Kaboom..!. @moonypoppy - Tumblr Blog

moonypoppy

Mar 10

the-wandering-wonder

Birthday Boy

It's our favourite super soldier's birthday today, so you know I had to drop this! <3

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 13,356

Rating: M (angst, fluff, implied smut)

Chapter: 1/1

Summary: Bucky is prepared to ignore his birthday like he always does: sleep in, brood a little, pretend it’s just another day. But what he gets? Coffee in bed, a crooked banner, bad singing, decent cake, and a handful of chaotic Thunderbolts. And when the door shuts on the rest of the Tower, he gets you. Soft hands, worshipful touch, and the kind of love that makes him admit maybe surviving this long wasn’t an accident after all.

Tag List: @solemnlywickedwolf @mrscarlislecullen @buckys-girl-blog @quantumbarnes

Bucky wakes slow.

Not all at once. Not startled, not sharp. Just gradual awareness filtering in through the haze behind his eyes — the weight of blankets over his legs, the cool whisper of morning air against his bare shoulder, the faint hum of the Tower wrapped around the walls.

His eyes open.

The place beside him is empty.

Not cold, exactly. Just no longer occupied. Your pillow is dented, sheets kicked loose and wrinkled where you must have been curled up only a little while ago, but the shape of you is gone. No sleepy mumble. No warm body tucked against his side. No lazy hand half-thrown across his stomach like you do when you drift back off after dawn.

Bucky lies still for a second, staring at the ceiling.

It’s early enough that the room is all grey-blue shadow and soft edges, the kind of half-light that makes everything feel suspended. He can hear the building breathing around him — distant plumbing, some muted clatter from far below, the low mechanical hush of air moving through the vents.

Usually, if you’re awake first, he knows it before he fully comes to. Feels it in the shift of the mattress. Hears you padding around the room. Smells coffee before you even make it back.

This time, it’s just...quiet.

His brow furrows.

Not alarmed. Not yet. Just immediately aware in that way he always is, some old instinct surfacing before thought can catch up. He turns his head toward the door, listening.

Nothing.

He pushes himself up onto one elbow, metal hand braced against the mattress, and glances toward the bathroom. Dark. Empty. Door open.

“Doll?” he calls, voice still rough with sleep.

No answer.

He sits up fully now, sheets pooling around his waist. The chill of the room brushes over his chest and back, but it barely registers. His gaze flicks to the bedroom door, then to the clock.

Early. Too early for the team to be making noise. Too early for anybody to need anything from either of you.

His mouth thins a little.

You’ve been strange since last night.

Not bad strange. Just bright-eyed. A little slippery. Kissing him longer than usual, smiling into his shoulder like you were keeping something to yourself. When he’d asked what that look meant, you’d only shrugged and told him to go to sleep.

Which, in hindsight, should have tipped him off.

He swings his legs over the side of the bed just as the bedroom door eases open. He looks up fast enough that the motion is nearly a snap.

And there you are.

Soft socks. One of his shirts hanging off you. Hair a little mussed. Two mugs curled carefully in your hands, steam lifting in delicate white ribbons through the dim room.

You stop in the doorway when you find him already sitting up.

A slow smile spreads over your face.

“Well, damn,” you murmur. “There goes my dramatic entrance.”

Some of the tension leaves him so quickly it almost annoys him. He leans back a little, exhaling through his nose.

“You vanish before sunrise and expect me not to notice?”

“I was gone for, like, five minutes.”

“You were not.”

“Okay,” you say, still smiling as you nudge the door shut behind you with your hip. “Maybe seven.”

He watches you cross the room.

The smell reaches him first — coffee, strong and dark, with a little sweet cream. Under that, the clean warmth of your skin and the faint detergent scent of the shirt you stole out of his drawer. His shirt. The dark Henley he likes on you because it swallows your hands and slips off one shoulder if you lean the right way.

His eyes catch on that shoulder now, on the soft line of your collarbone disappearing beneath worn fabric, and something low in his chest eases all the way open.

“You’re staring,” you say quietly.

“You’re trespassing in my clothes.”

“I think you’ll survive.”

You hold one mug out to him. He takes it from you, fingers brushing yours. The ceramic is hot against his palm. Real coffee, not the terrible communal sludge. Made the way he likes it.

Of course it is.

His gaze flicks back up to your face, narrower now.

“What do you want?”

You laugh under your breath.

“That is so rude. Maybe I’m just being nice.”

“Suspicious.”

“Paranoid.”

“Experienced.”

That gets a bigger smile out of you.

You set your own mug down on the nightstand, then climb back onto the bed with the casual confidence of someone who belongs there — which you do. Mattress dipping under your knees, blankets rustling, morning air slipping cold for a second before you tuck yourself in close at his side again.

And just like that, the room feels right.

You settle against him, one arm sliding around his middle, cheek warm against his shoulder. He shifts automatically to make space, setting his mug aside so he can wrap his arm around you. The other arm comes a second later, heavier where it rests over your hip through the blanket.

He tilts his head, pressing his mouth into your hair.

“There,” you mumble. “Much better.”

His lips twitch. “You plan that?”

“Every second.”

He can feel your smile against his skin.

For a minute, neither of you says anything. You just sit there tangled together in the half-light, warm coffee and warmer bodies, the early morning quiet no longer empty but intimate. Familiar. Safe.

Then you tip your head back enough to look at him.

“Happy birthday, Buck.”

There it is.

The words land softly, but not lightly.

He looks at you for a long second, unreadable in that way he gets when something hits deeper than he wants it to. Your face is open, fond, just a little sleepy still. No grand production. No loud grin. Just you, tucked into his side before the sun’s even properly up, saying it like it matters.

Because to you, it does.

His thumb drags once over your hip.

“You remembered.”

You blink at him.

“Of course I remembered.”

He shrugs one shoulder, but there’s no real carelessness in it.

“Didn’t say you wouldn’t.”

“Bucky.” Your voice goes soft around his name. “Come on.”

Something in his chest pulls tight in a way that has nothing to do with old scars and everything to do with being seen too clearly this early in the morning.

“S’just a day.”

“Mm.” You lean in, your nose brushing his jaw. “Maybe.”

He knows that tone. His eyes narrow slightly.

“What’s that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It means,” you say, shifting higher against him until your mouth is just barely brushing the corner of his, “that maybe it’s just a day to you.”

He doesn’t answer right away.

Your lips brush his once. Soft. Testing.

“But to me,” you whisper, “it’s the day you were born. And because of that, I have you.”

That does it.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. But something in his face changes — just a little. Enough that you see it. Enough that his guard slips, not gone, but loosened.

You kiss him again before he can say anything sharp to cover it.

This time he kisses you back immediately.

Slow at first, because everything with him first thing in the morning tends to be slow until it suddenly isn’t. His hand slides from your hip to your waist, fingers spreading like he needs the full feel of you there. Your mouth is warm, and when you shift closer, one knee sliding over his thigh under the blankets, he makes a low sound into the kiss that vibrates straight through you.

You smile against his mouth.

“Still think I’m suspicious?”

“Yes,” he murmurs, chasing another kiss. “Now I think you’re distracting me.”

“And is it working?”

He opens his eyes just enough to look at you. Really look.

