drinking, Bucky. Can you control your deviant desires in the presence of all the other women in the ton?”
Your heart skips a beat. A little nick in your chest to draw blood. You can practically hear the smile wipe off Bucky’s face, his face red as he grits his teeth. “You know that’s not true, sister dear. I’ve never once laid a hand on them.”
“Doesn’t mean you don’t try,” Becca shoots right back.
Another scratch, enough to peel back another layer to your bleeding heart.
It shouldn’t — doesn’t — matter. There has never been anything between you and Bucky. He is the crown prince and you were born to be a lady’s maid at best; it was only the queen’s philanthropy and Becca’s friendship that you were granted this promotion.
Bucky is meant to marry a princess from another kingdom, or at the least someone born to a proper, respectable family with titles.
Neither of which is you.
“Rebecca Marie Barnes.” Bucky’s voice is sharp; it slices through the air and straight towards Becca whose face goes cold the moment it lands.
Becca’s lips purse in annoyance. “I’m going to look for a dress for tonight.” Then she’s lifting her dress and stomping away.
You make a move to follow, only for Bucky to swiftly take your hand. You don’t turn. Bucky forces you to when he tugs you towards him, spinning you around so you land against his chest. You’re quick to flatten your palm on it to push yourself away, but instead, he catches your hand and presses it over his heart.
“It’s not true,” he murmurs. “I’ve never once shown any of them any interest.”
Don’t cry. You’d be a fool to cry over a prince. You steel your gaze as you look up at him. “It would be in your right to do so. A crown prince is meant to take a wife.”
Irritation flickers across his eyes. “There’s only one woman I wish to take as a wife but she seems to deny me that right at every turn. What say you to that?”
“A crown prince is meant to take a proper wife. One fit for the ton.”
“I don’t give a damn about the ton.”
“Bucky!” The chiding comes out on instinct, his name sliding on your tongue like water. Habit — one that you should’ve curbed a long time ago if it weren’t for the two of them always insisting that you call them by their names.
Bucky’s face thaws, mouth curving into a delighted smile. You try to extract yourself from his grasp again but fail to do so when he ducks his head, lips brushing the shell of your ear. A shiver snakes up your spine as he drags you closer to him. “I love when you say my name. I’d love it even more if you called me your husband.”
Your traitorous heart slams against your ribs. Foolish desires plague your very being. It’s been decades since you were first introduced to Bucky, ten years since you first defended Becca against Bucky’s teasing, and far too long since you first fell for the crown prince.
It’s not as if your feelings are not reciprocated; Bucky has made it clear from the start that he adores you dearly. Adores you in a way that is far from acceptable for a prince. But your mother has reminded you time and time again that, no matter how intimately acquainted you are with them, you will never be one of them.
And Bucky deserves a partner — an equal. Someone who can stand tall and proud beside him without the risk of gossip and mockery. You would only give him grief and he would certainly bore of you in the future once the thrill of the chase is done.
So you exert more effort this time to push him away. “Prince Barnes, I must ask you to maintain some semblance of decorum. If you’ll excuse me, I have to tend to the princess.” You do a small curtsy, ignoring the flash of pain in his eyes as you walk away.
This is how it’s supposed to be. This has always been your fate.
“You have to try this on. Please? For me?”
It begins as an innocent enough request. Becca was in the midst of selecting her gown for the evening and that meant that you were right by her side, providing her with the necessary words of affirmation for her to make a decision.
These are the most challenging questions that royalty have to deal with. Sometimes you dream of living such a comfortable life, pampered daily with the sweetest of treats and lavishing yourself with the praise of society. However, you know that things aren’t so simple. There are restrictions that come with being part of this family.
You saw firsthand how many classes Becca had to take as part of her education — in addition to the typical academic courses, she had to spend hours learning proper etiquette, how to sew, how to play a musical instrument, how to entertain and host a gathering. They had to prepare her for her future as a wife. While options are limited for women in society, they are practically a straight-line path for a princess who is not in line for the throne.
Her career, her future, her partner — everything is almost pre-destined.
One day, Becca will marry someone. While she dreams of a happily ever after, she also understands the political nature of matrimony. To maintain power, you have to seek power. She may not be here a few years from now when she’s officially married off to extend her father’s reign. Her parents have insisted that they would never force her to marry, but Becca has always had a strong sense of responsibility.
You both admire and hold sympathy for her.
Unfortunately, in this very moment, you would like to push her out of the carriage so you too could make your escape. Somehow, she has managed to rope you into going to the ball — in one of her dresses.
“This is completely inappropriate,” you hiss. “I should not be here.”
“I want you here.”
“Becca,” you exhale deeply, “if your parents knew about this.”
“It’s a masquerade ball! Nobody will know.”
“I’m coming with you! I fear that makes it quite obvious.”
“I’ll tell them you’re one of our very distant cousins — one from a land far, far away.”
You pinch your nose as the carriage rattles, the silk of your glove glides along your skin. Pulling your hand away, you can’t help but look at the delicate fabric on your skin.
When you first tried the clothes on, you could hardly believe your eyes. You didn’t even look like… you. Gone were your well-worn gowns. The tightness of the corset has you a little breathless, but the dress adorned with intricate sequins and embroidery sliding over your body like water. The silver shimmers underneath the moonlight that spills past the curtains of the carriage, white camellias sewn in a river down your shoulder to your waist.
You reach up to tuck your hair behind your ear, only for your fingers to brush over the diamond necklace that Becca has so thoughtfully loaned you. The gems catch light, winking at you as if they’re letting you in on a secret. Then your fingers catch on your mask, a combination of beads and lace trimming, the same flowers framing the corners of your eyes.
In all your life, you could never have even dared to dream of wearing such things. You never imagined that you would be swimming in such luxury.
If your mother could see you now, she would absolutely murder you. She would bury you six feet under before the royal guards could even get to you.
You know that neither the queen nor king would mind, but what would the rest of them think if they knew? What if they found out that you were no more than a girl born into somewhat fortunate circumstances? That your blood was redder than most of them. Common.
A hand lands atop yours. Becca peeks at you with a nervous smile. “Hey, it’ll be fun. You’ve never been to one of these. Please try to enjoy yourself. I promise that nobody will say a thing.”
“What if I stand out? What if they know that I don’t fit in with the rest of them?” You whisper.
Becca squeezes your hand. “If you stand out, it’s because you look far more beautiful than the rest of them. If you stand out, it’s because they are looking at you with envy. You could’ve easily been the diamond of the season.”
Warmth creeps up your neck as the carriage pulls to a stop. You can already hear the music filtering through the entrance; the sound mingles with the fast rhythm of your heartbeat in a symphony that echoes through your mind.
“Showtime,” she beams.
Now, as someone who has been directly involved in the planning, decorating, and organizing of the extravaganzas, you’ve seen your fair share of ridiculously opulent displays. The palace is, after all, renowned for hosting the grandest of balls, bringing together only the who’s who of society. The guest list is selective, both for security and exclusivity reasons. It is the most sought-after invitation of the season. So when you walk into the viscountess’ home, you didn’t think you would be impressed.
However, you have never been happier to be proven wrong. Every inch of this place has been meticulously swathed in a color scheme perfect for the summer. Florals in every shade of the sunset draped across banisters, hanging over the staircase leading down to the dance floor, and standing tall in structures that do not look humanly possible.
Butlers and maids dressed head to toe in fine fabrics float around the room carrying hors d'oeuvres that look more like miniature works of art. Macarons that match the colors of the flower arrangements, tarts with crusts that crumble perfectly on your tongue, bonbons in perfect spheres dusted in cocoa, and fruits plucked from the vines at their ripest, sweetest point.
The stars twinkle above you to complement the tiny candles that string across the railings to illuminate the room, only outshone by the chandeliers with flickering flames hanging above you. Guests in their Sunday bests drift around the room in excited chatter, spreading the newest gossip that will surely make the papers by morning.
Heads turn as you and Becca enter the room and, before you can duck behind her, she’s linking her arm through yours and pulling you forward into the crowd.
“Becca—”
“Breathe, this will be fun. Enjoy the treats and the wine. The viscountess has exceptional taste, she has gathered the best chefs in the kingdom in her kitchen. Mother simply adores visiting her for tea for the food alone.”
Becca walks through the room with the confidence of someone who owns it. Everyone knows her as the princess even hidden behind the mask, murmurs of awe rippling across the crowd. The men pay particularly close attention, eager to get hers. The women speak of her in resentful admiration.
Becca — the belle of the ball. You, her companion.
“They’re looking at you,” she giggles quietly in your ear.
“No, they’re looking at you, Princess.”
“I’ve been in enough of these rooms to know when people are looking at me. While some are focused on me, most of them are keeping a close eye on you.”
“Likely to see when they would have the opportunity to speak to you alone no doubt,” you mutter under your breath.
Becca frowns at you. “Must you be so cynical? You look absolutely stunning. If you gave the room a chance, you’d know how many of them are keen on dancing with you. In fact, why don’t we put it to a test?”
Right as you’re about to ask her what she means, Becca moves away from you, pretending to be drawn by the dessert that appears to be running away from her. Her name leaves your mouth but you don’t get very far when three men approach you. All of them impeccably dressed, all of them handsome — at least, from what you can see with the mask.
“My lady, would you grant me the honor of joining me for a dance?”
Your lips part in surprise, eyes darting around the room to search for the princess. Becca stands off in a corner, grinning proudly to herself as she nibbles on a cream puff. You bite down the urge to curse before politely turning to the men. “My apologies, I should be getting back to my companion. I can’t leave her for far too long.”
You take a step and one of them moves directly in your path. “I’m sure she’ll find the company of others just as pleasant. Please, you must grant each of us a dance. It would be a privilege for us.”
Although you’ve danced before, it’s mostly to help Becca with her training. You have no idea how these dances work during the balls — the coordination, the etiquette. Your heart begins to race as your throat closes in a panic.
“I can’t—”
“One. One song is all I ask.”
“Then mine next.”
“And then me.”
Your chest flares as you search around the room for Becca again but she is nowhere to be found. Your skin begins to burn as your survival instincts kick in. The last thing you need is for these men to notice and question how they’ve never seen you before at such events, and you would have to craft a convoluted fib that you would be forced to maintain.
Just as you are about to deny them again, a hand presses against the low of your back.
“My lady.”
The voice grounds you in a familiar presence. You look up to find Bucky — even through the mask, you’d know it was him. His favorite cologne clings to the threads of his jacket and his hair, thick and styled, is one you can practically feel on your fingertips. Those days spent by the riverbend, his head on your lap as you read him sonnets—
No. This is not the time to be sentimental.
“Your royal highness.” The men stumble over each other to greet him, their energy shifting to nervous jitters as they look amongst each other.
“I believe the point of the masks is anonymity,” he says smoothly. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to invite this lovely lady to a dance.”
He doesn’t wait for your answer, he simply takes your hand and whisks you into the crowd. You don’t have time to think about the consequences of this, more relieved that you’ve escaped that sticky situation.
“Thank you,” you breathe out.
“I believe I should be thanking you for this dance,” he grins.
“How did you find me?”
“I could find you even if you were across the world, mon cher.” You roll your eyes and Bucky huffs a quiet laugh. “I don’t think you’re supposed to respond that way to the crown prince.”
“Perhaps if the crown prince didn’t use such predictably embarrassing lines.”
His lips curl again. “I noticed you the moment you walked into the room. Most beautiful woman tonight. Most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, in fact.”
“Haven’t you been taught that dishonesty is unbecoming on a man?” You snip back.
“You wound me,” he gives a little shake of his head, “Out of everyone, you know that you would be the last person I would attempt to bathe in false affirmations. I know you can see through those pretenses.”
“Then why try?”
“Oh ye of little faith. If you wanted praise from me, you could just say so—”
You balk, snapping back in surprise. “That was not my intention!”
Bucky squeezes your hand as he shifts you around the room. It is then that you realize he’s been guiding your movements all along, every one of your steps falling in line with the others around you. He’s always been a good dancer, far better than Becca who had resisted these lessons for the longest time.
“You look absolutely ravishing tonight,” he ducks his head to whisper in your ear. The smell of him infiltrates your senses, his warmth, the brush of his hair against your cheek. “Of course, you could’ve worn nothing at all and you would undoubtedly still be the most fetching person in this room.”
“If I wore nothing at all, then I’m sure I would fetch the eyes of everyone in this room,” you tease with a small quirk of your lips.
Bucky goes momentarily taut, stiff as he spins you and then pulls you in even closer. His hands tighten around you, like he’s fearful you would slip away at any moment. “Thank the heavens you opted for clothing today. I would rather not imagine anyone else seeing you in such a state. I’d have to dramatically increase this kingdom’s beheading rate. If I do that, what kingdom would I have left to rule?”
“Because you’d have to eliminate the witnesses to my humiliation of the royal family?”
“Because I have limited self-restraint when it comes to you.” You cock an eyebrow in question. “I would have to eliminate anyone who has ever seen you in such an intimate state. I’m a tad possessive you see, I’d rather be the only person alive who’s ever seen you in all of your raw beauty.”
Heat flushes along your skin, a sudden rise in temperature that rarely occurs at this time in the evening. “You’ve never seen me in such a state.”
“I would be the first and the last, my dear. I’ve never been very good at sharing.”
“I am not an object to own, your royal highness,” you bite out with a sour curl of your lips.
“You’re not,” Bucky murmurs softly, “but my heart belongs to you and I was hoping that yours to me — and your affection is the one thing I refuse to ration.”
You look up to meet his eyes. Earnest blue eyes that are far too honest for your liking. That gaze that’s dripping with the kind of affection he cannot counterfeit. Your movements nearly falter, your knees suddenly weak, but Bucky holds onto you even tighter.
“Bucky, I—”
Your gaze snags on the view behind him — a line of women watching the two of you, glowering green seeing your frame tucked against Bucky’s. Women who undoubtedly come from near and far in search of a notable husband to match or increase their standing in society. What better catch than a prince?
Instead of investing his time looking for a proper candidate for a wife, he is instead wasting these minutes with you. It’s been three songs, far from appropriate for two acquaintances, suspicious enough that you can hear the whispers of speculation begin to circulate the room. As the song comes to an end, you’re quick to curtsy in front of him.
“Thank you for the dance.”
You whirl around before he can say another word and disappear into the throng, leaving Bucky to be swarmed by women who are far better suited for him.
Becca stands by a corner, having watched all of this transpire. She’s barely paying any mind to the gentlemen suitors around her. When you come around to her, she’s immediately distancing herself and rushing towards you. Her gaze is eager, far too eager.
She’s had at least two drinks then.
“How was it? I saw you out there.”
“It was fine,” you mutter.
“You’ve only had one dance and it was with my brother. Methinks it’s time to expand your registry. How about the Duke? I hear he gets a little bit handsy and a little fun can do no harm.”
After your conversation with Bucky, you seriously doubt that. You would rather avoid this ball turning into a beheading festival tonight — or Bucky ruining his pristine reputation with society when he decides to do an execution in the middle of the dance floor.
Bucky is many things but he is not a liar. Whether he exaggerates is up for debate but that is not a theory you want to test tonight.
“Or shall we have a few more to drink in the meantime? Their champagne is quite lovely. I heard the viscountess had sourced all of the vintages from her favorite year.”
“Ladies.”
Speak of the devil. The two of you find yourselves in front of the viscountess. Even beneath the mask, her vibrant ruby hair is an easy identifier. She is cloaked in a glimmering black fabric with touches of red, breasts pushed up with the tight wrap aroung her waist. Spiders are stitched into her mask, crawling up the sides.
“Lady Romanoff,” Becca cheers, “what a lovely ball you’ve thrown. This is stunning, our chefs simply must learn from yours, otherwise I’d be tempted to sneak a few of those macarons up my sleeve before I leave.”
The viscountess laughs. “Princess, if you desire the macarons, I shall ensure that they are delivered to the palace by the morning. I believe your queen mother is also rather fond of the bonbons I source from France, I’ve already arranged for it to be sent tomorrow and I’ll make sure we include your macarons with that delivery.”
“You are most kind and gracious.”
Then she turns her eyes to you and you freeze. “And I do not believe we’ve met. Your name, dear?”
Your eyes flick to Becca momentarily before returning to her. You should lie. You should give her another name, but the viscountess has been known to be shrewdly intelligent. If you were caught in a fib, you would likely have your tongue cut out. There have been rumors of what she has done outside this kingdom, things that are far from proper; still, nobody has been brave enough to validate any of that gossip.
So you tell her your name.
“And I presume you are the princess’…” she trails off for a second and you go rigid once more, her gaze sharpens a fraction. “…cousin from far, far away?”
“Um, yes! She has decided to do an impromptu visit because she missed me so. I hope you don’t mind my bringing her, my lady.”
Lady Romanoff smiles like she knows — and you have a feeling she does. She simply doesn’t care. After all, she has always danced to her own tune, including how she’s wearing all black tonight that would be typically reserved for funerals.
“Not at all. I hope you enjoy your visit and my ball tonight. I would avoid Lord Smith, he’s in desperate search of a wife and may latch on to the one new face who appears unaware of the reputation of his temper.” Then she laughs.
“Fair advice, Lady Romanoff, thank you,” you murmur.
With one last squeeze of your arm, she brisks away from the two of you. As you follow her movements, you also spot Bucky as he makes his own escape with a few of the gentlemen you’ve seen come around the palace. He turns in time to catch your eye, his mouth curling into a smile as he winks at you from the distance, right as he disappears out the door.
“Now, shall we indulge in more treats?”
You’ve always been a quick study and there are three things that you now understand about the nature of these functions.
The first is to eat your fill — between the champagne and the specially mulled wines, intoxication is a friendly foe that rears its head far too fast. You have to learn to balance properly.
The second is that the marriage market appears dreary. None of the ladies are interested in the gentlemen, no matter how desperately they try. It appears that the women in the room aren’t too afraid of waiting a tad bit longer if it means they could find the one. This means that the gentlemen are far too preoccupied with harassing the help to keep themselves entertained, not that Lady Romanoff tolerates that behavior; she’s kicked out a number of them already.
Last but not least is that Becca is a social butterfly. While you’ve always been familiar with her friendly nature, seeing her out and about like this, crafting budding friendships with every single person in the room, you’re once again reminded of why the two of you were fast friends. Becca has always been more welcoming, conquering all five love languages on top of the three spoken and written ones that she’s already studying. However, following her around, you are also reminded that you are, in fact, not like her and these interactions are beginning to wear you down.
There are only so many ways you can talk about your dress before the discussions start to sound inane.
There are also so many times you can tolerate the way these women look you up and down. What happened to camaraderie? The catty looks are one thing you don’t expect. In your eyes, you’re a nobody who just happened to be playing dress-up thanks to a good friend. However, you can see how you seem from their perspective — close enough to the princess to attend this ball, apparently attractive enough for the crown prince to steal you for more than a handful of minutes.
You swallow the urge to scream, “I’m nothing more than the help!”
“The prince does have peculiar taste, doesn’t he?” One of them comments and you have to resist rolling your eyes, lest you offend her publicly.
“What do you mean?” Becca asks as she nibbles on her third tart of the night.
Expectedly, the girl’s eyes flick to you for a brief second before her lips stretch into smirk. “I assumed he would take a wife by now. Have an heir to continue the lineage. However, it doesn’t seem that anyone in this room suits his preferences. He hasn’t asked anyone to dance yet — and not for a lack of trying from our part.”
“He did have one dance—”
You clear your throat to interrupt Becca. She looks at you quizzically.
God bless her heart. Becca means well but sometimes she misses some of these cues; she’s too trusting, which is why you have to be the exact opposite.
“Apologies, I meant a dance that would count—” she smiles saccharine sweet. “—that would matter. You’re a visiting relative, right?” This question she directs towards you.
All eyes turn to you. The attention has your cheeks burning. “Correct.”
“She’s actually a very dear friend, but she’s practically family. She knows Bucky very well.”
“Is that so?” You don’t appreciate the way the woman’s gaze flashes with something akin to amusement. “Practically a sister then. I don’t believe I recall where you’re from. I haven’t heard anyone speak of you either.”
“I didn’t say.” Your lips twist up in an irritated smile.
Awkward tension falls upon the conversation. Becca looks nervously between the two of you; this cue is far too hard to miss. “That doesn’t matter! What matters is that we are here now. How about we get some lemonade? It’s quite warm here, isn’t it?”
As Becca busies herself with resolving the tension, which is the last thing a princess should be doing, you take this opportunity to slip away from the suffocating atmosphere of the room.
Perhaps the garden can be healing this time of night.
Bucky would rather be anywhere else but here. Let him correct himself — there is exactly one place he would rather be than here and it would be to be back inside. With you. Dancing. Fetching you drinks. Keeping those overly-excited, unworthy vultures away from you.
The moment you stepped through those doors, he knew he was in for a long night of suffering. Time and time again, you’ve rejected his advances. He knows you feel the same way, has felt you leaning into his touch before you would pull yourself away. Your stubbornness has always been endearing, but Bucky yearns for the day when he finally breaks through those walls.
It’s not an if, it’s a when.
Because Bucky has always achieved everything he’s dreamed of and you are his most important one.
However, for now, he is instead subjected to the debauchery of his peers. Dukes, viscounts, and fellow noblemen who have far too much time on their hands to be exploring substances that shouldn’t be explored. Sam is in the midst of lecturing their tight-knit group about this vial he procured while out in the countryside, some fermented liquid that supposedly produces the most vivid, imaginative visions that have you questioning reality.
The others ooh and aah in fascination but Bucky’s eyes continue to stray towards those double-doors where you stand on the other side.
“Your royal highness, I have something that may be of interest to you.”
To that, he does turn with a raised brow.
“I specifically obtained this one for you. I am sympathetic to your cause—” Sam teases and Bucky responds with a withering glare that does nothing to deter his friend. “—and when the time comes and you hope to last, this will be immensely beneficial.”
“His cause is hopeless if he doesn’t do anything about it,” Steve laughs.
“I appreciate your vote of confidence, Rogers. Believe me, it’s not for a lack of trying,” Bucky mutters as he leans back against the stone pillar.
Sam grabs his hand, slips it into his palm and closes his hand around a small tin. “Very potent. I wouldn’t recommend more than a pinchful at a time. A pinchful should last you through an hour, but what a delicious hour it will be.”
He doesn’t know how to tell him that Bucky doesn’t need this sort of chemistry to make him last. Every time he’s near you, his pants tighten like a schoolboy again. Thirteen and realizing that this desire to kiss you isn’t a result of friendship. As he got older, he realized that these urges aren’t those that should be held against his sister’s lady-in-waiting.
Urges that blossomed into far more when he feels his chest constrict, breath stolen from his lungs, whenever he catches a whiff of that perfume. Or how he can’t resist peeking at you from around the corner whenever you sneak into the library, wondering what book has absorbed you this time, how quickly he could read it to spark conversation with you. Or how desperately he tries to make you laugh just to hear that tinkling melody that loops like the nation’s best symphony in his mind.
There are days that Bucky wishes he wasn’t born into this family, that he could be normal, so he wouldn’t be forced upon societal standards that he has no desire to follow. He could pursue you and you wouldn’t constantly put this chasm between you.
But then if he hadn’t been born into this life, then he would’ve never met you. He would have never known what it means for love to consume his very soul, how one person could mean the world to him, to a point where he would give it all up — the riches, the rule — to be with you.
Fate is a funny thing.
“I don’t need this, Wilson,” Bucky grunts as he tries to push it back into Sam’s hands.
Sam raises them. “No, sir. Think of it as an early coronation gift. Perhaps once you can change the rules of the kingdom, you would be inclined to follow them too.”
“Think he’s a jester,” he mutters to Steve with a roll of his eyes.
“In another life, my prince, perhaps in another life,” Sam grins cheekily. “You simply have to breathe it in. Like the usual stuff. Again, very powerful so be careful. Otherwise, you’d be trapped in that state for hours on end and your only relief would be to…”
Bucky’s eyes rise to meet his. Sam only wiggles his eyebrows in response. He makes a face of repulsion. “That’s how you rid yourself of the effects?”
“The more you finish, the lighter the effects will be. However, if you don’t find any form of… relief, then it could last for hours and you’d be hurting everywhere — and I do mean everywhere. It’s the strongest form of desire that can be relieved if you fulfill it.”
Bucky looks down at the tin again. Unassuming. Small. How powerful could this little thing be? He tucks it inside his coat, if only to appease his friend, and lets them resume with the conversation.
By the time they adjourn, Bucky is sufficiently exhausted. All he wants is to go search for you. It’s only been an hour and he already misses you. What a fool he is — if only the kingdom knew that the crown prince’s only weakness is a woman who doesn’t even want him.
As the other men filter back indoors, Bucky moves to follow. That is, until your perfume tickles his senses. You’re outside. He whips around to try and find you but you’re nowhere in sight.
Perhaps this is his chance. The two of you would be in Lady Romanoff’s prized garden, far away from the prying eyes of the palace or the rest of the ton. He looks at Steve and Sam, waves them away. “Go on. I’ll enjoy the fresh air a little bit more.”
“Alright, don’t look too thrilled that all those women inside are waiting for their prince to return.”
Bucky winces. Of course, he’s felt their hungry gazes all night. All of them practically vibrating where they’re standing, fanning themselves a little faster, batting their eyelashes a little more rapidly. He has zero inclination to humor any of them because the one person he wants to dance with is the one who won’t even look at him.
With one final gesture, he begins to prowl further into the grounds, further away from the mansion, to find you.
Little does he know that the tiny tin rattles like a cry against his chest, lid loose as he walks at a pace that’s far from careful.
After exploring the gardens for a bit, you almost wish that Lady Romanoff would adopt you under her wing to understand her excellent taste in design and decoration. The architecture is as old as time. Each brick feels intentionally placed like it’s meant to be part of history. The stream that sits quietly further away from the palace brings a touch of natural life to the otherwise manmade masterpiece.
A boat sits swaying in the gentle evening breeze and you’re half tempted to paddle yourself out to the middle to find some form of peace. However, given how deep it is into nightfall, you assume you’d have to eventually make your way back to find Becca. She’s promised not to touch another drop of champagne for the evening so you trust her to make good decisions.
Just as you turn to begin your journey back to the mansion, the last person you expect is standing before you.
“Bucky, what are you doing here?”
In the darkness, he stumbles towards you, mumbling incoherently. You strain your ears to decipher him but it’s near impossible when his words blur together. He’s clearly intoxicated. You wonder how much liquor Steve and Sam have fed him and lord knows what else.
When he finally stands where the moonlight shines across the concrete, you see the flush that sprawls like an illness across his skin. His breathing is labored and his fingers continue to tug at the collar of his shirt, clawing almost desperately. With his mask long gone, you can see how his pupils are blown wide as they drink in the sight of you, a mix of relief and desire in the constantly shifting shades of his ocean eyes.
He breathes out your name like a prayer when he sees you. “Gods, you look…” he trails off again as he moves towards you, walking side to side as if his legs can’t bear the weight of him.
You catch him before he can topple over, his entire body draped over yours. You thank the heavens that you’ve done enough manual labor in your life that you’re able to prop him up, pushing him up against the wall. Your hands on his shoulders as you frown at him.
He doesn’t smell too heavily of liquor but there are strange particles on his coat that you suspect are the reason why he’s behaving like this. You bite back the urge to scold the crown prince of all people to be more responsible. When you look up at him, he’s looking down at you with a lazy smirk.
“Bucky, what did you take?”
“Y’smell…” he leans forward again, nearly tipping over but his nose ends up buried in your neck. You feel him inhale, deep, before a long, extremely indecorous moan rumbles against your skin. Heat slithers up your spine, pushing your blood south between your legs. “Fuck, you smell so good.”
Biting your tongue, you try to push him back against the wall but he’s faster. His arms wrap around you, holding you tight against his chest as his mouth trails warm against your skin. He whispers your name again — like a promise. “Bucky, please, I can’t help you like this.”
“Need—” he chokes then, whimpering.
“What do you need? Tell me.”
“You.”
You stroke his hair gently as he continues to mumble words you cannot hear against the pulse in your neck. “I know, I’m here. Tell me what you need.” Worry torments your heart as you press the back of your hand against his forehead. “Heavens, you’re burning up.”
“So hot,” he whines, “so, so warm.”
Without removing himself from you, he begins to shed off his tailcoat first, casting it aside. Then his fingers reach for the buttons of his waistcoat, fingers seemingly too uncoordinated to undo them.
“Please. Help,” he pleads.
How can you say no when he asks so sweetly? But at the same time, you really shouldn’t be doing this. “Bucky, this isn’t a good idea. I don’t think you should—”
“Help me.”
Gods, you’ve never been good at saying no to this man, not when he sounds like he’s in pain. Your gloved hands reach towards him as you begin to unbutton him slowly, revealing more and more of the linen underneath. Then Bucky pushes it off his shoulders.
“My shirt next.”
“Bucky!” you gasp, “That’s completely out of the question. I couldn’t possibly.”
“It’s so warm, mon couer. Please.”
He’s never played a fair game, but particularly when he addresses you so charmingly in French. You remember when he first started calling you those terms, practicing the foreign language on his tongue in a way that had you leaning in to listen for more. You asked him what they meant, and he said, “Only the truth.”
My love. My heart. Your heart feels like it’s been lit on fire when you read the translations.
You never questioned it further. Becca always took it as teasing, like Bucky’s being his usual charismatic, mischievous self. But every time he calls you that, you know that it is the truth. A truth you keep contesting for the sanctity of your mind.
Because if you accept that you are his love and that you are his heart, you don’t know how much of your resolve would be left.
And Bucky deserves more than that. He deserves the world, which he already has. You can’t be the reason that he loses all of it.
“We should head back. Becca’s going to be wondering where we are.”
“Becca can be patient,” he murmurs as he finally finds the strength to rip his shirt open, the buttons flying off as the fabric is torn off his body, leaving him bare in front of you. His abdomen ripples with the kind of muscles that come from the hours spent training, the hours you spent watching him practice.
Saliva pools on your tongue and you feel like a dog taught to drool at the sight of its master. You’ve seen him shirtless before, of course — god knows the man loves to be fully exposed to the sun in seasons like this. However, something about him is different this time. He’s practically soaked through his shirt, his body glows with a sheen layer of sweat.
“You have a fever, Bucky. You need help.”
“Need you,” he repeats, clearer this time. His brows then meet in the middle as he looks down at you. He tugs the mask off your face, letting it drop to the floor as he searches your eyes. Deep blue, bluer than the summer sky. “There you are,” he says softly.
Your heart stutters as you shy away from his gaze, his fingers catching your chin to tilt you to face him again. His eyes fall to your lips, your lips separate, sticky with whatever Becca had swiped onto you earlier.
Then he slants his lips over yours and you feel the fireworks explode inside your chest. Bucky’s moan spills down your throat as he kisses you deeper, harder. Ravenous is the only way you can describe it. He’s chasing after your lips like you’re the last drop of water for a parched man. He breathes the air from your lungs, an intimate exchange that has noises you’ve only made in the quiet of your room — alone — rising from your stomach.
It’s everything you’ve ever imagined, and so much more. You spent nights picturing what this could feel like in painstaking detail, hoping that it may happen one day — in the slightest of chances.
But then that anxiety seeps back in, creeping under your skin enough to wake you from this dream.
“Bucky—” He kisses you again, quashing whatever rational thought you’ve only just begun to formulate.
“Tastes so sweet, even better than I thought,” he murmurs. “So sweet, my love. Gods, I could kiss you for days and I’d never tire of it.”
“We shouldn’t—” Your protest once again dies in your throat as Bucky begins to kiss along your jaw, placing a wet trail of fire as he mouths down your neck, counting your racing heartbeat. Your palms flatten against his chest, damp and humid. He’s sweating bullets but you don’t get the chance to interrupt again.
“I need you,” he groans, “lord, I need you.” His fingers catch your hand and press it against his chest. Your heart pushes against your ribs. “You smell so good. I can’t stop thinking about you. Thinking about what it would be like to kneel at your feet, your leg over my shoulder, and bury my face in that pretty pussy of yours.”
A gasp wrenches from your throat as you jerk back. “Bucky, that is— oh my god, that is unacceptable!”
“It’s the truth,” he growls, “I can practically smell you between your legs, your sweetness on my tongue. I want you to press your hips against my face and let me feast like a king. Slip my fingers in there and feel how you resist me, how you act like you don’t want this but you’re dripping all over my fingers.”
The moan that climbs out your chest is involuntary and it’s all Bucky needs before he’s flipping you around and he’s pressing your back against the pillar. A gust of wind blows, providing some semblance of reprieve to the sudden sweltering heat that blankets you. It does nothing to soothe Bucky who looks at you like you’re the perfect prey, skin exposed to him with your hair twisted up like the forbidden fruit.
Bucky isn't a godless man, but in that moment he swears there isn't a higher power who could stop him from having you.
He silently asks the heavens to turn their gaze away from the sin he's about to commit. Because whatever happens next, he won't be seeking forgiveness.
He will only offer his thanks.
He kisses you again, tongue slipping past your lips just as he swallows your surprised sound. His tongue strokes against yours, licking up and pressing against it until you’re trembling against him.
You no longer have authority over your body, how every ounce of energy dissolves into thin air against him, knees nearly sending you crumbling to the ground if it weren’t for his own strength holding you up. One of his hands is ont he back of your neck, keeping you close, and the other on your hip. His mouth continues to move against you as if he’s savoring every inch of you.
Distracted by the taste of him and his seemingly contagious fever, you barely realize when Bucky peels back layer upon layer of your eveningwear. The weight of the fabric pools around your feet with a soft thump. His fingers are frantic as he pushes each piece off your shoulders, leaving you only in your shift and your stay. The corset is tight around your body and Bucky snarls to himself when he can’t seem to untangle the loops.
Then you hear it, the sound similar to clicking tongues as Bucky tears it off your body. When the haze clears just enough for you to realize what’s been done, you shove him away from you, but your power doesn’t throw him very far.
“Bucky, this is indecent. I can’t be—”
“We’re too far past decency, my love.” He stalks back towards you, capturing your lips in a languid kiss that eviscerates your objections into ash. “Beautiful. You had the eyes of everyone in that room tonight. I loathed seeing you surrounded by all those men earlier. Undeserving creatures who think that they have an opportunity with you.”
“I—I wasn’t interested in any of them,” you whine as he works his way down your neck, teeth and lips marking slow, deliberate claims against your skin. Ones that spell out mine.
“I know,” he murmurs against your pulse, smiling as if the answer was never in doubt. “You don’t need to fret. You’re mine. I wouldn’t let them near you. I wouldn’t even allow you to look their way.”
His mouth drags lightly over your skin again. Unhurried, certain.
“Only me. Always me.”
It’s not a question, nor an order. He’s stating a fact. For as long as you can remember, regardless of how many handsome bachelors walk through the palace doors — or even through the staff entrance, you haven’t spared any of them a second glance. Your heart and eyes have always belonged to him.
Bucky takes your hand and gently removes your gloves. He brings your hand up to his lips, placing one gentle kiss after another. First on your wrist, then up your forearm, to your bicep, until he’s on your shoulder. He moves this final layer to the side just enough for him to press wet kisses on your collarbones.
However, despite his attempts to divert your attention away from the actual matter at hand, you can’t help but worry. His temperature is a far cry from normal, you fear what would happen if he weren’t observed and provided the necessary remedies.
“You’re sick, Bucky. Please let me take you back to the palace. Let me fetch your carriage so we can at least summon the royal physician to assess you.”
“No, won’t help,” he grunts, “need to— need to—” and the next word that slips from his lips has your heart slamming against your ribcage— “fuck.”
Your mouth dries and your own desires begin to overwhelm you. This isn’t right. He’s not himself. He’s not in his right mind. What he needs is a doctor and a bed and—
“Sam said,” he exhales harshly, “I need to get it out. To stop this.”
“Get what out?”
“Need to finish.”
Finish. Fuck. Your throat suddenly feels like sandpaper.