Your messy hair. Bare legs tangled in the sheets. His shirt hanging off your body. Sleep-soft mouth already kissed pink. The way you’re looking at him like he’s something worth waking up early for.

“Yeah,” he says, voice lower now. “Little bit.”

You hum like that answer pleases you, then lean in again, sliding your hand up over his chest.

The kiss this time doesn’t feel like a distraction. It feels like a decision.

Your mouth is unhurried on his, the kind of slow that makes his shoulders loosen and his pulse climb all at once. You taste like coffee and the faint sweetness of whatever creamer you put in your cup. He feels the curve of your smile when he deepens the kiss, tilting his head, fingers tightening on your waist.

You make a tiny sound in the back of your throat, an involuntary little noise he feels more than hears. It sparks through him, sharp and bright, settling low in his ribs.

He chases it.

His hand slides up your spine, palm spanning the line of it through the thin fabric of his Henley. The shift pulls you closer, your knee hitching higher over his thigh, the blanket dragging with you. One of your hands braces on his shoulder; the other curls at the nape of his neck, fingers threading into the short hair there.

“Bucky,” you murmur against his mouth, like a complaint and a prayer all at once.

He likes the way you say his name first thing in the morning — still a little scratchy, softer at the edges. It does something to him he doesn’t have a word for, loosens things he spent years soldering shut. He kisses you slower, then deeper, letting himself feel the solid warmth of your body pressed full-length to his, the way your chest rises against his with each uneven breath.

You shift again, swinging a leg fully over so you’re straddling his lap now, knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his hips. The Henley rides up a little with the movement, baring a sliver of your waist to the cool air.

He feels that, too.

His metal hand tightens reflexively at your hip. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to keep you there.

You pull back a fraction, lips barely brushing his, breath mingling in the space between you.

“You’re supposed to be relaxing,” you whisper.

“I was,” he points out. “You’re the one climbing all over me.”

You huff a laugh, nose bumping his.

“You’re complaining?”

He looks at you like that’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard.

“No,” he says simply.

You grin, eyes bright.

“Didn’t think so.”

You kiss him again, quick, then again, slower. You tilt your head, and he feels the slide of your mouth open just enough to let his lower lip catch between yours. His hand moves, thumb brushing a small, lazy circle at your hip. He’s not thinking about anything except the weight of you in his lap, the warmth of you under his hands, the way his heart does that stupid heavy stutter every time you sigh into his mouth.

For a little while, the outside world doesn’t exist.

No Tower, no training, no mission briefings, no ghosts of birthdays that went unmarked or worse. Just the two of you, half tangled in sheets and blankets, the mug on his nightstand cooling as the light at the edges of the curtains shifts from dark gray to something a little softer.

Eventually, you pull back. Reluctantly — he can feel it in the way your lips chase his for a second, in the way your hand lingers at his jaw, thumb tracing the edge of his stubble.

He’s breathing a little harder now. So are you. Your cheeks are warm, eyes bright and a tiny bit dazed, lips kissed pink.

“If you keep that up,” he rumbles, voice gone low and rough, “we’re not leaving this bed.”

You smile like you’re tempted by that thought — really tempted — and for a heartbeat he thinks you might give in and let the day slide off the rails right here.

Then your gaze flicks over his shoulder toward the clock, and something rueful passes through your expression.

“As much as that sounds incredibly appealing,” you say, easing back a little more, “I actually do have to get up.”

He goes still for a fraction of a second.

There it is again. That little note. Have to.

His eyes narrow, suspicion curling back up from wherever the kissing had shoved it.

“Do you?”

You slide off his lap with a soft laugh, your hands trailing over his shoulders as you go.

“Yes, grumpy. Contrary to popular belief, the world does not stop spinning just because you have adorable bedhead.”

He snorts at that despite himself, watching as you stand next to the bed and stretch, arms reaching up over your head. The hem of his Henley drags higher, and his gaze catches briefly on the slice of skin revealed before you drop your arms again.

He looks away, then back, then sighs.

“What do you gotta do this early?”

You’re already moving toward the dresser, bare feet whisper-soft on the floor.

“Couple things,” you say lightly. “Gotta check in with Bob.”

That makes him frown.

“Bob?”

“Mmhm.” You open a drawer and start rifling through it. “He was asking me about something. Yesterday.”

“That’s specific.”

You glance over your shoulder, amused.

“You want specifics before I’ve had breakfast?”

“Yes.”

You just grin and turn back to the drawer.

“You’ll live.”

He watches you pull out a pair of leggings and a long, soft-looking sweater — the one he likes on you because it hangs a little off one shoulder and makes you look cozy and put together at the same time. Not your usual “I’m just going to run errands” shirt. Then you pause, consider, and toss the sweater aside in favour of another one. Darker. Nicer.

His suspicion ratchets up another notch.

“You meeting someone?” he asks.

“Several someones,” you say. “At various points in the day. Like a functioning adult.”

“Sounds fake,” he mutters.

You laugh under your breath.

He studies you more closely now, the way a man trained to see patterns always does when something doesn’t quite line up. You’re moving around the room with a certain purposeful energy, but there’s a bounce to it, a brightness. You’re humming under your breath as you gather your clothes, the tune familiar but not enough for him to place without thinking too hard.

There’s also the way your phone, sitting on your nightstand, lights up once. Twice.

He doesn’t mean to look. But it’s there, screen facing up. Two new messages flash briefly before the screen goes dark again.

“Everything okay?” he asks, voice casual.

“Perfect,” you say, tugging open the top drawer to grab a fresh pair of socks. “Why?”

“You’re being weird.”

You straighten up, clothes folded over your arm, and finally turn fully to face him.

He’s still sitting up in the bed, sheet slung low around his hips, coffee cup back in his hand. The morning light through the curtains is catching at the metal of his left arm, turning the edges of it soft. He looks relaxed. Suspicious as hell, but relaxed.

You soften.

“I’m not being weird,” you say gently. “I’m just busy.”

He stares at you. You stare back.

There’s a moment where he could push. Where the old habits are right there, coiled in his spine, telling him to demand answers, dig until there are no unknowns. To assume that whatever he doesn’t know is a threat.

Then your expression shifts — just a little. Something open and warm and stupidly earnest settles there, the same way it does when you’re trying to coax the cat out from under the bed or convince him to watch some terrible movie with you.

“Trust me?” you ask quietly.

He hates how fast that hits.

Not in a bad way. Just…deep.

He looks down at his hands for a second, flexing the flesh one around his mug. The ceramic creaks faintly. When he looks up again, you’re still watching him, not pushing, not backing down.

He exhales through his nose. His mouth twitches. He scrubs a hand over his face, then lets it fall, giving you a long, measuring look.

“What time are you gonna be back?”

“Soon,” you promise. “Couple hours, maybe. We still have the rest of the day, birthday boy.”

He wrinkles his nose.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Birthday boy,” you repeat, tone sing-song, just to irritate him.

“You’re trying to kill me.” He groans.

“Mm, not yet,” you say, crossing back to him long enough to lean in and steal another kiss. It’s quick but grounded, your hand curling at the back of his neck, thumb brushing his hairline. “Later, maybe.”

He raises a brow at that.

“Yeah?”

You pull back with a mischievous little smirk that does awful, wonderful things to his thoughts.

“Later,” you echo. “So behave.”

You disappear into the bathroom with your clothes, leaving the door half-closed. He hears the rush of water, the soft thump of drawers, you humming again. The ordinary sounds of you getting ready breach the quiet of the room, stretching out the moment.

Bucky sits there for a minute, mug cradled between his hands, staring at the sliver of light between the bathroom door and the frame.

Yelena and Ava texting before dawn. You vibrating with secret energy. Bob “asking about something.”

It stacks up in his head in a pattern he doesn’t quite have the shape of yet.

If this were a mission, he’d already be three layers deep into contingency plans.

But this is…not that.

This is you. On his birthday. Telling him to trust you, eyes wide and sure and annoyingly hard to say no to.

He sighs.

Fine.

He leans back on one hand, takes a sip of his now-lukewarm coffee, and makes a deliberate choice to let it go. For now. To see what happens if he doesn’t interrogate every strange corner of a day that was already going to feel weird.

When you come back out a few minutes later, dressed and put together, hair pulled back the way you wear it when you need to move fast, he notices again how nice you look.

Not like you’re going to war. Like you’re going to…something.

“Okay,” you say, grabbing your phone off the nightstand and tucking it into your pocket. “I gotta run.”

He nods once, watching you.

You pause by the bed, leaning in to press one more kiss to his forehead this time, soft and lingering.

“Seriously,” you murmur there, voice quiet. “Enjoy your morning. Shower. Eat. Yell at Alexei if he touches your coffee stash. I’ll be back.”

“Better,” he says, eyes half-lidded. “You owe me more kisses.”

You smile, thumb brushing his jaw.

“I promise.”

He believes that part easily.

You straighten, give him one last fond look, then head for the door. When it opens, the cooler air of the hallway rolls in, along with a faint, distant clatter from somewhere in the Tower — someone already awake, already causing problems.

“Hey,” he calls just as you’re about to step out.

You glance back. He holds your gaze.

“Be careful.”

Your expression softens, shoulders easing.

“Always.”

Then you’re gone, the door sliding shut behind you with a soft hiss.

The room feels quieter without you, but not empty the way it had for those first few seconds when he woke up alone. Your mug still sits on the nightstand, half-full. The dent in your pillow is still there. The lingering warmth in the sheets beside him hasn’t fully faded.

Bucky sits there a moment longer, listening to the hum of the Tower and the softer, steadier hum of his own pulse, and then pushes to his feet.

He exhales and scrubs a hand over his face again.

“Okay,” he mutters to the empty room. “We’ll do it your way.”

For now.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

By the time your keycard clicks in the door again, he’s already gone through three different ways of convincing himself he’s not waiting for that sound.

He’d done what you said. More or less.

Shower. Check. Food. Sort of. Toast and half a protein bar count. Yelling at Alexei…okay, that part happened on its own.

The Tower feels different on days off. The usual mission tension is dialed down, replaced with a kind of restless quiet that makes his skin buzz if he sits in it too long. So he’d drifted: from the bedroom to the kitchen, to the bedroom again, then finally to the couch like gravity had just won.

Now he’s sprawled there in sweatpants and a clean t-shirt, a book open but half-forgotten on his chest, TV on low with some nature documentary he hasn’t processed a frame of. His eyes are on the screen, but his mind keeps skipping.

You, slipping out with your “couple hours.” Yelena and Ava whispering in the hall when he went to get more coffee, voices dropping instantly when they saw him. Walker wandering through the kitchen whistling off-key, then immediately stopping when Bucky glanced up.

The whole Tower’s got that weird “nothing is happening, why would you ask” energy.

He flips a page without reading it.

When the door opens, he pretends he doesn’t hear it right away.

“Hey, Buck.”

Your voice does that thing to his insides again.

He turns his head on the back of the couch. You’re standing there in the doorway, jacket half unzipped, hair a little wind-tousled, cheeks pink from the cold or the walk or both. You look pleased. Like whatever you’ve been doing went the way you wanted it to.

His suspicion perks up again, but there’s something like relief under it, coiling low and warm.

“You’re late,” he says, even though you aren’t.

You check your watch with an exaggerated squint.

“Pretty sure I’m exactly on time for ‘late morning.’”

“Felt longer.”

You raise a brow, shutting the door behind you.

“Aww. Did you miss me?”

He snorts and looks back at the TV.

“No.”

You walk closer, steps soft on the floor.

“Liar.”

He feels the dip of the cushion near his hip before he sees you sit down. You twist to face him, tucking one leg under you, the other foot bumping his thigh. Up close, he can see the little details the distance had blurred: faint smudge on your hand from a marker, a glittery speck clinging to your sleeve that catches the light when you move.

His eyes narrow.

“Why do you have glitter on you?”

You glance down.

“Do I?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.” You brush at it, not even trying to look innocent. “Must have picked it up somewhere.”

“From what?”

“Life,” you say solemnly. “The universe. The great cosmic craft store.”

He stares. You grin.

“How’s the birthday boy?”

“Gonna stop calling me that at some point?”

“Nope.”

You lean in and steal a quick kiss before he can argue, your hand bracing lightly on his chest. It’s just a brush of lips, but it lands heavier than it should, tugging at something behind his ribs. He inhales slowly when you pull back, like he needs to steady himself.

“Whatcha watching?” you ask, nodding at the TV.

He blinks at it. A herd of ungulates is doing something dramatic in slow motion. He has no idea what.

“No clue.”

“Riveting.”

He shrugs one shoulder against the couch.

“You abandoned me with the remote.”

You gasp.

“I left you unsupervised with full media control. My mistake.”

“You leave for a couple hours and the place falls apart.”

“Has Alexei broken anything?”

“He tried to drink my coffee.”

“Okay, that’s a crime.”

You smile, but your eyes are doing a little dance over his face, cataloguing. Checking in. He can feel it — the way you look at him like you’re scanning for fractures, making sure the morning by himself didn’t crack along some old fault line.

“I’m fine,” he mutters, before you can ask.

“I know,” you say softly. “I just like seeing you.”

It hits him like it always does, that simple, unguarded affection. He shifts, looking away under the weight of it, and your foot nudges his thigh in a gentle bump.

“C’mon,” you say, tone changing — a brighter note slipping in. “Enough brooding. You’ve got like, two more hours of grumpy couch time before I start charging you rent.”

He eyes you sidelong.

“You kicking me out of my own living room?”

“I’m upgrading you to a field trip.”

“Pass.”

You ignore that.

“Up. We’re going to the rec room.”

His suspicion perks up again, eyeing you like a wary cat.

“Why?”

“Because I wanna play pool,” you say, popping to your feet in one smooth motion, “and you’re doing the classic Bucky Barnes thing where you sit still but your brain runs a hundred miles an hour, and that’s no way to spend a birthday.”

He looks up at you, unimpressed.

“You don’t know what my brain’s doing.”

“Oh?” you challenge, hands going to your hips. “Okay. What are you thinking about?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. You smile, smug.

“Exactly.”

He scowls, more out of habit than actual annoyance.

“You gonna psychoanalyze me or are we gonna go shoot pool?”

“Both,” you say cheerfully. “Come on. I haven’t beaten you in at least a week. My ego needs this.”

He squints.

“Since when do you want to play pool this bad?”

“Since right now.”

“Mm-hm.”

You roll your eyes, then soften, leaning down to offer him a hand.