He needs to climax.
“Don’t think I’ll be satisfied with finishing once,” he huffs honestly as his hands reach up to cup your breasts. He lets out a little pleased noise as he feels up your soft flesh, the shape of your breasts molding to his hand as he massages them. With only one barrier left between the two of you, it feels as if there’s nothing at all there. “My gorgeous girl with her gorgeous tits. I always knew you’d fit so perfectly in my hands. You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamt of this, putting my hands on them, pinching these lovely pert nipples—” he moans as he tugs on your nipple, electricity coursing through you in a zing straight down to your core. “How it would feel to have my cock tucked in between your tits.”
You don’t have the voice to argue, nor the mind. All you can think about is how delicious it feels for Bucky to be touching you. Your head leans back as your eyes slide shut, your mind lost in the sensations of his touch.
“Please, let me have you, my love. I need— I need you.”
His hand doesn’t wait for an answer, they begin to bunch up your skirt, pinning them against your hip with his wrist as his fingers trail up your inner thigh. You fight against your shudder and he lifts his mouth back to your lips to kiss you, just as his fingertips make contact with your core.
You’re sticky down there already, a mess from the proximity and his scent and his feverish warmth. This is still Bucky — your Bucky — but he’s also different, like all of the chains that have held him back, that have granted him the patience all these years, have been shattered. This is the result of all the times you’ve rejected him again and again and again. All of the times that you have rejected these feelings within yourself.
Now the dam has been destroyed and all those times you’ve swallowed your pride and your wants, they’re finally being released and they completely drown you.
The moon reflects off the water, illuminating Bucky’s face in a shifting series of ethereal colors. Even with the glimmer, his eyes are dark. A fog clouding his judgment. His desire is unwavering. The more you touch him, the more you let him touch you, the stronger the effects of his fever.
If possible, he grows even warmer. His skin practically searing against yours but nothing burns more than his fingers between your legs, the delicate stroke of your lips, moist with the evidence of your lust.
“You’re drenched down here, my sweet girl,” Bucky moans, “is this all for me? Were you thinking of me the same way I was thinking of you?”
“Bucky, please,” you jolt, hips rising when he dips a tentative finger inside you.
It’s almost embarrassing how easily he slips himself in there, aided by the slick between your legs. He pushes a finger in as he gulps down your pleasured sound, a desperate little cry as his fingers stretch out your insides.
You’ve never had anyone else touch you like this. You’ve barely even touched yourself like this; even when left to your own devices with nothing more than your imagination and the lingering scent of Bucky’s cologne on your threads, shame still restricts how much pleasure you allow yourself.
However, out there, with Bucky in control, you relinquish that power to him. You let him determine how much pleasure you experience, how much gratification you can get under his ministrations.
Bucky’s fingers are skilled as they work you open, scissoring you open until your teeth sink into his shoulder. “My pretty girl, look at you. I want to hear you cry for me, want to know how good I make you feel.”
Obediently, your lips split open in a wail that shakes the air.
“Let me have a taste of you,” he murmurs and draws his hand away from you. The loss is almost instantaneous, a sudden chill where his touch had been, but it’s replaced by the fire that burns bright in your gut the moment he drags his wet fingers along his lips. He breathes it in like he’s memorizing the scent of you before he slides his fingers over his tongue. “God, you’re perfect. Sweet, as I expected.”
Then Bucky sinks to the ground and there’s something about the crown prince on his knees before you that has you faltering. Someone whose blood is bluer than the ocean shouldn’t risk scraping his knees for a mere maid — and yet here he is.
“Hold your skirt up for me, sweet girl.”
You want to protest. You want to say no. You want to remind him again that this isn’t a good idea but there’s determination in his eyes that have you whimpering, fingers reaching for the hem of your skirt to reveal yourself to him.
Bucky drags a finger along your slit again, collecting the moisture and wiping it on his tongue with another moan. He leans forward and your eyes slide shut, heart thrumming in anticipation with the steady pulse in your veins. He kisses you slowly at first, making his way up your thigh but his patience is thin and soon enough he’s burying his face between your legs.
His tongue strokes up your pussy, legs still clamped shut in your apprehension. Bucky looks a little irritated when he can’t seem to properly taste you so, with one hand, he holds one of your legs up by the thigh and opens up your leaking cunt to him. He curses under his breath when he sees you glisten in the flickering night.
The stars in the sky blend in with the ones behind your eyes when he finally lays his lips on you. He mouths at you hungrily, like he’s wolfing down his last meal. His tongue presses eager strokes along your walls that have your legs closing in around him again — only for his hand to pry them open once more to grant him access to the nectar between your thighs.
“So sweet, so soft,” Bucky groans against your pussy. His lips suckle eagerly, the lewd slurps ricocheting off the surfaces in this quiet night. In the distance, the music continues quietly, but here — you’re accompanied by the sound of your quickening heartbeat and Bucky’s delighted grunts.
Each time he licks you, he buries himself deeper and deeper, until his nose bumps against your clit and his face glistens with your arousal. Your fingers tangle in his thick hair, damp with the sweat from his fever. When you tug on it slightly, Bucky sticks his face in even deeper, moans even louder.
You can see how his erection only grows underneath his trousers, needy for attention, and yet satisfied all the same by your own pleasure. He tilts his face to reach new angles, his fingers pushing inside of you to keep you full while his tongue flicks that sensitive bundle of nerves.
It doesn’t take you long fall apart, walls closing in around his tongue and his fingers, spasming with your orgasm — the first of the evening.
For a moment, guilt enters your system and you’re forced to look down at Bucky remorsefully that he didn’t even achieve what he set out to do. However, you notice the shaking of his shoulders, a shudder wracking through him as his hips twitch upwards. A pulse down there.
“Y-you finished?”
Bucky nods, unabashed as he comes to a stand. “Do you see what you do to me? Cumming untouched in my trousers like a prepubescent boy who can’t even control himself.”
“I didn’t— I mean, you didn’t even touch it.”
“The mere thought of you finishing around my mouth like I’ve always dreamed is enough for me, my love.” He tucks a loose strand of your hair, one that have fallen loose from your updo, behind your ear. “However, I’m far from done. This fever — I can’t break it without you. I have to have you.”
Again, he doesn’t wait for your permission as he steals the air from your lungs with a passionate kiss. This time, you can taste the sweetness of champagne on his tongue along with something a little more unique. Something that belongs solely to you and now also belongs to him.
“I’ve been leaking for you all night, sweet girl,” Bucky mumbles, “I couldn’t stop thinking what you look like underneath this dress. How soft and supple your body would be. Apparently, everyone else had the same thought. I could see how they looked at you. I should have them all stripped of their titles and banished from the land.”
“Bucky,” you chide, warmth flaming your cheeks. “That would be incredibly rude. Nobody did anything.”
He rolls his eyes as he presses you back against the pillar, reaching down to his pants. You hear the fabric shifting as he holds you up and frees himself. You’ve never seen one in real life before, only those diagrams that Becca likes to tease you with.
And the real thing looks far more intimidating.
It stands upright, a thick vein running along the top as the head strains red. It looks almost as if that line pulses, encouraged by the purplish lines that sit underneath the surface. A new pearl sits at the tip of him, pearlescent as it rolls down the length of his cock, already sticky and stained creamy white from the mess in his trousers. It’s fat and it’s long and you can’t imagine that fitting inside you.
You must’ve voiced your fears aloud because Bucky is then saying, “Don’t worry, mon couer. We’ll make it fit.”
He lifts you up, drawing a squeal from your lips, as he wraps your legs around his waist. The head rests against your entrance, the sight of it already has your pussy drooling over the tip, like it’s preparing for his cock.
“She’s excited to have me,” he muses quietly, “she’s dripping. So eager to have me. You haven’t been filled before, have you? You’ve never had another man touch you?”
You must’ve taken a moment too long to respond, too preoccupied with the incredulity of the situation.
The low roar sounding from Bucky’s chest has you looking at him. Fury claws at his eyes, the usual bright blue shifting darker as he sneers. His hands tighten around your hips. “Has anyone else touched you? Who is it? Is it the stableboy? I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I’ve been meaning to replace him—”
“Bucky, god, no. Nobody!” You pant, “Where would I find the time?”
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you? I know your good heart would want to protect them.”
Your lips curl. “No, I would have no reason to lie to you.
“Good, because I fear the dire action I would’ve had to take if you told me otherwise.”
“I’m not yours to own, Bucky,” you snap.
“That’s where you’re wrong, sweet girl. You’ve always belonged to me, whether you knew it or not. You’re mine and I’ll kill anyone who even dares to think about you.” Another surprised sound escapes your lips and Bucky only smirks. “This pussy especially. I’ll shape it to the size of me, you won’t ever know pleasure with anyone else. I’ll train her to only please me and only me.”
Before you can admonish him for acting so barbaric, Bucky notches the tip into you. You can already feel the stretch, your pussy resisting the entry of something so… large. So imposing. But he pays it no mind; instead, he uses your own juices to lubricate his entry as he pushes slowly into you, inch by inch.
He drives deep inside of you, swift and merciless the first time, to yank a gasp from your throat. Another expletive leaves his lips as his head rolls back, eyes slamming closed as he relishes in the feel of your cunt wrapping around him.
Your entire body is under a spell, experiencing something otherworldly that no language you know could describe. It burns like you’ve been placed on a stake to be set ablaze, like every atom in your body is being torn apart and rearranged. It’s divine deliverance in the pain, but one that provides you with the kind of relief you don’t expect.
“You feel so—” he chokes as he drags himself out before pushing back in, faster this time, the slide easier. The ache still screams between your legs but you let them fall apart anyway, allowing Bucky to take control over the situation.
His name falls from your lips — this time as a plea, but you can’t tell if you’re begging for him to stop or to go faster. You want to get past the hurt, want to feel the sort of pleasure that you’ve only heard whispers about. But at the same time, a small piece of you relishes in that pain — it reminds you that you’re human, that this is new, that this is real, and that Bucky is right here with you.
“So tight, so fucking wet. You’re completely soaking my cock, sweet girl. I always knew you were meant for me, this pussy was made for me. No one else can ever see you like this, do you understand me?”
Bucky jerks his hips forward, his arms under your knees, hands on your ass as he presses you against the wall. The surface is solid against your spine, holding you upright as he fucks up into you. His grunts are muffled into your neck as he breathes you in, like your scent fuels the fire in his veins.
When you don’t respond, too drunk off the sensations of Bucky driving into you at a pace that has you delirious, he punctuates one thrust particularly hard.
“I asked, do you understand me?”
A sob crawls out of your throat as you nod, tears leaking down your eyes. He doesn’t apologize for your cries, he knows you better than that. These tears are from the overwhelming waves of emotion, the heightened tension that grips your lungs until you can’t seem to find the capability to breathe.
“You feel like heaven, my love. I’ll fuck you to the shape of my cock, until you can’t take anyone else but me — until you won’t even consider taking anyone else. I’ll ensure everyone in this kingdom knows that I’ve defiled you, that you’ve taken my mark on your skin and inside of you. I’ll ensure that you will only be mine.”
The shame settles hard and fast in the pits of your stomach. If everyone could see you like this, pinned outside against a wall by the prince, fucked like a whore in heat with your pussy clamping down around him, you could never show your face again. A desecrated maid who couldn’t keep her legs shut for a prince.
Anyone would be lucky to have him, but no one in their right mind would let even the crown prince take them before marriage. They would rather die than be labeled a slut. A harlot. You would be the bane of your family, no one would speak of you again and you would be banished to the outerlands.
But this is Bucky and even the concept of him keeping you as his dirty little secret only sends thrills through your veins.
“Bucky, you can’t—”
He laughs, dark and sinister. Like the idea of him unable, unallowed to do anything is absurd. “I’m the crown prince, sweet girl. I am the future of this kingdom. What I say goes. If I say you are mine then it is true. No one will come within a foot of you. Not after I’m done with you. I’ll make sure everyone sees the marks of my affection for you. I’ll imprint them in places everyone can see and other places that nobody will ever see.”
His words have your heart clenching in mortification and a humiliating level of arousal. The debasement of your character, the degradation of your morality — apparently none of it means anything if it means you have Bucky between your legs and his cock buried deep inside your cunt.
“I’ve laid my claim on you. No one else will ever touch you. You—” thrust “—are—” thrust “—mine.”
Staying true to his promise, his fingers dig deep into your flesh. Deep enough that you’ll surely carry those bruises with you for some time. The litter of prints on your neck and above your breasts will have to be covered by your high necklines, gowns that would only raise suspicion in the summer.
But most of all — the taking of your virginity, your purity plucked from your hands and placed into Bucky’s — is the kind of mark you will never undo.
Bucky is too lost in his own pleasure, too focused on delivering you to your second peak of the night to recognize the telltale signs of your climax approaching. Your whines crescendoing, the stutter of your heartbeat as your fingers sink into his shoulders. His name spilling from your mouth in an uneven rhythm.
“I will cum in you, sweet girl. I’ll fill you up with so much cum, I’ll have you dripping all the way home, I’ll make sure you’re leaking all over the carriage before I take you again in my chambers. Gods, I’ll tie you to my bed, make sure that you’ll never deny me again.”
Your heart smashes into your chest, threatening to catapult out with his warning. For some godforsaken reason, the idea of being Bucky’s plaything — tied up with no other purpose than to serve his pleasure — has you gasping in desire, your legs closing in around him as you feel your senseless craving crescendo.
“You want that, don’t you? You just want to be my pussy. Keep your legs open, this pretty cunt dripping yours and my cum all over my sheets. My darling girl is nothing but a whore who wants cock to keep her plugged up at all times. You won’t have to worry about a thing ever again.”
“Bucky, please—”
“I’ll breed you until you carry my heir.”
That jars you awake and you’re scrambling, a conflicting concoction of pure, unadulterated want with the terrifying fear of the consequences to follow. “You can’t! Bucky, you have to stop. You can’t get me—” you hiccup, “—you can’t get me pregnant. Your heir has to come from a proper bloodline.”
“I no longer care about propriety and bloodlines. They have kept us apart long enough. I’m the crown prince and, what I want, I get. What I want is you and you alone. Why would I need some uptight, prissy noblewoman who doesn’t know how to cum around her husband’s cock?”
“Bucky!” You gasp as he fucks you hard and fast. His pace is unrelenting and every slide of his cock inside you scrambles every single sensible thought in your mind.
“And I have you — I can feel your pussy choking me. You — while you’re getting fucked outside with the risk of someone finding us. Yet, look at that, you’re squeezing me even tighter, my love. I always knew you were made for me. Every inch of my depravity, you take it even further. You complete me.”
Your stomach coils with something deep and tight, an unknown force set out to subject you to the strongest cut of humiliating pleasure. As a proper woman, you shouldn’t take such words, even from a prince. You shouldn’t stoop so low as to attain this form of high.
However, your mind and your body and your heart do not align. While your rational mind screams at you to put a stop to this, your adoration for Bucky — now forced to surface after years of stomping on it and swallowing it with guilt — and your pure primal need — what many consider to be your purpose — join and meld to push you to keep going.
To chase after this sought-after pleasure that few can even dream about. If the cost of is to reduce your dignity and pride, then so be it.
“And now, I will complete you,” Bucky murmurs sweetly before he shoves himself inside you over and over again until you’re a weeping mess, your legs quaking as your body slides up against the wall with every thrust. Tears leak down your face, destroying Becca’s efforts to make you look beyond yourself.
But all that physical destruction is worth it when your insides are being remade.
With one final thrust, Bucky spills inside you. Warmth coating every part of your walls, thick, clinging onto your skin like it’s marking you with a permanent mess. Your second climax twists inside your gut, rising up to your chest to constrict your lungs as your pussy curls tight around him. His need to complete you is complemented by your own need for the same. Your walls keep him in, trapped, until every single drop is milked from his cock and buried deep inside your cunt.
Bucky doesn’t let up, he fucks into you until he’s groaning sensitive against your neck. His breathing is even hotter than before, each exhale like a furnace in the middle of the desert.
“I’m not done with you yet.”
Those words no longer spark fear, but zealous anticipation.
Then Bucky takes you again — you on your feet, him behind you as he fucks you against the wall, your breasts in his hands to hold him steady as he cums into you again, the milky white seeping out from where you two are joined. But then he misses your face too much so he grabs your chin, turns you to face him, and devours you in a messy kiss that has your teeth clicking almost painfully.
Then he has you laid out over his clothes, your back on the floor, your knees and thighs against your torso, as he fucks deep inside you, promising you that it’ll take this time. That he’ll try as many times as he needs to until his seed takes.
Then you’re on your hands and knees as Bucky pounds into you from behind, his thighs slapping against yours, his fingers reaching around to your clit in intentional circles that have your body quivering underneath him, and he doesn’t stop until you’re cumming around his cock and he’s filling you up with another load.
Then you’re cleaning him up, the taste of his cum and your pussy a more potent substance than all the liquor in the nation combined. The thick liquid spurts down your throat like you’re being fed your dessert, a treat for having done so well.
And again and again and again.
For a while, you forget that Bucky is relentless only due to the poison in his veins, his depraved hunger only exacerbated by the delicious textures of your cunt around his cock. An addiction that he could never suppress.
When both your limbs finally give and enough of the toxins have been excreted — inside you, mind you, the two of you slump down on top of both your clothes. A mess of damp fabrics and fluids that even the best solvents in the kingdom could never remove.
Bucky turns over to you with a groan — the same sound that’s been rattling inside your mind, the same sound that will surely affix to every crevice inside your brain for weeks, if not months — and slumps an arm over your waist.
He nuzzles his face against your cheek, a small chuckle tickling your face. He hums, pleasantly exhausted. You’re a disarray of tangled limbs and gummy skin. You can’t help but laugh too.
“Why are you laughing?” He smiles, leaning down to press a kiss on your bare shoulder. Somewhere along the way, you’ve stripped yourself of your final layer too, leaving you completely nude.
The circumstances are far from believable. If you had told yourself that this was how your night would end, even your wildest imagination couldn’t have conjured up this conclusion. “I can’t believe we’re doing this in the middle of Lady Romanoff’s ball.”
“She would skin us alive if she knew,” he smirks.
“Yes, she would.”
The third, unexpected voice has the two of you jumping, your fingers immediately reach for more clothes to cover you up, at the same time Bucky also drapes his jacket over your body.
Lady Romanoff stands closer towards the land, where the water doesn’t extend. She then approaches, oil lamp in hand. You can’t unriddle whether her expression is contemptuous disgust or unpredicted amusement.
Meanwhile, the two of you are still clad in nearly nothing, only the moonlight to cast shadows that cloak you.
“Lady Romanoff, I apologize profusely. We didn’t mean any disrespect—”
Bucky’s quick to interject. “It was entirely my fault. I have been subjected to… urges that were outside my control. It was a substance, you see.”
His words have your heart palpitating in an uneven rhythm. The words land unexpected sharp, like a piercing wound straight through your beating organ.
Urges that were outside my control.
This was never meant to happen. You and Bucky. This night. All of it is a fever dream. A product of your desires catalyzed by a chemical compound. Bucky never would’ve done it otherwise; the two of you have always run in parallel lines, never meant to intersect.
All of his words — sweet nothings.
Just like this evening.
“I’m fully aware of the substance you speak of, I am frankly surprised that you would be so careless as to consume it at such a public place, your royal highness,” Lady Romanoff muses.
Bucky winces, scratching the back of his ear awkwardly. “I stumbled and the container had been loose. Unfortunately, I was forced to consume nearly all of it — at least, what didn’t end up on my clothing.”
Lady Romanoff only hums thoughtfully. “If I remember correctly, the aftermath to this substance would be a deep sleep. Rather fast, I’m afraid.” This time, she turns to look at you. “I shall set up a room for the two of you — you can enter through the back. Most of my regular staff is gone and I’ll arrange for my lady-in-waiting to prepare it. She is most discreet.”
“We can—” Bucky stops then, seeming caught off guard by the sudden dizzying spell. He sways slightly, words slurring together in a jumbled mess before he falls against you. His breathing even.
“It appears my memory serves me well,” she says, voice tinged with unexpected pride. “Come, my dear.”
As promised, most of the party has dwindled down to a few inebriated guests that Lady Romanoff organizes to be delivered home in their respective carriages. You and Bucky have been set up in a wing far from the prying eyes, this is where they’ve restricted most of Lady Romanoff’s staff, only the trusted are allowed.
Her lady-in-waiting and her most trusted butler had been sent to help carry Bucky back — of course, after you properly dress him. No explanation was provided beyond the crown prince getting “ill from the food”, but you assume that they suspect something else is at play, particularly when you yourself look like you’ve been mauled by a wild beast.
After Bucky has been settled into his room and you’ve been provided your own as a guest, which you insisted against, but Lady Romanoff insisted against your insistence, her staff is sent away. Bucky snores quietly on the bed, he’s been in and out. He was somewhat awake long enough to help the butler walk him back into the mansion, enough to plop himself down on the mattress.
Your heart is uneasy with worry but Lady Romanoff touches your shoulder. “He should be fine. He has most of it out of his system, I presume?” She cocks an eyebrow. Heat crawls up your neck as you nod. “Then he will recover by morning. He may be weary for a while but he’s in good hands.”
“Thank you for your generosity, Lady Romanoff,” you murmur, “I do apologize for the inconvenience and my… impudence.”
“No apologies needed. I spoke to Wilson and he’s received an earful from me about bringing untested substances — in unsealed containers, at that.” She pauses then turns to you, “You’ve been quite the kind… relative, for a distant one.”
She knows. You know that she knows. She knows that you know that she knows.
This is a mess.
“Yes, I’m rather used to caring for him,” you clear your throat, and then realize what you’ve just said. “In a way where he’s almost like my brother. We grew up together.” And that one isn’t a lie per se.
“I’m sure,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. “Well, take my words with a grain of salt, but I would like to ask you to proceed with caution. You seem to be a smart woman, I’ve seen you with Becca, how you manage to fit right in with society. While I am a romantic at heart, I am also a realist — and the truth is that the challenge will lie with you. As the crown prince, he will be untouched. Unharmed. The realm will protect him before it will protect a woman.”
“I understand that,” you nearly sigh, glancing back at Bucky.
It’s what you’ve always known — your position in society. It’s why you never accepted Bucky’s advances, nor your own feelings regarding him. It’s easier to pretend that it doesn’t exist, that you aren’t in love with the crown prince as a mere maid — even if it hurts.
“But his royal highness is also a good man. I’m sure he will choose wisely,” Lady Romanoff smiles. “Now, please rest. I will arrange for separate carriages to deliver you both home in the morning.”
“I should return now—”
“What you should do is rest,” she presses with a pointed look. “Furthermore, I believe he could use some tending to tonight — in case he wakes or has… remaining urges.”
She’s teasing you, and it’s working because your face feels like it’s been trapped in a heatwave all day. “I’ll make sure he gets through the night and will depart first thing in the morning. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you any further.”
“No inconvenience. This has perhaps been the most entertaining occurrence this season.” Her eyes are practically twinkling in delight.
Your teeth sink into your bottom lip. “Lady Romanoff, please forgive me for overstepping, but if I could ask for your discretion regarding this matter—”
She waves you off with a reassuring smile. “You need not ask. I understand the position you are in and I would never trouble another woman more than necessary. I also would not enjoy making an enemy out of the palace and I doubt the crown prince would let things slide if anything were to happen to his precious lover.”
Your mouth opens to correct her, she gives you a look that tells you not to even attempt to lie to her. You technically wouldn’t be fibbing.
After all, it was only his urges that allowed him to do such things to you tonight. At the end of the day, you’re still nothing more than a maid — a member of the royal staff. A lover is what you are not.
“Have a good evening, dear.”
“You as well, Lady Romanoff.”
Once she leaves the room, you go to check on Bucky one last time before you move to your own room; it is an adjacent space, connected by a door should you need access to his room. That distance, while small, still feels much too large.
You pull the blanket up higher on his waist, brush the wet strands away from his face as you check his temperature again. His fever has come down plenty, he’s at least broken through it and now he’s simply sweating out the rest.
With that, you pull your hand away and ready yourself to move to your own room.
Except, you don’t get the chance, not when you feel those familiar fingers wrap around your hand before you could move. You whirl around to find Bucky drowsily looking up at you. His eyes glow in the moonlight spilling through the massive windows.
“Stay,” he murmurs.
“Your royal highness, I should return to the chambers Lady Romanoff has provided. If the staff were to return, I wouldn’t want to have to explain the circumstances.”
“How many times have I told you not to call me that?” He says, but there’s no bite to his words, only affection.
You swallow thickly, chancing another look at your door.
“Stay,” he insists again, “please.”
Who are you to deny the crown prince? Your frail heart can’t seem to do that, not when it could be your last evening with him.
So, you slide under the covers when he makes room with a giddy little smile. He tucks you into his chest and kisses the top of your head. “Sleep, sweet girl.”
And for once, you listen to him.
Come morning, the reality of the situation has carved itself deep into your bones. While you wake up in Bucky’s warmth, his arms around you and your legs on top of each other, you know that this is the last part of your dream. The epilogue. This will be nothing more than a memory, maybe even the figment of one.
You swiftly clean yourself up, ensuring that you are properly clothed and presentable before you make your way to where Lady Romanoff had directed you. She is nowhere to be found but a carriage has been arranged to take you back to the palace. The sun hasn’t even risen when you slipped out of bed.
With one last look at Bucky who’s still sleeping peacefully, you take your leave.
You’re back early enough that none of the staff are awake yet, but you also can’t bring yourself to sleep. The gown Becca had lent you hangs by your door quietly, a stark reminder of the evening you thought you had crafted in your mind. You turn over to ignore it.
However, slumber doesn’t find you and so you begin your duties early. The princess’ gown, the tea, everything a lady-in-waiting should do in the palace.
It’s expected that Becca has questions about where you went last night. She was frantic with worry at the thought of losing you somewhere, or if something had happened to you that she refused to leave.
“Lady Romanoff informed me that you and Bucky had returned earlier because he was ill,” she says, forehead creasing with lines, “I apologize that your night was ruined by my brother. I was hoping you would enjoy the remainder of the ball.”
“I enjoyed it plenty already, don’t worry,” you smile. “Thank you for giving me that opportunity.”
“Well,” she eagerly presses, “were there any handsome bachelors that caught your eye?”
Only one and he is the one you certainly cannot have.
“No, I believe we were out there to assess the men for your own relationship.”
Becca blushes, fanning her face. “No, no one of importance.” She’s never been a good liar. “Okay, there was one but Bucky would kill me if I tried. Have you ever noticed how attractive Lord Rogers is? He also has such a kind heart.”
If he had a kind heart, he would’ve stopped Bucky from taking that ridiculous substance, you think bitterly, unfairly.
“I’m sure he is,” you only say.
“How was your evening then? Did you really not see anyone to your liking?”
You smile softly at her. “Princess, even if there were, it would not be my place.”
“That’s rather unprogressive of you! I’m sure there are suitors who would care little about such trivial things.”
Naive, hopeful Becca. This is why you love her.
Before you can respond, Becca perks up and waves behind you. You turn and that’s when you see him — Bucky. He’s crossing the ground with long strides like a man possessed. He’s a man on a mission as he wastes no time at all in closing the distance.
He looks furious.
He also looks an outright mess — shirt unbuttoned, sleeves haphazardly folded, hair sticking up at odd angles. It looks as if he rolled right out of bed at the Romanoff house and came straight here. Here to this garden that you’re walking with Becca.
You have a feeling that that’s exactly what he did.
“Brother, you’re looking much better—”
“You left,” he instead speaks directly to you.
You grit your teeth, doing your best to avoid Becca’s look of utter confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, your royal highness.”
“I thought we’ve established that we’re past that level of formality,” he snaps, “I’m not letting you escape this conversation. If you’ll excuse me, sister dear, I need to have a little chat with this one.” His hand covers yours, none of the gentleness from last night, instead he squeezes it tight like he’s afraid of you slipping away again.
Becca doesn’t follow, she’s too busy gaping and slowly piecing things together.
All the while Bucky is dragging you stumbling and tripping over your own feet towards a more secluded part of the gardens, away from the curious eyes.
You’re trying to pry his fingers off you to make your escape. “Bucky, stop. Stop this.”
He does stop dead in his tracks but he immediately spins around to face you. “No, you stop,” he growls and the sound shoots straight for your chest. “After last night, after everything that’s happened, you simply – what — leave? I woke up and you were nowhere to be found. Lady Romanoff was the one who had to tell me that you departed earlier.”
“I had to return to my duties first,” you say brusquely, “I have responsibilities to tend to, your royal highness. It also would have been inappropriate and highly suspicious if we arrived at the same time.”
“Damn propriety,” he barks, eyes glowering, “I think you should cross that word off your vocabulary after last night.”
Said last night flashes before your eyes, like paintings that could force a priest to pray. You’re warm all over now, the ghost of his touch on your skin, his mouth mapping out every inch of you like he’s memorizing the dips and curves of your body. The feel of his cock, hot and wet, sliding inside you, spilling evidence that took you far too long to clean last night.
Even now, you can almost still feel it dripping down your legs.
“You left,” Bucky presses.
“You weren’t yourself last night. Like you said, they were urges as a consequence of the substance you accidentally took. It was nothing more than a fulfillment of the circumstances.”
He scoffs, “I said that to Lady Romanoff, not to you. I did not want her to hold you responsible for the state we were in. To me, last night was— last night was everything.”
The lump in your throat only grows, tears prick your eyes. He can’t do this. Not now. You’ve made your decision to let that dream go.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” you whisper.
“Shouldn’t have happened?” He echoes, aghast. “Is that regret I hear in your voice?”
“Bucky…”
“Because I don’t regret it. Not a single damn thing. I want you, I’ve always wanted you. I’ve made it very clear that I love you and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. If I had to give it all up, I would — if that meant that I could finally hold you.”
“You can’t say such things!” You hiss, “You are the crown prince!”
“And sometimes I wish I wasn’t! Because it would make this easier, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t have to restrain yourself every time you speak with me. You wouldn’t have to call me such ridiculous titles when all I want is for you to say my name. Because I know you love me, I know you do. You can’t look at me the way you do and expect me to believe that you don’t feel anything for me.”
Your heart splits down the middle, parts of it chipping away. “I— it doesn’t matter how I feel or what I want. You have a long line of noble ladies waiting for you to make your choice—”
“I’ve already made my choice and damn anyone else who gets in my way. I’ve already had a taste of you, my love. I’m never letting you slip through my fingers again. I’ll speak to my parents—”
“Don’t!” You interrupt. “Please don’t. It’s— it won’t be you who would suffer the consequences. If they know of what… we did, if they know that it goes far beyond the previous evening, it wouldn’t be you they punish. My mother and I…” Your sentence trails off as your voice cracks.
Bucky cups your face, presses his forehead against yours. “I wouldn’t dare let a thing happen to you.”
“It’s not your choice.”
“It is. If they want me to be their heir, this is my choice. They have to make theirs.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, that’s love.”
You swallow thickly as he leans back only slightly, pained like he can’t even bear this amount of distance between the two of you.
“I love you. I love you and that’s a fact truer than the sun that spills light onto this earth. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise to care for you, to cherish you. I promise to be a man fit for you. I won’t be perfect because god knows nobody in this world could deserve you, but I’ll always try my damndest to make you happy.”
“Bucky,” you breathe out..
“Say yes. Say you’ll be mine. You’ve made me wait all this time. All these years wasted. Don’t let us forego anymore.”
Could you really do this? It would be a risk — not only to you, but to your mother, to the staff. They would be questioned if they’ve ever encouraged your entanglement with the prince. Becca — oh god, what would Becca even think? It would be an incredibly selfish decision.
“Don’t do that,” Bucky murmurs as he tightens his fingers around your face, “don’t think about anyone else. Think about you and what you want.”
You want him. You do.
“You’re mine regardless, sweet girl. I’ll protect you no matter what you decide. My heart is yours.”
“Yes,” you whisper and the answer comes easier than you think, “yes. I’m yours.”
Bucky lets out a wet laugh, blue eyes glistening as he presses his lips against yours. “You’re mine. I’ll protect you, I swear it.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know,” he rasps, “I know. Thank you for trusting me. I promise to do right by you. No matter what happens, know that my entire life is yours. I’d burn the kingdom down before I let anyone lay a finger on you.”
“Becca might get to you first,” you choke out a laugh.
Bucky swipes the tears from your cheeks with the pads of this thumb. “Then maybe I will have to take your protection first.”
“Deal.”
+ sam: my google searches from this are so embarrassing but hey i tried. i havent written bucky in a hot second but this one took me by the throat so i hope you enjoyed it!!! i love hearing thoughts so please share them if you liked it <3
humankind’s conquest for power doesn’t stop, not even when the world does. two rival families stand against an army of undead. will bygones finally be bygones, or will feelings rot away—like the rest of humanity?
🔪 WARNINGS & TAGS: inspired by romeo & juliet; childhood friends to lovers to enemies to whatever the fuck this is; unspecified age gap (mentions of salt-and-pepper beard); gratuitous cameos; making out; implied smut
🪦 READER NOTES: afab!reader; no use of y/n; mafia heiress reader; reader's dad is dead :(
🥃 AUTHOR'S NOTES: original moodboard here! @artficlly when you assigned me the moodboard i felt the horror (pun very much intended) of thinking i'm going to let your genius brain down—and maybe i will, but at least it's done!!! huge thanks to @houseofhyde for beta-reading and bearing witness to my terrible grammar, i love you to undeath!!! 🤩
The average ambient noise in Midtown Manhattan is 80 decibels. 110 if there’s construction.
And there always is. Drilling is a staple sound in New York City—so are impatient drivers honking their cars. The subway’s rattle. Bike bells. Sirens. Sidewalks that never stop coming alive. The city is an overstimulating sonic chaos.
But that was five years ago, before the dregs.
Where they come from is a mystery—you suppose the investigative journalists didn’t survive long enough to find out whether it was an exotic fungus, a manufactured virus, or an ancient disease trapped in the Arctic icebergs that caused these creatures.
The only thing that is everyone knows for certain is that the dregs are terrifying creatures: husks that were once people, faces familiar even through the rot, blunt nails that can’t stop clawing. Death by one of them would be both painful and unlucky—because you’d end up getting turned.
Just like how dregs came to be, becoming a dreg is not a well-documented phenomenon, and rightfully so. All you’ve heard is pain that doesn’t end even when consciousness does. What strikes you most is an underscoring sorrow beneath each account of transformation: a sadness that comes with losing not just one’s life, but one’s life as a human.
Maybe that’s why the dregs moan: they mourn at the loss of what true death brings.
Peace.
As you look out the den’s window, mug of coffee in hand, still in your nightgown, peace is the name of the morning.
Today, the landscape is green: summer has arrived. From this house on a hill—a stone inn called the Overlook Lodge, where travelers used to find rest before they headed deeper into the state park—you can see mountains, the lake at its base, and the bridge across Hudson River. The upstream part, not the Manhattan part. It’s wilder here, with less trash in its waters.
The scenery is still. Lazy, almost. Not even the clouds find it in them to move.
You don’t hear birds. They all left last year.
Today—five years since the first human turned—this silence, too, twists itself into something cursed. Something entirely loud.
You hear things you shouldn’t. Electricity. A clock. The slightest creak of the wooden floors.
Footsteps. The pattern tells you who they belong to.
Before three knocks pass, you call out. “Come in.”
The door opens. You spare a glance in its direction.
As you suspected, it’s Benjamin Poindexter. The man cursed with your orders and blessed with the obedience to execute them. He wears a crisp suit that doesn’t look like it has ever had blood splattered on it.
“I’ve told you that dressing up is optional,” you sip your coffee.
He closes the door, expression neutral. “You’re clearly leading by example.”
You look down at the slip.
It’s satin and pretty, the color of pearl, but also does a shabby job hiding the shape of you.
But you shrug. “It’s barely 9AM and already ninety-four degrees. Just give me the report, please.”