“Walk with me, Buck. Worst case, we go, it’s boring, you beat me three times, and I make it up to you later.”

The way you say later does things to his imagination he is definitely not going to keep thinking about.

He looks at your outstretched hand.

He’d told himself this morning he was going to trust you. Let the weirdness breathe. See what happens when he doesn’t try to control every variable like it’s a bomb about to go off.

He sighs, then drops his book on the coffee table and slides his flesh hand into yours.

“Fine.”

Your fingers curl around his, warm and sure. You tug — unnecessarily, because he’s already moving — and he lets himself be pulled up, the couch creaking as his weight leaves it.

“Attaboy,” you murmur under your breath.

He gives you a look.

“What?” you say, innocent. “Motivational language.”

“You’re lucky it’s your face saying that.”

You just grin.

You fall into step together automatically, like you always do — his longer stride adjusting to match yours without him thinking about it, your shoulder brushing his arm as you walk down the hallway. The Tower is awake now, but not buzzing. He hears faint music from someone’s room, the distant whir of the elevator shafts.

You’re quiet for a few steps, the good kind of quiet. Comfortable. But Bucky’s brain, as you so rudely and correctly pointed out, doesn’t just switch off.

“Who texted you earlier?” He asks, as casually as he can manage.

You don’t even pretend not to know what he’s talking about.

“Yelena and Ava.”

“What’d they want?”

“Work stuff.”

He snorts.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, Bucky.” You squeeze his hand. “We do, occasionally, talk about things that are not you.”

“Doubt it.”

You laugh, the sound bright in the hallway.

“Okay, that’s fair. You do come up. But sometimes it’s about spreadsheets. Or surveillance. Or how Bob still hasn’t fixed the coffee machine setting Walker keeps messing with.”

“He does that on purpose,” Bucky mutters.

“Oh, absolutely.”

You round the corner toward the rec wing, boots whispering on the polished floor. He can feel something coiling under your skin now — a buzz he recognizes from missions and mischief both. Your shoulders are a little too straight, your grip on his hand a touch too tight.

“Any particular reason you’re so hellbent on pool instead of, I dunno, dragging me to watch a movie?”

“Because pool is a superior bonding activity.”

“Those are some big words for someone who scratches on the eight ball.”

“That was one time.”

“That was last time.”

You huff.

“And this time, I will crush you.”

“Sure you will.”

You shoot him a look that is one part fond exasperation, one part just wait, and something in his gut twists.

The door to the rec room is at the end of the next hallway, around another corner. He’s walked it a hundred times. Training, downtime, movie nights, late-night debriefs over terrible pizza. Today, the path feels…loaded.

You’re almost there when he notices it.

The light under the rec room door.

Not unusual in itself — people use the space all the time. But it’s the quality of it. Warmer. Softer. Not just the usual overhead fluorescents blazing. And the sound — the faintest murmur that goes abruptly still as your footsteps get closer.

His hand tightens in yours.

“Who’s in there?” he asks.

You don’t answer immediately.

You stop a few steps from the door, turning toward him. Up close, he can see it now — the way your breath is just a little faster than it should be for a casual walk. The way your eyes are bright and nervous and excited all at once.

“Hey,” you say quietly. “One last thing.”

He frowns.

“There’s never just ‘one last thing’ with you.”

You smile, but there’s a softness to it that undercuts the teasing. Your free hand comes up, fingers brushing his wrist where his pulse beats steady under skin. Not like you’re checking it; like you’re reminding him of it.

“I know you hate surprises,” you say.

Every muscle in his back tenses, instinctive, immediate. His jaw sets.

“But,” you go on, your thumb stroking once over his wrist before he can spiral, “I also know you hate being ignored. Even if you say you don’t care. Even if you try to pretend this day doesn’t matter.”

His breathing shifts, just slightly.

“You don’t owe anybody some big birthday performance,” you murmur. “You never will, okay? But there are people here who’re glad you exist. Who wanted a chance to show you that. And I—” You swallow, the words catching for a heartbeat. “—I wanted that too.”

He’s suddenly very aware of his heart, heavy and steady and stupidly loud in his ears.

“So,” you finish, voice softer. “I tried to make it small. And you can walk in, give me ten minutes, and if it’s too much, we bail. No questions asked. We come right back to the couch and you can complain about documentaries for the rest of the day. Deal?”

He looks at you. At your hand on his. At the line of your mouth, trying not to twist into a nervous grimace. At the earnestness there, naked and vulnerable in a way that hits him harder than the prospect of whatever’s behind that door.

The old part of him counts exits. Estimates bodies behind the walls. Measures sound. All the ways this could go wrong.

The newer part — the one that’s grown roots in late-night talks and shared coffee and the weight of you in his bed — sees Yelena’s quiet loyalty, Ava’s exasperated fondness, Alexei’s loud, ridiculous pride, Bob’s awe, Walker’s grudging respect. Sees you, up at dawn with glitter on your sleeve.

He exhales, slow.

“Ten minutes,” he agrees.

Relief flashes across your face like sunrise.

“Ten minutes,” you echo.

You turn back to the door, let go of his hand only long enough to curl your fingers around the handle.

He hears it on the other side now — the hushed scramble of bodies moving, someone shushing someone else, the muted thump of something being set down too hard. It should make his shoulders knot.

Instead, he finds himself weirdly braced. Not for danger. For whatever the hell this new kind of ambush is.

You glance at him one last time, checking. He nods once. You push the door open.

The rec room explodes in colour and sound.

“Surprise!”

“AH, HE IS HERE!” Alexei’s voice detonates over everyone else’s, a full beat late and twice as loud.

A confetti popper goes off in his hand at the exact wrong angle, showering the ceiling instead of Bucky. Bits of metallic paper rain down lazily.

Bucky just…stops.

His whole system does that thing it always does when a room goes from quiet to loud in one hit — heart kicking, muscles tightening, eyes scanning before he can consciously decide to. For a split second, all he sees is movement and colour and noise.

Then his brain starts putting names to shapes.

Yelena is front and center on the pool table like a gremlin, boots planted on the green felt, hands cupped around her mouth. Her little paper party hat is crooked and aggressively unnecessary.

“Old man!” she crows. “You are so old now. Disgusting. Happy birthday!”

Ava’s leaning against the far wall, arms crossed over her chest. She’s wearing a party hat too, but in a way that suggests she might murder whoever convinced her. Her mouth is an even smirk, but there’s the tiniest glint in her eyes.

John is by the dartboard, of all places, a red plastic cup in his hand, grinning like this is hilarious.

“Barnes,” he calls. “You look thrilled, man.”

Bob is hovering by the snack table with the brittle posture of a man who has rehearsed seven different greetings and then forgotten all of them. He’s clutching a cake knife in one hand and a lighter in the other, eyes wide.

And above all of it, crooked as hell across the far wall, is a banner.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUCKY

The “Y” in BIRTHDAY is smaller than the rest, like they ran out of space. One corner is drooping because someone misjudged the tape.

For a long beat, Bucky just stands in the doorway, you at his side, trying to decide how to feel.

Every instinct in him is yelling too much.

Too many eyes, too much colour, too many unknowns clustered together. There’s the smell of pizza, something sugary, the cheap powder from the confetti popper hanging faintly in the air. Someone’s put music on low — some old rock playlist, crackly through the rec room speakers. It’s a lot.