He begins to speak. You don’t need to be looking at him to know he’s standing at attention—probably subconsciously, force of habit—as he gives you the rundown of activities.
The world may stop, but the mafia doesn’t.
“Dreg sighting reported by the patrol at downstream Hudson fifty miles from here, yesterday afternoon.”
“How many?”
“A horde.” He pauses. “At least a hundred and fifty.”
That settles in your stomach a little heavy. 150 is a sizeable horde: not impossible to fight off with your current fortifications, but alarming nonetheless. Their congregations grow bigger each time you encounter them.
“Their movements?”
“Slow but steady. It’ll take two-three days if they mean to head up here.”
You hum. “I hope zombies hate hiking. Chokepoints?”
“I was getting to that,” he grumbles. “All clear for now, including the bridge. There were signs of survivors across the river. Campfire remains at the Appalachian Trail near the highway.”
“Big group?”
“Nine people,” but then Dex pauses before: “one child.”
You nod. Dex falls silent.
The room suffuses itself with a quiet charge. It’s hard to pinpoint what it is: a letdown, a pity, despair.
Then you say, “Resources, please,” and the world spins again.
Dex rights himself. “Water reserves all clear, stockpiling is business-as-usual. We’re at almost ten thousand liters for emergency.”
“And the farmlands?”
“Barton secured a new plot just off the 6,” says Dex, “and the city squad came back with more supplies.”
“Good,” the string around your throat since the mention of the child loosens slightly, “which means we’re good on hydrogen peroxide and antibiotics?”
“Those and more.”
For the first time this morning, you smile.
“That’s great news.”
“Thank the Maximoffs,” he replies.
“Get them home and I’ll see to it personally,” you survey the changing sunlight beyond the window, head tilted, “Barton, too. We ought to fortify before the hoard arrives.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
For a crime organization, yours is rather unique. Unlike the Irish, the Italians, or the Russians, the Syndicate you were born into isn’t bonded by blood, but by an appreciation for profitability.
Those traditional groups are truly missing out on DE&I benefits.
Because instead of hiring by heritage, your family hires talent. It’s almost corporate—moreso than other mafias, at least. Departments are clearly defined. Those with keen senses gather whispers from the shadows, those who charm have dinner with important names, and those who’s less talking more doing…
Well, safe to say they do things. Dex is one such person.
Together, the Syndicate operated in many things—things that are too varied to pin down: money laundering, high-tech fraud, dealings of some fashion drugs coveted by celebrities. Things that are profitable.
Then the dregs arrived. While life certainly changed, strangely, some parts of it didn’t. Having an established network of resources largely unknown to the once ever-failing, now non-existent government meant you were placed in a position to rule.
And you’re doing a not too shabby job, if you may say so yourself.
Here you are, sequestered in the edges of a state park with a number of survivor colonies under your care, and more than enough resources to keep them safe. Under control.
For now.
While your Syndicate is unique, it certainly isn’t the only one to adopt such a structure.
The only other organization that mirrors yours is miles and miles away now, occupying a side of Manhattan you’d deemed too dangerous to inhabit at the time. You know, dense population equals more zombies. So sure, your pride took a blow when they not only survived but thrived.
In any case, they’re far away, both in geography and memory.
Funny how being so alike with someone can make you hate them. That must’ve been what happened.
Who struck first remains a mystery. At least your father and Jimmy Barnes were spared from the displeasure of seeing their family tear each other apart.
They were too dead to watch it happen.
But as cold as blood runs between the Syndicate and the Barnes family, these two parties were close, once. So close to being brought into one; a scenario in which you were one of the main leads.
Your mind sweeps you away in a whirlwind of memories, a deep wormhole at the brush of a thought:
Your hands cradling someone’s face, mere inches away. You can only see a handsome chin and the dark stubble covering it.
“We probably shouldn’t be doing this,” you whispered, lips close to his, before you kissed.
More accurately, you were kissed.
Whatever resistance your words put up was proven false: the man’s form covered yours as he leans down, mouth slanted, hand on the curve of your hip. He made no space between or around you, trapping you between his body and the wall. His arms tugged you close where he wanted you, pelvic bones meeting over clothes.
And he wanted you. You could tell by the tongue that slipped to dance with yours, the groan that rumbled in his chest at your hitched breath. His fingers raked through your hair, stopping you from pulling away even to breathe. It didn’t take long for your mind to grow hazy with desire.
Because despite the consequences that his body on yours would bring, you wanted him back. And his mouth was good at making you forget.
Forget the time and place you’re in. Forget your place—your responsibilities.
Forget that you’ll be skinned alive if your families found you like this.
When he pulled away, all you could see was the black circles that ate into his irises, now dark as his hair. A string of spit connected his lips to yours.
Perhaps that was how his voice traveled into you: full-bodied like wine, rough like torture.
“Yeah, we probably shouldn’t.”
But he leaned down and kissed you senseless again, and your senses were lost in return.
“Are you listening?”
Dex’s question snaps you back to the present. The landscape blinks back into focus: forests and a lake framed by your office window.
“Apparently not,” you sigh. “Could you repeat that?”
From the corner of your eye, you see Dex clench his jaw. Unlike you, he’s not very good at pretending to be unbothered.
“It’s the West Point Range.”
That fully grabs your attention. You turn to Dex.
The West Point Range is a military base that sits on a vast 16,000 acres of land, high up the mountains—the expanse of which includes hard-to-trek nature. But being a base camp also means it is a gold mine of valuables, sitting idly and seeing no use. It’s guaranteed that the campus hosts a medical wing, an abundance of bandages in their first-aid kits. Spare bullets and rows of guns conveniently placed in the same room. Maybe even armored vehicles, if you’re lucky.
For it to fall to the dregs would be a waste. For it to fall under the control of someone other than you would be stupid. The only reason you haven’t already claimed it is the amount of men you have: too little to spare for reconnaissance up a forested mountain, let alone securing such a vast territory.
“What about it?”
“The Barnes family sent word.”
Dex stares at you like a marksman hunting for emotion.
That name uttered out loud is akin to a well of feelings surging to the surface. You school your emotions like trying to bury the source with a broken shovel: the split-second effort is laborious, and the rest of your energy is expended on a short syllable, which thankfully escapes before your mouth dries up from the shock.
“And?”
“With ‘humanity’s survival at stake’, they’d like to share,” Dex replies, “Their exact words.”
“Of course,” you scoff before you can even think of it, “What can they give us, anyway?”
Dex’s shoulders move in the slightest of shrugs. “You should ask them yourself.”
You blink at him, heart in throat.
“They’ve asked for a meeting. First thing tomorrow morning.”
“Bucky?”
“Hm?”
“Hold out your hand.”
James Buchanan Barnes is 15 years old, the age where a boy has to roll his eyes at anything a little girl says. But he does no such thing.
Instead, he studies your expression. You’re clearly holding back something mirthful.
He smiles back with a gleam of interest and does as you say.
Not a second later, you whip your hand out from behind your back—propelled as if you were an impatient spring trap. The weight that lands on his palm is nonexistent, but you’ve certainly placed something there.
“A daisy chain?”
With his other hand, he picks it up carefully: delicate stems wrought and twisted together to form what looks like a bracelet. Your face breaks into a full-forced grin and for a second he understands why the flowers bloom.
“For you!”
“For me?” He sounds like an idiot now, speaking only in questions, but he’s smiling too.
You nod, looking so pleased it’s contagious.
“It’s a promise—to always be together.”
Bucky hums, slipping the thing on slowly, as if breaking a single petal would damage something in you. He wears the juxtaposition with affection bursting in his chest. White and yellow contrast the sleeve of his dark suit, the daisies hang like innocence on his wrist.
Your fingers fuss over some scrunched petals near his skin, straightening them out. He smiles.
“And where’s yours?”
You look up.
It feels strange for a split second. Your mouth and voice don’t match—a movie that’s edited wrong. The only thing he hears you say is three words: light, playful, and entirely too far away.
“It’s right here.”
He furrows his brow, gaze drifting to your hands. Empty.
“Where?”
“Here,” you say again, but your voice isn’t yours.
Then he blinks, and you’re gone.
“Bucky! Wake up, man. We’re here.”
James Buchanan Barnes jolts in the back seat, eyes wide, legs sore from insufficient width. He is no longer 15 years old. His aching back tells him that, but from sleeping weirdly in a moving car more than aging.
Sam Wilson is behind the steering wheel in the seat in front of him, slowing the jeep up a path. Gravels crunch under big rubber tires. The car stops just before the weatherworn sign that says The Overlook Lodge. The morning sun peeks through from its rotten gaps.
Brown eyes meet blue through the rear-view mirror.
“You sure about this?” Sam barks, gesturing to the stone building up ahead. “In there are the sons of bitches that just robbed us clean of hydrogen peroxide.”
“Thanks for letting me nap,” Bucky’s reply comes strained, righting himself. As he swallows the lump in his throat, even through closed windows, he can tell the mountain air tastes different.
Sam scoffs. “I’m bein’ serious, man. These guys actively fuck us up.”
“Only because we do the same to them.”
“Then how exactly is this a good idea, again?” That’s what Sam says, but he’s driving. The car rolls into the driveway.
“She knows better than to keep trading blows,” Bucky adjusts his tie, watching the scenery that greets the jeep by the gravel roundabout. The sole entrance to the inn is guarded by a man and a woman, their faces handsomely young but weathered. “Now let’s see if I can talk some sense into her.”
Sam leans back on the headrest, breathing out slow from his mouth. “Let’s hope she even remembers you.”
The two guards approach. Sam parks the car.
“She has to,” Bucky whispers.
He pictures your face.
What if you don’t remember him? You were young. Still are—compared to him, anyway. The gap between his age and yours was hard to define: he’s a little too old to be a brother, much too young to be an uncle.
Turns out it was just enough to be a friend. In place of the distance between age was a lack of it in your relationship. You found in him a role model and a confidant all in one. He found in you the sweetest soul to ever be part of something so sinful.
Locating you next to Bucky would be like finding a fork in the kitchen: wholly expected, except forks didn’t cling onto him like you did. And you were much too adorable to be compared to a utensil, let alone a pointy one.
You did more than just stick around. By being around him, he could breathe deeper, as if you emanated a kind of calm that expands his lungs. Before you, he had never felt haze and clarity all at once—thoughts of you run like a mountain river: clean and never-ending; water that tastes so good you don’t mind being thirsty just for another sip.
He’d say that to describe kissing you, too. Touching you. Tasting you.
Then the feud happened, and your fathers… well.
The rift between your families opened long before the dregs came into the picture. How one went from young lovebirds to strictly no-contact overnight was an occurrence unique to your situation.
Mafia families betray each other all the time. One would think he’d get used to the hurt, but this one cut deep.
Suddenly, it’s been a whole decade since you last saw each other.
But the West Point Range is too important of an asset to ignore, and he’d be stupid not to try to reach out… or so he thinks. Though this family feud should fade with time, the damage your men deal to each other keep the hatred alive. It’s backyard rules: someone hits, the other hits back harder, repeat ad infinitum. Whether the Syndicate does so under your command or independently remains to be seen.
The grudge might as well be a myth at this point, but the pain is very much real.
The car doors open. Bucky’s boots and Sam’s hit the gravel. The two guards approach. Despite the different hair color, Bucky vaguely sees a resemblance between the two.
“They really showed up,” the woman muses, almost to herself: a redhead in a dark gray jacket over skinny jeans. Old blood covers the jacket in swaths, taking cotton hostage and making a trophy out of it at the same time. “James Barnes and his right hand. Come a long way, hm?”
“It’s an hour drive,” Bucky deadpans.
One perk of the zombie apocalypse is that there’s no traffic to complain about.
The man—a muscular blonde in a T-shirt and sweats, taller than the woman—eyes them head to toe with an distrusting look that’s strangely laced with respect.
“Either they’re stupid, or they have a death wish.”
“It was your boss who told us we could come play,” Sam barks back, “let us through.”
“He’s right, Pietro,” the redhead backs up and gestures forward with her head. “Welcome to the Overlook Lodge, gentlemen. She’s waiting for you upstairs.”
Bucky doesn’t know why, but the first thing he does before stepping inside is fix his suit.
That’s a lie. He knows why. Even with most of the world dead, his feelings for you aren’t.
And maybe, like the dregs, they’ll claw out from under the earth and show themselves to you in broad daylight.
The walk isn’t far until Bucky and Sam got their weapons checked at a door by a blonde man with strong jaw. The hallway feels small for the three of them. Like the two at the main entrance, Bucky doesn’t know who this person is, but by the way the man is dressed (also in a suit) and the place he’s stationed (the door beyond which you exist), it takes a special ignorance to think he’s an unimportant goon.
The decidedly important character opens the door for them. Bucky catches Sam’s focused stare at the last second.
The door reveals a vast room.
Rustic is the word that comes to mind. Wooden beams zig-zag on the ceiling, dressed with a single chandelier at the very center. The walls are rough but tasteful stone. A fireplace sits dead at one corner.
The room is large, once designed to hold an entire fully-booked inn, but now a long dining table remains, running the vertical length of parallel walls dotted with faded rectangles—paler paint where pictures used to hang.
You’re seated at its end, looking straight at him.
“Long time no see, James.”
Three realizations hit Bucky at once.
One: this might be a dining room, but for all intents and purposes, it is now a war room.
Two: you don’t call him Bucky anymore.
Three: you’ve grown. And god, look how you’ve grown.
The young girl haunting his mind is erased by the woman reflected in his eyes. Chains you used to fashion out of flowers are usurped for those made of precious metal, a single one tastefully adorning your neck, its pendant resting between your clavicle. The teardrop shape drags his eyes down to the tops of your dress: elegant and dangerous, like a knife.
You’ve changed. A tragedy, how he didn’t get to see you fit into your skin.
An equal tragedy is you taking your eyes off him. He follows your gaze across the room.
“Weapons, Dex?”
Of course the blonde man from before is still here. ‘Dex’ holds up both glocks—Bucky and Sam’s—and puts them in a vault in the wall. The steel closes with a heavy ka-thunk that resounds through even heavier air.
Only when the handguns are stored do you look at Bucky again. It’s a stare that dries his mouth, both for the way it sinks into his soul’s crevices, and for how the sight of you robs the voice away from him.
In turn, yours fill the vacuum, nodding to Sam. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wilson.”
“Likewise,” Sam responds, though his face appears the opposite of pleasure.
“I’ll admit, I thought Steve would be attending.”
Bucky clears his throat, watching you shift your gaze back at him.
“Steve’s in the city. He gives orders while I’m away.”
You stretch a hand towards the chairs, beckoning: “I see. Please, sit.”
It’s unnerving to Bucky how unaffected you seem. After that initial stare, your gaze passes him by like he’s something to look through rather than at. It makes him feel like he’s not fully here.
Like he’s a ghost.
“This is Poindexter, my right-hand,” you gesture towards the blond who aptly sits to your right. Bucky and Sam mirror your positions on the opposite side of the table.
“Pleasure,” the blonde smiles, though the expression rings hollow.
Sam points a thumb. “This the guy that stole our hydrogen peroxide?”
Bucky shoots a stern glance at his friend, only for Sam to pretend not to notice.
“No, that would be the twins,” you answer coolly, “You met them at the entrance.”
“I see,” Sam chuckles. “We got a full med bay for a week, thanks to them.”
“And we had to ration water for two weeks thanks to your people, too, so I’d say it’s even,” Dex cuts in.
You look at Bucky and he feels seen. Unlike your aide, there’s no empty smile on your face; just the familiar lines that should become a distant memory after a decade. Yet here he is, remembering the old days—you wear the same faintly displeased expression as you did back then, chastising him for being late to tea-time.
“Is this what you came here for, James?” you say, “To air grievances?”
“No.” He doesn’t know if you realize he’s looking at the answer to your question—you, he came here for you—“We’re serious about West Point.”
“I know you are. How badly do you want it?”
You liked to giggle back then, with him, because of him. Now you’re bold, timbre dipping low and husky: the suggestion in your voice is meant for casual intimidation, but Bucky took it as seduction all the same.
He can’t really help being seduced. He wants West Point. That sort of resource under his name would secure the survival of many for a long, long time.
That’s what he tells himself, at least.
“Half of Manhattan’s recovered fuel, a ton of corn per month, and full access to I-80,” he says.
You laugh, and a shot of delight suffuses his brain when it shouldn’t. You’re mocking him, after all, but if him being the butt of a joke is what it takes to hear that sound again, he’d do it.
You cross your legs underneath the table. “We don’t need your trash pellets. Or your food.”
He smiles. Of course. A location like this meant that facilities were likely unequipped for alternative fuel, anyway.
“Of course. Fossil fuel, then. A barrel a month.”
“I don’t think you understand, Barnes,” you reply, “We’re doing just fine on our own.”
The word choice is meant to hurt, he’s so sure of it. The truth of it all rings heavy in his chest—you are doing fine on your own. Scratch that: you are doing fine on your own. From your side of the chess board he may look like he is, too, but he out of all people would know that he’s the opposite of fine.
You speak again. “Cut to the chase, will you? I don’t have time for textbook negotiations.”
So he crosses his legs too, clasped hands on one knee.
“Full access to all highways.”
“Taxed?”
He huffs a quiet laugh. “For you? ‘Course not.”
“What else?”
“Open borders. You tell me what you need instead of steal from me. And we fight anyone else who isn’t us.”
Sam tenses to his right, but Bucky’s voice doesn’t waver.
“Sounds like a mutual defense pact,” you reply.
He nods easily. He might as well be saying if that’s what it takes out loud.
Because Bucky wants West Point, but he wants you a thousand times more. He just hopes the charge in the room doesn’t give it away.
Meanwhile, you’re watching past the stoicism of his face. Studying signs you once read like a fluent language. No tick of his jaw, not yet. Although it’s been a decade since you last met, he’s still the person you spent a lot of your youth with. Your former friend. Or lover. You know, it was really unclear because he never asked you to be anything, just loved and loved and loved—
“Does that mean my men need to work for you, too?” you ask, more to distract yourself from memories than to bargain.
His eyes are hot on your face, it’s a certain brand of infuriating.
“As much as mine work for yours.”
You pick at a nail. “I told you we’re doing fine on our own.”
“For now, maybe,” Bucky’s hand rests on the table in front of him, fingers thrumming, “The hordes grow larger. Bolder. They cross waters now. Soon they’ll cross the Hudson. Didn’t you learn from what happened in Ossining?”
You freeze, except for your eyes that snap to Poindexter, accusatory and unpleasant surprise all at once. His frown deepens slightly, as if offended that you think he leaked that sort of information. Him. The man who owes his life to your father.
You snap. “I want access to your watersheds.”
“Which one?” he replies.
You wonder if he’s pretending not to hear the plural in your demand. “All of them.”
“Like hell we’re going to—”
The scrape of Sam’s chair as he stands is followed by a cold click of steel. Poindexter already has a gun drawn and pointed at the other end of the table, promptly cutting the other man off.
You sigh, head tipped back.
“Jesus. Out. Both of you,” you bark. “And don’t try anything funny. That goes to you too, Dex.”
The response from Poindexter is an almost disheartened yes, ma’am. Sam stays silent. You watch as the two walk out of the room, the latter making eye contact with Bucky as if telepathically relaying a message.
Then the door closes with a slam. No footsteps follow. They’re standing guard.
While the slam echoes, you stand up, footsteps clacking towards an alcove along the windowed wall where a liquor cabinet is situated. You open it, pluck a bottle of something gold and a glass for it to go into.
Bucky’s eyes trace your movements, the sensation warmer than the whiskey you pour for yourself. Without looking behind you, you can tell he’s stood up, too.
Before he can ask, you pour a second, and hope that your eyes don’t betray your heart. Only after steeling yourself do you turn around.
“You know, you could’ve called.”
It’s your best attempt at nonchalance in the past ten years. The hand that dangles the drink to him helps—like if dropping the glass doesn’t affect you in the slightest, him stabbing a shard of sharp words back at you wouldn’t, too.
He takes the whiskey from you and sips, eyes trained on your face. You fill the silence to ignore how blue they look.
“Shame that it takes West Point for you to visit.”
Bucky licks the wetness from his lips and your heart jumps at the pink of his tongue.
“You never replied to my messages.”
You crack a smile in genuine amusement. “Don’t lie. It’s embarrassing.”
He steps forward once and you’re made aware of how close he is. Your whiskey glass and his nearly meet—except they’re gone, because he plucks the crystal out of your hand and places both on the cabinet behind you.
“What are you doing?” you ask.
“Why would I lie to you?”
In another time and place, you’d tease him for answering a question with another.
In the here and now, your breath fails you, running off and getting lost at the sound of his voice: a soft, hoarse whisper—the kind that takes over someone after a loss.
If only he knew how much you’ve lost. Bucky Barnes still counts as one person, but with the hole he left in you, you might mistake him for your whole world. You should brand him a mass murderer for the amount of memories he put to the grave by staying silent for ten years.
And yet, when asked that damned question, you still don’t know why he’d lie to you.
Did he really send word, all this time? Between the raids and dreg attacks? Why did you not receive a single one? Perhaps it was intercepted by another Syndicate member—they hate his family for what was done to them, it’s certainly not impossible for a note to ‘go missing’.
Ten years is a long time to carry a score. To the people living through it, the prospect of peace must be disturbing.
But here he is, standing in front of you—so close—with a look in his eyes that hasn’t changed.
It’s his eyes that beguile you to allow his hand to move, raising to barely meet your skin in a moment of quiet permission-seeking, before he eventually cups your face in his palm.
The sensation is eventuality manifest. In that moment you’re taken to another—ten years ago to be precise, when your families declared war on each other. In a way, the two of you went through a war yourselves—a different kind that raged in your ribcages, driving him to ravage your body with his, taking you prisoner.
Today, you realize you’re still chained to him. You realize you’re still willing.
He swipes a thumb on your cheek, then on your lips to part them. He did the same that night, too, before slanting his mouth over yours and kissing you stupid.
You wonder if he’s played with another girl’s mouth since then.
Bucky still thumbs your lip slow when he speaks:
“You never call me either, but I think about you all the time.”
Nothing about you is strong now, not like this, but you try to appear otherwise.
“If you think doing this will give you West Point,” you breathe, shaking from the taste of his mouth so close to yours, “you’re wrong.”
Your noses brush. Suddenly a decade never passed.
“Sweetheart,” the nickname comes quick and devastating, like cold water and honey down your spine, “I’m not doing this for anyone except myself.”
He leans down.
Your hands on his chest press him away, but then your fingers betray you: they come to grip the front of his linen suit. His breath is warm on your face—so is the ice blue eyes searching you. You watch his lips move.
Baby, he mouths without voice.
“We can’t do this,” you whisper, still holding him close.
His face breaks into a handsome grin, beaming past his salt-and-pepper beard. Then his nose meets your jaw, before dragging up, mouth-to-ear:
“You keep saying that, but you never stopped me once.”
You look at him as he leans back. Maybe it’s the sunlight through the windows, but he looks like a different person. A more familiar one.
“Bucky.”
There it is, the capitulation he seeks that triggers his own. His knees almost buckle at the breath that spells his name, the one you choose to moan in his ear while he sinks himself into you again and again and again, a secret moment you couldn’t bear to silence. Not James, man of the Family, but Bucky, the man in love with you.
Your man.
“Fuck West Point,” he sighs, “I just want you.”
Then your lips crash and so do the memories, wave upon wave laving against the coast of right now.
You let out a sound that’s half yearning, half the release of it: the relief comes from him smothering his lips against yours, tongue snaking into your mouth, stealing air and lucidity. The kiss awakens an old claim in your body, rousing an instinct for his touch that you’ve tried to unlearn—thought you unlearned, only for him to come and prove you’re still his.
Hands snake around you, face, shoulder, torso, before cupping the curve of your hip to make you feel him grind into you.
“God, I miss this,” he moans, “miss you…”
It should be pathetic, the way that spot between your legs throb with immediate need. But there’s no time to shame yourself when he’s drinking from your mouth like a man driven to the desert, no space in your head with how he cradles the back of it, as if making sure you won’t run.
“Miss you, too, Bucky,” you breathe between gasps, “so much…”
He slurs words into your mouth, “‘m gonna marry you, make you mine—” then bites at your bottom lip, before he feeds his tongue into you again, “You want that? Wanna be my wife?”
A siren breaks the hot air, its high pitch slamming into you like a whip. You jump away from each other in shock. Wide eyes meet his, darting across his face, then out the window.
You stare back, baffled. “That’s double from yesterday. How’d they get here so fast?”
“It’s not the one from downstream. This one’s from the north.”
Thoughts run through you, a hundred a second. Three hundred dregs emerging from a forest while you preoccupy yourself on the river—because logically, they’d come from Manhattan, not from over the peaks. How can there be so many undead in such an isolated area? How are their decayed legs strong enough to cross a mountain? Have they killed anyone in your camp?
An errant part of you screams: you just kissed Bucky Barnes. You just kissed Bucky Barnes when you’re supposed to negotiate.
Can they see how wet your lips are?
“Give us weapons and high ground,” the mouth that devoured yours speaks, “we’ll fight with you.”
Poindexter looks at you for permission. The alarm still blares in the background.
You clench your jaw and give the command.
“Barnes is a good shot. Let him take the perch.”
“Better than me?” That’s Dex with a misplaced levity.
“Of course not,” you placate, “but I need you on ground. Mr. Wilson, weapon of preference?”
“As long a range you can give me,” Sam huffs nervously, “and a machete when it’s really necessary.”
“Good,” you nod, “Dex, call the evac and open the bunker. We’ll see you at the armory.”
As if your sentence ended with a whistle blow, the two rush down the hall, boots heavy with urgency upon old wooden floors. Just like that, you’re alone with Bucky again. Being under his shadow is more dangerous than being under a dreg attack.
He tugs at your wrist. When you look over, something is affixed to it. Something cool on your skin.
A daisy chain. Not real flowers, but a bracelet of what looks like white gold, delicate petals dangling between metal links.
You look up at him. The question escapes even when you know the answer.
“What’s this?”
He smiles. His voice sounds like a memory.
“It’s a promise. To always be together.”
Bucky kisses you, this time with more feeling than passion.
Then the hand around your wrist pulls you to a hasted run. You take the lead a few steps in, leading him towards the armory and perhaps your shared doom—which is what it feels like every time you face the dregs, no matter how many times you’ve done so.
There are yells from outside. Calls to arms. A commotion builds.
But Bucky’s here, and you’re strangely okay. You’ll feel okay anywhere, just as long as he’s there.
That anywhere might be an uncertain future, although what about the future is ever certain? The dregs you’ll face might have mutated into something stronger to have travelled so far, so fast. Even if you survive this ordeal, there’s the negotiation to talk about (which, looking back at recent history, could mean another hour of making out with him), and that thing he said.
He proposed. With a bracelet, granted, but it’s no error—just a way of saying he remembers.
He also said he was gonna marry you. And you’re going to say yes, because you love him.
Or so he thinks.
Ten years is a long time to carry a score. It’s also enough time to plan a way to settle it.
But really, the plan started cooking yesterday, just as Dex gave his morning report.
“Separate from the one downstream, we spotted another horde approaching from the north. About two, three hundred strong.”
“That’s a lot. Estimated arrival?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
The gears in your head turned.
It was almost too perfect: a dreg horde and the Syndicate’s arch-nemesis arriving at the same time. Surely Bucky will try to tug on your heartstrings during negotiations: except he doesn’t know you’ve done away with your heart, let alone its strings.
You’ve read his messages. All of them. Seen how they get shorter with each snuffed effort to reconnect. There has to be a reason why things turned out this way between our families. We can’t solve this by not speaking to each other. Please just respond to me.
He never gave up trying, not even until the last few that were sparsely worded.
You can’t decide which will give you more pleasure. If he falls in battle, he’ll turn into a dreg, and you get to kill him twice. If he survives, you’ll fool him until his dying breath, when he’ll see the truth while choking on some poison or another.
You remember the daisy chain promise. Always be together.
It makes sense for him to die, then, because you already did a long time ago.
And yet, although the kiss he gave you wasn’t a surprise, the heat your body responded with was. You thought that part of you was buried—the part that felt something.
Funny how nothing dead stays buried these days. That part of you threatens to resurface, ugly fingers clawing through dirt and rot, just like the dregs.
But you’ll kill that part of you. You have to.
The same way Bucky killed your father.
bonus, because i ain’t writing more of this:
➤ in a mega plot twist i wanted to reveal that reader also killed bucky's dad :)
➤ in a mega mega plot twist, it turns out that neither of them killed each other's dads: maybe the evidence was tampered with, the camera footage was doctored, blablabla...
➤ all this time a secret third family has been profiting from their feud. (it's de fontaine. it's always de fontaine.)
➤ anyway <3 it's too late when bucky and reader find out and they've put each other in some sort of death situation <3
➤ i hadn't thought about what the ending of that would be, but either 1) they outsmart valentina and escape the trap they set for each other, riding off into a sunset and have sex with a decade-long pent-up energy, or 2) they both die like in romeo and juliet :)
Thank you @punyparkerr for sparking my brief idea this morning. I answered @my-malachai-stilinski and edited it, and IT WENT AWAY. Glad I had it saved bc I was proud of coming up with this stuff on the fly?
Tags: 18+, MDNI, fluff and smut, p in v, creampie, semi-public sex, size kink, uniform kink, pet names (baby, hon, sweetheart)
main masterlist
Rugby!Clark is an Absolute Unit. 6'4"+ 240 lbs shoulders that barely fit through doorways, Sequoia Thick thighs. His ass in those shorts are RIDICULOUS. Fans lose their minds every time he squats to bind in the scrum.
Built the "The Gentle Giant" reputation. Has to constantly restrain himself. He knows one full-power shove and someone’s getting stretchered off with a career-ending injury and he would never be able to sleep at night. Always the first to help an opponent up after a tackle and the media eats it uppppp.
Despite his restraint he’s terrifying on the field. Runs as fast as a freight train. Boy got HOPS like he’s got springs in his boots. Opposing teams start aiming their throws away from him, they're freaked out like a man that size shouldn't be moving like this😭
Post-game: sweaty curls stuck to his forehead, jersey half-unzipped, still breathing heavy. So polite during interviews, sounding like, "Yeah, tough game. Just happy everyone did their best." Meanwhile he’s already searching the stands, thinking about getting home to you.
Writes a surprisingly thoughtful column or speech for the team about sportsmanship and mental health.
✨️SFW/NSFW BELOW✨️
Eats like a black hole. You and Ma learned to meal-prep in industrial quantities. He’ll demolish three plates and still look at you and the fridge with those big blue eyes like "erm...is there more?"
Grass stains everywhere, including those damn nice socks you bought him. You’ve gotten very good at rubbing those out and rubbing arnica into his shoulders, pressing ice packs on his back while he sits on the floor between your legs, head tipped back making those low happy noises. You both know he doesn't really need it, but you enjoy it anyways.
Loves when you come to games wearing his jersey, his name, his number. Bonus if its oversized and nothing underneath. He spots you in the stands and suddenly plays like a demon - c'mon, let's wrap it up! I want my girl now!
.
Post-match ritual: finds you in the tunnel or parking lot, lifts you clean off your feet in a BIG sweaty hug and a Take My Breath Away Kiss. Doesn’t care who’s watching. "Missed you," mumbled into your neck.
If they win big he’s a lil smug, cocky, and very handsy all the way home. If they lose he'll smile it off but its obvious he needs to feel you. All huffy and fidgeting. Needs the reminder that he’s good at something that day, like how he can take care of you.
Backyard "training." He’ll set up cones and make you do footwork drills with him, laughing when you trip over your own feet, but catches you before really falling.
Teaching you touch rugby in the backyard always guaranteed to turn filthy 90% of the time. You tackle him (you both know he’s letting you), straddling him for a few moments to watch you all winded and laughing, and then "accidentally" pins you under him in the grass.
Appreciates your enthusiasm to know the game properly. Sits you between his legs, arms around you, chin on your shoulder, explaining cleanouts and lineout calls in a low, patient voice that would sound condescending from any other man. You ask "dumb" questions on purpose, which he responds: "Great question! So this is why..."
Wears a tiny charm you gave him on a chain under his jersey during every game. Something small with your initials? Your birth stone? Touches it before lineouts for good luck.
.
Strength kink goes Insane. He can hold you up against the wall with one arm while the other yanks your clothes off. Fucks you standing without breaking a sweat. Loves when you wrap your legs around his waist, hands gripping his shoulders/biceps/his face begging for harder, faster, deeper, more, and he just walks you to the bedroom without pulling out.
Those Sequoia thighs. You riding one while he’s "recovering" on the couch after practice. Him watching you with dreamy eyes, big hands guiding your hips, praising you the whole time. "That’s it, sweetheart. Use me."
Uniform kink is reeeaaal. Missing Clark while he's on the road for away games, welcoming him back wearing his home game-worn jersey. Sleeves too long, hem covering your ass. He'd immediately dropped to his knees to eat you out while you’re still wearing it, moaning over and over how much he missed you. Or he'd have you on all fours in just the jersey while he fucks you from behind, gripping the fabric like reins. Always so quick with aftercare, sometimes you ask for him to leave it on you afterward, just to watch him watch his cum soak into the material.
Oh, post-game adrenaline is so lethal to your pussy. He’s in his uniform — muddy shorts, jersey rucked up — and he’s so so dirty and desperate. Gets you on the bed, or floor, or kitchen counter and just takes. Deep, grinding thrusts growling and groaning "gosh darlin', you feel so good every time" against your throat.
Size kink + stretch. He’s biiiig everywhere and he knows it. Loves watching you determined to take him, loves the little overwhelmed, stubborn noises you make while you try to stop your cunt from clenching around him. "Easy, hon… I’ve got you. Let me do the work."
Endurance for days. One round is never enough for either of you. He’ll fuck you through your first orgasm, keep going while you’re shaking and creaming on him, then flip you on top and start again. Only stops when you’re a boneless, whimpering mess and even then he’s still hard and kissing apologies into your skin.
Sin-bin punishment. If you’ve been teasing him all day, he’ll edge you for ages. "Yellow card behaviour, hon. Gotta sit this one out."
Messy creampie enjoyer. Especially after a win because the sight of you after is the real prize. Watching it drip out afterward, then pushing it back in with his meaty fingers and the tip of his cock because "can’t waste it"????
Shower sex after games/practice is non-negotiable. After the other guys have gone home, you're sneaking him back into the locker rooms. You're washing the mud and sweat off him under the hot water spray, praising him while you stroke his cock until he can no longer fight the urge to fuck you against the tiles.
Rugby!Clark is a handsy man right? So he'll have one hand over your mouth and his mouth sucking on your breast so the groundskeep doesn't hear how loud you two get.
A/N : In my defense, I'm ovulating 👀
Warnings : 18+ MDNI, smut, vibrators, masturbation (f), Tit worship, oral (f rec), PinV, PwP, foul language, Clark being a nerd and hot soft-dom boyfriend at the same time, perverted reader, even more perverted Clark
Word Count : 1.8 k
Nerd Clark who is the quietest person at the daily planet. Quiet to the point where people wonder if he's even fit to be a reporter. But as his interactions with the superman have proved, he's very worthy of his position despite being so……mysterious.
Nerd Clark who is shy to return smiles when you wish him a cheery good morning summoning the brightest smile on your face.
Nerd Clark who slowly opens up to you. And by opens up I mean he lets a few good mornings and goodbyes slip free when he watches you arrive or leave.
Nerd Clark who thinks you're friends.
Nerd Clark who has no idea how bad your intentions are. That you hardly want friendship from him. What you want is for him to ruin you.
Nerd Clark who watches you stare at him, thinking its a loving look on your face except your eyes are raking over his body thinking about how soft those curls would feel under your palms, how those glasses would fog up when you have him panting under you, how those massive ridges of muscles would ripple when he's thrusting into you and how those veins would feel if you traced it with your tongue.
Nerd Clark who snaps you out of your wild imagination with a snap of his fingers and you're left breathless and wet in the office in the middle of the day.