You feel him go tight beside you. Your fingers slide just a little more firmly into his, grounding pressure at his palm.

“Hey,” you murmur, low enough that it’s for him and not the room. “Remember. Ten minutes. You and me. That’s all this has to be.”

He drags his focus to you for half a second.

You’re watching him, not them. Expression open, careful. Ready to turn on your heel and walk him right back out if he twitches wrong.

Something inside his chest relents a millimeter.

“Bucky!” Bob blurts suddenly, like the silence in his own head got too loud. “Um. Happy birthday! Sir. Uh. Not sir. Just happy birthday!”

Alexei barrels forward before Bob can dig the hole deeper.

“Is great, yes?” he booms, throwing his arms wide, confetti still clinging to his sleeves. “Look! Decorations! I helped with banner. I made Yelena climb furniture. Very fatherly. Very supportive.”

“You spelled his name wrong twice,” Yelena calls from the pool table.

Alexei waves this off.

“Details.”

Bucky’s mouth twitches despite himself.

“You tried,” he says.

“Da!” Alexei beams. “You are team. Team must celebrate moment of birth. Even if it was many, many years ago and you are now ancient creature.”

“Wow,” Walker mutters into his cup. “Harsh.”

“Shut up, fake Captain,” Yelena says pleasantly.

Walker salutes her with his drink, middle finger held out.

You tug gently on Bucky’s hand.

“C’mon,” you say. “At least let them show off.”

He lets you pull him fully into the room.

Up close, the chaos has more shape.

The pool table’s been hastily half-cleared; the rack sits off to one side, a few balls still scattered like someone was playing and dropped everything the second you texted. There are mismatched streamers draped over the lights, one of them already working loose. The snack table is suspiciously well-stocked: chips, something that might be homemade dip, a plate of what looks like Yelena’s idea of cookies (slightly burnt, aggressively iced), and in the middle, on its own place of honor, the cake.

It’s not fancy. The frosting’s a little uneven, the lettering slightly off-center. There’s a crude attempt at a tiny vibranium arm doodled in black icing.

Bucky feels something strange and sharp rise under his breastbone.

“Bob did the cake,” Ava says from her post at the wall, voice dry but not unkind. “After Yelena was banned from the kitchen.”

“She is tyrant,” Yelena protests. “Little fire, no big deal.”

“There was a lot of fire,” Bob says faintly.

“I put it out.”

“You used my—” Bob breaks off, looking at Bucky, then clears his throat. “We have cake. And, uh. Other things. Snacks. We didn’t know what kind you liked, so we got…all of them.”

There’s a small mountain of different chips and cookies, now that he mentions it. A ridiculous amount for seven people.

He swallows.

Walker pushes off the dartboard, wandering over.

“Relax, Barnes,” he says, almost gently for once. “It’s not a hostage situation. Yet.”

“Depends if you throw darts while drunk again,” Ava says.

“That was one time.”

“And yet,” Yelena cuts in. “Wall still has a hole.”

She hops down from the pool table with the casual grace of someone who has never respected rules or furniture. She lands in front of Bucky, hands on her hips, eyes sharp and assessing.

“You look like you want to run away,” she says.

He lifts his chin a fraction.

“Maybe.”

She snorts.

“Too bad. We worked hard. You must endure. It’s tradition.”

“Since when?”

“Since now.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out something small and rectangular, tossing it at his chest. “Here. Present.”

He catches it automatically. It’s a box of some kind, plain, about the size of his palm.

“Yelena,” you scold lightly. “We said cake first.”

“It's a tiny present,” she insists. “Appetizer present.”

Bucky flips the lid open.

Inside is a simple leather bracelet — dark, worn-looking, with a thin band of braided material in the middle. Closer inspection shows faint, engraved lettering on the inside.

You are not alone.

It’s not flashy. Not expensive. Not some high-tech gizmo. Just something…handmade, maybe. Something chosen.

His throat does a weird, tight thing.

Yelena shrugs, suddenly a little awkward under his stare.

“It’s for when you go on a mission with idiots,” she mutters, nodding at Walker and Alexei. “So you remember you have less idiot people. Okay? If you hate it, I kept the receipt.”

He doesn’t even realize his hand has moved until he’s already curling his fingers around the box.

“I don’t hate it,” he says quietly.

“Good.” She eyes him for another beat, then nods dismissively and turns away, as if the intensity of the moment alarms her more than a firefight. “Now we do cake. Bob, light it.”

Bob fumbles with the lighter, nearly drops it, catches it, and somehow eventually manages to coax flames onto a small forest of candles. There are clearly not enough to be accurate, thank god, but there are…more than ten.

“Don’t count them,” you murmur. “I told them if anybody tried to put the full number I was taking the fire extinguisher to the whole thing.”

“Coward,” Alexei says. “Would be glorious inferno.”

“Exactly,” you say. “Which is why you don’t get a vote.”

The candles flare softly, little points of light flickering against Bucky’s face as Bob carries the cake over like it’s made of nitroglycerin.

“Happy birthday to you…”

Someone starts the song. It might be Walker, weirdly enough, or maybe you — it’s hard to tell once everyone joins in, off-key and overlapping and absolutely not in the same tempo.

Yelena is singing too loudly on purpose. Alexei keeps trying to harmonize and failing spectacularly. Ava’s barely mouthing the words, but she’s doing it, and that counts for more than volume. Bob is definitely the one attempting to clap on beat and missing.

You’re next to Bucky, your shoulder pressed against his, your voice soft and steady in the mess of it all.

Heat pricks at the backs of his eyes, sudden and unwelcome.

It’s stupid. It’s just a song. Just a half-burnt cake in a rec room decorated with dollar-store streamers and a banner that looks like it lost a fight with gravity.

But…

He can’t remember the last time people sang this song to him because they wanted to.

By the time they hit the trailing “—to you,” his jaw is tight and he’s staring very hard at the frosting so he doesn’t have to look at anyone else.

“Make wish!” Alexei declares.

Yelena elbows him.

“He can’t say it out loud, old bear, that is the rule. Very bad luck.”

“I know this,” Alexei huffs. “I am not child.”

“Evidence suggests otherwise,” Ava murmurs.

Bucky glances sideways at you.

You’re already looking at him, eyes soft, expression gentle.

You can bail, that look says. Or you can do this. Either way, I’ve got you.

He inhales, lets the air fill his lungs all the way up — right past the old damage, right past the places that still ache when he thinks too hard about years spent in other hands.

For half a second, he lets himself feel it.

Not words. Just a feeling.

This.

You. Them. A room that feels…safe enough.

He exhales and blows the candles out.

The room bursts into applause, mostly Alexei and Walker clapping like idiots, Yelena whooping, Bob jumping a little like he wasn’t sure the fire would comply.

Lights flick back to full. The music bumps up a notch.

“Speech!” Walker calls.

“No,” Bucky says immediately.

“Speech!” Alexei agrees.

“Absolutely not.”

“Compromise,” Yelena says. “No speech. Just—” She makes a vague gesture. “Less murder face. More…not murder.”

“This is my not murder face.”

“God, you’re terrifying,” she deadpans. “Fine. We do presents after cake. Then we let him run away.”

“Hey,” you protest. “We said pool.”

Bucky blinks. “We did?”

You look up at him with that same little smile that keeps undoing him, piece by piece.

“Yeah, Barnes. You think I lied about that part? We are absolutely playing a game.”

He squints.

“You just want to hustle me in front of witnesses.”

“Obviously,” you say. “What’s the point of beating you if no one sees?”

That pulls a short, rough laugh out of him before he can stop it.

The found family chaos rolls on.

Alexei tells an overblown story about some mission that has at least three factual inaccuracies but is very enthusiastic. Yelena keeps cutting him off to correct details, usually in ways that make Bucky look more competent and Alexei more ridiculous. Walker and Ava get into an argument about whether darts or pool is the superior bar sport until Bob, in an act of suicidal bravery, suggests maybe they are equally valid.

You end up at Bucky’s side in all of it, shifting only to grab plates or drinks, always ending back in his orbit. Your hand bumps his now and then, your thigh brushes his when you both end up perched on the edge of the pool table eating cake. Every time his shoulders creep up toward his ears, you’re there with some little touch or quiet comment to smooth them back down.

Someone (probably you) has snuck in a six-pack of the exact beer he doesn’t admit he likes. There’s a bowl of those weird peanut butter candies he mentioned once in passing. The playlist keeps drifting between things the others like and random tracks he recognizes from the ancient mental jukebox in his head, and he realizes with a start that someone must have asked him, at some point, what songs he still goes back to.

It’s clumsy. Imperfect. Loud. It’s also…kind of nice.

He hates that he doesn’t hate it.

At one point, Yelena challenges him to a game of pool and almost wins before scratching on the eight, at which point she accuses the table of treason. Walker tries to give a heartfelt toast and trips over his own ego halfway through, but the sentiment is weirdly genuine under the bravado. Ava hands Bucky a small, neat box containing a set of high-quality earplugs “for when these idiots won’t shut up,” which somehow hits him in a way he really doesn’t want to unpack in public.

And through it all, every time he looks at you, you’ve got that same soft, satisfied little smile, like this is exactly what you hoped it would be.

At around the point where the sugar high is peaking and the noise has tipped from fun to a bit much, you drift closer, tugging lightly at the hem of his shirt to get his attention.

“Hey,” you say, voice pitched just for him again. “How you doing?”

He takes a breath, checks in with himself. Old habit now. Heart still steady. Hands not shaking. Head not buzzing with that too-far, too-bright hum that means he’s about to tip into a bad place.

He’s okay.

More than okay, if he’s honest with himself.

“Tolerating,” he says. Then, after a beat, lower: “It’s not terrible.”

Your smile brightens just a little.

“High praise.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Too late.” You bump his shoulder with yours. “You wanna play that game I promised you, birthday boy? Or you ready to cash in your escape clause?”

He glances around.

Yelena is arguing with Walker over the correct way to rack the balls, despite neither of them being anywhere near the table. Alexei is trying to show Bob something on his phone that Bob is clearly too polite to claim disinterest in. Ava is leaning in the doorway, watching the whole mess with an expression that says she’s invested despite herself.

They’re loud. Messy. Too much.

They’re also his.

At least today.

“I’ll play,” he says.

You arch a brow, pleasantly surprised.

“Yeah?”

He nods once.

“Gotta give you a chance to embarrass yourself before I leave.”

You gasp.

“Bold talk.”

He steps closer, voice dropping just enough that only you can hear.

“Besides,” he adds, “you did all this. Figure I can stick around long enough to let you win a game on my birthday.”

Your eyes flare.

“That sounds like a challenge, Barnes.”

“Maybe it is.”

You grin, bright and wicked and full of love.

“Rude. Rack ’em.”

You pull him toward the table, fingers laced with his, weaving him through the chaos you helped build.

He hates parties. He does.

But as he watches you laugh with his messed-up little team, chalking your cue with practiced ease, his bracelet from Yelena pressing warm at his wrist, Ava’s earplugs box peeking out of his pocket, Bob’s uneven cake still sweet on his tongue…

He thinks maybe, just this once, he can make an exception.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

By the time the cake is half-gone and the music’s playing softer, the rec room has thinned out.

Alexei leaves first, making a big show of loudly announcing that “old man needs rest” before Yelena physically drags him away by the sleeve. Bob leaves in the wake of that chaos with a flustered promise to “handle the dishes later.” Ava slips out sometime after Walker, leaving only the echo of a goodnight and the box of earplugs she shoved into Bucky’s hand.

And then it’s quiet.

Just you and Bucky and the dimmed lights over the pool table, the banner still lopsided on the wall.

You look up at him, mouth soft, eyes warmer than the room.

“Ready to call it?” you ask.

He should be exhausted. In a way, he is — there’s a low, buzzing fatigue under his skin that he recognizes from long days and longer nights. But it’s not the sharp, jangling kind he used to get from crowds. The edges are softer. Smoothed over by laughter and bad singing and the ridiculous image of Alexei firing confetti directly at the ceiling.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Think I’m done.”

You step in close, fingers brushing his wrist.

“Come home with me, then.”

He huffs a breath that isn’t quite a laugh and lets you lead him.

The walk back through the Tower feels different than it did that morning. He’s not watching every doorway now, not cataloguing every distant sound. His bracelet sits warm and solid against the inside of his wrist, the faint weight of it a constant reminder: You are not alone.

You swipe your keycard. The door unlocks with a soft hiss.

Inside, the quarters are dim — not dark. You’d left one lamp on low, and the string of small soft lights you insisted on tacking along the wall over the bed glows gentle gold from the bedroom. The kind of light that doesn’t feel like an interrogation, just a place to land.

You shut the door behind you with a quiet click.

For a moment, neither of you moves.

He stands there just inside the doorway, shoulders loose but heavy, eyes adjusting to the softer light. The hum of the Tower outside becomes a muted backdrop — distant, unimportant. It’s just the two of you in this little pocket of space you’ve carved out of steel and glass and ghosts.

You turn to face him fully.

That look is back on your face. The one that always hits him low and deep — like you’re seeing all of him at once and still choosing to stay.

“Hey,” you say softly.

“Hey,” he echoes.

You step into his space, hands coming up to rest lightly on his chest. His shirt is still the one he threw on after the shower — soft cotton, a little stretched at the collar. You curl your fingers in the fabric for a second, feeling the warmth beneath before smoothing your palms flat over the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

“Thank you,” you murmur.

He frowns slightly.

“For what?”

“For letting us do that. For staying.” Your thumbs trace small arcs over his ribs. “I know it wasn’t easy.”

He shrugs, eyes flicking away.

“Wasn’t that bad.”

“Maybe,” you say. “But it still cost you something.”

He doesn’t have an answer for that, so he doesn’t try. His throat feels too tight anyway.

You step closer, until your chest is pressed to his, until he can feel every point of contact — your hands, your body, the faint brush of your breath against his throat when you tilt your head back to look at him.

“I want to celebrate you now,” you say quietly.

He swallows.

“You already did,” he mutters. “Cake. Surprises. Glitter. Psychological warfare.”

You smile, small and fond.

“I meant in here. Just you and me.”

Your fingers lift, skimming up his chest to the line of his shoulders. Something in his chest gives an uncomfortable, familiar twist.