Nerd Clark who believes your excuse of not feeling well when you look all red and leave for home early.
Nerd Clark who would never know that you spent that night riding your vibrator pretending it to be him, moaning his name out loud until your walls have it memorised. (I meant bedroom walls, what're you even thinking, you dirty minded duckling)
Nerd Clark who's all shy when you kiss him for the first time. All nervous smiles and fumbling hands as his lips move over yours in a slow rhythm.
Nerd Clark whose glasses nugde against your nose when he leans in for a second kiss, much to his annoyance but only until you end up giggling against his mouth.
Nerd Clark who does not understand why you're so keen on him leaving his glasses on during the kiss even when it's in the way.
Nerd Clark who you think would be shy and soft and sweet in bed and turns out he's anything but.
Nerd Clark who has you pinned against the door the moment you close it after getting home.
Nerd Clark whose hungry eyes, dilated pupils, and shameless strokes of his fingers under your shirt surprise you in the best way becuase where did that shy nerd go who was nervous to kiss you?
Nerd Clark who has known everything since the beginning and still let you work for him, and yearn for him, all this time.
Nerd Clark whose voice is possesive and dark and rough when he leans in close to your ear and whispers “You've been testing my patience, baby” before his mouth is on you.
Nerd Clark who revels in watching you all shocked and dumbfounded at knowing how his shy personality just switches off around you.
Nerd Clark who has the filthiest mouth on him and loves to rile you up “Why do you look so dumb baby? Were’nt you the one who invited me here?”
Nerd Clark who chuckles against your lips when you have no words left and you decide kissing him would be the appropriate response.
Nerd Clark who picks you up like you weigh no more than a pillow before he trudges toward your bedroom.
Nerd Clark who takes his sweet time with you. Kissing his way down your body, worshipping every inch of skin revealed.
Nerd Clark who you know is gone when his eyes zeroe in on your tits, his tongue sneaking out to wet his lips before his mouth is on you. Warm and wet and so fucking desperate as he laps at your skin, nipping your nipple with his teeth ever so slightly to draw out those quiet gasps and whines you make for him.
Nerd Clark who spends way too much time fondling your tits, only stopping when they're tender and red from the assault his mouth put them through. He finally moves on with a whine when he sees you whimper at the overstimulation, but not before pressing a chaste kiss to both of your breasts like they're something living and could feel his affection.
Nerd Clark whose mouth is a weapon of mass destruction and you somehow have the misfortune (or should I say, fortune?) of being his target.
Nerd Clark who laps at your pussy like a man starved. Holding your thighs apart with those chiseled arms of his while he attacks your clit with little kitten licks. Giving only enough for you to writhe beneath him.
Nerd Clark who works you patiently, drawing your pleasure out until you snap on his tongue with his name loud in your mouth and your body convulsing around him.
Nerd Clark who let's you harshly tug at his hair as the force of your climax consumes you whole. He doesn't so much as whine in complaint when your thighs all but suffocate him with how tight they're wrapped around his neck, shoving his face deeper into you.
Nerd Clark who has almost all of his face shiny with your release when he crawls back up to you. The sight stealing all air out of your lungs becuase holy shit is this a sight to see. You're pretty sure you'd pay good amount of money for just another moment to watch him like this again.
Nerd Clark who has you losing your mind on his fingers next “This what you were thinking about that day, sweetheart?” He says as he curls his fingers slightly, hitting the spot that makes you cry out and confessing your ugly fantasies to him.
Nerd Clark who revels in the fact that he's got you so worked up you don't even know what you're confessing.
Nerd Clark who makes the mistake of trying to take off his fogged glasses to avoid losing the sight of you. Much to your displeasure as you shove them back on.
“Baby, I can't see you with these on” he punctuates between kisses, of course he wants the glasses off. Who would be dumb enough to not want to see you, all naked and flushed and moaning for him?
Nerd Clark who realises you have a very specific kink when he sees your reluctance to let the glasses leave his face.
Nerd Clark who slides them upward instead, letting the black frame rest in his hair like a little tiara and god if it doesn't drive you crazy.
Nerd Clark who can see the shift in your energy at that in the way your eyes go dark, and can't wait another moment before he's inside you.
Nerd Clark who is big enough to hurt even after he's stretched you out. And damn it if he isn't proud about it. “Am I too big for you, baby?” He teases, inching inside slowly, letting you adjust to the sheer size of him. “You're just a tiny little thing, aren't you?”
Nerd Clark who becomes utterly insufferable when he watches his cock slide all the way into you “Look at you, sweetie. All stretched out on my cock”
Nerd Clark who makes you think you've descended to heaven when he starts to move becuase surely a feeling like this doesn't exist in this universe.
Your hips rock up themselves, meeting his every thrust as endless curses spill from his lips, emphasising how good you feel around him, how perfect.
You let the praise wash over you and drive you closer to the climax.
Nerd Clark who is dominant and unrestrained but never rough enough to hurt. Always looking for signs of discomfort and monitoring your micro expressions to see if you're hurting.
Nerd Clark who doubles down when he hears your sounds pitching higher. His hands make their way to your knees pushing them toward you, making the angle steeper and hitting that deep spot inside you.
Nerd Clark who praises you through it when he sees how you react to it
“Such a good girl for me, sweetheart.”
“Taking my cock so well”
“You're gonna come for me? You gonna be a good girl?”
It makes your skin prickle, fingers tremble and toes curl into the mattress as you bite down on his shoulder to muffle the cry that tears out of you as your orgasm swallows you completely.
Nerd Clark whose thrusts grow erratic when he feels your warm walls convulsing and fluttering around him. The feeling addictive and ruining him at the same time.
His hand find your breasts again “Fuck me, these tits” he grunts, mouth enveloping a nipple as one of his hands grips and massages the other breast as if it is an achor he needs to hold onto to keep himself tethered to you.
Nerd Clark who is loud when he comes. Loud enough that you'll probably have your neighbours complaining tomorrow but your name in his mouth sounds so fucking delicious that you can't bring yourself to care about anything but the fact that you want to hear it again and again and again.
Nerd Clark who cleans you up after. And boy is it a sight to behold. His skin is flushed and glowing with the soft sheen of sweat. His curls all messed up, and you feel a flutter down south knowing its your hands that did that.
There's a shy smile on his face as he's back to the gentle, nerdy part of himself that you so dearly adore.
Nerd Clark who is a cuddler, he pulls you close immediately after he settles onto your bed, rubbing comforting circles on your back making you sleepy in his arms.
And you swear you hear him mumble something like “Sleep good, sweetheart” and soft lips pressing against your forehead before you finally let your eyes close, falling asleep in the arms of the man who you might fall in love with. Especially given everything that happened today. There's no way you're gonna let this be a one time thing.
A/N : In my defense, I'm ovulating 👀
Warnings : 18+ MDNI, smut, vibrators, masturbation (f), Tit worship, oral (f rec), PinV, PwP, foul language, Clark being a nerd and hot soft-dom boyfriend at the same time, perverted reader, even more perverted Clark
Word Count : 1.8 k
Nerd Clark who is the quietest person at the daily planet. Quiet to the point where people wonder if he's even fit to be a reporter. But as his interactions with the superman have proved, he's very worthy of his position despite being so……mysterious.
Nerd Clark who is shy to return smiles when you wish him a cheery good morning summoning the brightest smile on your face.
Nerd Clark who slowly opens up to you. And by opens up I mean he lets a few good mornings and goodbyes slip free when he watches you arrive or leave.
Nerd Clark who thinks you're friends.
Nerd Clark who has no idea how bad your intentions are. That you hardly want friendship from him. What you want is for him to ruin you.
Nerd Clark who watches you stare at him, thinking its a loving look on your face except your eyes are raking over his body thinking about how soft those curls would feel under your palms, how those glasses would fog up when you have him panting under you, how those massive ridges of muscles would ripple when he's thrusting into you and how those veins would feel if you traced it with your tongue.
Nerd Clark who snaps you out of your wild imagination with a snap of his fingers and you're left breathless and wet in the office in the middle of the day.
Nerd Clark who believes your excuse of not feeling well when you look all red and leave for home early.
Nerd Clark who would never know that you spent that night riding your vibrator pretending it to be him, moaning his name out loud until your walls have it memorised. (I meant bedroom walls, what're you even thinking, you dirty minded duckling)
Nerd Clark who's all shy when you kiss him for the first time. All nervous smiles and fumbling hands as his lips move over yours in a slow rhythm.
Nerd Clark whose glasses nugde against your nose when he leans in for a second kiss, much to his annoyance but only until you end up giggling against his mouth.
Nerd Clark who does not understand why you're so keen on him leaving his glasses on during the kiss even when it's in the way.
Nerd Clark who you think would be shy and soft and sweet in bed and turns out he's anything but.
Nerd Clark who has you pinned against the door the moment you close it after getting home.
Nerd Clark whose hungry eyes, dilated pupils, and shameless strokes of his fingers under your shirt surprise you in the best way becuase where did that shy nerd go who was nervous to kiss you?
Nerd Clark who has known everything since the beginning and still let you work for him, and yearn for him, all this time.
Nerd Clark whose voice is possesive and dark and rough when he leans in close to your ear and whispers “You've been testing my patience, baby” before his mouth is on you.
Nerd Clark who revels in watching you all shocked and dumbfounded at knowing how his shy personality just switches off around you.
Nerd Clark who has the filthiest mouth on him and loves to rile you up “Why do you look so dumb baby? Were’nt you the one who invited me here?”
Nerd Clark who chuckles against your lips when you have no words left and you decide kissing him would be the appropriate response.
Nerd Clark who picks you up like you weigh no more than a pillow before he trudges toward your bedroom.
Nerd Clark who takes his sweet time with you. Kissing his way down your body, worshipping every inch of skin revealed.
Nerd Clark who you know is gone when his eyes zeroe in on your tits, his tongue sneaking out to wet his lips before his mouth is on you. Warm and wet and so fucking desperate as he laps at your skin, nipping your nipple with his teeth ever so slightly to draw out those quiet gasps and whines you make for him.
Nerd Clark who spends way too much time fondling your tits, only stopping when they're tender and red from the assault his mouth put them through. He finally moves on with a whine when he sees you whimper at the overstimulation, but not before pressing a chaste kiss to both of your breasts like they're something living and could feel his affection.
Nerd Clark whose mouth is a weapon of mass destruction and you somehow have the misfortune (or should I say, fortune?) of being his target.
Nerd Clark who laps at your pussy like a man starved. Holding your thighs apart with those chiseled arms of his while he attacks your clit with little kitten licks. Giving only enough for you to writhe beneath him.
Nerd Clark who works you patiently, drawing your pleasure out until you snap on his tongue with his name loud in your mouth and your body convulsing around him.
Nerd Clark who let's you harshly tug at his hair as the force of your climax consumes you whole. He doesn't so much as whine in complaint when your thighs all but suffocate him with how tight they're wrapped around his neck, shoving his face deeper into you.
Nerd Clark who has almost all of his face shiny with your release when he crawls back up to you. The sight stealing all air out of your lungs becuase holy shit is this a sight to see. You're pretty sure you'd pay good amount of money for just another moment to watch him like this again.
Nerd Clark who has you losing your mind on his fingers next “This what you were thinking about that day, sweetheart?” He says as he curls his fingers slightly, hitting the spot that makes you cry out and confessing your ugly fantasies to him.
Nerd Clark who revels in the fact that he's got you so worked up you don't even know what you're confessing.
Nerd Clark who makes the mistake of trying to take off his fogged glasses to avoid losing the sight of you. Much to your displeasure as you shove them back on.
“Baby, I can't see you with these on” he punctuates between kisses, of course he wants the glasses off. Who would be dumb enough to not want to see you, all naked and flushed and moaning for him?
Nerd Clark who realises you have a very specific kink when he sees your reluctance to let the glasses leave his face.
Nerd Clark who slides them upward instead, letting the black frame rest in his hair like a little tiara and god if it doesn't drive you crazy.
Nerd Clark who can see the shift in your energy at that in the way your eyes go dark, and can't wait another moment before he's inside you.
Nerd Clark who is big enough to hurt even after he's stretched you out. And damn it if he isn't proud about it. “Am I too big for you, baby?” He teases, inching inside slowly, letting you adjust to the sheer size of him. “You're just a tiny little thing, aren't you?”
Nerd Clark who becomes utterly insufferable when he watches his cock slide all the way into you “Look at you, sweetie. All stretched out on my cock”
Nerd Clark who makes you think you've descended to heaven when he starts to move becuase surely a feeling like this doesn't exist in this universe.
Your hips rock up themselves, meeting his every thrust as endless curses spill from his lips, emphasising how good you feel around him, how perfect.
You let the praise wash over you and drive you closer to the climax.
Nerd Clark who is dominant and unrestrained but never rough enough to hurt. Always looking for signs of discomfort and monitoring your micro expressions to see if you're hurting.
Nerd Clark who doubles down when he hears your sounds pitching higher. His hands make their way to your knees pushing them toward you, making the angle steeper and hitting that deep spot inside you.
Nerd Clark who praises you through it when he sees how you react to it
“Such a good girl for me, sweetheart.”
“Taking my cock so well”
“You're gonna come for me? You gonna be a good girl?”
It makes your skin prickle, fingers tremble and toes curl into the mattress as you bite down on his shoulder to muffle the cry that tears out of you as your orgasm swallows you completely.
Nerd Clark whose thrusts grow erratic when he feels your warm walls convulsing and fluttering around him. The feeling addictive and ruining him at the same time.
His hand find your breasts again “Fuck me, these tits” he grunts, mouth enveloping a nipple as one of his hands grips and massages the other breast as if it is an achor he needs to hold onto to keep himself tethered to you.
Nerd Clark who is loud when he comes. Loud enough that you'll probably have your neighbours complaining tomorrow but your name in his mouth sounds so fucking delicious that you can't bring yourself to care about anything but the fact that you want to hear it again and again and again.
Nerd Clark who cleans you up after. And boy is it a sight to behold. His skin is flushed and glowing with the soft sheen of sweat. His curls all messed up, and you feel a flutter down south knowing its your hands that did that.
There's a shy smile on his face as he's back to the gentle, nerdy part of himself that you so dearly adore.
Nerd Clark who is a cuddler, he pulls you close immediately after he settles onto your bed, rubbing comforting circles on your back making you sleepy in his arms.
And you swear you hear him mumble something like “Sleep good, sweetheart” and soft lips pressing against your forehead before you finally let your eyes close, falling asleep in the arms of the man who you might fall in love with. Especially given everything that happened today. There's no way you're gonna let this be a one time thing.
⤷ professor!bucky barnes x reader
summary: You’re a literature student. He’s your English professor — brilliant, composed, and entirely off-limits. But the more you write, the more he notices you. And what begins as admiration quietly unravels into something far more dangerous.
── .✦ WARNINGS: 18+ explicit content, MDNI. curse words, mutual desperation, age gap, smut; more specific warnings will be listed in each part, please tread carefully!
✦Read on aO3! - Masterlist - Soldier Boy Masterlist✦
✦summary: soldier boy never liked soft things, until he met you. suddenly, there's nothing more important in the world✦
✦warnings/tags: Soldier Boy x female!reader, no use of y/n, no description of reader, age gap (he's a hundred), angst, switching pov between ben and reader, softer!ben, canon divergance, pining, plot to earn the smut (dirty talk, posessiveness, teasing, praise and degredation kink, size kink, dry humping, body worship, dom!Ben, nipple play, finger sucking, begging, manhandling, oral f!reciving, pussy spanking, overstimulation, clit abuse, creampie, monster dick ben, rough sex, this man is a sex god fr fr, edging, dumbification, dacryphilia, hyperspermia, squirting), love confessions, fluff✦
✦wc: 11k✦
✦author's note: request! i love that old man✦
Butcher said he knew a librarian, and Soldier Boy snorted.
“You think some moldy, four-eyed broad is going to help us fix this? Some gal who’s never gotten her hands dirty in her life?”
“I think we’re runnin’ outta options,” Butcher said, shooting Soldier Boy a look of challenge. “You got better ideas, I’m all ears. ‘Till then, we’re goin’ to see my girl.”
Soldier Boy had opened his mouth, ready to suggest many better ideas—he was full of them, a real strategic genius—when Hughie cleared his throat from his side. He had a hand up, like he was going to touch Soldier Boy’s shoulder, but thought better at the last second.
“She’s- You’ll like her, I think,” Hughie twitched, struggling to hold Soldier Boy’s gaze, but still trying. He’d never say it, but Soldier Boy admired the weed, twitchy kid’s tiny balls, for not giving up and running to the hills. Bravery wasn’t exactly in the cocksucker’s favor. “You’ll like her a lot more than us.”
That almost made Soldier Boy laugh. “That ain’t gonna be hard, kid.”
But screw him north, south, and to Tinseltown, the cocksucker was right.
They walked into the library, and the first thing Soldier Boy noticed was that it was warm and cool all at once. Like stepping into a building made of springtime. Sunlight poured in, but there was a soft hum in the background from the fans. The furniture was cozy, but everything was perfectly clean. Butcher called out a name, lazily bouncing on his feet, and an angelic voice called back.
“Be right there!”
Butcher smirked. Hughie shifted nervously, shooting Soldier Boy looks like he’d explode in this little fairy book house. He wouldn’t. Place wasn’t worth wasting his bomb on anyways.
Then you floated into view, and Soldier Boy felt the ground under his feet shift. You weren’t a molding, self-important, four-eyed bitch. If this was a fairy book house, you were a fairy. If you had the voice of an angel, it was because you were an angle, and the world twisted itself to give you everything you needed. The sunlight bended, hitting you like some scene from those romance movies he’d always refused to shoot. You floated more than walked. You smiled like you knew everything, and it didn’t even piss him off.
Soldier Boy hadn’t been a teenager in almost a hundred years, but suddenly he remembered. How it felt for his face to heat and his cock to twitch and his heart to race under his palms. He kicked himself silently, gritting his jaw and standing a little taller. He was a grown fucking man. An American icon. A hero. He wasn’t going to tip over his fucking feet like some kid, especially not for some pretty girl that probably looked down on him. On everyone. The smart ones always did.
They were also the most fun to get in bed. They got bratty, then stupid when he fucked them nice and slow. All the mocking and sass draining out of their pussy, onto Soldier Boy’s hands and cock. Sharp eyes go dazed and sneers fall into open, shocked lips.
You’ve got those sharp eyes, as you take their little group in. They’re like a hawk, picking them apart with a single look. A hawk in a doll’s body. A sexy, smart little doll.
But there’s no sneer. Even as you glare at Butcher, you’re more pouting than anything else. Solider Boy wonders if you’d pout while begging for him, or just get defiant and bitchy. He’d love to find out.
“You’re getting blood on the carpet,” you tell Butcher, and he shrugs.
“Ain’t you worried about where I’m leakin’ the blood from, love-“
“No.” You cross your arms, lifting you chin. “You’re going to clean it up.”
Butcher’s shoulders curve slightly. Like a scolded fucking child. “C’mon, I got other shit to be workin’ on-“
“Then you shouldn’t have dragged blood on my carpet.”
“But- I got work I needed ya for-“
“Hughie can tell me about it.” You offer Hughie a small smile, and he waves in return.
Soldier Boy stands a little taller. Maybe you just haven’t noticed him yet.
“Clean,” you snap at Butcher, turning on your heels and marching back between the shelves.
Butcher looks at Hughie and Soldier Boy, like they’re supposed to save him from this shit. Hughie gives him an apologetic smile, and follows you into the back. Soldier Boy grins, clapping Butcher on the shoulder before following.
“You didn’t tell me she was a firecracker-“
“She ain’t a firecracker,” Butcher muttered, rolling up his sleeves and glaring around the entryway for whatever people use to clean things. “She’s a fuckin’ problem.”
Soldier Boy smirked, looking back to where you disappeared. “Even fuckin’ better.”
Butcher snorted, giving Soldier Boy a strange, half-amused look. “Good luck with that one, Gov. Don’t blow the fuckin’ job.”
Soldier Boy flipped him off. He’d never blown the job over a woman before—not even an ethereal, enchanting one—and he’s not about to start now. He stood in the corner of your little office, while Hughie asked you questions about books and chemicals and other, smartass shit that Soldier Boy’s never bothered with. He always had people like you on payroll, to give him those answers when he needed them, but usually he didn’t. You punch anything hard enough, it breaks. And he was pretty fucking good at punching.
He said that, at one point. Hughie sighed like he was in physical pain—kid was fucking dramatic—and you just gave him a curious tilt of your head.
“You’re good at punching?”
“I’ m the fuckin’ best.” Soldier Boy pushed off the wall, crossing over to the desk. “Could show you sometimes. Teach you how to defend yourself.”
“Hm.”
You looked him up and down, and Soldier Boy found himself puffing out his chest and flexing his arms. He’d dealt with hard to get girls before. They always cave, when he chases long enough. When he gives them a bit of a show, and promises them it’ll be worth their time.
“What would I be defending myself against?” You asked, soft and sweet. Your voice was like honey. Soldier Boy wanted to get trapped in it, like a fly.
“There are evil people out there,” he drawled, leaning over the desk.
You didn’t lean away, but you blink, and Soldier Boy hears your heartbeat skip. Any reaction is a good one. Meant he was doing something to your body, and that was the first step in getting his foot through the door.
“But I’m here to protect you,” Soldier Boy winked, and stuck out a hand. That was his favorite line. It always fucking worked. “Soldier Boy, doll. Pleasure to meet you.”
Usually, that line made women of all ages and makes swoon. They’d bat their lashes and giggle if they were easy, roll their eyes and flush if they were hard, get starry-eyed if they were innocent, or twirl their hair of they were just as sinful as Soldier Boy himself. But you looked him up and down, and your heartbeat was at a steady baseline. You watched him like you were trying to read him. Like he had thoughts written over his face, and you were skimming through them. Through him.
“I know,” you said, taking his hand and shaking once. Your fingers weren’t trembling. Your smile was kind, but controlled. “Nice to meet you.”
Soldier Boy blinked, hand still hanging in the air as you turned back to your computer. He’d felt an unsteady heartbeat under his fingers, when you’d touched. But it wasn’t yours. It was his. He wasn’t fucking nervous. His mouth was oddly dry. He cleared his throat and stood back up, trying to strangle some fucking dignity into his body. He wasn’t about to fold in half like some fucking pussy. He just hadn’t gotten properly laid in too fucking long. You were pretty. That was fucking it.
You helped Butcher and Hughie with the job, tracking down books and flipping through them with nimble fingers. Soldier Boy imagined them wrapped around his cock, and forced himself not to rub himself through his pants. He wasn’t about to be that fucking pathetic, no matter how much it hurt. No matter how he couldn’t look away from you for a single second, in case you just turned into mist and turned out to be some kind of fucked up hallucination.
Soldier Boy watched you, as you read and spoke to Butcher. You were polite. Please and thank you and tiny fucking giggles that made his balls heavy. It would be fun to fuck all that out of you. All those sweet words pouring out of your lips, as you’d cry and sing for him.
Butcher seemed to respect you, which said something Soldier Boy wasn’t sure how to hear. Nothing and everything good. When Hughie told you what supes they were going after, you didn’t blink or crow uselessly about murder not being right. You’d just rolled up your sleeves and gotten to fucking work. Soldier Boy could appreciate that. No use in crying about shit that had to be done.
“How’d Butcher find someone like you,” Soldier Boy asked when it was just the two of you. You looked up with raised brows, he almost fucking balked.
Pretty fucking doe-eyes that ripped right through him. Fucking dangerous.
“Someone like me?” You echoed, and he grunted.
“You’re too fucking gorgeous to be tangled up in this shit-“
“Am I?” Your lips twitched. “I wish someone would’ve told me that. I would’ve kicked you out.”
Soldier Boy opened his mouth, his tongue dragging over his lips. You kept fucking smiling and talking, and he was asking you to smile and talk, but it did something drug-like to his brain and he didn’t fucking like it.
“You know, I used to watch your movies as a kid,” you said casually.
Soldier Boy smirked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He could fucking work with that. “Yeah? You a groupie?”
That got another, breathy little laugh from your lips. Christ, the sound was addicting. “Not quite. I’m not- That’s not really something I do.”
“Somethin’ you do? The fuck does that mean.”
You shrugged. “Hero worship.”
Soldier Boy frowned. The fuck were heroes for, if not to be worshipped. “You think you’re too good for that shit? For getting wet from seein’ someone you want on a screen?”
That got a flush. It’s the best fucking color he’d seen, on your face. He wanted to kiss over it, make it bloom down your neck and over your tits.
“I bet you were a dirty fuckin’ girl, weren’t you,” he leaned further forward, and dared to reach over the desk. To brush his fingers against your arm, and revel in the way you shivered from his touch. “Had posters of me in your room, didn’t you. Used to touch yourself, thinkin’ about me breaking through the fucking wall and taking you right there.”
You blinked at him, with those pretty fucking eyes. They were glossy, now. Another step. He was closer, to what he wanted, and it was the best damn feeling in the world.
“Well, I’m here to make dreams come true, doll,” he traced down your arm, and your breath caught. “Just tell me how you want it, I’ll fuck you ‘till you’re too cross-eyed to read this shit.”
He jerked his head to the books, and waited. This was the part where you told him to bend you over the desk, to pin you to the wall, to pull you into his lap and let you ride him until you passed out.
But instead, you fucking laughed. You pulled your arm back and giggled, shaking your head like he’d said something funny. Soldier Boy’s mouth fell open, and he felt like a fucking idiot. You flipped through your little book, ignoring his dumbfounded expression. He opened and closed his mouth like a damn fish, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
“My favorite was Ghosts of Hanai,” you told him, offering another one of those mind-numbing smiles. “Did you know it was a book first?”
Soldier Boy did not know that. He couldn’t remember how to speak, to tell you that.
“It’s a really good book. Obviously you’re not the main character- In the book- But I kind of liked the adaptation anyway. It wasn’t as- You know- Good. But it was more fun.”
“I’ll show you fun,” he muttered before he could stop himself, and you just giggled again.
If you did that shit one more time, he was going to have to go into the bathroom to beat himself off. Soldier Boy knew why Butcher called you a problem, now. You were perfect, and infuriating, and he should’ve wanted to put your head through a wall for fucking laughing at him, but he didn’t. He wanted to hear that songbird sound again. He wanted to fucking get under your skin, the way you’d seeped under his.
“Bye, Soldier Boy,” you waved to him like a sweet siren, when they were ready to go. He grunted, and waved back.
“You sure she ain’t some kind of supe,” he asked Butcher in the van, and Butcher snorted.
“I’ve wondered, but nah. Just a fuckin’ human.”
Butcher gave Hughie some kind of secret look that Soldier Boy didn’t concern himself with. He was too busy thinking about you. He’d have to go back to you see you. He’d make up a reason why. But he wasn’t used to not getting things he wanted, and he was worried he might want you so much his annoying fucking heart was going to give out about it. He couldn’t allow that.
You’d remember him. You’d laugh for him more. He’d figure out what made you like him, and he’d do it, and then this annoying buzz in his bloodstream could fuck off.
This annoying fucking feeling better fuck off.
It wouldn’t fuck off.
Soldier Boy found himself back at your library after a week. If anyone asked, he’d say he tried to stay away. It would be to preserve dignity. To pretend he hadn’t been hoping they’d need more stupid books so he could go back and see you.
You were clinging to the edge of his every thought. That laugh, that smile, the magnetic way you’d spoken and sat and been. Gentle but not weak. Kind but not stupid. A rare kind of thing to be, when you knew the dark kind of shit that grew in the corners of the world. Part of Soldier Boy prayed it was just an act. That he’d talk to you a little more, and you’d be no better than the rest of them. Then he could fuck you and forget after, like he’d done with almost every other person on his long, stained list of bodies.
But you were just fucking like that. And it was insufferable and enchanting and fucking amazing.
“Soldier Boy,” you said when he returned, blinking in surprise, and something else he couldn’t read. “You’re… back?”
He grunted. “Obviously.”
“Do you need help with another-“
“No.”
You frowned at him. Did that little head tilt, and Christ, what he wouldn’t give to just bury his fucking face in your neck and breathe you in.
“I just here to get a book,” he heard himself say, and Jesus, you were doing something to him. He didn’t give a fuck about books. He certainly didn’t want one.
But you were here. And Soldier Boy had a feeling you wouldn’t be open to him just being here to see you.
And you lit up, when he said he wanted a book. Great. Now he was going to have to fucking read, just to get some pussy.
“What book?”
“A- Big one.” That had to be impressive. “Biggest you’ve got, doll.”
He winked, looping his thumbs through his belt. You made that face again, brow raising slightly. “Big as in long, or complicated?”
Soldier Boy shrugged. “Both.”
“Fiction or Nonfiction?”
Why were there so many kinds of fucking books. “Whichever one you like better. I trust you won’t give me something shit.”
That made your lips twitch, and it hit Soldier Boy like a rush of coke. His head got lighter and the world got sharper, and you smiled at him, and that heartbeat was his again. He really was worse than a fucking teenager.
“Wait here,” you told him, and he did. Like a fucking dog.
You came back with a massive heap of a book. There couldn’t be that many words in the world, let alone enough sentances to make something that long. Anything worth saying shouldn’t take more than a fucking page.
“Infinite Jest.” You passed him the book, and he stared at you. “Long and complicated.”
Soldier Boy grunted, not bothering to spare the book a glance. You were what he was here for, and if you just fucking walked away, he felt like he might explode.
“You like this thing?” He almost barked, and you paused, already a half-step back.
“It’s okay,” you said slowly. Actually fucking thinking about your answer. “I like his essays better.”
“Essays?” Soldier Boy frowned. “You like his fuckin’ book reports?”
You gave him one of those coy, honeyed half-smiles again. He was worried he was going to fucking drool. “Creative essays. Like- Book reports about your life.”
Soldier Boy nodded, glancing down to the book, then back to you. He didn’t want to read this shit. Book reports had, as far as he remembered, always been short. And he wanted to see what kind of shit you liked to read. What you considered good. “I want one of those. Instead of this.”
He’d meant it to be an order, but it came out without the usual edge he put in his tone. That edge was his best weapon. It had won him countless battles before they even fucking started.
But you just gave him that fucking look. The one where he felt flimsy and stupid and weak, his body all excited from your attention and his fingers itching to dig into your soft looking skin. You smiled, and he swallowed, drawing himself a little taller. He wouldn’t just fall into you. He refused to be that fucking weak.
“Read that first,” you told him. “Then we’ll talk about the essays.”
You turned and walked away. Soldier Boy let you go, because if he touched you, he was worried he was going to turn into more of a weak fucking lapdog than he already was. He wished he could read you—read that smile, those looks, the lacey tone you took with him and seemingly no one else—as well as you seemed to be able to peel him right apart. He looked back at the book, roughly flipping it to the first page. He tried to read the first sentence, but the words floated off the fucking page and didn’t even brush through his brain. He couldn’t read this shit.
Then we’ll talk, you’d said.
You’d talk to him, if he read this.
Christ on a Cross. He was going to try and read a book.
It took him a month. A month of staring at words in the dead of night, when he couldn’t sleep and no one was around to see. If Butcher caught him trying this shit, he’d never hear the end of it. Hell, he wasn’t hearing the end of it now, and no one even knew he was reading.
“Where you goin’, Gov?” Butcher barked as Soldier Boy moved to the door, and he scowled at the air.
“None of your fucking business.”
Then Butcher said your name, smiling knowingly, and Soldier Boy wanted to punch his teeth in. “You’re goin’ to see her again, ain’t you-“
“Said it was none of your fucking business,” Soldier Boy spat, raising a firm finger. “Not another word, or I punch your teeth into your asshole, you got that?”
Butcher just laughed to himself, and Soldier Boy ground his teeth. It wasn’t anything like your laugh, but then again, nothing was.
“Hi, Soldier Boy,” you greeted him without looking now. He wanted to think that meant something. That you were getting as obsessed with his presence as he was with yours. “Did the dictionary help?”
“Mhm,” he glanced at the sitting area, where a few old folks—younger than him, but wrinkled in a way he’d never be—were poking through the newspapers and chatting. There were some kids in the book section. Few teens giggling, somewhere deeper between the shelves.
No one paying him any mind. No one to look at him and wonder what the fuck Soldier Boy was doing in a library, why he’d needed a dictionary, like he was some dumbass who couldn’t speak or read or-
“I needed a dictionary,” you said, and Soldier Boy blinked. You were looking at him. Right at him. He felt it, in his heartbeat, and he never wanted it to fucking stop.
“What,” he said, stupid and drunk, and you smiled.
“I needed a dictionary. To get through Infinite Jest. The first time,” you amended, your eyes getting strangely softer the longer you watched him. “But- I still needed it.”
Soldier Boy’s hands curled into fists. “You read it multiple times?” This one time was feeling like it was going to fucking kill him.
“I read most things multiple times.”
He snorted. “Jesus.”
That made you blink. A faint flush creeped onto your face, and you looked back to your computer. Soldier Boy froze. Your heart was doing a little fucking stumble.
Interesting.
“You’re real fuckin’ smart, huh?” He tried, just to see what would happen.
Your heart did the little stumble again.
Jackpot.
“Maybe,” you mumbled, glaring at your screen. “I just- Like books.”
Soldier Boy snorted. “Yeah. Think I figured that one out myself.”
You hummed, not meeting his gaze anymore. You were getting quiet. He didn’t like it. Not like this. You’d be allowed to get quiet and shy when he was balls deep inside of you. Right now, he wanted to hear that pretty fucking voice, teasing and sassing and helping him, all at once.
“What kind of books do you like,” he asked, and it sounded lame to his own ears.
But you looked at him. And screw him up the ass and sideways, it was fucking worth it.
“What kind of books do I like?”
“That’s what I fucking said, isn’t it?”
You stared at him. He stared back, because there was one thing he wasn’t going to let himself do, and it was back off of this.
“Why?”
And Soldier Boy leaned back. Because you said it like that was a real question. Like he wouldn’t, obviously, naturally, want to know every fucking thing about you. Women liked it when someone listened, he’d learned over the years. He’d listen to whatever the fuck you wanted to say, if it got you closer to being in his arms.
“Because,” he said, and your lips tugged down into that pretty pout.
“Because why?”
“Can’t I just fuckin’ want know?” He snapped, and you leaned back in your chair, crossing your arms.
“No one ever just wants to know.”
Soldier Boy rolled his eyes. “Well, you’re looking at someone, doll. So get that through your pretty head.”
You blinked. Flushed. Wrapped your arms around yourself, like you were trying to stop that loud heartbeat from jumping right out of your chest.
“I like everything,” you said stiffly, and Soldier Boy smirked.
“Everything, huh.”
You shrugged, and he leaned over the desk. Your breath hitched, and he knew his features were turning wolfish, but he didn’t fucking care. You seemed into it anyways.
“Everything,” he breathed, and your lips pressed in a nervous little line. “Show me what everything is, then.”
And I’ll show you everything, gorgeous. He thought about saying it. Thought about how you’d melt and get nervous and he’d have his in.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t figure out why—what the fuck was wrong with him, what the fuck you were doing—but the words got caught, and he didn’t say them. He had you where he wanted you anyway, he rationalized. Talking to him. Smiling at him. Breaking you right now would be too fucking easy.
Since when had he not wanted easy.
Maybe since you pulled him through the bookshelves with light, delicate fingers on his wrist. Like you were afraid of breaking him. Since you talked and talked and talked, and he realized how fucked he was.
He wasn’t listening to you talk to fuck you. He just wanted to hear you talk, about books and ships and history and romance and any other fucking thing you wanted. He went home with a book he hadn’t gone there for, because you said it would help him keep trudging through Infinite Jest, and it did. He finished it that week, and marched back into your library with a prideful grin, slamming the monster of a book down on your desk.
“Done,” he declared, and you smiled at him like you were fucking happy, and it did something to his chest he didn’t want to name. Something fucking gooey and light. Something dangerous and strange.
“Did you like it?” You asked him, like it fucking mattered.
Soldier Boy nodded, and you beamed.
“I have something for you, next.”
Of course you fucking did. You were just perfect like that. And the next thing was a damn picture book, but when he glared at you, you just giggled and pushed it further into his hands.
“Trust me,” you said, and fuck him, he did.
He took the damn book, because you were the one handing it to him, and he’d read it, because that smile was the best thing he’d ever damn seen.
“Bye, Soldier Boy,” you said when he walked away, and he paused.
Soldier Boy. The character, in the movie you hadn’t liked as much as the book. “Ben.”
You blinked, and he sighed.
“My name is Ben.”
“Oh- Okay,” you flushed, and there it was again. That little skip in your heart. “My name is-“
“I know your name, doll,” he drawled, and you bowed your head. Shy and adorable and he was so fucked.
“Right. I- I knew that.”
He chuckled, grinning down at you, and that hawk sharpness in your eyes was gone. You looked like a fucking bunny, and screw him, he wanted to bend you over right there. He brushed his fingers with yours, and you made the tiniest fucking sound.
“Bye, pretty girl,” he said, and you mumbled another bye of your own.
Soldier Boy took a deep breath through his nose, and smelled it. Heady and thick and purely fucking you.
You were turned on. It made his own cock twitch in response, throbbing and begging him to coat itself in that sweet slick between your legs. To feel the way it would stick and slide against him, to cover himself in you and make you his and-
He took a deep breath. He’d be back tomorrow. He’d keep testing it, until you snapped. You made him chase, he’d keep fucking chasing. He didn’t want to just take you anymore. He wanted to make you admit it. That you wanted him as much as he wanted you.
He was worried that wasn’t fucking possible. That no one had ever wanted anyone, as much as he wanted you.
Feelings were so fucking annoying. He still refused to name them. You’d do that for him, with all your smart words and pretty eyes.
Soldier Boy looked over his shoulder before he walked out the door. You were watching him. He smirked, waving a hand in goodbye. You flushed and looked frantically back to your computer.
He’d get you where he wanted you. Didn’t matter what he’d need to do. He looked at the book in his hands. Comic, you’d called it. He’d give it a shot. For you.
He was starting to worry, about the type of shit he’d do for you.
“What’s your thing,” Ben grunted at you one day, and you frowned.
“My thing?”
“Everyone’s got something that gets them in this shitty game,” he said. “They kill someone you love? Help someone you hated. One of those soft little fuckin’ pussies try and do something to you?”
A small, angry part of him flared at that. Anything that had touched you would burn.
“I mean- It’s just the right thing to do,” you mumbled, looking back to your book, and Ben snorted.
Of course you’d do the right fucking thing. He knew you better now. He shouldn’t have bothered to be surprised.
You liked things too much. You were too soft and too hard in all the strangest places. You never looked at him like you were afraid, and you praised him for finishing comic book after comic book—you’d been right, he liked those things, more than he’d say aloud, but you knew—and then you’d flush when he gave you a little too much attention and get sassy when he tested you.
He knew about your past now. There were darker parts that made him angry. Happier shit that made you smile, and made him want you to smile about him one day.
You knew about his past. More than he’d ever told the tabloids. He’d found it slipping out of him, the longer he was around you. But you had that effect on him. Flowing over his like the fucking ocean and catching him in your tide. He didn’t fight it. Anything that made you look at him, that let him tease you, and made you all fucking soft and sugary.
Ben brought you dinner now, like some kind of delivery boy. But you always smiled at him, and asked him how his day had been, and damn him that kept making it worth it. You kept making it worth it. He was allowed in your place now, and he didn’t question why. He’d just been there, and you’d been going home, and he’d been allowed to walk you there. It wasn’t too far from the library, and pretty fucking small, but it smelled like you. Felt like you. So he liked it, and he found a reason to be there almost every fucking day, and that reason was food or your safety or another comic book. You’d talk and he’d listen, then he’d talk and you’d listen, and fuck him, he felt better than he had in longer than he wanted to admit. In maybe forever. And it was all fucking you.
“Wow.” Hughie had said to him, about a week ago. “You really don’t just want to like- You know. Bang her.”
Ben had grunted, not bothering to respond. All the shit he said just made them bigger asses. Butcher had taken to asking him to read every single piece of paper they came across. Frenchie had been making kissy faces behind his back, and asked him to make out with a book. The only reason Ben hadn’t crushed his skull with a single hand was that he’d be kicked out, and you’d probably frown upon that upon that.
“Heard you been reading,” MM had grunted to him. “Didn’t know you knew how.”
Ben had ignored that too, mostly because he hadn’t know he could read either. But he was getting better at it. Helpful to have a good motivator.
You.
He didn’t want to just fuck you anymore. He wasn’t sure what the fuck he wanted. You smiled and the world felt in order. You said his name and it sounded like being called home. Fucking you would be a benefit—you’d only gotten hotter, the longer he’d looked, and his shower and pillowcases knew your name as well as his dreams did by now—but he also liked just… sitting here. Talking. Like some cucked, pathetic little housewife-
“Why do you do it?” You asked, and Ben paused.
“Do what? Fight?”
You nodded, watching him with that judgement free curiosity. He frowned at his burrito, hoping it would give him the answer. He didn’t fucking know. He never thought about that kind of shit, unless you asked him to.
“Couldn’t you just… leave?” You asked softly, and he glanced up at you under heavier eyes.
“You want me to leave, doll?”
“No.”
You’d answered so quickly. It made him feel a million feet tall, and decide that maybe flying wasn’t that fucking bad, if this was what it felt like.
“But- Do you really want to do this forever?” Your voice was so quiet, Ben was worried you were trying to tread lightly around him. He never wanted you to do that. Not with him. If he was getting raw and weak, you had to fucking come down with him.
“Nah,” he took a large bite of his burrito, speaking through the mouthful. “Sick of it. All of it. Been lookin’ for something better-“
“Ben,” you chastise, holding out a napkin. “Chew.”
He rolled his eyes, but chewed. You smiled, waiting patiently for him to finish. He never fucking knew how you did that. Put up with him, when all the members of Butcher’s team looked like they wanted to throttle him every damn second. He used to like it like that. To be satisfied, with the way people would glare at him and not be able to do a fucking thing about it.
But you just… liked him. And that felt better than anything else.
“Looking for something better,” he said after he swallowed. “Y’know. Not this shit.”
“What does better look like?”
You asked it gently, and he doesn’t need to think about it.
Better looked like you.
“Still figuring that out, doll,” he muttered, and something taut flashed over your features. Ben frowned. Times like this, he really fucking wished he could read you.
“I hope you figure it out soon,” you mumbled, and Ben swallowed.
He did too.
You’re getting confused, but Ben is a confusing man.
Everything you’d heard about him—from Butcher, Annie, and the TV—said that he’d be a monster. An impossible, murderous asshole who’d snap you in half to get what he wanted. Over sexual and disrespectful. Arrogant and cold.
And he was arrogant. He was impossible, and a bit of an asshole. He’d flirted with you like he couldn’t help himself, and looked at you like he wanted to eat you alive.
But then he actually read the book. He smiled at you, and got soft around edges you hadn’t even noticed were so sharp. It had been like watching barbed wire unravel. Concerning and strange and… endearing.
Ben was surprisingly endearing.
It was like he’d never just had a friend before. He wandered after you in the library like a puppy, and leaned over your desk with squared shoulders like he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing himself.
“What’s that,” he’d ask you every day, about almost every thing, and you’d shove down a laugh. Under all the gruffness and anger, he mostly just seemed confused. About the world. About you.
So at least it was mutual. The uncertainty.
Because for everything you understood about Ben—his loneliness, his age, his strange puppy like demeanor—you didn’t get this. What he meant to you. What you meant to him.
You’re afraid you’re in love with him. That somewhere between take-out dinners and telling him you read romance books, he stopped being just Ben and became yours.
Not yours.
No one else’s. He says he hasn’t gotten laid in forever. Between visiting you and working, you’re sure he hasn’t had time to mess around in a bar or alleyway. That makes you smug, in a way that sits too brightly in your chest. You don’t want him to find that kind of feeling anywhere. You wish he’d ask for it from you.
He makes moves. He flirts and teases and smirks when it pools between your legs, nostrils flaring and eyes gleaming. Like he fucking knows. But he never does anything about it, and you’re going insane.
You mean something to him. You had to. He’s not the kind of man who would’ve stuck around this long, if he didn’t. But he’s also not the kind of man to deprive himself of things. If he wanted you, he should’ve fucking taken you by now.
Hughie turned red, and mumbled something about this not being his business, when you brought it up.
“Just- Talk to him,” he’d pleaded. “Not me. Never me- I- I like life.”
You’d frowned, but Hughie had frantically changed the subject. He seemed to know something you didn’t. They all did.
“He’s fuckin’ obsessed with you,” Butcher had drawled, when you’d asked him. “That’s what we know.”
Your face had burned. “It’s- No he’s- I mean- I know he- He likes women, and- I’m one- But- Just sex-“
“Love, he could find sex on the street or gutter if his dick needed a tug,” Butcher had rolled his eyes like you—pacing and wringing your hands—were the insane one. “He read for you. I’m real bloody sure he didn’t even know what the fuck a book was, ‘fore he laid eyes on your pretty fuckin’ face.”
You’d smacked Butcher. He’d laughed, and started asking more mission-related questions.
You’d obsessed over it all day. Obsessed with you. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. You were you and Ben was Ben. He was Soldier Boy. The handsome face you’d grown up fawning over, the big man on the TV screen that seemed untouchable. You’d almost fainted when you saw him, something like a survival instinct locking over you and stopping you from becoming a downright pathetic schoolgirl. You tried to divorce him in your head, from the idealization of a childhood crush.
But you couldn’t. He was meaner and kinder and smarter and cruder than anything you’d managed to dream of. His praise made you dizzy and his mocking tone sent a pool of desire between your thighs, and then he did the dishes when he thought you weren’t looking—you think he might be under the impression you’ll believe they’re just doing themselves—and asked about your interests and didn’t fuck around.
He was supposed to fuck around. To make it easy on you, to get over the infatuation.
He hadn’t. And now you’re so far gone you spend every day gorging yourself on his attention.
Obsessed.
Pretty girl, he calls you. You’d like to be his pretty girl, if he’d just put a claim on you. You wish you could drink enough to be brave. You wish he’d be selfish again, and just fucking take you.
But you’re going to have to do this the hard way. The way that cleaves you in half, if there’s a single wrong serration. If he just carves your chest open, takes your heart, and doesn’t offer his in return.
You have to try. Because if you don’t, you’re going to be here forever.
He brings you your favorite food, tonight. He sits with his knee bumping yours, and it makes your head so clouded you almost forget your plan.
“Do you have… anything?” You ask, your voice barely more than a nervous breath. “That you want to do?”
Ben gives you a sideways, almost confused look. “The fuck does that mean?”
“I mean, just- What are you planning to do?”
“When.”
“In the future.”
“Ah,” he shrugs, raising his burger back to his mouth. “This.”
You swallow. That’s not helpful. “This?” You prompt weakly, and he nods. “You mean- This?” You wave a hand around the room, and Ben’s lips twitch. “Me?”
“You?”
He says it like he can’t believe what he’s hearing, and your heart shrinks.
That’s what you thought. You never should’ve listened to Butcher and Hughie, you knew that wasn’t what he meant, you fucking knew it and- God, you were so fucking stupid, to think he’d want you back.
“Nevermind,” you mumble, and Ben stiffens.
“Doll-“
“I’m getting a new shipment of books tomorrow.” You don’t want to talk about this anymore. “So- I might be too busy to eat lunch-“
Ben snaps your name, and you stare at your hands.
“I- Um- I don’t know how long it will take, so you don’t have to come over-“
Ben grabs your wrist, his touch almost searing into your skin, and when you look up, he’s staring at you. He’d moved to kneel over you. Your noses would brush if you twitched. His breath fans over your face, and you’re embarrassingly slack under his hand.
“Ben…” You whisper, because you don’t want to do this. You don’t want whatever fragile thing you had—even if it was just friendship—to break.
But he doesn’t move back. He never really has.
“You’re sulking,” he mutters, and you try to bow your head, but he catches your chin with two fingers. Tilts it slowly back up, forcing you to hold his gaze. “Why.”
Your voice is tiny. “Doesn’t matter-“
“The fuck it doesn’t matter. What’s wrong with you.”
“Nothing,” you try to avert your gaze. It’s impossible. “I just- You’re- I’m-“
You cut yourself off lamely. Ben leans in closer, jaw ticking as he scans over your features.
“You want it to be you?”
Your mouth falls open. “I- What?”
“My future.” He rasps. “You want it to be you?”
“Do you?”
Your mouth falls open. “I- What?”
“My future.” He rasps. “You want it to be you?”
“Do you?”
You expect him to laugh, but the lines on his face just deepen. He lets out a sharp breath through his lips, then smirks.
“Maybe I do,” he almost purrs, tipping your chin a little futher back. “What then, doll?”
You gape at him. So close. Saying words he won’t be able to take back, but not enough to make you melt. You’re still guarded. Still careful.
“Say it,” you whisper, because you have to be sure. “The- The whole thing.”
Ben frowns. “Doll-“
“Say it,” you almost plead. “If you mean it-“ Please fucking mean it. “If this isn’t just- If I’m not just some fixation, Ben, please say it-“
He crashes his mouth over yours, and your words turn into a long, hungry whimper. His lips are chapped and warm. Soft but firm, the kiss demanding but controlled. His hand slides into your hair, the other coming up to cup the back of your neck, and you melt into his strong body. His tongue traces over your lower lip, and you whine softly.
You get breathless embaressingly fast. Your thighs press together, but he’s not making it easy on you. His hand on your neck drags down your spine and splays possessively on your back. He pulls you closer, humming in satisfaction when you brace your fingers on his thighs. His knee pushes between your legs, and you grind down against it without a thought.
“Christ,” he kisses the corner of your mouth, smirking as you pant and cling to his jeans. “Needy little thing, ain’t you?”
“Ben,” you whimper, and he hums.
“’S alright. I’m gonna take care of you.” He hooks his arm under your knees, the other sliding under your arms. “C’mon.”
You wrap your arms around his neck as he pulls you into the air, pressing your face into his neck. He carries you steadily to the bedroom, setting you down with suprising gentleness on the bed. You blink hopelessly at him, as he draws back up. He still hasn’t said it.
And like he can read your mind, Ben smirks and flicks your nose with his thumb.
“Not a fixation,” he says. “Just my pretty fuckin’ girl.”
You flush, but refuse to cave that fast. “That’s not saying it.”
Ben snorts. “Jesus, woman-“
“Say it.” You snap, before—under the burn of his gaze—adding a mumbled, “Please.”
Ben chuckles. He peels off his shirt, and you almost forget to be stubborn. His big. Even bigged than he looks with his shirt on. His skin is tanned and soft, his boobs might be bigger than yours, and you can see the flex of thick, well built muscle with every breath. Your tongue flicks over your lips, and he smirks.
“You’re real fuckin’ demanding, you know that?”
“You- You’re supposed to- Ben-“ Your protests fall flat, as he trails a light touch up the underside of your leg. “Ben- That’s- You’re- Not playing fair-“
“I’m not tryin’ to play fair, doll,” he teases. “I’m tryin’ to get you ready.”
“Ready?” you squeak, and he hums, squeezing under your knee.
“Want you to be nice and relaxed for me,” he murmurs. “Gonna use this pretty fuckin’ body right. Make you wet, make you fuckin’ stupid.”
He pushes his fingers under the hem of your shorts, and your breathing is staggered and shallow. You lean back and push into his touch all at once, and Ben’s grin widens.
“Look at that. Already playin’ nice.”
You try to glare at him, but he lean back down, pressing you back into the mattress with a deep kiss. Your fingers shoot into his hair, as his weight settles between your legs. It forces them open, his budge pressing right against you clothed, aching pussy. You hadn’t even let yourself fully feel it—the vastness of your desire—because you’d been worried it would’ve just consumed you entirely. That you’d turn into some sex-crazed lunatic, imagining Ben above you and touching you and kissing you. You would’ve turned into a puddle that spent her days in bed with a vibrator, dreaming of what she couldn’t have.
But now you have it. You have him. Kissing you like he’s trying to let you consume him. He groans, with every whimper he draws from your lips. His hips roll against your core, and your breath catches. Your cunt feels like it’s almost in pain, from the neglect of intention. You scratch at Ben’s shoulders and belt, trying to drag him closer and tear every barrier between you apart with only your nails.
Ben catches your wrist, and pins it over your head. You thrash and strain, and he just chuckles, dragging his thumb over soft skin.
“Look at you,” he rolls his hips down again, and your back arches off the bed. “How the fuck could you think I wouldn’t want this?”
You blink at him, breathing through your mouth, and Ben leans down. His kiss brushes the very tip of your nose. You mewl, wired and desperate, and Ben laughs. The mockery of it only makes the heat between your legs stronger.
“You make me fuckin’ crazy,” he says, jaw clenched tight. “Make me… Feel things.”
“You make me feel things too,” you breathe out, and Ben stills.
“Yeah?”
You almost giggle at the slack, worshipful look on his face. Guarded but leaking with a hope you’re sure his old, old heart doesn’t know how to recognize. You don’t strain against his pull on you. You just lean up and brush a kiss over his jawline.
His whole body shudders. You sink back into the cushions, beaming as his wrecked expression. A low growl rolls through his chest, and his eyes go so dark it’s almost predatory.
“You,” his voice has dropped, so impossibly deep. “You…”
Words seem to fail him. You don’t mind. You don’t love Ben because he’s a man of words. You have enough of them as it is. You surround yourself with them, and there are only so many in the world that can express this. The electric, new and fragile and hungry thing between you.
You love Ben because he’s a man of action. And you know he’s not going to be able to say he loves you.
So he crashes back down, and shows you instead.
It starts with open mouth kisses, over your collarbone and throat. You head tips back, your mouth going slack, and Ben moans against your skin.
“So fuckin’ responsive.” He snakes a hand under your body, giving you ass a firm squeeze. “Knew you would be. Sensitive fuckin’ doll, probably getting fuckin’ soaked from just a little touching.”
Humiliations burn with arousal in your gut, deep and hot and intoxicating. You are soaked. You can feel it every time you shift against him.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Ben coos, kissing a particularly soft part of your neck. “I know how bad you want this. I can fuckin’ smell it.”
Your eyes widen, your mouth falling open. “You- You what?”
“You heard me,” he pushes your shirt slowly up, thick fingers brushing over the soft skin of your stomach. “Every time you got needy, doll. I could almost taste it.”
“And you- You never-“
“You’re the one who said to be sure.”
His tone is mocking, but his touch is hot and his expression is shockingly soft. You flush under the attention, unsure what to do yourself. Just splayed on the bed for him to play with, dazed and confused. Ben grins like a wolf, and tears off your shirt without a warning. You almost protest, but he doesn’t give you the chance.
“No bra,” he takes on perked nipple, rolling it between his fingers with a dangerous smile. “Fuckin’ slut.”
You swallow, watching with wide eyes as he lean over your chest. Electricy shoots through your body, as he wraps his mouth around your neglected nipple, sucking lightly as he plays with the other one between those infernal fingers. You stare at the ceiling with fluttering lashes, lost in the warmth of his mouth. His tongue flicks, and you whimper. Ben’s teeth graze against you, and a weak noise of his name falls from your lips.
He smirks, dragging more kisses over the curve of your breast. He gives your nipple one last flick, then kisses over the hurt.
“Already bein’ so quiet,” he teases, toying with the band of your shorts. “Think I might need to make you scream, doll. Make you prove how bad you want this cock.”
“I- I want it-“ You stammer, pushing up on your elbows. “Don’t- I want it-“
“Shh.” Ben presses his finger against your mouth, and your jaw snaps shut.
He blinks. You swallow, trying to drag up the strength to resist him again, but it’s too late. He’s seen it. How fucking desperate you are to please him.
“Jesus,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “You’re- Chirst.”
Your cheeks burn. You try to roll onto your stomach, but Ben catches you and rolls you back. You pout at him, silently pleading with him not to make this a fucking thing, but he just keeps examining you. His gaze burns over your skin. You think you’re going to fucking explode.
Slowly—almost carefully—Ben pushes his thumb into your mouth. You take it, batting your lashes and loosening your jaw. The pad of his fingers tickles the back of your throat, and you suck lightly, eyes fluttering shut. Ben massages your thigh, and your legs fall further open.
“This what you really fuckin’ wanted, huh,” Ben mutters, and you hum, swirling your tongue around him. “You’ll do anything I fuckin’ tell you.”
You hum, sucking harder. You eyes burn, and you squeeze them shut.
Ben taps your cheek with his free forefinger. “Open.”
You obey, blinking through the shame, not letting yourself slack on his thumb. You flick against it, the same way he’d played with your nipple, and his throat bobs.
“Fuckin’ dangerous,” he says, and you don’t understand why he thinks that. You’re the pathetic one here.
But Ben pulls his thumb back, and with a softness you didn’t know he had, he leans down and brushes his lips against yours. It’s a restrained, teasing kiss. You think you’re going to cry, but then he pushes his knee back against your core, and you can only gasp against his mouth.
“That’s it, doll,” he mutters. “Relax for me.”
“Be- Ben-“ You blubber, already fucking ruined. “Touch me, please-“
He deepens the kiss, his tongue pressing into your mouth with such demand you almost sob. He knee grinds itself against you, moving back only so he can rip your shorts and panties away. Your breath hitches, as two massive fingers drag their way through your cunt.
“What a fuckin’ mess,” Ben growls. “I’ve been neglecting you, haven’t I. Not fuckin’ my pretty girl like she needs.”
You whine, nodding like a bobblehead. Ben pulls slightly back, kissing a stray tear on your cheek.
“Fucking crybaby,” he hisses. “Barely even done anything yet, you’re going to be a fucking wreck when I’m done.”
God, you are. There’s no way around it. Those two fingers are curling right against your weeping pussy, and if he doesn’t do something soon, you’re going to fucking scream.
“I’ll give you something to really cry about.” Ben slams a quick, harsh kiss back on your lips before pulling away. “No cumming, ‘till I say. You got that?”
You stare at him, and the softness is gone. His jaw is set, his eyes sharp, and his voice a rough command. Usually, you’d laugh at his attempts to boss you around, but right now you’re barely more than putty in his arms. You nod, and Ben huffs in satisfaction.
“Good girl.”
Your cunt squeezes around nothing. Ben must smell the gush, because his nostrils flare and his fingers dig into your hips.
“Been waitin’ too fucking long for this,” he says, kissing his way down your body. “Going to take my fuckin’ time, doll. Think I’ve earned that much, keeping my cock in my pants long as I did.”
You mewl an agreement, and Ben laughs.
“Anything I say,” he mutters to himself, pulling your legs over his shoulders. “Too fuckin’ good to be true.”
You’d argue this wasn’t good, if it wasn’t the best feeling you’ve ever experienced. You’re completely at Ben’s mercy, one massive hand massaging your ass as the opposite parts your pussy folds, giving him a good look at the evidence of your desperation.
Ben hums in approval, and your pussy clenches again. He laughs, kissing the inside of your thigh, and blows a puff of cool air against your clit. Your hips fly off the bed as you cry out, and Ben slams them down with a single hand.
“Stay still.” He orders, and you whimper in acknowledgement.
You’re going to try. You’re really going to fucking try, to listen. To be good for him.
But he does’t make it fucking easy.
Ben dives headfirst into your pussy, and you almost fucking scream. You knew he was experienced, but this feels like someone’s mouth fucking you with a sex machine. A hot, messy sex machine that has rough lips and a thick tongue, plunging in and out of your gaping cunt. His nose drags against your clit, rubbing into it over and over like he’s trying to set you off, and you grab at the sheets to try and achnor yourself.
“Be- Ben- Fuck-“ He makes out with your clit, and your eyes roll back in your head. “Oh- Oh my god-“
He pulls back, smacks your pussy, and pushes his face back into your core. Your body doesn’t even seem to know how to process it, every nerve so lit up that it’s scrambled and dazed. You’re almost, literally, overloaded with pleasure.
Ben keeps eating you out with the fervor of a starved man. He uses his whole face, tonguing you like he’s trying to memorize the way you squeeze around him. Whenever you cry out for him, he spanks your pussy, and you can’t tell if it’s a punishment or reward. Maybe both, if the way your cunt pulses with every hit is an indication.
He hits your pussy again, right when you’re so close to the edge you can taste it, and you almost cum. The only thing that stops you it is physically yanking yourself back, trying to escape the intensity of his touch.
Ben grabs you and drags you back. You whine, looking up at him with glossy, tear stained eyes. He wipes them away with his thumb, glaring down at your open, wrecked expression.
“The fuck did I say about moving?”
“I- I didn’t-“
“You did.”
He plants one hand on your lower abdomen, spanking your pussy with the other. Once. Twice. Your eyes roll back and the tears roll down your cheeks, but Ben just sneers.
“You wanna cum, doll?”
“Yes- Yes, please-“
“Then be fuckin’ good.”
He spanks your pussy again, and pushes his face back in. Your cunt is so abused and raw it only takes a few seconds to work you back up to where you were before. You try not to move, but then Ben—like he wants you not to listen—flicks his clit back and forth over your clit, so fast it feels like a vibrator. Your thighs lock around his head, and your back arches off the mattress.
This time, Ben doesn’t pull back and spank you. This time is worse. He just… Keeps going. He’s strong enough to keep your hips steady against his face. He grabs your ankles, and forces them to stay around his head. You can’t get away from him, as he works your pussy. You thrash in the sheets, crying out and shoving his head as it becomes borderline impossible to hold your orgasm in, but he doesn’t fucking stop.
You’re crying, loud and pathetic, and Ben just moans against your cunt. You roll onto your stomach, trying to crawl away as your traitorous pussy grinds against his face, and Ben slaps your ass. One arm leaves your body—though it doesn’t help you at all—and you hear skin slapping behind you. You manage to twist over your shoulder, and almost cum just from the sight.
Ben, jerking himself off as he keeps you pinned to his face. His cock is thick and big, bigger than anything you’ve ever see. It’s almost pretty, and that’s not something a cock should be. He’s leaking with pre-cum. You want to lap it off of him.
He slams you further onto his face, and you mewl, collapsing back into the matteress. You might pass out, with the effort to keep your orgasm in. You can barely think, barely speak. You’re just sobbing into the sheets and lost in the pleasure.
Then it stops.
Ben pulls away, and the loss is worse than the torture. You cry out, babbling something like his name, and Ben’s lips slot gently over yours.
“Doin’ so fucking well, babydoll,” he mutters. “Just a little longer. It’ll feel good.”
You nod, trying to chase his lips when he pulls away. He hums in amusement, pressing a kiss to your neck, and drags your ass up into the air. Your knees are already wobbly. You wouldn’t be able to stay up, if Ben didn’t wrap an arm around your stomach and force you up.
“Never seen someone so fuckin’ gorgous when they cry,” he mutters, rubbing that thick cock between the lips of your pussy. “Think I just like you wet, honey. Wet and fuckin’ sweet.”
He gathers some arousal with his fingers, then reaches over to press them against your lips.
“Taste,” he orders, and you obey thoughtlessly.
You don’t taste bad. Just… Strange. You moan, but mostly because you like Ben’s fingers being back in your mouth.
“That’s it,” Ben coos, lining himself up against your entrance. “Keep suckin’, pretty girl. Know it helps.”
You hum, and you’re too gone to actually think about what he said. It helps.
Then Ben starts to push inside you, and it becomes obvious what he meant. You squeak around his fingers, and Ben shushes you, slowly. Pushing every inch in so slowly, letting you adjust before giving a little more. You’ve never been strenched this wide, had such deep an angle. You keep sucking on his thumb, trying to find something to do with your body but seize up and wiggle. Ben thumbs slowly at your clit, helping it get further and further in.
“Fuck,” he hisses when he bottoms out, his balls pressed against the curve of your ass. “Fit me like a fuckin’ glove, doll- Christ-“
Ben leans fully over you, his body blanketing yours and his hand splaying back over your stomach. His face presses into the crook of your neck, his thumb pulling out of your mouth so his hand can wrap around your throat. He grinds his hips down, and you mewl, fresh tears falling from your eyes.
Ben kisses them away, rolling his hips again. His cock hits so deep inside you, you think you see stars. Just having him in you is cruel. You’re so full, with so little friction, it’s a wonder you’re not sobbing.
But Ben takes mercy, squeezing your neck gently before whispering, “Sing for me, babydoll.”
He pulls almost fully out, slams back in, and you scream. It’s a broken, delighted sound of pleasure, and Ben groans against your skin. He lets go of your throat, letting your cheek press into the mattress, and grabs your hand. Your fingers tangle together, as you pant. There’s nothing you can really do but take it. The size of him along, it knocks the air clean from your lungs. Ben presses demanding kisses, over your face and neck. You try to kiss him back, but you mostly just writhe and cry out his name.
He’s like an animal, with all his grunts and growls of your name. Every thrust drags his cock over your g-spot, splitting you open over and over until you’re just a ball of tears and nerves in Ben’s arms. His thumb wanders back down to your clit, rubbing tight, harsh circles, and you scream. The Zpressure in your body feels seconds from exploding, and you really don’t think you can take much more.
“Be- Ben-“ Your eyes cross, as he keeps pounding into your gushing cunt. “Ooooh- Bennn-“
“I know,” he kisses your cheek, then the corner of your mouth, his hips snapping down like a drill. “Soak my cock, pretty girl. You can do it, come on-“
The permission is all you needed. Ben’s hips snap forward, the head of his cock angled to drive into that gooey spot, and you come undone. Your orgasm is blinding and powerful, sweeping through every inch of your body. It lasts, as Ben fucks and fingers you through it, unraveling you so completely you think you black out for a moment. All you remember is a heavenly, strangely pure kind of floating feeling, and Ben’s growled praise in your ear.
“Good girl,” he hisses, and you coo, pussy fluttering and weeping. “Fuckin’- Gonna fill you up, doll, fill you up real fuckin’ good- I’ll be leakin’ out of this pussy when I’m done, let everyone know who the fuck you belong to- My girl, my fuckin’ girl-“
Ben’s thrusts grow jagged, his hand moving back to your throat, and you make a blubbering sound of agreement. He chuckles, choked and rough.
“You’d fuckin’ love that. Bein’ full of me, bein’ mine, bein’- Fuck-“
Ben cums, thick ropes of cum spurting into your cunt. There’s so much of it, so much of him, you can almost feel it in your throat. Almost fucking taste it. He tries to fuck you through it, but soon his release is dripping down your thighs and spraying back to your calves, and he pulls out. A stream of it hits your back as he moans, and you only squeak when Ben rolls you over and paints your stomach and tits white as well.
It’s a glorious fucking sight. Ben in all his glory, his cock wrapped in his fist and coated in your juices, his chest heaving as he moans your name and cums all over your body. When he’s done he doubles over, crashing his lips against yours and kissing you with so much fervor, you could almost think no sex had happened at all.
He pulls back, and you giggle. You don’t know why. It just feels like the right fucking thing to do, with how softly he’s looking at you. How unbelievably fucking lucky you are. Ben raises his brows, rolls his eyes, and presses a softer kiss to your lips.
“You think this is funny?” He mutters, but there’s no venom in his voice.
You nod, smiling up at him, and he sighs.
“You’re lucky,” he mutters, and he has no idea.
You press a kiss to his lips, and they twitch up. His eyes soften again, as he takes you in. So fucked out you can’t even speak.
“Good?” He mutters, and you nod like a bobblehead.
So good. So fucking worth it, for the months of mind games of questions, with how fucking good it was.
Ben smiles. And you can read it all over his face.
How he really does feel the exact same way.
“Told you I’d take care of you,” he grunts. “My fuckin’ girl.”
And you are. And he really, really fucking does. He cleans you up and feeds you. Gets you water and crawls into bed, lighting up a joint but keeping you tucked tight into his chest. You look up at him with a dazed smile, and he looks down at like some adoring, devout follower of a secret religion.
“We should get married,” he says suddenly, and you laugh, finding enough of a voice to respond.
“Date me first, smart guy.”
He grunts, pulling you closer and kissing the top of your head. You both know there isn’t much dating that will need to be done, to get you on board. But Ben’s going to try anyway. And you love him for it. How willing he is, just for you, to really, always fucking try.
✦End note: eric kripke WISHES he had my vision of soldier boy ✦
✦If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3✦
Warnings: Mild Violence. Period expected misogyny.
Summary: A knight from another century crashes -literally- into a florist’s life and turns her world upside down.
Word Count: 4.8k
Previous Chapter - Masterlist
She dragged an empty wooden crate across the floor, the scrape of wood against concrete sharp in the quiet warehouse. When she sat, she left a careful gap between them, close enough to talk, far enough to watch his face.
Not because she thought he'd hurt her. If he'd wanted that, he'd had hours alone with her already. But she needed distance to read him properly, to catalogue every micro-expression and tell.
Needed to figure out what, exactly, she'd just fed and cured and lied to a policeman for.
"Alright, Mr. Barnes." She laced her fingers together in her lap, spine straight. Professional. "I think we need to have a frank conversation about where you actually came from."
His jaw shifted. A muscle jumped near his ear. "I told you-"
"You told me you're a knight who came here through a magic ring." She kept her voice gentle, the tone she used with customers who were difficult but not deliberately rude. "And I'm trying very hard to be understanding, but you have to see how that sounds."
"I am aware," he said quietly, "how it sounds."
The resignation in his voice caught her off guard. He sounded tired.
She studied him, trying to catalog the pieces that didn't fit.
The vocabulary. Nobody spoke like him unless they were performing, and he did it too naturally, even when he was startled or off-balance. That took education. Years of it.
A professor, maybe. Before the war.
Except professors were bookish men with ink-stained fingers and reading glasses, who got winded on staircases and couldn't lift a sack of flour without wheezing.
This man was not that.
This man's shoulders tested the seams of that linen shirt every time he breathed, and had calloused hands.
An enthusiast, then. One of those men who took historical recreation seriously. Joined societies, learned swordplay, commissioned authentic reproductions.
That would explain the clothes, the boots, and the strange belt with its reinforced straps.
It would even explain the confusion with modern objects, if the war had... broken something, sent his mind retreating into the safer world of his obsession.
She'd heard of that. Men who came back believing they were still in the trenches, or still dodging things that had stopped falling years ago.
Why not a man who believed he was a knight?
"You were in the war," she said.
He blinked. "Which war?"
"The war," she repeated. "World War II.”
"I know nothing about that war."
Her stomach did something complicated.
"You... don't know World War II."
"No."
She sat back slightly.
Amnesia could do strange things. She knew that. Trauma could erase memories, create gaps, make a man forget his own mother's face.
"What about… Hitler?" she tried, her voice careful. "Roosevelt? Eisenhower?"
Each name landed with the same blank incomprehension.
He wasn't pretending; his expression was genuine.
"Alright," she said slowly. "What about... England? You know England?"
"Of course I know England." His shoulders stiffened. "I'm not an imbecile."
"I didn't say you were. Who's the king of England?"
"Henry of Monmouth." No hesitation. "Son of Henry Bolingbroke."
She stared at him, her hands gone still in her lap.
That was... specific.
The kind of detail a professor would know, certainly. Or an enthusiast with an encyclopedic knowledge of the period.
"Henry of… Monmouth," she repeated.
"Yes."
"Not Queen Elizabeth."
"Who?"
"Queen Elizabeth. The Second."
He looked at her with perfect, uncomprehending silence.
"A queen," he said finally. "Reigning. Not beside a king."
"That's right."
“You don’t think a woman can hold a country together.”
“I think a country is held together by men willing to bleed for whoever wears the crown,” he said, leaning forward slightly, as if the point mattered enough to close the distance for. “And such men are not moved by right alone. They want coin, land, fear, favor, God, glory… something. A queen may rule, yes. But every lord who doubts her will call that doubt reason, and every lord who wants more than he is owed will call it principle.”