“You don’t have to—”

“I know.” Your voice stays soft, steady. “I want to. If you’ll let me.”

He looks down at you.

The part of him that still remembers rooms like cages, hands that took instead of gave, flinches at the offer on instinct. The rest of him — the part that’s spent months unlearning the past and relearning what touch can be under your hands — hears what you’re actually saying.

Let me love you.

He nods once.

“Yeah,” he says, voice low. “Okay.”

You smile like he just handed you something precious.

“Good,” you murmur. “Then come here.”

You back up a step, guiding him with you, your hands sliding down his arms to lace with his fingers again. You walk him toward the bedroom, toward the bed with its rumpled sheets and your combined mess at the foot — a discarded hoodie, one of his Henleys, your socks kicked half-under the frame.

The string lights on the wall send a warm pool of light across the mattress. The rest of the room stays in soft shadow.

You stop him at the edge of the bed and let one of his hands go so you can reach up, fingers brushing the line of his jaw.

“Bucky, let me take care of you,” you say, like it’s a vow.

He could argue. Make some self-deprecating comment. Tell you he doesn’t need taking care of.

He doesn’t.

“I trust you,” he says instead.

Your eyes go shiny for a heartbeat, like that does something to you.

“Good,” you whisper.

You lean up and kiss him.

It’s not the eager, distracted heat from the morning. This is slower, deeper from the first touch. Your mouth meets his like you have all the time in the world and every intention of using it.

He lets his eyes fall shut.

Your hands slide from his jaw to the back of his neck, then down over his shoulders, fingers pressing into the muscle there. He feels the long exhale leave his body almost without permission, the tension in his back easing under your touch.

When you finally pull back, his pulse is already climbing, but it’s not the sharp spike of adrenaline. It’s something warmer. Thicker. Heavy in his veins.

You keep one hand at the back of his neck, thumb stroking the short hair there. The other comes down, skimming over his chest, catching on the hem of his shirt.

“Can I?” you ask.

It’s his shirt. His body. His choice.

That still catches him off guard sometimes.

“Yeah,” he says, rougher than he means to.

You smile a little at the sound.

Carefully, unhurried, you slip your fingers under the hem and start to lift. He raises his arms when you prompt him with a gentle tug. The fabric slides up over his stomach, over the planes of his chest, catching briefly on his dog tags before you work it free and pull it over his head.

Cool air whispers across his bare skin.

You drop the shirt somewhere behind you without looking, your eyes already back on him.

You always look at him like this — like you’re studying him, but in a way that feels nothing like the cold assessments he’s endured in other lives. Your gaze drifts over the scars, the lines of muscle, the places where metal meets skin. Not fast. Not flinching.

“God,” you murmur, more to yourself than to him. Your fingertips follow your gaze, tracing a path over the thick lines carved into his shoulder, down the curve of his chest. “You’re so beautiful.”

He huffs out an incredulous breath.

“Beautiful,” he repeats.

“Yeah.” Your eyes flick up to his. “You heard me.”

He shifts, the old discomfort surfacing.

“You don’t know—”

“I do know.” Your hand moves, palm flattening over a puckered scar near his ribs. “I know what you’ve survived. I know what they did to you. And I know what I see standing in front of me right now.”

He swallows.

You lean in, pressing a slow, deliberate kiss to the scar under your palm. Then another, a little higher. Then one to the edge of metal where his arm joins flesh, your lips soft against the cool vibranium and the raised, twisted lines of skin.

He flinches, just a little, at that contact. Not away. Just that reflexive jerk of a place that’s been hurt too often to take touch easily.

You feel it. You soften even more.

“I love this arm,” you say quietly, trailing your mouth along the edge where metal plates curve over his shoulder. “Not because of what it can do. Not because of what it’s done. Because it’s yours.”

His jaw tightens.

“Because it’s part of you now,” you continue. “Because you choose, every day, to use it for something better.” Your mouth twitches. “Because I’ve watched you hold me with it. Gentle. Careful. Like you’re afraid you might break me if you don’t pay attention.”

He lets out a shaky breath.

“I love the way it looks when you’re relaxed,” you murmur, fingertips skimming over the plates. “I love the way the light catches the gold. I love that you let me touch it when it used to be something you hated anyone even looking at.” Your eyes meet his again. “I love you. All of you. Including this.”

He doesn’t know what to do with that.

He’s been called a lot of things. Asset. Weapon. Ghost. Monster.

Beautiful isn’t one of them.

You don’t give him time to build walls around it.

You straighten a little, palms smoothing down over his chest again, mapping the lines of muscle, the dips and rises of scars. Every place your hands move, your mouth eventually follows — a kiss to the hollow of his throat, to the notch of his collarbone, to the spot just over his heart where you like to rest your head at night.

“I love this chest,” you murmur against his skin. “Because it’s where I sleep. Where I listen to you breathe. Where I can feel your heart when you get annoyed and try to pretend you aren’t getting sleepy.”

He snorts, the sound breaking on a breath when your lips find a particularly sensitive patch above a scar.

You smile against him, then keep going, slower now.

“I love your shoulders,” you say, hands squeezing gently there, thumbs digging into knots of muscle. “The way you carry so much and still straighten up when someone needs you.”

“You make me sound like a pack mule,” he mutters.

You lift your head just long enough to give him a look.

“I make you sound like someone strong enough to hold up the world and soft enough to put it down for a while when I ask.”

His heart does that heavy, uneven thing again.

Your hands slide down his sides, fingers catching on his belt.

He tenses instinctively. Your eyes flick up at once.

“Okay?”

He nods, throat thick.

“Yeah. Keep goin’.”

You take your time.

You unbuckle his belt slowly, the faint jingle of metal loud in the quiet room. You don’t make a show of it, don’t turn it into something sharp or performative. It’s just another layer between him and rest, and you’re stripping it away piece by piece.

You pop the button of his jeans. Ease the zipper down. The backs of your knuckles brush the sensitive skin of his lower stomach, and he swallows hard, muscles jumping under your touch.

“You know what else I love?” you ask softly.

He forces himself to breathe.

“You’re gonna tell me anyway.”

“I love that you let yourself want things now.”

He goes still. You hook your fingers in his waistband, not pushing, just holding.

“I love that you say when you want a quiet night in instead of pretending you’re fine. I love when you come find me instead of locking yourself away. I love when you steal my blanket, and when you get grumpy that the coffee’s gone, and when you look at me across a room like I’m the only thing keeping you from walking out of it.”

His vision goes a little fuzzy at the edges.

“You’re allowed to want things, Bucky,” you whisper. “You’re allowed to want me.”

That cracks something open.

He doesn’t realize he’s reached for you until his hands are on your waist, pulling you closer, until his forehead is pressed to yours and his breath is rough against your lips.

“Doll, I…I can’t…” He says, voice frayed.

“I’ve got you,” you answer.

You push his jeans down his hips, helping him step out of them, leaving him in soft, worn boxers. Everything below that, you treat like it’s just him. No lingering in a way that makes him feel examined. Just a natural continuation of undressing someone you intend to hold.

You guide him to sit on the edge of the bed and drop to a crouch to deal with his socks, your fingers wrapping around his ankles, his calves. Even here, you don’t waste the chance.

“I love these legs,” you say, a small smile in your voice. “Because they always bring you back to me. No matter where you go.”