“That’s almost progressive of you, Mr. Barnes.”
"I am simply experienced in how quickly men forget their oaths when it's convenient." Something flickered behind his eyes, brief and unreadable, gone before she could name it. His jaw clenched around whatever it was, and he didn't offer it to her.
She let the quiet be for a moment, then circled back to the part that actually mattered.
"Who's your king? Now, I mean. Currently."
He lifted one eyebrow, as if she'd asked him what color the sky was. "Well. I told you, the king of England."
"I asked you who the king of England was, not your king. Didn’t see you as one." She blinked.
"I am a knight of the Realm." Said slowly, and he straightened as he said it, shoulders pulling back like the title still meant something even here.
She studied him properly now, turning the new information over. It explained nothing and complicated everything.
"You don't sound English," she said.
His brows drew together, that particular brand of offense she was starting to recognize. "My speech is perfectly proper."
"I'm not saying it isn't proper. I'm saying it's not-" She gestured vaguely with one hand, searching for the word. "You don't sound like an Englishman. You sound like-"
Like nothing she could place, was the honest answer. Not quite American, not quite anything she'd heard from the newsreels or the actors who played dukes in the pictures. The vowels were wrong. The rhythm was off.
"I assure you, wench, there is nothing wrong with my diction."
The air between them went very still.
"I beg your pardon?"
He paused, reading something in her face that made him go very still, the same stillness she imagined he used right before a fight.
Her voice had dropped to something soft and dangerous.
"What did you just call me, you inconsiderate piece of-"
"But you are," he cut in, baffled, hands lifting slightly, palms out in a universal gesture. "How else would you have me address you?"
Her mouth fell open. Heat crawled up her neck.
"Something polite would be a fine start."
"I was not impolite."
"You called me a wench."
"Yes."
"That is not polite."
"It is not an insult."
"It absolutely is."
His frown deepened, not with anger this time, but with concentration. His head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing like he was working through a puzzle with missing pieces.
"It means a young woman," he said slowly, his hands opening wider as if to count off points in an argument he was now losing. "You are a woman. You are not old. I made no accusation beyond the obvious."
She stared at him.
He stared back, and now he looked genuinely wrong-footed. His weight shifted slightly on the crate. The set of his shoulders had gone uncertain.
"I never thought," he added, the words coming slower now, more careful, "that I would live to meet a woman offended by being called young."
For one second, her hand twitched in her lap.
Then she inhaled through her nose, long and deliberate.
"Mr. Barnes."
"Yes." His posture changed: spine straighter, chin tucked just slightly. He'd learned that tone meant something was coming.
"Do not call me that again."
He considered this. His jaw worked, muscle jumping beneath the skin. She could see the struggle play out across his face ,pride pulling one way, survival pulling the other.
"As you wish," he said at last.
"Thank you."
A pause. The warehouse settled around them, the distant drip of water from a pipe somewhere in the back.
And then, because apparently he couldn't help himself, his head tilted. His mouth opened.
"But for the sake of accuracy-"
"No."
His mouth shut.
"And do not call any other woman that either," she added. "Unless you have a particular fondness for being slapped."
His brows drew together, and something in his expression suggested he was filing this away with real seriousness. Useful intelligence, not a reprimand he needed to absorb.
"This century is very particular."
"You have no idea."
He let that sit, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders, though his jaw stayed set in the particular way of someone who still believed himself in the right and had simply decided the argument wasn't worth the cost of continuing it.
She watched him for a moment. Watched the stubbornness, watched him go quiet again, and felt the conversation circle back, unbidden, to the question she hadn't actually answered yet. The one underneath all the others.
What are we going to do with you?
He had -technically- no family. No household. No money she'd seen, no papers, no anything that would let him walk into a rooming house and rent a room for the night without someone asking questions he couldn't answer. He didn't know what a dollar looked like. He'd nearly died crossing a street that had a stop sign on it.
He could not survive a week alone in this city. She was fairly certain he couldn't survive an afternoon.
His alternatives, if he really had no one, were bad. A precinct cell. A ward. Some institution that wouldn't ask whether his story was true so much as whether it was inconvenient, and either answer would end with him strapped to a bed and explaining himself to men with far less patience than she currently had.
She thought of the flinch on the sidewalk.
That decided it, more than the king or the dates or any of it.
She exhaled slowly, already regretting the sentence before she'd finished thinking it.
"Mr. Barnes."
"Yes." He asked, wary now.
"How many of your people live here? In this city, I mean. Anyone you could go to."
"None." Flat. No hedging, no attempt to dress it up.
"Right." She pressed her lips together, She pressed her lips together, snapping a loose splinter from the edge of her crate under her thumbnail."And you have no money that would mean anything here, no papers, no notion of how anything works, and you nearly got flattened by a car within five minutes of standing on a sidewalk."
His chin lifted, and he opened his mouth, presumably to defend the car incident, his jaw already set, and she lifted a hand to stop him.
"I'm not finished."
He closed his mouth, though not without making her wait a beat for it, as if closing it on his own schedule rather than her command. A tiny, huffed breath escaped his nose, sharp with annoyance.
"So here's where we are," she said, and hated, faintly, how reasonable she was about to sound about something so spectacularly unreasonable. "You can't go anywhere. You can't be left anywhere. And the only people who'd take an interest in a man who thinks cars are-" She stopped herself. "Well. The only people who'd take interest are exactly the people you do not want taking interest."
His expression had gone very still.
"What are you implying?" His voice had dropped, low and careful, no irritation left in it now.
She took a breath.
"I think," she said carefully, "that for the time being, it would be sensible for you to come stay with me."
He blinked once, slow, like he was making sure he’d heard the words right.
"Your home," he said.
"It's a few blocks from here. It's not big, but it has another little bedroom that was occupied until two months ago." She crossed her arms. "It's the only option that doesn't end with you in a cell or a ward, so."
He studied her for a long moment, and she could see him working through it methodically.
"Who else lives there?" he said. "What relatives?"
"None." She said simply.
His brow creased slightly. "Servants, then."
She huffed a short, dry laugh at that.
"No servants."
The crease deepened. He seemed to turn the information over again, searching for the piece he was missing, and when he spoke again, there was a faint reluctance to ask a question he wasn't sure he wanted answered.
"...Husband?"
"No husband."
"This plan is improper."
She rolled her eyes so hard it was nearly audible. "Here we go."
"A woman, alone, inviting a man into her home, with no one else present-"
His gaze dropped, just briefly, to her lips before he dragged it back up to her eyes.
She noticed. It wasn't the first time he did that.
"Mr. Barnes." She held up a hand. "I live alone. I have lived alone for four years now, and the world has not ended yet."
"It is not done."
"It's done plenty. It's just not talked about plenty." She shrugged. "It's not exactly admired, sure. If my father were alive, he'd have an opinion. The ladies at church would have more opinions. But nobody's going to drag me out into the street over it. A woman living alone doesn't get burned for it anymore, metaphorically or otherwise."
He did not look reassured by this. If anything, his jaw set harder.
"All I'm saying," she went on, "is that it's not ideal, but it's not the end of the world either. What would be the end of the world is if you were wandering this city alone for another five minutes. So." She spread her hands. "We just need a story. Something that holds up better than cousin from up north."
He was quiet for a moment, jaw tight, visibly weighing decorum against the plain, undeniable reality of his situation. When he finally spoke, it was with the air of a man conceding a point he still didn't agree with.
"A story," he repeated slowly.
"Not family," she said. "I thought about it, but it won't hold. I've got an old lady two streets over who knows every branch of my family tree better than the family does, and if she so much as hears the word cousin, she'll want to know which side, whose son, why she's never heard the name. It'll fall apart in a week."
"You said that already. To the officer."
"I panicked. It was the first thing that came out of my mouth, and it's already on borrowed time." She shook her head. "We need something that doesn't put you inside the family, just close enough to it that nobody questions why you're suddenly attached to me."
He waited, watching her think, arms loosely crossed, which she found oddly easier to do with him quiet than when he was arguing.
"I could say… I'm employing you," she offered. "Heaven knows the shop could use the extra hands, lifting and deliveries and all that. But a woman hiring a man she's never met before, taking him into her home on top of it-" She made a face. "That's not believable either. It's not even wise, frankly, even though it's exactly what I'm doing."
"Then what." His voice was calm, no impatience in it.
"We merge them." She sat up a little straighter. "Something like... you're the son of a friend of my uncle's. Out east, far enough that nobody local would know the family to dispute it. Your father wrote ahead, asked if I could help you find work and a place to land while you got settled in the city."
His eyes narrowed slightly, thinking it through.
"And if someone asks the name of this uncle, this friend?"
"Then we'll have an answer ready before anyone asks the question." She tapped her fingers against her knee. "It just needs to be boring enough that nobody wants to follow up. Nobody interrogates a dull story. They interrogate interesting ones."
A pause. He glanced at her sideways, something almost wry settling into the line of his mouth.
"I am, apparently, an interesting story," he said dryly.
"I have to admit," she said, "that you are the single least boring thing that has happened to me in years."
----
Bucky looked at her, and for a moment, he said nothing.
There were several ways to answer that. Most of them, unkind.
Least boring.
It was not her fault, exactly. She had meant it lightly, or as lightly as a woman could mean anything after finding a wounded stranger in her stockroom, lying to a city guardsman for him, feeding him, tending his face, and then offering him a place beneath her roof with the practicality of someone discussing bad weather.
But the words settled poorly all the same, a low weight behind his ribs that had nothing to do with the wound there.
To her, perhaps, he was strange. A problem. A curiosity dropped through the ceiling by whatever god had run out of better things to do.
To him, this was his life.
Or what remained of it.
His room above the cooper's shop. His armor left beside a cold hearth. His prize chest with the coins. The estate he had meant to rebuild, as if enough work could make a ruin into a home and a man into something other than what captivity had left of him.
All of it was gone.
Not destroyed, or stolen. Not even lost in any ordinary sense.
Simply elsewhere.
Hundreds and hundreds of years behind him, if she was to be believed.
If the calendar was to be believed.
If the things outside, the light without flame, the clothing, the speech, the queen ruling England, the glass and wires, and horseless carriages were all to be believed.
He had more questions than there were saints to hear them.
But questions did not put food in a man's belly. Questions did not give him coin, shelter, papers, allies, or a road back to where he belonged.
The woman across from him might.
That was the difficulty.
She sat on the overturned crate with her arms folded, her mouth set in a way that made it clear she expected an argument and had already prepared to be irritated by it.
There was soil on one sleeve. A smear of dust near the hem of her skirt. Her painted lips had held their color through the entire catastrophe of the morning, which continued to seem unreasonable and... distracting.
He found himself tracking the small movements of her mouth when she spoke and the way her bottom lip caught briefly on her teeth when she was thinking, before he caught the direction of his own attention and dragged it back where it belonged.
Focus.
The room smelled of cut stems and damp paper, sweet rot under something green, nothing like the smoke and tallow he knew. It should have unsettled him more than it did. Instead, it was her voice that kept pulling him back, low and certain, cutting through everything else like a familiar sound in a foreign field.
People did not take in strangers for no reason. They did not endanger their reputations, lie to men in uniform, and offer spare bedrooms out of the goodness of their hearts unless there was something wrong with them, something wanted, or something hidden underneath.
He had learned that lesson well enough. Kindness was rarely free, and mercy even less so.
"What do you gain from this?" he asked, leaning forward slightly, elbows finding his knees.
Her brows drew together slightly.
"What?"
"This arrangement." He kept his voice even, though something in him stayed braced, waiting to hear the price named. "My staying in your household. Working in your shop. This story you are building around me."
"I'm not building-"
"You are." He watched her face as he said it, the way her chin had lifted half an inch, almost daring him to push further. "You seem to have taken care of the situation and threaded some narrative. You seem good at it."
That stopped her.
A little.
Not because the words were flattering. They were not meant to be. A person could be good at lying for a great many reasons, most of them unpleasant.
Her expression shifted, offended first, then thoughtful despite herself, her arms tightening around her body.
"I am trying to keep you out of trouble."
"Why?"
"Because if you haven't noticed, you are in trouble."
"That is not an answer."
"It is a perfectly good answer."
"It is a charitable answer." His hand tightened once over his knee before he made it relax, the motion deliberate, the way he might force open a fist mid-fight. "Charity is what people name a thing when they would rather not name its price."
She stared at him. He had said too much, perhaps.
No. Not too much. Enough.
"So what do I gain, you want to know?" she repeated.
"Yes."
"A scandal, probably. More work. A great deal of inconvenience. The pleasure of explaining traffic laws to a man who thinks bicycles are sorcery. Possibly an ulcer."
"I do not know what that is."
"Lucky you."
For the first time since she had mentioned the spare room, something like amusement tried to move through him.
He did not permit it far.
She leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on her knees now, close enough that he caught the faint warmth of her body, and soap and something floral from the shop clinging to her skin.
"Look," she said. "You want a price? Fine. The price is that you work. You do what you're told when you're in the shop. You carry crates, sweep, make deliveries once I can trust you not to get lost, and keep your opinions about my clothes and my lack of chaperone to yourself."
A muscle in his jaw shifted. His gaze dropped, briefly, to the offending hem of her skirt, then back up.
"It remains improper." He said it flatly, arms crossing over his chest.
"It remains none of your business." She matched the posture, her own arms tightening around herself, chin tilting up to hold his gaze.
"If I am under your roof," he said, his voice dropping low rather than rising, "your reputation becomes my business." He uncrossed his arms, and the linen of his sleeves brushed against his skin as he leaned forward, closing the gap between them by the width of two hands. Close enough to see the flecks of color in her eyes, the slight flare of her nostrils.
Her mouth opened. Closed. The quick inhale of breath was audible in the quiet warehouse.
There. He still had some ground beneath his feet, then.
"I may not understand this place." He weighed each word before speaking it, refusing to let her impatience rush him. "But I understand that a woman's name can be damaged by a man's presence. That has not changed. You said so yourself."
Her eyes searched his face.
He let her, holding still, giving nothing away on purpose.
"I will not be the cause of that," he added.
He was many things. Some of them worse than she knew. But he was not that.
Her expression softened, and the change in her face made his own shoulders tense. Softness was dangerous. It made men careless, made them reach for things they had no right to take.
"My point is-"
"The point is," she cut in, “that if we both manage to behave decently in front of the neighbors-"
She stopped.
His eyebrows rose. The slow tap of his boot against the floor ceased instantly. He went utterly still, letting the silence stretch.
Heat flooded her cheeks, quick and sudden. She glared at the floor, angry with herself, before transferring the glare to him.
"Not that we would behave indecently out of sight," she said, the words tumbling out quick and uneven. "Obviously. I- if we behave decently. In general. Everywhere. At all times." She bit off each syllable, her arms crossing tight over her chest, hands gripping her own elbows as if she could physically squeeze the sentence back into nothing.
"There should not be a problem with that," he agreed, his voice dropping a fraction, unhurried and thick with a sudden, dark amusement he couldn't entirely swallow.
"Exactly."
"But there may be... talk," he finished, steering them back to the danger he saw.
Her mouth pressed into a thin line.
"Yes," she said. "There may be. People talk. People always talk. They talked when I decided to live alone after my father died, when I kept the shop instead of looking for a husband, and they'll talk if I take in a stray cat. I can't live by people's imagination."
"I am not a cat."
"No." She looked him over. Her gaze moved from his broad shoulders down to his scuffed boots and back up to his face. "You are much less convenient."
Despite himself, the corner of his mouth twitched upward.
She pointed at him before it could become anything, putting the line back where it belonged. "You'll help in the shop, carry deliveries, stay out of trouble, and sleep in the spare room. That's the arrangement. Boring, practical, and temporary."
Temporary.
Of course, it was needless to say.
He would find his footing. He always had. Could earn coin, acquire what he needed, find his way back or -if God and all his saints had truly abandoned him-find a way forward.
But not today.
Today, he had no coin that meant anything here. No horse, no blade, no armor. The clothes on his back were torn and bloodstained, and he could smell the sweat and dirt on himself. His ribs were a constant, grinding ache every time he drew breath. The cut on his face throbbed dully where she had cleaned it.
He had nothing, except this woman, with her sharp tongue and her poorly-concealed softness, offering him a place to land as if that were not an absurdly reckless thing to do.
He straightened slightly, ignoring the pull of bruised muscle along his side.
"I accept," he said.
Her shoulders dropped half an inch.
Relief. Quickly hidden, but not quickly enough.
"Good," she said. "That's… good."
"I am in your debt."
"No, you-"
"I am," he repeated.
His voice came out firm enough to stop the protest before it could gather momentum. She closed her mouth, but the objection remained in her eyes.
He extended his hand across the narrow space between them, palm open, offering what little he had left to offer. His word. His obligation.
She looked down at his hand, then back up at his face. Then she placed her hand in his.
Her palm was warm and smaller than his, but not fragile. There was work in it, a faint roughness on her skin from whatever this century asked of a woman who kept her own roof and business.
He closed his hand around hers with care, then bent his head and pressed his mouth to her knuckles.
The kiss was brief. Formal. The way a knight acknowledged a debt to a lady, the way oaths were sealed.
Her breath caught. He heard it, a small, sharp inhale that made the space between them feel suddenly smaller.
But she didn't pull her hand away. She went still instead, her hand resting in his, her skin warm beneath his mouth, and for the length of one heartbeat, the gesture became something less simple than it should have been.
He knew better.
He did.
She had offered him shelter, not an invitation. Terms, not softness. And yet his body, treacherous and exhausted and starved of gentleness, noted the warmth of her hand as if it were a thing worth remembering.
His lips lingered a moment longer than strictly necessary, and his thumb brushed once -accidentally, or perhaps not- against her pulse point.
When he lifted his head, her eyes were wide, fixed on his face with an expression he couldn't quite read. Surprise, yes. But not alarm.
That was the part he noticed, and he shouldn’t have noticed.
He released her slowly, letting her hand slip from his grip by degrees. His fingertips trailed against hers at the last, a final, improper accident neither of them commented on.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Her hand dropped to her lap, where it closed once into the fabric of her skirt before smoothing flat again.
"You're welcome," she murmured.
Dust motes drifted lazily through the slant of afternoon light, as the smell of foliage and broken soil surrounded them.
She cleared her throat, the sound small but deliberate.
"Right." She stood, brushing her palms against her skirt in a quick, nervous gesture. "We should probably go. You need to get cleaned up, and I need to find you something to wear that won't get you arrested for vagrancy."
His ribs ground out a complaint sharp enough to darken the edge of his vision, but he ignored it. There would be time to hurt later. Or there would not. Either way, standing was required first.
"Lead on, then."
She nodded once, already turning toward the door. But her hand -the one he'd kissed- stayed closed loosely at her side, fingers flexing once before going still.
Bucky looked away before she could notice him noticing.
Beyond the door waited the shop, and beyond the shop, the street. The roaring carriages, the wires in the sky, the glass-eyed windows, the women walking with bare calves as if the world had always allowed it.
He drew one careful breath.
Then another.
And forced himself to cross the threshold after her.
Summary: Bucky gives you free range of his farm and all the plants and wildlife it includes. You give Bucky fertilizer and any scientific insights you find. Tit for tat. Seems simple enough, but as the days pass, you can’t seem to escape each-other’s orbit. It’s like nature is literally pushing you together, but that would be crazy… wouldn’t it?
PSA: just a girl… standing in front of her Stardew collab, asking it to love her. Check out the full collab here! my friends are so talented and their minds blow me away, both Lewis and Haley are posted!
Word Count: 6.1k
Warnings: cursing, insecurity, religious imagery and metaphor (no Catholic guilt inducing smut though), anti-social reader, yearning, it’s mutual but shshhhhh they don’t know, hot and heavy make out, not beta-read, not edited, fuck it we ball.
There a few reasons why you love plants.
For one, they're simple.
They write their DNA in a language that you can understand. Each leaf, petal and root a different part of one larger story. They fit under your microscope and let you study them until your vision goes blurry.
Plants are complicated. Sometimes they thrive. Sometimes… they don't. A plant that was green and lush yesterday can be brown and wilted tomorrow all because the sky looked at it wrong.
Plants are like people. The rain makes their skin soft. They turn their faces to the sun to feels its heat on their skin. They are resilient, yet prefer a gentle touch. They know the difference between surviving and thriving.
Plants are quiet.
In that way they way they're actually better than people.
When you lay down in a meadow the grass curls around you, bristles tickling your skin as if to hug you hello. Wildflowers fight through soil and emerge from the long abandoned farm on the far side of the valley. They grow tall and proud, tilting in your direction as if offering themselves for your admiration.
Plants are considerate, gentle, ever present.
Before a storm, plants will speak. Their leaves will rustle with wind and that breeze will carry their whisper to you. We will survive. They say, with the certainty only known by beings older than time itself. We were here before you, we will be here after.
Plants exist outside of time.
They will continue their slow climb toward the sun, long after your bones become soil and your blood fertilizer. Until all that's left of you exists within stems and leaves. When all of humanity is gone, green will fight through smog and ash and burst free, starting the cycle anew.
After all, there must always be a tree from which Eve can pluck her apple.
You think about Eve a lot these days.
How did she make that choice? Just how tempting was that fruit she so callously plucked?
Was it perfect? Shiny and ripe for the taking. Dangling from its stem with a tease of come take me.
Was it more subtle? Did Eve's sin have time to fester and build until it was a coil pulled so tight inside her that it wasn't just one simple act at all. It was an explosion.
Did Eve stare at her sin across an overgrown field, uselessly clutching her pencil and pathetically empty sketch book? Watch as he toiled with dirt and shined under the suns abuse? Would she laugh at you? Remind you that your fruit isn't forbidden, just unknown.
For you, it feels like one and the same.
Still, you can't seem to look away.
You're not sure how long you've been watching him. Twenty minutes, maybe thirty. You're not especially good with time though, could be an hour for all you know.
It would just be really pathetic if he's been struggling with the same root ball for an hour.
His face contorts to something unsatisfied, brows furrowed and lips pressed in a thin line as he stares down at the already wilting green. It's almost comical as he looks back towards the crate of plant waiting for him, and the three he's already got in the ground.
His smushes it between his fingers, harsh and grabby as he pinches it to smithereens. He doesn't stop until there's nearly nothing left, a few sad roots dangling limp in his palm as he places it in a much too deep hole.
Bucky Barnes is like a hosta. He grows sturdy, undeterred by shady spots, of lack of water. Honestly you think if Bucky could build a tent around his entire crop he would. As another bead of sweat rolls down his forehead, caught on a thick forearm and wiped away before it can reach his eyes.
From far away he's gorgeous, lush and thick. Eye catching without even trying to be, naturally spell binding. He crept into your garden slowly. An offer to let you study the plants on his farm, which then turned to you giving him fertilizer that you made with your research.
Nearly six months since his sudden and unceremonious arrival, it's as if he's taken up all the room in your flower bed.
Larger than life, than your experiment's and hobbies. Than your rather unfavorable feelings about other people and longstanding habit of avoiding them.
Like a stubborn root you can't seem to get rid of him either, try as you might.
Your voice echoes before you realize you've even decided to speak.
"You're mutilating them."
Bucky jumps his broad shoulders go taut, entire body freezing.
You don't notice, eyes locked on the strangled rootball in his big hands.
"I'm sorry?" He asks, swiveling his head until finally he finds you.
You walk through weeds the toward him, having to lift your legs a little more to clear the dense grass and knotted foliage. You take your time, carefully stepping over mushrooms and dodging dandelions.
You feel his eyes on you throughout, piercing and curious, and probably part offended. You've never been especially good with people either though.
When you're finally close enough, only a few feet away, you speak again.
"I said you're mutilating them." You repeat, this time gesturing to the poor parsnips at his feet.
Bucky pauses, following your gaze with similar disappointment. "Oh."
His hands, which you can now see aren't even covered in gloves, come to sit as his hips. Dirt smudges onto his white tank top, even catching the tops of his jeans. Looking lower you're even more displeased at the state of his shoes, what probably used to be light color sneakers.
Not bothering to ask, you pick up one of the plants from the crate and take it in your hands. It's misshaped from the stores planter, nearly a perfect rectangle. "Poor thing." You whisper.
Gently, you begin to massage the rootball. Slow, steady squeezes until it begins to soften in your palm. You wait until it's limp, then get on your knees and dig a hole in the same row Bucky had started.
You only dig a few inches down, enough to hold to the root. "Loosen the dirt, don't dig." You tell him, using the hand shovel to create a sort of crater in the hole. "The roots need something to grab onto."
You place the parsnip in the dirt, gently filling the sides until you're satisfied with its security.
You wipe your hands on your overalls as you stand, brushing off the excess soil and finally returning your attention to Bucky.
"You try."
Bucky nods, using his forearm to wipe some sweat from his forehead.
He grabs another plant, and stares at it for a moment, as if begging it to cooperate.
You can't help your sigh when once again digs his fingers directly into the rootball and starts to pull it apart.
Sensing your frustration, Bucky freezes.
"What?" He asks, sounding more worried than upset.
With a huff you move to stand in front of him.
You surround his hands with your own, cupping the plant in his palms.
"You want to massage it." You tell him, applying just enough pressure to feel the plant give under your combined touch. "You need it to be relaxed."
Bucky hums, "Like foreplay." He says.
You can't help the way you go taut, hands pulling away as if burned.
He says it so casually, as if sex is something you talk about. As if it something you do, something you do with him. As if letting another person be that close to you isn't a nightmare in and of itself.
Although you suppose if that nightmare had brown hair and blue eyes and the prettiest pink lips you might not be so opposed.
"Sure-" You stammer, already taking a handful of steps back towards the direction you came. "Yeah exactly like foreplay." You voice betrays you pitching an octave higher on the last word.
Bucky's staring at you like you're a question, that same furrow from before back between his brows. His hands have stopped moving, as if you're more important than anything else he had been busy with.
Mercifully, he doesn't push. "Thanks," he says instead. "Find anything good today?" He nods back towards the section of the field you had been taking residence in.
You nod, face still burning with embarrassment. "Yes actually-" you start before you can stop yourself, the words flowing like an avalanche. "I found a plant, well it's actually a kind of weed but there's this plant phalaris arundinacea or um, some people call it canary grass. Anyway it usually only grows by rivers but you have this whole cluster of it which is really weird because it's like a hundred feet from your little pond and the rest of the soil around it is pretty dry and-" you catch yourself.
Your mouth feels like cotton because of fast you had started talking, your tongue swelling with embarrassment as you realize the extent of your ramble.
"Sorry." You mutter, "That's actually super boring."
Bucky shakes his head, finally beginning to return to his parsnips. Slowly he gets on his knees, bending one leg at a time and giving you a truly gratuitous look at his thighs.
"I think it's interesting." He says, "besides if everything else is out of place than maybe I'm exactly where I belong." There's a lilt at the end, like he had intended for it to be a joke but the punchline got lost in truth.
It makes your heart pull tight, a feeling you normally reserve for trampled flowers and injured birds.
"Maybe," You say, "Or maybe the plants just know better than us."
You shrug, watching as Bucky carefully copies what your had done in the dirt. You cringe as it gathers under his nails, catching in the crevices of his knuckles. You have an extra pair of gloves, maybe you ought to drop them off one morning. You could slip them in his mailbox, he'd never even have to know it was you. If he's serious about this farming thing he'll need good gloves or he'll destroy his hands and gosh they are good hands-
You force yourself to look away, eyes averting to literally please anywhere else. "Its not the only one." You change the topic, "I mean only spot."
Bucky hums, "with weird plants?"
"Yea." You nod a little too quickly as you say it. "Up on the mountain, there's Sunflowers growing from cracks between the some of the rocks and I figured it was an anomaly but now that there's two of them I think they could be connected."
Bucky finishes pushing the dirt back in around the last root ball and reaches for another. "How can you tell if they are?"
You chest does a little jump, eagerness sparking. He asked! He asked a question about your plants!
"Well since they're different plants I can rule out it being a strain or breed thing." You rationalize, "So I'd have to start with the soil, but I need to samples and I'm not allowed to hike alone anymore-"
"Wait what?"
"-and no one ever wants to go with me!" You steamroll right over Bucky's question, completely obvious to the alarm in his eyes. "They all complain about how much I go off trail but it's not my fault! All the best stuff is, I mean I once found an entire patch of wild potatoes!"
"Wild potatoes?"
"No one complained that time! Everyone had fries for a month thanks to me, but no-" you drag out the 'o' sound, rolling your eyes as you do so. "- You get lost one time and suddenly it's a problem. So I have to wait until someone else plans a hike and I can convince them to let me come."
Bucky finally stands, huffing with effort as he does so.
"I could go with you." He offers, shrugging his shoulders. "I uh- hike."
His voice pitches an octave higher on the word 'hike,' surely just in enthusiasm.
"Really?"
"Yeah." Bucky insists, "sounds like it's important."
You're not sure what to do with yourself, heart slamming hard against your ribs as if trying to crack them open and escape. You're used to being shut down, waved off, your thoughts and hypotheses disregarded.
Yet here is your hosta, shoulders broad and jaw set. Something in his eyes that makes you almost believe he genuinely doesn't mind doing this for you.
You nod, the movement tight. "Okay."
Bucky hums, returning his knees to the dirt. "Okay."
A plan is made between mumbles, meet here at six tomorrow morning, hopefully be through the worst of the hike before the heat of the day. You offer to make sandwiches and Bucky begrudgingly promises to wear something other than jeans.
Once all is set you finally retreat. Settling back into the grass a few yards away and returning to your (still empty) sketchbook and woefully unimpressive notes. Ignoring the pang of disappointment when Bucky goes back to silence too.
The wind blows around you, swishing through the weeds and singing something like laughter. You wish it would tell you what's so funny. You wonder if the tree laughed at Eve.
You're no stranger to the strangeness of nature.
Sure, you've dedicated most of your life and free space in your brain to figuring out some of its strangeness, but even you know there are things beyond even your comprehension.
Like the way it seems to pick and choose when it's alive.
Not alive in the green leaves and turning toward the sun sense. No, alive as in conscious.
There are times when it's as if the plants hear you, like petals have turned to tiny listening devices. Times when it's like they manipulate themselves to create a new reality. Soil becoming an instrument in their greater plan as they rearrange it to suit their needs.
Like the first time you met Bucky.
Truthfully, you'd been trespassing on his land for years with no idea that it even belonged to someone. You knew it like the back of your hand, the sad parcel that everyone avoided. Quiet and calm and perfect for anyone trying to stay away from civilization.
It fascinated you too, the way it had reclaimed the fields and land. After years of being worked over, you admired the chaos that bloomed when left to its own devices. Left over crops that persevered, wildflowers that seemingly appeared from no where, vines that wove themselves around old fence posts as if trying to pull them from the ground.
The day he arrived the same plants you'd become so acquainted with, threw you into him.
You'd be just about ready to leave, bag tucked into your shoulder and samples in hand. You hadn't even seen him yet, the bulking figure standing at the foot of the porch. Never one to notice people, you didn't even see him. In fact you had nearly walked completely past him, nose buried in your samples when suddenly your foot caught on a root that certainly hadn't been there when you arrived that morning.
It sent you, your bag, and your armful of foliage flying.
It was two leather clad arms that caught you, a subtle 'oof' muttered as he took the force of your fall.
Few weeks later it was a present from the weeds. A tiny little white thing that tracked muddy little paws all over your notebook one after noon.
A kitten, a teeny little one that purred louder than a plane engine and meowed in your arms until you were standing on Bucky's steps.
"Is this yours?" You'd asked, scratching under its chin.
"No." He'd grunted, glaring at the ball of fur in your arms as it were a loaded gun.
"Oh." You'd whispered, confusion only growing. Of course you didn't know everything that lived in the woods, but in all your years in the valley, you'd never once seen a stray cat. Certainly not the two it would have taken to bring the one you holding to fruition. "It just showed up out of no where, walked right up to me like it was asking for directions."
Bucky shrugged, unconvinced. "You gonna keep it?" He asked.
You mouth was already half way open -about to explain that as much as you'd love too- you couldn't, when the cat jumped out of your arms. Landing on the wood by Bucky's feet, it immediately drew a figure eight walking between his legs. It's little tail curling up as much of his calves as possible.
"Think it wants you to."
Sure enough, Alpine was wrapped around Bucky's finger in week. Sending him running to your door with a nervous question at least every other day (Can cats eat strawberries? I found her passed out by the vines with pink all over. Yes Bucky, probably just snaked herself into a food coma). The now spoiled and fat cat sneaks off the farm and ends up at your door nearly as often. Forcing you to walk with her all the back to Bucky's.
Worst of all was about a month ago. Their most egregious attempt yet.
You'd been knee deep in a cluster of a flowers, some wild lily's in a color you'd never seen before. Your hands buried in the soil as you collected some so you could test the PH later.
Then Bucky had sauntered up behind you, the sudden pitch of his voice throwing you off balance and directly into a pile of flowers. Only you weren't punished with thorns, no pollen. It erupted around you in an angry yellow cloud, plumes of dust spiraling into the air.
The entire mess leaving you covered in bright yellow.
"Shit." Bucky had cursed, already walking forward to help you when you stopped him with a single raised hand.
Ever so careful not to breathe any in, got up, and darted toward the pond. You ripped your clothes off as you ran, abandoning your shirt on a rock and then your jeans at the end of the dock. You hardly heard Bucky yelling after you as you jumped into the freezing water.
When you surfaced, pollen covered the entire pond, swirling in murky yellow bubbles around you. At the end of the dock stood a breathless Bucky, pink cheeked and wide eyed as he stared at the water.
Wordlessly, he stretched out his hand again, and this time you took it, letting his strength lift you from the frigid water. He only lets go once you're safely on the wooden planks, dripping onto the boards as you exhaled a sigh of relief.
"Thanks." You whispered, equally as breathless.
Bucky however, just nodded, his throat bobbing as he took the state of you in.
Bra, panties, and embarrassing white ankle socks. All of which were now soaked through and borderline see-through.
He choked out something about a towel, shaking his head as he started off towards his house, cursing under his breath. Leaving you to wait by the pond, alone with the pip-plop of the water dripping off you and buzzing of frantic bees collecting the pollen you'd stirred up. Even softer, you could have sworn you heard giggling.
Now, as you lead Bucky on the familiar trail, you can't help but watch every leaf a little bit closer.
It's been silent for the better part of the hike, quiet companionship as you slowly work your way up. Bucky's a few feet behind you, lingering close enough for you to hear his footsteps, but far away enough for you to not worry about if he can hear your labored breathing.
Still, heaving chest aside, excitement stirs inside you. A fluttering of joy in your stomach as you take in the mountain around you. The rustles of leaves as birds sing above you, the way your boots crunch on the gravel , a symphony of mother nature's finest.
"Is it supposed to rain today?" It's the first thing Bucky's said in an hour, or grumbled is perhaps more accurate.
You'd checked the weather station three separate times, clear skies.
"No." You gesture to the crystal blue above you. "Looks fine to me."
"Just said it feels like it is all." He repeats, you can hear his arm whirring in protest as he moves it, machine fighting him.
You're struck with a sudden worrying thought. "Oh- is it not water proof?" You concern is instant, enough to make you stop in your tracks and turn around to look at him.
Bucky stops too, and for the first time since you started you actually pause to take him in.
He's glossy, not quite sweaty but enough to make him shine under the bright sun. The jacket he'd started the hike in had been discarded unbeknownst to you, leaving him in a tight black tank top.
The arm hangs low at his side, fist clenching and clenching.
"No, it is." Bucky assures, "Pretty sure this thing could survive just about everything. I don't know I just got a feeling."
"A feeling?" You repeat, skepticism clear.
"Yeah." Bucky nods, looking up at the sky with a glare.
He doesn't say more, you don't find the courage to ask. Instead you keep hiking, turning back to the trail and continuing the trek.
"We're almost there." You shout towards Bucky. "At least I think we are."
The gravel starts to get loose beneath your feet, forcing you to push your heels down harder with every step.
"I mean this all feels familiar." You add, nervously suddenly desperate to fill the silence. "I probably should have written down where exactly they were but I didn't have a pen and everyone was yelling for me to keep moving-"
A rock catches you the toe of your boot, cutting you offer with a swift trip flat on to your face.
The rest of your sentence is lost in a gasp and pained 'oomf' as you fall. Your hands try to catch your weight but between the pack on your back and your typical shit luck they do little to soften the blow.
It stings everywhere, your knees, your calves, your arms and hands. Like your entire body was dragged along the trail until every inch of exposed skin was kissed by a stone.
Bucky's rushing up to you right away, shoving his bag off his shoulder and sliding onto the ground beside your head.
You can hear a him chuckle, low and good humored. You know he doesn't mean to laugh at you, well he does but not that like that. Still, it stings, more than any scrape.
"I know you like dirt, but you don't have to kiss it sweetheart." He jokes.
Your eyes start to sting too, tears burning at the corners. You stay staring at the ground, hands screaming as you brace yourself on them.
Don't look up, don't look up. Don't let him see. You're fine it was stupid you're fine. You're normal-
"Oh shit wait-" Bucky's voice softens, his hand coming up to cup your cheek and turn it toward him. "Hey, hey, hey, you're okay." He coos, thumb rolling over your cheek.
Any humor is gone from his face, fully replaced with worry. It's almost worse.
Fuck.
The tears spill, first one then two. Building until you're close to sobs.
Then the blubbering comes, "I'm sorry-" you gasp, sitting up and doing your best to push him away. "This is stupid I'm sorry."
The words are wet and small, pathetic like this stupid plant and your stupid flowers and you, and God, why can't you just take a joke? Why is your skin so paper fucking thin?
"Hey quit that." Bucky whispers, forcing himself close once again. "Nothing here is stupid, but my bad joke. Okay?"
His hands are back on your face, warm and big enough to dwarf your entire cheek. "I'm sorry." You whisper again, hiccuping as you lean into his touch.
"Who made you think you need to apologize all the time?" Bucky asks, "Did nothin' wrong sweetheart."
Slowly, things level out, your breathing evens and the tears finally start to slow. Bucky doesn't move an inch, his eyes locked on yours as he wipes the tears from your cheeks until they finally stop.
"You okay?" Bucky asks.
You nod, not trusting your voice.
He pulls his hands back from your face, taking your wrists instead and using them to turn your hands up so he can see.
"Got yourself good." He says, gently scraping the stuck rocks off of your palm. They're a mess, bloodied and covered in dirt. "Need to clean these."
The whimper that escapes is unconscious, a half baked protest that only makes embarrassment curl harder in your chest.
"I know." Bucky says sympathetically. "I have stuff in my bag." Hes already reaching behind him, grabbing the strap of his pack when a clap of thunder echoes.
It's barely a warning, hardly enough time for your look up in surprise when suddenly the sky opens.
At first it's hardly a drizzle, one or two drops landing on your nose.
Then it's a downpour. Sudden and violent as it washes over you. You're soaked in an instant, clothes wet through to the bone.
Bucky's back to cursing, any softness replaced with stony determination. One second he's pulling his bag over his shoulder and the next he's sliding one arm beneath your knees and the other under your back.
You can't even hear your surprised yelp over the rain, the rapid putter-patter of the drops cancelling out anything that might've escaped when Bucky suddenly stands.
Understandably, you jolt against him, arms wrapping around his neck as you fight to hold on.
You're too disoriented to notice much of anything, between the rain, the cuts, and the feeling of Bucky's arms around you, nothing makes sense.
There's movement, the rise and fall of a jog. You can almost make out some of the words Bucky's trying to yell to you. Something about being right, and did he just say cave?
Calling it a cave was being generous.
Alcove is more appropriate, just enough room for you and Bucky to escape the rain.
Not enough room for you to sit without touching, your legs all but in his lap as your curl against the wall.
You're both breathing heavy, a come down from the adrenaline as your bodies try to catch up to every sensation.
Bucky's staring outside, looking at the rain with furrowed brows, as if it's offended him someone by daring to fall.
"How did you know?" You ask, turning yourself further in towards him.
Bucky shrugs, "My shoulder," his hand comes up to touch it, kneading over the exposed scar as he speaks. "It aches when it's gonna rain."
"Oh."
"Yeah it's like my nerves can tell? I don't know it's weird, but it's never wrong."
You hum, his gaze is still towards the outside so you let yours fall on him. He looks unreal this close, high definition Bucky.
You wonder if you stared long enough could you could his stubble? It's short, neatly trimmed. As if he just did it this morning, fresh edges under his jaw.
Unthinking you reach out and touch it. With your chest already pressed into his shoulder, what do you have to lose?
Bucky startles at first, jumping under your touch before immediately relaxing. Well, at least as much as you can imagine a man like him does relax.
Slowly you trace your thumb over it, dragging it across the seam of where hair meets skin. Even after the rain you can smell his after shave, deep and musky. He must have just don't it this morning. How early did he have to wake up to shave? Why was it so important for a hike?
"We didn't have to do this today." You offer, even though it's useless now.
"What-" Bucky's already protesting, turning his head to look at you fully. Your hand stops, landing just next to his Adam's apple and holding there.
"If I'd know you were hurting, I mean we could have waited."
Bucky shakes his head. "No I- I wanted to. I was," his throat bobs, you have to fight the urge to shiver at the way it feels under your fingers. "I was looking forward to it."
You can't help but giggle. "You were excited to hike?"
It's dim in your little shelter, but even with the lack of light you can watch Bucky's cheeks turn just a little pink.
"With you."
Your pulse stutters, and for just a moment the fact closeness hits you. Bucky Barnes pressed against you. Bucky Barnes' pulse beneath your fingers. Bucky Barnes gritting his teeth through shoulder pain to spend time with you.
Those last two words echo, bouncing around your brain as if delighted with themselves.
With you. With you. With you.
It's your turn to jump when Bucky touches you, jolting you out of your spiral when hooks a finger under your chin and lifts it up.
"Got yourself good."
His thumb rubs over what must be a cut, another spot where a stone was unlucky enough to catch you.
You try to swallow around your nerves, around the way every feeling you've buried seems to rise up the back of your throat.
"I did?" You manage to whisper.
Bucky nods, eyes fixed on the spot.
"They're gonna wrap me in bubble wrap at this rate." You try to joke, choking on the tension instead.
"No." Bucky shakes his head, eyes darting up to look at yours for just a moment before dropping. This time not as far down as your chin. "I'll just catch you next time."
"Yeah?"
He nods and you can feel the weight of his gaze on your lips.
"What if I fall in town?"
"I'll be there." His hand shifts, palm moving until it's holding your cheek again.
"On the beach."
"Yup." His thumb curves lower this time, the pad of it at the edge of your lips.
"In the mines?"
"Why are you in the mines?" His gaze falters, back to your eyes for a second.
"There are mushrooms down there that don't grow anywhere else. They're purple and I think they might have some health benefits like improved energy levels and some vitamin gaps-"
"Anyone ever tell you that you talk a lot?" Bucky interrupts.
You nod, embarrassed smile moving his thumb as your lips curve. "All the time actually, a lot of people think I better shut up before it gets me in trouble."
"Don't you dare." Bucky's voice has gone the lowest you think you've ever heard it, raspy and almost unfamiliar.
"Get in trouble?"
"Shut up." Bucky clarifies, he's so close now you can feel his nose against your own. His eyes are half lidded, barely open enough for you to make out his blown pupils. "Love hearin' you talk."
It's something no one's ever said to you before, something you had honestly figured wasn't possible. Someone who savors your voice not the absence of it.
Like Eve, the one thing you never knew you wanted has been served to you on a silver platter, how could you not bite the apple?
Bucky's lips are chapped, rough against yours the way your expected them to be. Torn skin catches against yours, making your tongue roll over them to soothe, as if applying a balm.
Bucky's hands are everywhere now, as if your kiss gave him permission he had been waiting for. First it's your face, both cheeks held in his large palms. Quickly it escalates, one dropping to your throat to mirror your own touch. Meanwhile the other falls to your waist, grabbing at the soft flesh there in a half-grope half-pull.
One second you're resting on cave floor the next you're being positioned over Bucky's thighs, hips angles until finally you're encouraged to sit. A pat on your hip telling you to lower your weight.
You drop right over Bucky's thighs, the very tops where his stomach pudges out just a little over his belt and his tank top has been pulled down.
Bucky doesn't let down until he's satisfied he has your full weight, letting out the most delicious groan against your lips as you settle.
"Stupid." He whispers, spitting the word against your lips as if tastes bad. "Sweetheart the only stupid one is me for not doing this sooner."
This time it's your turn to push, your lips harder into his, your chest as tight as possible against him. Your hands finally roam, curving over the detailed path of his body. The rough scar on his shoulder, gentle and slow. Then the slope between his pecs, dragging down hard enough for the tip of your nail to draw a red line. Finally over his ribs, where your fingers slot between each divot.
It's as if the flood gates have been opened, every word you've agonized over, each action you second guessed disappears and is replaced with white hot want. Molten lava in your belly that you never even knew you possessed.
Bucky gasps into your mouth, opening further into your assault.
"Wanna make a map of every spot that makes you sound like that and memorize it." You whisper into his lips.
Bucky nods fervently against you, using his hands to drag you over his crotch, pressing the hard line of bulge to your tingling cunt.
"Whatever you want." He offers, "Study me, dissect me, yell at me about how I'm planting the flowers wrong I don't care." He drags you over him again, swallowing the whimper that bubbles from your lips at the sound. "I'll donate my body to science."
Your brain is slowly falling apart, melting and dripping out of your ears for sure. The rain explodes outside, its downfall turning deafening as the kiss deepens, as if its trying to match your intensity.
Bucky kisses you like it's an attack and a thank you all in the same breath. something between worship and hunger.
Your body feels the most alive it's ever been, for the first time years its as if you're actually in the moment instead of watching it from the outside.
Thunder roars again outside. This time less like a roar and more like the clicking of pieces sliding into place.
It's not until your lungs start to burn that you pull away, lips bruised and kiss bitten. Your chin sore from where the cut caught on stubble. Your body floaty where it rests in Bucky's lap.
The only thing that matches what you feel is the smile playing on Bucky's lips, a subtle curve just sharp enough to make your pulse stutter.
Finally, the rain stops. Tempering off completely within a minute of the last thunderclap.
When you come out of the cave, this time hand in hand, a warm breeze washes over you. Like praise from the life surrounding you.
You can only imagine their glee when Bucky drags you inside his house later, tripping over the stairs in excitement.
There are a few simple reasons you like Bucky.
He likes you for one, that's a pretty good one. If his mumbles when he's balls deep inside you and half drunk on pleasure are to believed, he actually loves you.
He's quiet, but never the kind that makes you feel judged. He's quiet like the plants, always listening, and always ready to offer you the best solution he can find.
He's weird, you might even think he's worse than you are. He's read lord of the rings three times and still refuses to watch the movie. He lights up when you suggest growing plums. Walks into town holding your hand and when people ask if you're dating he just shakes his head. "No," he says, completely straight faced, "I'm being studied."
thank you so much for reading!!!!! I love youuuuuuu!!!
ROCK-A-BYE BABY
college professor!bucky barnes x single mom!reader [4k]
— ⟢ SUMMARY: when you have no choice but to bring your baby to lectures, mr. barnes reluctantly allows it. what follows is a semester of confused students, increasingly suspicious acts of kindness, one very attached baby, and a strict professor who becomes far too invested for anyone’s peace of mind.
— ⟢ WARNINGS: mdni (this story doesn’t contain smut but my blog is 18+); grumpy!bucky; whipped!bucky; it’s implied that they start dating once reader is not his student anymore; fluff; the baby has a name.
A/N: well well well... what a cute way to launch the requests for my 1.5k followers celebration 🥹 (already 40 followers away from 2k, this is insane thank you so much 🫂). this one is especially dear to me because it comes from a real-life friend of mine and is actually inspired by a true story (minus the love story part lol). one of their classmates has a baby and would occasionally bring her along to lectures, and knowing that I often take inspiration from real life, my friend suggested it could make for a cute bucky fic 😭
you may also notice that the layout for requests (and shorter stories in general) is a little different. partly because I’m running out of pictures for moodboards 🥲 but also because I want to differentiate them from my longer stories since I’m trying to improve my summarizing skills 😭
I really hope you’ll enjoy my shorter one-shots as well!
Universities function on rumor as much as fact, and Professor Barnes has acquired a reputation long before many of his students ever stepped into one of his lectures. He is demanding, precise, uninterested in excuses. Assignments submitted late are graded late, if they are graded at all, but questions are always answered thoroughly—provided they aren’t an attempt to compensate for poor preparation.
By the middle of September, punctuality has become an unspoken rule in his class. Late arrivals are met without comment, only a brief pause and a solemn look that lingers just long enough to make the entire room shiver.
It’s therefore difficult to imagine a classroom less suited to your situation.
Your son fell asleep in the car. That, in itself, is quite unfortunate. Had he remained awake, you would have sat outside with him a little longer, gathered your thoughts, considered whether attending at all was worth the anxiety currently twisting your stomach. Instead, Milo sleeps peacefully against your shoulder while you stand in the corridor outside the lecture hall, alone, staring at the door and trying to not think about the fact that you are carrying a diaper bag covered in cute cartoonish lions, and moments away from walking into a room filled with people who would undoubtedly have opinions and speculations about you and your son.
Everyone’s eyes fall on you the moment the door opens subtly beneath your careful hand. As much as you try to be silent, it would have been impossible to not notice you.
Curiosity proves far more common than judgement, though. Students glance up from laptops and conversations, register the baby, and immediately start wondering whether Professor Barnes had already been informed.
The answer becomes obvious a few minutes later.
He stops just inside the doorway, gaze moving across the room only to land on you almost immediately. His blue eyes remain there long enough that several students abandon any pretense of looking away.
You rise before he can speak.
“I’m so sorry.” Your voice carries farther than you intend in the suddenly silent room. “My babysitter quitted.”
You swallow. “I couldn’t find anyone else.”
Professor Barnes listens in complete silence and that only makes the exchange incredibly uncomfortable. He doesn’t interrupt, nor does he reassure you. Instead, he stands with both hands by his sides, his expression giving away so little that half the room starts preparing for the worst on your behalf.
Perhaps he expects more explanation. Perhaps you feel compelled to provide it.
“I didn’t want to miss another lecture.” The admission seems to embarrass you as your voice wavers a little.
The baby shifts slightly against your shoulder at that exact moment and you adjust him instinctively.
“If it’s a problem, I’ll leave.”
Professor Barnes glances toward the child with plain reluctance, then back toward you.
“How long?”
You blink. “Pardon?”
“How long is this arrangement supposed to last?”
The question seems reasonable enough. Unfortunately, even reasonable questions occasionally require uncomfortable answers.
You look down, almost in shame.
“I don’t know.” The honesty escapes before you can soften it. “I’ve called a few places, but most of them have waiting lists.”
Nobody in the room appears particularly eager to be in your position. And Professor Barnes seems to find this information exactly as inconvenient as everyone expected him to.
The slight tightening of his jaw suggests a man being presented with circumstances he neither likes nor approves of, yet can’t argue against. For a few moments he says nothing at all. Then, he finally exhales quietly.
“Sit down.”
You stare at him in disbelief.
“What?”
“You can stay, but take the baby outside if he starts fussing.”
Your lips part in relief so quickly that it’s almost painful to witness.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Barnes.”
The Professor gives no indication that gratitude interests him and simply glances at the digital clock above his desk.
“Class started thirty seconds ago.” He states louder, throwing a stern look at the rest of the class, too busy staring at you.
The soft murmur reprises normally as everyone frantically starts reaching for their notes.
The matter, as far as he seems concerned, is closed.
At first, your presence in the lecture hall attracts attention. People look up when you arrive, track your progress toward your usual seat near the front, and observe with a curiosity they rarely bother hiding. A baby simply isn’t something anybody anticipates finding in Professor Barnes’ lectures, and for the first couple of weeks there is the persistent conviction that things would soon return to whatever passed for normal.
Instead, Milo keeps showing up and the lecture hall adapts accordingly.
Your classmates learn to move their bags when they see you approaching with your arms already full; somebody always seems to have a spare pen when yours disappears into the seemingly endless depths of the diaper bag, and more than one person has kindly shared lecture notes after discovering that trying to write while simultaneously preventing an increasingly fast infant from eating paper is a task bordering on impossible.
Milo, meanwhile, thrives under the attention.
He likes brightly colored pens and would become completely absorbed by them, tracking their movement with remarkable concentration as soon as the familiar clicks reaches his small ears. He inevitably falls asleep about twenty minutes into every lecture, regardless of how noisy the room happens to be. Your classmates also learn that laughter produces immediate excitement, his legs kicking enthusiastically while he looks around in search of whatever seems to be making everybody so happy.
Most notably, however, they learn that Milo has developed a favorite.
The first sign is the smiles. At seven months old, he smiles frequently enough that nobody considers it unusual. Babies smile at strangers, at ceiling lights, at absolutely nothing at all... but soon the pattern becomes difficult to ignore.
Every morning, without fail, Milo’s attention drifts toward the door shortly before Professor Barnes arrives. Sometimes he is playing with his favorite plushie—a small, soft bunny your best friend gifted him when he was born. Sometimes he is busy trying to pull your notebook from your hands. Sometimes he is halfway through a bottle.
None of that matters, though. The moment Mr. Barnes appears, Milo’s face lights up.
Every. Damn. Time.
“Oh, no.” You mutter one morning as your son nearly twists himself out of your arms trying to watch Mr. Barnes cross the room. “We’re not doing this.”
Milo responds by grinning even harder.
“You don’t even know him!”
False. At this point, Milo sees Professor Barnes with more consistency than he sees his own grandparents.
The problem is that his interest doesn’t stop at smiling.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the focus of that fascination appears to be Mr. Barnes’ vibranium arm.
At first, the fixation seems harmless: Milo watches it move whenever the Professor gestures, his big eyes following it in awe even as he writes across the whiteboard. If he passes nearby, your son instantly tracks the motion with the unwavering concentration of somebody witnessing a miracle unfold in real time.
“Oh my God.” You whisper exasperated one afternoon after catching him staring openly for nearly ten minutes. “Stop looking at him like that, baby.”
Milo ignores you, of course, and Professor Barnes remains apparently oblivious.
Or, perhaps, chooses to not acknowledge it.
Weeks pass and the fascination only intensifies.
By the middle of October, Milo has started leaning toward Mr. Barnes whenever he walks past your row. By the beginning of November, he is actively attempting to reach for him whenever the opportunity presents itself.
The inevitable finally happens on a rainy Thursday afternoon.
The lecture has been underway for nearly half an hour, most people having settled into the comfortable rhythm of note-taking and occasional distraction. Professor Barnes is moving through a complicated explanation that occupies nearly the entire whiteboard, his handwriting spreading neatly from one side to the other while students hurry to keep pace.
You are trying to copy a diagram one-handed while your son, who has apparently decided sleep is no longer part of his afternoon plans, occupies your lap and often attempts to interfere with your efforts.
The moment Mr. Barnes approaches the front row, his attention shifts completely.
His eyes immediately lock onto the vibranium hand and a few nearby students notice immediately.
Milo leans forward and you adjust your grip automatically. He only leans farther. Only then do you glance up from your notebook and realize exactly what has captured his attention.
The embarrassment makes your neck burn.
“Oh, baby.”
Several students look away in a futile attempt to hide their grin.
“Don’t do that.” You feel like crying, but Milo doesn’t care at all. His entire focus remains on the arm.
Professor Barnes, noticing the unusual silence that has settled across the room, finally looks over.
His gaze follows the direction of Milo’s, landing directly on his left arm.
You really hope the floor could open beneath your chair.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Barnes.”
The apology emerges instant and desperate.
“He’s… a very curious baby.” You try to go for a smile but you are pretty sure it resembles a grimace.
Professor Barnes says nothing.
Milo, encouraged by the fact that his target is finally looking at him, immediately stretches both chubby hands forward.
The gesture is so earnest, so hopeful, that a few people can’t fight back their smiles anymore.
You look horrified.
“Milo.” You choke out, eyes wide and scared.
For a brief moment, Professor Barnes simply stares down at him. Until your son smiles: a proper curve of his lips that lights up his entire face. The kind that makes complete strangers smile back without meaning to.
The whole class gasps collectively, because Mr. Barnes nonchalantly extends his hand, allowing Milo to grab his fingers at once.
The victory is apparently everything he has hoped for as his delighted squeals echo through the lecture hall.
You drag your unoccupied hand down your face.
“Jesus Christ.”
Professor Barnes glances at you. “He’s fine.”
The statement should not, under any reasonable circumstances, make the situation more embarrassing, but somehow it does.
Milo continues holding onto the offered finger with obvious satisfaction, until the Professor turns back toward the whiteboard.
“As I was saying…” He clears his throat lightly, gesturing at the diagrams.
The lecture resumes, Professor Barnes continues teaching as though a toddler hasn’t just left traces of his own saliva across his hand… and Milo keeps clutching his fingers whenever he wanders close enough.
You spend the next forty minutes with mortification written all over your face.
By the time class ends, not a single person can confidently explain what the lecture has actually been about.
Everybody has become used to a version of Milo that rarely causes any trouble. He babbles, certainly. He occasionally attempts to steal pens. Once he managed to grab an entire page of somebody’s notes and crumple it beyond recognition before anyone could stop him.
Actual tears, however, are rare enough that the sound draws every eye toward the front row.
You want to disappear.
Your eyes widen so fast that it’s obvious you have been dreading this exact moment since the first day you brought him to class.
“No no no, please wait just a second.” You mutter, frantically gathering your things.
Milo only cries harder.
The notebook on your desk snaps shut, one hand reaching for the diaper bag while the other tries to soothe a baby who has apparently decided that nothing short of complete misery would properly express his feelings.
“I’m really sorry,” you fret, rising from your seat. “I’ll take him outside.”
Professor Barnes sets down the marker calmly. In a room currently distracted by a crying infant and an increasingly distressed mother, the movement attracts considerably more attention.
“Where are you going?”
You freeze at the sound of his deep baritone.
“Outside.”
“Why?”
The question catches you completely off guard.
“Because he’s… crying?” You reply unsure.
Mr. Barnes glances at Milo’s crumpled features and fat tears wetting his cheeks, then looks back at you, before sighing and simply holding out his arms.
“Give him here.”
You stare at him with your jaw slack.
“What?” You squeak out.
“Give him here. He’s clearly tired of sitting for hours.”
The rest of the students watch the scene unfold in disbelief.
“And you need to take notes.”
You are still staring at him as if he just started speaking another language.
Mr. Barnes lifts an eyebrow. “Unless you’ve suddenly decided you don’t need them to pass my exam.”
Your mouth opens and closes helplessly, before carefully transferring Milo into his arms.
The crying doesn’t stop immediately. It does, however, begin losing conviction.
Mr. Barnes adjusts his grip with surprising familiarity, settling Milo against his right side before turning back toward the whiteboard.
“The problem with this interpretation is that it assumes the conclusion before the evidence has actually established it.”
The marker moves steadily across the board, and Milo hiccups.
A few minutes later, your son has reduced his complaints to occasional sniffles, until he falls completely silent, his head tucked against Mr. Barnes’ shoulder while he discusses course material with the same seriousness he brings to every lecture.
Nobody recovers.
The sight of Professor Barnes pacing slowly across the front of the lecture hall with a sleeping baby resting against his shoulder is significantly less unsettling than how natural he makes it look.
Once the semester has reached its final stretch, the idea that Professor Barnes merely tolerates Milo has quietly stopped making sense to anyone who was lucky enough to see the three of you interact.
It’s no longer unusual to hear him use the baby’s name as part of the natural rhythm of his speech.
“Milo,” he would say without looking up from the board when the baby starts to wriggle too close to the edge of your lap.
The sound alone is enough to calm him, which in itself has become one of those things students notice but don’t quite understand how to talk about.
Several colorful objects start appearing around his usually dull desk without comment. A teething ring in a muted blue kept inside the top drawer, pulled out automatically whenever Milo grows restless. A small cloth elephant with one ear slightly bent, usually resting near the stack of graded papers, which your son would immediately reach for the moment he is close enough to see it. A soft book with stiff pages and bright illustrations that makes a faint crinkling sound when handled with curiosity by his chubby hands.
Sometimes, he knows what’s happening to Milo before you do.
The lecture has ended five minutes ago, but you are still at the front desk with your latest assignment. Milo keeps squirming in your arms, not settling no matter how you shift him. Your eyes squint at the corrected paper, not really understanding what your professor did to reach the right result.
Mr. Barnes stands beside you, one hand on the desk while skimming the paper without any urgency. The room is mostly empty now, just the three of you and the faint sound of chairs being dragged somewhere down the hall.
You point at the problem set. “I kept ending up with two different answers here depending on how I handled this step, but I don’t understand where I went wrong.”
He gently leans forward and places his index finger on the sign he’d circled.
“Here.” He taps the bracket. “You’re only applying the minus to the first term. It has to go across everything inside.”
You exhale through your nose, half frustration, half acceptance.
“Right. Okay.”
He doesn’t comment and just slides the paper slightly back toward you.
Milo twists again in your arms, letting out a small irritated sound and your hand smoothes his back without looking away from the paper.
Barnes glances down at him.
“He’s uncomfortable.”
“Yeah,” you murmur, still focused on the problem set. “He’s been like this for days.”
“He’s teething.” Mr. Barnes states calmly.
You finally look up at that, eyebrows lifting slightly. “How are you so sure, Professor?”
He looks at Milo for a second longer this time, then back at the assignment as if the answer isn’t complicated enough to deserve emphasis.
“He’s always chewing his hand and drooling a lot more than usual because his gums are probably swollen.”
You shift Milo higher against your shoulder again, watching him stare at your professor as he settles briefly. “That’s… annoyingly observant.”
That earns you the faintest glance from him, like he isn’t sure if you are complaining or just acknowledging a fact.
“Cold cloths help,” he adds eventually. “Not ice, just cool water. Wring them out properly.”
You go still, briefly throwing him a curious glance.
“You’ve dealt with this a lot.” You mention off-handedly.
He doesn’t look up immediately.
“No,” then, after a beat, “just paid attention when it happened to my younger sister.”
The chair beside his desk appears the following week without announcement, and nobody would have thought much of it if it hadn’t immediately become the place you end up during breaks, sitting with Milo while trying to breathe for a moment between lectures.
The first time it happens, you look at it uncertainly, hovering for a second too long before Mr. Barnes simply looks up from his papers and repeats, without hesitation, “Sit.”
He doesn’t speak much while you are there, but he doesn’t shut you out either. When you say something, he answers without looking up right away, usually just a few words before going back to what he is doing.
Sometimes you speak more loosely, just thinking out loud about how tired you are or how your day has gone, and he’d respond with a short comment or a quiet hum of acknowledgement. A bottle of water would be set within reach without comment, a granola bar placed beside your notebook as if it had been part of the desk arrangement from the beginning. When Milo squirms too much or reaches toward him from your lap, Mr. Barnes would take him without waiting for you to offer.
If he calms down, he would keep him there. If he starts fussing again, Mr. Barnes would walk a few slow steps around the desk area, still listening to your voice.
Most of the building has already emptied out, the usual echo of footsteps and distant conversations fading into a soft murmur. A new academic year has begun a few weeks earlier, bringing new classes, new students, and different routines to adapt to.
Kate is only passing through on her way back to the library after a quick coffee break when she notices that Professor Barnes’ office door isn’t fully closed, which in itself isn’t unusual during the day, but feels slightly different now, at this hour, when most doors have already been shut and locked into the night.
It stands ajar just enough to let the light spill out into the corridor in a thin line, and something about it makes her slow down without quite knowing why.
You are on the couch near the window, turned toward the coffee table, a stack of notes spread across your lap and the space beside you like you have tried to organize them into something manageable and then given up halfway. Your pen moves every so often, pausing in your fingers while your gaze drifts across the same line over and over again.
Milo is asleep against Professor Barnes’ chest, finally surrendered to exhaustion. One small hand is curled into the fabric of his white shirt as though even unconscious he has to make sure he’s still there.
Mr. Barnes is sitting beside you on the couch rather than at his desk, leaned back enough to give himself space while still holding your son securely, his other hand busy grading a stack of papers balanced across his knee.
Every so often his fingers adjust slightly against Milo’s back without looking down—small, automatic corrections that come too naturally, like his body has memorized the child’s weight by now.
Kate should have left then. Finding the three of you together isn’t particularly surprising. She has spent most of the previous semester sitting beside you, and after a while it became impossible to not notice things.
Mr. Barnes knew which songs made Milo stop crying, which foods he would immediately throw on the floor, and exactly how long he could sit through a lecture before getting bored. More impressively, he knew when you hadn’t slept. Kate had seen him arrive more than once, take a single look at you, and set a coffee beside your notebook before he’d even taken attendance.
She is ready to walk away, but Milo shifts.
A small movement, a restless ripple through sleep, followed by a soft whine tinged with the faintest edge of discomfort. His face tightens, brows drawing together, and his grip on Mr. Barnes’ shirt instinctively changes, fingers curling a little more firmly as if searching for something safe.
The Professor moves at once.
“Hey buddy,” he says quietly, voice dropping to a mere whisper. “It’s alright.”
He brings Milo closer against his chest, his other palm settling between the baby’s shoulders in a slow, steady rhythm. The papers on his knee remain untouched, his pen resting loosely between his fingers as he focuses entirely on the small toddler in his arms.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs again, almost absently. “You’re fine. I’ve got you.”
The tension leaves his body in gradual stages until there is nothing left, except the faintest lingering sound of his steady breathing. He doesn’t immediately go back to his task, instead gently leaning down to press a brief kiss to the top of Milo’s head.
That should have definitely been her cue to leave.
But Mr. Barnes stays like that for a moment longer, eyes on Milo as if confirming it has actually worked, then leans back into the couch.
“You are staring.” He mentions, but there is no edge to it.
You roll your eyes but it doesn’t land properly because there is still a soft smile on your lips. “You’re imagining things again.”
Mr. Barnes tilts his head just enough to look at you properly.
“Yeah?” He murmurs with a little amused smirk.
Milo decides to make a small sound in his sleep again, and Professor Barnes promptly glances at him, before looking back up.
At that point, his arm comes around your waist as he moves closer, pulling you in until your head lands on his free shoulder. His thumb brushes your belly once.
“You’re tired.” He mumbles.
“I’m fine.” Your answer is automatic, too quick.
That gets you a small, disappointed exhale from him.
“Hey.” He whispers, his fingers squeezing your hip once, causing you to slowly look up. Mr. Barnes just nudges his nose lightly against yours—an absent, almost teasing gesture that brings a hint of a smile on your pretty features.
Before you can open your mouth, though, he is already leaning closer, his forehead brushing against yours.
Your breath hitches at that, yet your hand still rises, cupping his jaw as your thumb lightly strokes the stubble on his cheek.
“What?” You whisper, softer now.
His eyes watch yours for a moment—shiny with exhaustion yet still so beautiful—then they flick down to your mouth, the lipstick from this morning now completely gone.
“C’mere, sweetheart.”
The kiss is very different from the one you shared last night in your bed—a simple, warm press of lips that gradually deepens as the grip on your waist tightens in response to your cute, soft breaths. Your fingers curve more firmly against his face, holding him there as his mouth languidly move against yours.
The moment you slightly pull back, Mr. Barnes follows your lips once more, your faint giggle muffled against his mouth as he kisses you again, firmly.
His forehead rests on yours when he finally relents, his thumb gently stroking the sliver of skin that peaked out as the hem of your shirt shifted with you.
Your hands eventually wrap around his forearm, squeezing the muscle slightly before relaxing again. It’s only then that Mr. Barnes lets out a little relieved sigh as your head falls back on his shoulder and you finally allow your eyes to flutter shut.
Kate purses her lips in a poor attempt to hide her smile, and finally keeps walking.
— ⟢ END NOTES: I guess if I get better at this I might open requests for some of my stories! thank you so much for reading 🤍
my masterlist → winteryn's masterlist
summary: it's been 8 months since you've had contact with your ex-boyfriend Bucky, until you get a call from Nat that changes everything.
pairing: ex!bucky barnes x reader | wc: 300 (yay!)
prompt: say something - a great big world & christina aguilera "say something" & "i'm sorry that i couldn't get to you"
warnings: coma, hurt/no comfort, hospital setting, injuries, inaccuracy around medical stuffs, implied death.
dt: @sassandscribbles daisy the angst queen
event masterlist | main masterlist
You feel it before you get the call. Terror ripping through your chest so hard it hurts.
“Hello?” Your voice is shaking. You already know. You feel it twist through your lungs, pull at your intestines and drag down your face like angry claws.
There’s a click.
And then a voice.
“Sweetheart, it’s Bucky.” Nat breathes out shakily.
Your heart is beating so loud you barely hear a word.
Hospital.
Serious condition.
Coma.
A mission gone wrong.
The world tilts.
You forget how to breathe.
No. No. No… Please God no…
You’re running before you realise what’s happening.
Your ears ring.
Your heart is in your throat.
Every footstep you take up to Bucky’s room vibrates through your body.
He’s on the bed—dried blood spread across his face.
There’s so much blood.
So many wires.
You collapse into the chair next to him, taking his hand.
“M’so sorry Bucky, so sorry. m’sorry I couldn’t get to you. Please don’t leave me Buck, please— I—” Your voice breaks off into a sob.
You plead silently, gripping his hand in yours, pressing it to your chest—to your heart, like maybe your love could be enough to bring him back.
Bucky please, you can't leave me, please stay here.
I— I never got to make you a birthday cake.
We never got to dance together.
I don't remember if you like honey or not and I need to ask you.
I don't remember what your voice sounds like when you cry.
“We don’t think he’s going to make it, he’s sustained too much injury to his brain.” The nurse’s voice reaches you like you’re underwater.
“Bucky, please, say something.”
His heart monitor slows.
The sound of it flatlining pierces through you—ringing through your ears until there’s nothing.
✦Bucky Masterlist - Main Masterlist - Read on aO3!✦
✦summary: you fell for bucky a long, long while ago. and you think about him, every day and every night. if only you knew that he thought about you too.✦
✦warnings/tags: bucky barnes x female!reader, friends to lovers, light emotional angst, everyone's bad at feelings, fluff, smut, plot and porn mix (dirty talk, use of sex toys , fingering, pussy eating like crazy, fantasization, praise kink, manhandling, perfectly "appropriate" use of bucky's metal arm, nipple play, dumbification, semi-public sex, dry humping, sensitive reader, finger sucking, masturbation, bucky gets nasty, body worship, overstimulation, mean!bucky, oral m!recieving, praise kink, monster dick bucky, he fucks like a machine), no use of y/n, no descrption of reader✦
✦wc: 7.5k✦
✦Author's Note: request! who wouldn't fantasize about bucky barnes?✦
You think you might be a freak.
Compared to everyone else in the building, you’re perfectly normal. On the outside. Where everyone can see. You don’t have any powers, and you’ve never been shot up with serums or infinity stones. You’re a human, with a sharp tongue and shaper brain, pretty features and a charming smile, and absolutely no desire to be anything else.
Tony even asked you once. If you’d consider it. The whole hero thing. You’d laughed and shaken your head. You told him that you’re not that kind of brave. That you prefer to stay behind the scenes, helping with the tech and med services. Tony had laughed with you, and remarked causally that you’d be good at it.
You’d smiled and waved him off. But he was wrong. Because you can’t be normal about anything.
You’re not casual. You’re obsessive, and quietly insane. You don’t become the top of your field like this while being anything else. It’s easy to contain yourself in this kind of work, in it’s order and chaos all at once. There are rules that you to follow, then break, and everyone praises you and you glow like a diamond catching sunlight.
Not absorbing it. Because it passes right through, and it’s never enough, and you get addicted to it. The praise, from these living gods. They all love you, and you bask in it, and then you look at him.
Bucky.
The only one who doesn’t praise you. Who doesn’t treat you like a good dog, bringing them treats and newspapers. When you met him, he barely treated you like anything at all. Tony had introduced you, he’d looked you up and down, shaken your hand, and walked away.
But you.
You’d been a fucking goner.
Bucky’s handsome in the way you used to only see in movies. Your exact type, from the hair to the eyes to the way he carries himself. Silent and in control, kind but not overly nice, polite without expectation. You’d made it two years without developing a crush on anyone. Somehow, surrounded by some of the world’s most handsome men, you’d maintained that tiny sliver of your sanity.
Then there was Bucky. And you lost yourself.
You’re not weird around him. You’re not a stalker, and you’re not that kind of insane. You’re perverted in the privacy of your head, drooling over his massive hands and muscles, but swallowing it before it leaks out of your lips. You don’t react when Tony says his name, save for a traitorous pulse in your cunt.
“You ready to look at his arm?” Tony asks, and you hum.
“Think so. Just maintenance?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tony sighs. “I’d work on Terminator myself, but Cap says I spend the whole time looking like I want to throat chop him. So,” he shrugs. “Don’t look like you wanna throat chop him.”
You laugh softly, and grab the tools off the bench. It’s not a big deal. You’re the only person besides Tony, in the whole building, who’s qualified to work on Bucky’s arm.
But that means you get to be close to him. Just the thought of it makes your skin hot, your heart buzzing more than thumping, your fingers fidgeting with the straps of your toolkit as you restlessly wait.
Bucky says your name, and your head shoots up. He’s there. He’s right there, and watching you with those careful, beautiful eyes.
“Hi,” you say, and it sounds so pathetically breathless.
Bucky tilts his head. His hair looks soft. You want to run your fingers through it, to pull on it, to feel it tickling over your face as he ruts into your drooling pussy-
He’s staring at you. He must’ve said something that you didn’t hear. Fuck.
“What?”
His lips twitch. Just the smallest movement up, almost impossible to catch. Your heart skips, and you almost miss his words again.
“You the one workin’ on me today?” His voice is low. It rolls through the air like thunder.
You wonder, if there’s any part of him that isn’t addictive.
You’re here for a job. You’re here to give him medical treatment. You plaster a sweet smile on your face, and gesture to the chair. You can be normal about this.
“Tony has bad bedside manner,” you say smoothly, and Bucky chuckles.
God, that’s worse than the smile. It echoes through your chest, and you almost choke on it. How fucking bad you want him.
“He does call me Schwarzeneggerevery time I’m here,” he mutters, crossing the room. “Don’t even know what that means.”
You hum, pretending to look at your tools. He’s sitting down next to you. Your knees are bumping. You’re normal. “Arnold Schwartzinagor. Actor who played the Terminator.”
“Ah.” Bucky pauses. “Sam calls me that, too. It a good movie?”
“It’s fine.” You shrug. “If you like stuff from the 80s.”
“I don’t know things from the 80s.”
You laugh softly, and look up with an apology on your tongue. You find Bucky staring at you, and your breath catches in your throat.
His eyes are so intense, you think they can see right through you. To the lust, pounding in your bloodstream. You have to open your mouth to breathe. Bucky’s eyes flick down. Just tracking a movement. Nothing about you.
You kick yourself internally, and push the casual smile back into place.
“I think you’d like some of it.” You reach for his arm, and Bucky turns it palm up, still staring at you. “I mean, any decade will have it’s ups and downs.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” You run your fingers over the plates of metal, and for a second, forget all about the Bucky attached to them. It’s a beautiful artwork of technology. Overlapping, gold-inlaid, smooth under your fingers. You turn the wrist slowly, and there’s only a faint whir. No clicks. Shuri must be using a muffler, or some kind of fluid that moves the wires instead of gears-
“You want me to go?”
Your head shoots up, a panicked flush spreading over your cheeks. “No- No- I- I’m just-“
Bucky raises his brows, light amusement dancing in his eyes. Your words falter. He’s fucking with you.
“Shut up,” you roll your eyes, and Bucky chuckles again.
God, that sound. It’s going to be the death of you.
“It’s just- It’s amazing technology.” You mumble defensively, and Bucky shrugs.
“I can tell, from the way you’re eye fuckin’ it.”
“Eye fucking.” You shake your head, biting back your smile. “How do you even know what that means?”
“Too much time with Sam.”
“Hm,” you grab your screwdriver, running your hands up the mock muscle—he should be thanking Shuri even more, she didn’t have to give him biceps—looking for a panel. “Tony told me you weren’t going to talk.”
“Tony’s got that bad bedside manner,” Bucky shrugs with his good arm. “You gonna be nicer to me, doll?”
You just hum, ducking your head to hide your flush. Doll. He called you doll.
And Bucky huffs an amused laugh, at your non-answer. But he keeps talking to you. He tells you what Sam’s already gotten him to watch, and what Steve’s trying to get him to watch next, and what Steve’s saving so they can look at it together.
“Is Star Wars any good?” He asks, and you snort.
“Do you like cowboys?”
“I’m neutral.”
“Do you like space?”
“Yeah,” he pauses, then mutters, “I wanted to go to the moon. When I was a kid.”
You look up, and find a faraway look, etched over his handsome features. Your smile softens, and you lower your voice to a whisper, because this feels like a secret. “Yeah?”
Bucky nods, his eyes finding yours again. “I heard we got up there eventually.”
“We did. A few times.” It’s hard to hold his gaze. An unbearable ache is staring to pool between your thighs. “But now there are aliens on earth, so the final frontier is less… Coveted.”
Bucky’s lips twitch. It seems to be the closest he really gets to smiling. You want to see it over, and over, and over again.
“I think you’d like Star Wars.” You’re still whispering. You don’t know why.
“Alright,” Bucky says. And that’s it. He just… Trusts your words.
He asks for you again, next week. Tony claps you on the shoulder and thanks you, because Christ, he stares at me and I feel like I’m under surveillance. You roll your eyes and don’t respond. It doesn’t feel like that when Bucky stares at you, but he also does stare at everyone. So you’re not special. You’re just another person in his line of sight.
“I tried those donuts you were talkin’ about,” he tells you one afternoon, and you hum.
It’s the new routine. Bucky comes for you to work on his arm. You’re normal about it. You talk like people, and his lips twitch, and you feel something press on top of your chest, trying to gnaw your heart right open.
“Liked them,” he adds, staring at you. As always.
You hum, looking at him under your lashes. “Did you have the cookies and cream?”
He nods. “Just like you told me to.”
You smile despite yourself. It’s those small confirmations that he thinks about you, which get you the most. It means you mean something to him. It drives you insane.
“Sam says there are all kinds of ice cream flavors now, too.”
“Sam’s right.”
Bucky sighs. “Hate it when that happens.”
You laugh, a bubbly, pathetic sound that only Bucky pulls out of you. His fingers twitch under your hand, and you glance up.
It would be wise, if you stopped doing that. Every time you find him staring at you, you feel fucking insane.
“You should try cotton candy ice cream,” you murmur. “It’s fucking crazy.”
“That is my favorite kind of thing.”
“I know.”
Bucky’s lips twitch, and your heart almost bursts. “You got a good place? For ice cream?”
You shrug. “The grocery store?”
Bucky grunts, and his fingers twitch again. You focus back on his hand, because you don’t understand why they keep doing that. The rest of the session passes, and Bucky smiles at you before he goes, and you hold onto it like he just handed you a pearl-strung noose. Clutched between your teeth and priceless, but making your breathing short.
The rest of the day always passes in a daze, after you see Bucky. The seconds rush past you in an avalanche, and then you’re in your room, and you let it take over.
How much you want him. How much you need him.
You lay, flat on your back in bed, and let your thoughts run wild. Bucky’s massive hands, one cool and one burning hand, would wander up your thighs. He’d shove your knees open, and kiss over the sensitive, hidden patches of skin. The stubble he’s been growing would scrape and tickle, as he kissed over your weeping pussy.
“All for me?” He’d murmur, and you’d nod helplessly. “You just walk around, pussy leakin’ because of how bad you need it?”
And you’d whimper. You do. There’s nothing you can do to help it, but save that desire for locked doors and hot, tangled sheets. Your fingers—smaller than Bucky’s, but all you have—rub over the swollen lips of your pussy, spreading your arousal as you picture that it’s Bucky instead. You push one finger in slowly, then a second one because you need them to stretch you like Bucky’s would.
“Messy girl,” he’d coo in your ear, and your back arches. You start to fuck yourself, slow and tentative as your thoughts run wild.
This is what just one of his fingers would feel like. Pumping in and out of you, his palm grinding down on you clit until you’re trembling beneath him. You’d try to push up into his hand, but he’d shove you right back down and kiss over your throat. Licking and nipping and driving you out of your fucking mind.
“Buckyyyy...” You moan at the air, and when you squeeze your eyes shut you can almost feel him.
“There you go, babydoll,” he’d kiss under your ear, his body pressing over yours. Warm and massive, pinning you to the bed, forcing you to just take it. “That’s it. You like that, don’t you. Like fallin’ apart on my fingers.”
You whimper and grab at the sheets. Your wrist aches, and you can’t hit that gooey, wet spot inside you, but god you just need to cum.
“I know,” Bucky would hit deeper. Wet, lewd sounds would fill the room, as he pounded his fingers into you at an unforgiving pace. “I know, sweet girl. C’mon, show me how pretty you are when you cum.”
Your back arches off the bed. Your hand shoots over your mouth as you moan and cry out his name, your thighs shaking and pussy squeezing down on your fingers. You lay there for a while after you’re done, holding the sheets in a vague form of Bucky.
Tomorrow, you’re going to see him again. Maybe just over breakfast, or passing in the hall. But you’ll see him. And you’ll have to look him in the eyes, and pray that he can’t see it just under your features. That all he’d ever need to do it touch your head, and you’d fall to your knees.
You’re devoted to him. He thinks of you as a friend, and he’s not your boss, but he’s boss adject, and there’s nothing about him that’s accessible. There’s no world where this ever goes beyond fantasy.
But god, you’re going to fantasize. You can’t hurt anyone, by just fantasizing.
That’s what you’ll tell yourself over and over, to avoid the guilt.
It’s all just a fantasy.
You‘re perfectly professional about it. It’s not Bucky’s fault that he’s so handsome it feels like you shouldn’t be allowed to look at him. You can keep your desire bottled up, keep in the warmest, wettest pits of your stomach. It can seep out between your thighs when it becomes too much to bare. It can breed into itself and spread up into your heart, festering in the dark. But Bucky will never see it. You’ll be good, and you’ll act sane, and that will be it.
He’s been through too much already, to add your insatiable, ardors devotion to his list of problems.
You’ve developed an easy friendship. That’s all you’ll allow yourself to have, all you let yourself think about in his presence. When you’re working on his arm, you don’t think about those big, cold fingers being buried in your pussy until you’re alone in your room. All your daydreams are trapped in your sheets, and your moans absorbed and locked in your pillowcase.
You think about Bucky pinning you down with a warm, splayed hand on your abdomen. About his smirk, as he bullies three metal fingers into your pussy, forcing a perfect stretch before fucking you like a toy. His cold thumb swiping over your clit, sending shivers through your body. His eyes gleaming and attention burning, as he drags out orgasm after orgasm.
That hand would be like having a personal fuck machine, and he’d act like it until the very end. All taunting and teasing until you were spent and limp below him. Then he’d kiss the corner of your mouth, your cheek, the space between your eyes. He’d coo about what a good girl you were for him, and you’d whimper, your voice lost from screaming his name.
“What’re you thinking about?” Bucky says, sitting next to you at the kitchen counter.
You swallow, and shrug meekly. You never feel small around anyone but him, but you’ve never been this lost in anyone but him. It’s a miracle no one’s noticed, how Bucky shows up and suddenly you’re all flushed cheeks and girly giggles. You might as well be twirling your hair and kicking your feet. It’s pathetic. You can’t stop.
“Nothing?” Bucky pushes a little, and you give him a close-lipped, full smile.
“Nope.”
“You looked like you were thinkin’ about something.”
“I wasn’t.” You look back to the sandwich you’d been working on. Bucky keeps staring at you. He always does. “Nothing going on up here, Barnes.”
Bucky’s lips twitch.
The whole world seems brighter, like he’s just like some holy kind of candle.
“I don’t believe that,” he murmurs, and you shrug.
“You don’t have to.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Good for you.”
“It is, isn’t it,” he chuckles. “I’m gonna love being right.”
You blink, shooting his a sideways look. “Being… Right?”
“I know you’re thinkin’ about something.” He shrugs. “I’ll figure out what.”
Oh. Under no circumstances can he find out what you’re thinking about. “It’s not anything interesting,” you try lamely, and Bucky smirks.
“Ah. So it’s something.”
“I- That’s-“ You sputter. “Why do you even care-“
“I like knowin’ what you’re thinking,” he shrug. “It’s always interesting.”
You blink at him. For some reason, that makes your throat close up, your eyes burning with embarrassing tears. Your knees are wobbling, and you’re sitting down. You grunt and look back to your sandwich, and Bucky chuckles.
“C’mon. Tell me.” He leans closer. There’s a gravity, from his heat, and it makes you want to just collapse over his chest.
You look at him from the corner of your eye, and you won’t tell him. That’s against the rules. It defeats the purpose.
But god, he’s looking at you. Really looking at you. You can count each shade of blue in his eyes. If you move just an inch, your noses might bump.
“I’m hungry,” you whisper, and Bucky’s brow knits.
He looks down to your sandwich. Then back to you. Adorable confusion flashes over his face. “You should… Uh- Eat.”
You nod, and he clears his throat, leaning back. You wish you could grab the collar of his shirt, and drag him back.
“You ever seen this thing called the Princess Bride?” He asks, not touching any food himself.
Just sitting there. With you. You try not to think about it too much.
You nod, chewing on your sandwich with puffed out cheeks. “’S a really good movie-“
“Chew then swallow, doll.” Bucky’s lips twitch, and you flush and obey.
“It’s a good movie,” you mumble, giving him a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”
Bucky shrugs, his gaze dropping to your mouth. Your breath hitches. You go perfectly still, afraid that if you shift, he’ll look away.
His tongue darts over his lips. He tips his head, his forearm flexes as he curls his fingers, and your breathing gets shallow. Something electric has shifted in the air, and it’s making you dizzy. Bucky reaches up slowly, and if you weren’t rooting in place, you think you’d fall out of your chair.
His thumb wipes the spot right above your lips, and a shock rushes through your body. His nostrils flare, his eyes lock onto yours, and his touch lingers.
When he pulls back, the movement is slow. Controlled. Your tongue flicks out, to lick where his thumb had been. Bucky’s nostrils flare.
There’s something on his thumb. Tiny little breadcrumbs that must’ve been stuck to your cheek from the sauce. Bucky brings the finger up to his mouth, holding your gaze, and sucks the crumbs away. Heat pools in your tummy, and your thighs press together.
Bucky stares at you. You grab the edge of your seat with white knuckles, trying to keep yourself from falling off.
“Crumbs,” he mutters, and you nod.
“Yeah.”
“I- Uh-“ He coughs, and looks away. Disappointment sinks like a boulder into your stomach.
You don’t know what you expected. Hell, you’ve told yourself what to expect. You’re not allowed to be disappointed by him. You’re not allowed to want anything from him, except for what your head can offer.
“Sam’s been tryin’ to make me watch it,” he mutters, and you blink.
“What?”
“Princess Bride.”
“Oh.” You’re still a little drunk on his proximity. He smells like something rich and spicy, and it’s fogging up your brain. “Cool.”
Bucky nods. “We’re gonna watch it next Friday. In that common room, where Stark makes us do game nights.” He gives you a sideways look. “I never see you at those.”
You shrug. “I’m not an Avenger.”
“Stark says you get invited.”
You do. But that would be a night of drinking and laughing and being closer to Bucky than you can handle, so you usually lock yourself in your room and pretend he’s fucking you stupid.
“You’re invited to movie night, too.” He adds casually, and you swallow.
Movie night. Where Bucky would be near you. In the dark. You can’t go there. You’ll lose your mind.
But he’s looking at you with such dim, cautious light in his eyes. There’s no expectations. Just hope. And it pulls the words out of you before you can stop them.
“Oh- Okay.”
Bucky beams, and that makes it worth it. The risk, that he might brush your hand in the dark and you’ll moan loud enough for everyone to hear.
He reaches up, and wipes a few more breadcrumbs from your cheeks. Time seems to stop, when he touches you. It’s dangerous, and you barely manage not to fall all over him before he pulls away.
“You get messy,” he mutters, and oh, God.
You shouldn’t have said yes. Why the fuck did you say yes. Now you’re going to have to sit next to him, after that.
You get messy. He has no idea.
That night, you end up back in your bed with a vibrator pressed over your panties. It makes the feeling stronger, with the friction of the fabric, and you toss your head back. It’s easier and easier to get lost in the fantasy, lately. The better you know him, the clearer it gets.
You can almost feel his hands, mapping over the curves and soft dips of your body. You can almost smell him.
He mouths at your breast, pinching and rolls your nipple between metal fingers. You make a broken, pathetic sound, and he smirks.
“I know, doll. Too much, isn’t it?”
You whimper, pressing the vibrator down. Bucky hums, his hand wrapping around yours, and your hips jerk when he angles it to shove right against your clit.
“Too much,” he coos, making out with the softness of your breast. “I’m barely even touchin’, and you’re already about to fuckin’ fall apart for me.”
Your eyes roll back, as Bucky starts to guide the vibrator up and down. Your mouth falls open in a long moan, as he grabs your hips and pushes them higher, further exposing your pussy. He bites at your nipple, then turns his attention to the neglected one. You writhe in the sheets, gasping his name, and he smiles.
“Dirty girl.” He pushes your hand back, just enough for him to rip away your panties, exposing your cunt to the cold air. “Look at that, pretty little pussy fuckin’ shining for me.”
You grind down, trying to find friction on the sheets. Bucky pushes the vibrator against your bare pussy, and your eyes roll back in your head. He starts kissing all over your chest, pawing at your breasts and swirling his tongue around you nipples, sending electric shock through your body. He licks the sensitive buds the same way he licked his thumb. Your hips start to roll mindlessly, as the coil in your stomach threatens to snap.
When you cum, it’s with a cry of his name. The coil snaps, and heat floods out of your pussy, all over the vibrator and your hand. Your body convulses with the sheer force of it, and Bucky kisses down. Over your abdomen, your hips, your inner thighs.
“What a mess, baby.” He mocks, before pressing the sweetest kiss to your clit.
You sob, trembling in the sheets, and grab at his hair.
But your hand finds nothing.
Because it’s just another fantasy, kept in the confines of your mind.
Movie night was a bigger mistake than you could’ve ever imagined.
You show up, and it’s just Bucky and Sam. Sitting on opposite ends of the couch, because men are strange creatures.
“Stevie’s on a mission,” Bucky says, staring at you like he’s seeing an angel. Like he didn’t invite you.
There’s an odd rasp to his voice, too. Maybe he’s just tired.
Sam says your name, that signature, I know something that everyone else doesn’t smirk on his face. You don’t think much if it. He always has it, even when he doesn’t know shit.
“Buck told me you’d be comin’. I didn’t believe him.”
“Sam.” Bucky grunts, and Sam shrugs.
“What? I didn’t.” He grins at you. “You never leave your lab-“
“She leaves her lab.” Bucky gives you an apologetic look, but you just laugh.
“No, he’s right. I really don’t.”
Bucky sighs, rolls his eyes, and pats the seat next to him. You smile to yourself, taking a long breath before you move. You’re going to be normal about this. Very, incredibly normal. So normal, they’ll think something’s wrong, because no one’s ever been this normal in history.
You last ten minutes.
The movie starts. You’ve seen it before, but you try to pay attention to every, tiny detail. The only other option is paying attention to Bucky. To the weight of him at your side, the way his knee brushes against yours and his arm is slung over the back of the couch. You’ve never seen him so relaxed and tense, all at once. He’s sunken into the cushions, but whenever you look over, his jaw is tight.
You could swear you catch his gaze, once or twice. If you do, he looks away immediately. And you feel it, that buzzing heat over your skin. But you’re supposed to be watching the movie. He’s supposed to be watching the movie. So you really, really try not to look over.
Bucky’s knee pushes against yours, and you swallow. His fingers trail near your shoulder, and you wrap your arms around your stomach to suppress the shiver. He’s warm. So fucking warm you can feel it, blooming in your core. You shift in your seat, and you’re already wet.
The movie isn’t even a third of the way done.
Bucky’s fingers rest on your shoulder. It’s so light, so casual, you’re not even sure he knows he’s doing it. You take the risk, and turn to fully look at him. He’s gotten even more relaxed, the knit of his brows loosened, pretty pink lips parted as he watches the TV. You want to reach up, and trace the stubble of his jaw. Maybe kiss up the column of his throat, dig your nails into his pecs and make out with that full, perfect mouth.
You let out a tiny sigh. Bucky doesn’t react to it. Too lost in the movie. Not paying you any mind.
And you should look away. You’re not here to Bucky watch.
You turn your head for three whole seconds, before your eyes start to ache. As if they can’t stand not to look at him. You try to resist it, but it plays over and over, on a loop in your brain. The image of him in the dark. The heat from him, almost penetrating under your skin and making you rise up like a balloon. Your head is in the clouds. You have to look at him.
You close your eyes, trying to fight it. Bucky’s hand drops from your shoulder, down to your upper arm, and your breath hitches.
Your eyes shoot open, and Bucky’s right there. Staring at you, with the same intense, focused need that’s clawing at your ribs and up your throat.
He grabs your chin, between strong but gentle fingers. You swallow, letting your gaze trail down his body. His massive chest, torso that looks perfect to hook your legs around, his thick thighs and his crotch.
The bulge, pushing through his sweats. It looks thick. Long and thick, demanding some attention. You look back to Bucky with your best, doe-eyed pout. He smirks, and leans down to kiss you. It’s slow and deep, his tongue swiping over your lower lip before pushing into your mouth. You moan, and Bucky weaves his hair through your hair, tugging slightly. Your second moan is downright pathetic. You grab his thigh, letting your nails brush against the outline of his cock.
Bucky hisses against your lips, and pulls back. You bat your lashes at him, and his lips twitch.
“Messy girl,” he mutters, before pressing a sweeter, mocking kiss to your lips.
He pulls away too quickly, but before you can give chase, you’re lost in a daze. Bucky’s pulling down his pants, taking his boxers with him. His cock springs free, thick and veiny, massive even in his own hand. He strokes himself slowly, giving you a prompting, amused look. You swallow, licking your lips.
“C’mon, doll,” he beckons. “Show me what you can do.”
Almost in a trance, you nod. Bucky’s eyes darken, as you crawl over his lap. You move his hand away, and fist his cock in one hand. He grabs the back of your neck, not to push, but for balance. A low, guttural sound rolls through his chest as you start to pump him, and you smile to yourself.
He really is perfect. A heavy, certain weight in your hand, jumping slightly whenever you squeeze him near the base. You shift back on your knees, using your other hand to massage his balls. He hisses, his grip tightening on your neck, and you smile.
When you look at him, there’s nothing but pure devotion in his gaze. You squeeze again, then pick up your pace, and he groans out your name.
You kiss him, pushing his head back against the couch cushions. He grunts, but lets you guide him. As if he knows that it’s all just a show, before you let him fuck your face like an animal.
“Relax, baby,” you breathe against his lips.
Bucky lets out a deep, rough laugh. “Little hard to do that right now.”
You giggle, swiping your thumb over the slit of his cock. “Is it? Hard?”
Bucky groans, and deepens the kiss. You slide off of him, before he can just grab your hips, pick you up, and sit you on his dick.
You move back, lowering down to your stomach so you’re eye level with his dick. He’s pulsing in your hands, trying to hold himself back. You don’t want him to. You want him to cum everywhere. Down your throat and over your face and tits, claiming you in one of the most primal ways possible.
“Doll…” Bucky rasps, and you look up at him under hooded eyes. He’s a wrecked. Bulging muscles and sweat, slicking on his brow. “Don’t tease- Jesus-“
You wrap your mouth around him, and take him as deep as you can go. He bumps against the back of your throat, but you suppress your gag reflex, relaxing to try and get even more. Your nose brushes against the hair at base of him. Your tongue presses flat against Bucky’s shaft, your fingers still working his balls, and he fists his hand in your hair.
“So- So fuckin’ warm-“ He chokes out. “Holy- You’re somethin’, sweetheart- God-“
You hum, and Bucky’s hips jerk up. He stutters out an apology, but you just moan again. He tries to pull you off, muttering more apologies, and you dig your nails into his thigh. You want it. You want him to use you.
He gets it, after a moment. His grip on your hair tightens. He starts slow, jerking his hips up as he pushes you a little further down, before yanking you back. You moan around his cock, drool falling from your swallow lips. Your eyes roll back. He’s using you, god, he’s using you, and it’s the best fucking thing in the world.
Bucky fucks your face like a fleshlight, and you grind your ass up against nothing. He hits the back of your throat, over and over, salty and heavy on your tongue. The sounds he makes are beautiful and sinful, and-
“Something on my face, doll?”
You blink, and Bucky’s cock isn’t in your mouth anymore. You smack your lips, trying to find it. Bucky frowns at you, the light of the movie making him even more, impossibly handsome. Sam ignores you both, popcorn stuffed in his mouth.
Bucky looks worried. He said something.
“Hm?”
“You were, you were- Uh-“ He clears his throat, then shakes his head. “Never mind.”
He looks back to the TV, and your face burns. His thigh is pressed right against yours. You can swear, when you lick your lips, you can still taste his dick.
You’re so, so fucked.
It only gets worse.
Eating breakfast becomes a trial, because Bucky is always there, and you’re always thinking about his fingers while he eats. How they’d feel stuffed down your throat, gripping your hips, scissoring deep inside of you. He wipes cream cheese off your cheek, and you almost moan.
“You feelin’ alright?” Bucky says, always so caring and worried, and you nod weakly.
“Yeah. Just- Just tired.”
He looks at you like he doesn’t believe you, but lets it go. If you were smarter, you’d be avoiding him. But you’re not. And you still have to work with him, anyway. It makes avoiding him rather impossible.
For a while you cling onto the idea that work would be sacred. That while Bucky’s in your office and you’re examining his arm, it’s purely professional. Not a single dirty thought.
You last about a week, with that one. Bucky startles you walking in. You trip, and he catches you around your waist.
“Careful,” he smiles down at you, all handsome and stupid.
“Uh huh,” you breathe out, and you could’ve sworn a flood gushed out between your legs.
Bucky’s nostrils had flared, and he’d helped you up to your seat. You’d already had the new fantasy, blooming in your mind like the little fucking pervert that you were. You’d tried to shove it down, swaying in the middle of the room, but then you’d looked at him. Sitting with his legs spread in your chair. And you’d been lost.
You imagined climbing into his lap. His arm wrapping around you as you sat down on his cock, grinding slowly, lashes flutters as he kneaded and pulled at your hips and breasts. He’d stand up, taking you with him like you weighed nothing, and pin you to the wall. One arm would stay around you, holding you in place as his mouth started to explore your dripping cunt.
His tongue would work you open, pushing in and out of your pussy. He would’ve already cum inside of you, and every stroke of his tongue would send a wave of your mixed arousals over his beard. You’d watch him, moaning his name, and his thumb would bully and flick and tease your clit, until your were dazed and gasping for air and-
Bucky says your name, and you could slap yourself. This is getting out of hand.
“Sorry,” you mumble, sitting next to him. He smiles at you, so kind.
Always so kind.
“You’ve been kinda out of it, lately.” His words are casual. You still daydream about shooting yourself and running away.
“Just getting lost in thought,” you murmur, and he hums.
“Anything I can help with?”
You shake your head, because if you speak you’ll start begging. Please, please, please, he’s the only one who can help you, you’re going insane with how much you need him, and he could save you, he could really save you-
“Movin’ usually helps me.” He offers softly. You almost don’t hear him. “Y’know. Using my body. Remembering that it’s mine.”
“Yeah?” You say softly, cleaning the panel near his shoulder. He looks at you, and you risk looking back.
You can’t read that expression. You’re not sure you want to.
“Yeah,” he mutters. His gaze might flick down to your lips, but you don’t trust your own mind anymore. “You wanna try it with me? I head to that gym in the basement every night. It ain’t bad.”
And you should say no, but you can’t help it. You nod, and Bucky’s lips twitch, and God, what you won’t do just so he smiles.
You will torture yourself, apparently. Bucky’s too hot to be allowed in a gym. Wearing a tank top that shows off his massive arms, smiling at you all lazy, in the way that’s more of a guard than the slip that you always crave, but a smile all the same.
First, you try walking on the treadmill and just watching him the mirror. He’s lifting weights, and his arms, they should be classified as weapons. You want those biceps keeping you in a head lock, against his chest or at his side. Keeping you still, while his cock pounds relentlessly into your pussy.
Bucky meets your gaze in the mirror. His lips twitch, and you look away, face burning.
You feel him, more than you see him coming over. The gravity of his presence, you think you’d be able to feel him blindfolded and dropped in a crowd of a million people.
“Come on,” he offers you a hand. “Lemme show you something.”
And you can’t say no to him. You really should learn how.
Because the something is training. Wrestling. Throwing fucking punches and trying to get the other down.
“Bucky, I can’t-“
“Yeah, you can.” He raises his fists, nodding to your own. “Up, doll.”
You sigh, raising them slowly. “You’re going to kick my ass-“
“I am. And then you’re going to get better.”
You scoff—he’s ridiculous—but listen. Bucky smirks, and lunges. You yelp and try to scramble away, but he’s too fast. You’re pinned under him in seconds, whacking at his arms and wiggling.
“Bucky- Get off-“
He laughs, standing up with a proud grin. You’ve never seen him so relaxed, so confident. It makes you hornier than you ever could’ve imagined.
He’d been over you. Everywhere over you. Pinning you down and manhandling you, and- Oh God-‘
“Up,” he beckons, and you swallow.
“I- I don’t know-“
“Yeah, you do.” He gives you a playful smile. “Get up.”
You sigh, and scramble to your feet. Bucky raises his fists again. You narrow your eyes, and match.
He chuckles. “Getting competitive?”
You shrug. “You wanted me to.”
Something flashes in his eyes. You’re not sure how to read into it.
“Damn right I do,” his voice is lower. You’re not imagining that.
You don’t get time to think about it, before he’s moving again. You hold your own exactly a second longer than before, but it ends the exact same way. You, pinned under Bucky’s broad, strong body. His face is pressed near your breasts, his fingers digging into your hips, his legs shoving yours apart to stop you from flailing around.
It goes on longer than it shoulder. This strange game that you like playing more than you should. Bucky starts trying to properly get you to throw a punch, but he gives up fast. Soon you’re more play wrestling than doing anything else. You’re giggly and dazed, charging at him like a bull, and he acts as bored and collected as always, but you can see the amusement dancing in his eyes, every time you try to climb him like a tree.
Then something shifts.
He gets you beneath him, and you try to shove at his chest. He catches your wrists and pins them up over your head. Your breath hitches, and he blinks. His hips drop against yours, and you can feel it. The bulge of his cock, pressing into your core.
He’s hard.
Not fully, but enough. Enough that you can imagine every ridged and curve of him, sliding between the puffy lips of your pussy. Your thighs clench, and Bucky grunts, rutting forward.
You both freeze, and your eyes lock. It’s one of those seconds, where you just stare hopelessly at each other. You almost apologize, but your tongue is limp. Bucky’s face is redder than you’ve ever seen it. His cock twitches in his pants.
And this isn’t a dream or fantasy. Bucky mutters your name, and it’s so real you think your heart might pound of your chest.
Bucky moves first. He clears his throat and moves to his feet.
“Better.” He offers you a hand. “That was…”
He trails off. You stare at each other, lost for words.
Bucky turns, and leaves without another word. You sway in the center of the room, breathing shallow, head spinning.
What the fuck just happened.
Bucky kisses up your spine, his mouth hot and possessive. His tongue flicks against your neck, and his fingers dig into your hips. He drags your ass up in the air and you mewl, pressing your face into the sheets.
“Ah,” he scolds, slapping your soaked, swollen pussy. “Lemme hear you, doll.”
You turn your head, moaning loud and shamelessly. Bucky chuckles, kissing a soft spot on your neck.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, notching his cock against your entrance. “Good girl.”
You coo like a baby bird, flushed and dazed. He’s big, so big that it almost hurts. He doubles over you with a groan, pressing his face into your shoulder as he slowly pushes every inch inside of you. The stretch burns in the best way, and you clench down around him.
“No,” Bucky leans down, kissing the corner of your mouth. “Nothin’ to apologize for. Just gotta relax, babydoll. Lemme do the rest.”
You hum, and take a deep breath. You’re grounded, in the feeling of Bucky everywhere. His warmer arm wraps around your neck, forcing you up enough for his lips to trail open kisses over your face.
“That’s my girl,” he mutters against your ear, bottoming fully out. “That’s it. Just take it for me, just like that.”
You mewl, pushing your ass back up, then crying out with delight as Bucky pulls out, and slams back in. He’s met with no resistance, from how your pussy is gushing out with every thrust, every touch, every hot kiss.
But there’s nothing else to be expected. Not with how Bucky’s using you, how worshipful his every touch and kiss is, all while he fucks into you so hard you think the bed is going to break. His breath is hot on your back, the head of his cock drill against that one, gooey spot deep inside you. His cold arm locks around your middle, and his fingers tease and graze over your clit. Rubbing in tight little circles, making your eyes roll back in your head.
Bucky grunts, hauling you up so you’re pressed against his chest. You’re pinned down on his cock now, wet and warm and tight. So fucking tight that it pulls a low, rumbling moan from his chest. His hips slam up in a barely controlled rhythm, chasing more of your heat. You’re limp in his arms. Dazed and smiling like you’re drunk. Bucky uses his arm around your neck to push your head further back, and you have the nerve to fucking giggle.
You’re so beautiful like this that he almost cums right there. Fluttering lashes and the sweetest sounds, you pussy milking him like a machine. He kisses you because he can’t help it, and you hum happily, grinding your ass down into him.
He needs you to cum first. He gropes at your clit, letting his fingers fumble for a second to work you up into a teased, messy frenzy, before he pushes down and rubs in a steady, unyielding rhythm. You cry out his name, squeezing down so hard on his cock, and Bucky buries his face in your neck.
He cums, so hard that his vision goes white. Thick ropes of cum spurt over his hand, squeezing hard at the base of his cock.
It’s not as warm as you’d be, he thinks.
And he thinks. All the time, Bucky just thinks about you. About how you’d feel, molding around him. About how you’d sound right in his ear, how you’d get smiley and drool, and he’s feed you his fingers just so you have something to do with that pretty mouth. You’d moan around them, and he’d thrust up into you so hard he’d knock the damn worries out of your head.
It’s his favorite time of the day, this. Your rooms are closer than you seem to think, or you just forget how good his hearing is.
And every night, right before bed, he gets to settle into the mattress and beat his cock into his hand, listening to you moan and call his name. He’d never tell you. You deserve better, than a broken robot like him. He counts himself lucky he even gets to be your friend, because he’s a man well practiced at restraint. At not getting what he wants.
But this space, where no one can see, he allows himself things. He allows himself you.
But only ever in his head.
✦End note: this might be one of my fave bucky fics i just got to be soooo horny with it✦
✦If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3✦
✦Buy me a coffee!☕️ (and get early access!)✦
✦Taglist (Fill out this form to be added!)✦
it is what it is @ilovemesomebucky - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
2087
blakekathryn
origamiaround
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
discoholicmusic
romaincrisis
titsay
theartofmadeline
stormborns
kaledo-art