He huffs something that might be a laugh or a choked sound. Maybe both.

You strip the last sock off and smooth your hands up over his shins, then back to his knees, rising as you go until you’re standing between his parted thighs again.

He’s down to skin and scars and metal and the thin barrier of soft fabric.

You’re still dressed, and somehow that makes him feel less exposed, not more. Like you’ve chosen to put all the focus on him tonight.

You reach out, cupping his face in your hands.

“I love your ridiculously pretty eyes,” you say, and he actually snorts at that. Your thumbs brush under them, gentle. “Even when you roll them at me. I love the way they crinkle when you laugh. I love the lines we’re getting here—“ you tap lightly at the corners “—because it means we’re getting years. Together.”

That hits him somewhere deep and aching.

“And I love this mouth,” you add more quietly, your thumbs sliding to his jaw, your gaze dropping to his lips. “For all the things it says and all the things it doesn’t. For the way you say my name. For the way you’ve learned to ask. For the way you kiss me like you’re still trying to memorize how.”

He swallows.

“You’re…something else,” he manages.

“I’m yours,” you say simply. “And you are so loved, Bucky. More than you know. More than you think you deserve. More than you’re ever going to talk me out of.”

The words land like a series of carefully placed blows — each one knocking loose a little more of the armor he wears out of habit.

He doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until you catch one in both of yours.

Your fingers wrap around his, firm and steady.

“I love these hands,” you murmur, bringing his knuckles to your mouth. You press a kiss to each one, flesh and metal alike. “Because they still choose to do good ones. Because they make coffee and fix leaky sinks and pet cats and hold me when I cry. Because they’re careful even when you don’t feel like you are.”

His chest feels too tight and too open at the same time.

“I love you,” you finish, right there, no hedging, no softening. “Exactly like this. Right now. Not some future version. Not some cleaned-up idea. You.”

He’s not sure when his vision blurred, but there’s heat at the backs of his eyes, and his throat refuses to work properly.

“Say it again,” he hears himself rasp.

You don’t hesitate.

“I love you, Bucky Barnes.”

His jaw clenches. His fingers curl around yours like they’re afraid you might vanish if he lets go.

“Today, tomorrow,” you whisper, leaning in, your forehead pressing against his. “I’d pick you every day.”

He inhales sharply.

And then, finally, the fight goes out of him.

He lets himself tip back when you press him gently, your hands guiding him until he’s stretched out along the mattress. You climb after him, bracing one knee on the bed, hands never leaving his skin — one on his chest, feeling his heart, the other on his arm, where metal meets flesh.

“Let me worship you for a while,” you murmur, mouth ghosting over his. “Let me show you what I see.”

He doesn’t argue.

He lets you kiss him slow, lets the warmth of your body sink into his, lets every word you just said soak into all the places that still feel cold. Your hands move over him in long, reverent strokes — chest, shoulders, arm, ribs — like a litany you’re learning by touch.

Every insecurity he’s ever had, you find and smooth over with lips and fingers and quiet promises: You are not a weapon to me. You are not too much. You are not too broken. You are mine. I am yours. You are loved.

At some point the words blur into sound, into breath, into the press of your body against his as the evening shifts from worship into something deeper, more desperate.

You love him with your hands and mouth and the slow, deliberate way you move against him until all he can do is feel. Until his thoughts burn away and there’s nothing left but you and the bed and the soft lamplight and the wild, impossible truth that he is still here, still wanted.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The room is quiet in that way it only ever gets after.

The string of lights on the wall still throw a soft circle of light over the bed, catching on the faint sheen of sweat on his chest and the mess of sheets twisted around your legs. The rest of the quarters are dim, distant — just the low hum of the Tower through the walls, the occasional distant thump of someone moving on another floor.

You’re half sprawled over him, cheek pressed to the center of his chest, one leg hooked lazy over his thigh. His arm — flesh — is wrapped around your back, hand splayed between your shoulder blades. The vibranium one lies heavy and still along your waist, fingers resting at your hip like an anchor.

His heartbeat is finally slowing, thump-thump-thump steady under your ear.

For a while, neither of you says anything.

You just breathe together. His chest rises, your cheek lifts with it. His fingers trace idle patterns on your skin, your thumb strokes absentmindedly at the inside of his wrist where that little bracelet sits, warm from his body heat.

You could stay like this forever.

He’s the one who breaks first.

“Y’know,” he rasps, voice low and wrecked, “if this is what birthdays are now…I might stop pretending I don’t have one.”

You smile into his skin.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm.” His fingers flex at your back. “Think I’ve been missin’ out.”

You shift, just enough to turn your head and press a slow kiss over his sternum. His breath stutters, then steadies again.

“Good,” you murmur. “That’s kind of the point.”

He huffs a quiet almost-laugh, but there’s a tension under it that wasn’t there a second ago. You feel it in the way his chest tightens under your cheek, the way his hand pauses mid-stroke before starting again.

You know that rhythm by now. The way his brain circles back to things once the heat burns off and there’s nothing between him and the thoughts he’s been dodging.

“Bucky?” you ask softly.

“Yeah.”

You tilt your head enough to look up at him. His hair’s a mess, dark against the pillow. His eyes are on the ceiling, unfocused, jaw tight like he’s bracing.

“Where’d you go?” you ask.

He’s quiet for a long beat.

Then he exhales through his nose, slow.

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

“Today,” he says. “You. Them. All of it.”

You lift yourself up onto your elbow so you can really see him. The string lights paint his face in soft gold — the lines at the corners of his eyes, the faint crease between his brows, the way his mouth is set like he’s trying not to give anything away and failing.

You slide your hand up, resting your palm over his heart.

“Talk to me.”

He swallows. You feel it under your hand, the little jump of his swallow against your fingers.

“I, uh…” He breaks off, a humorless little huff leaving him. “This is the part where I’m supposed to say some normal, well-adjusted thing, right?”

You snort quietly.

“Have you met you?”

“Unfortunately.”

His mouth twitches, but his eyes stay serious.

“I don’t…” He frowns, searching for words. “I don’t really know how to do this part. The ‘I had a good day and it didn’t feel like a trap’ speech.”

“Start there,” you say. “That’s already a pretty big sentence.”

His gaze flicks down to yours. You hold it. You’re not pushing. You’re just there, in his space, warm and steady and painfully, stubbornly patient.

He looks away first.

“The party,” he says finally, voice quieter. “That was a lot.”

You nod.

“I know.”

“I kinda hated it,” he adds.

You smile softly.

“I know.”

He hesitates.

“I also…kinda didn’t.”

There it is.

Your chest aches a little.

“Tell me.”

He’s quiet for a beat, thumb moving in slow circles at the small of your back.

“I walked in and every old instinct I’ve got lit up,” he admits. “Too bright, too loud, too many people moving at once. Felt like my brain was two seconds from calling it and dragging us outta there.”

“I was willing to go,” you say. “You know that, right? I meant what I said.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says immediately. “I know you did. That’s…” His jaw works. “That’s kinda what kept me there.”

You blink.

“Yeah?”

He nods, still staring somewhere above you.

“Didn’t feel like I was trapped. Felt like I was choosing. ‘Cause you gave me an out. You always—” He stops, scrubs his flesh hand over his face, then lets it fall again. “You always give me a way out that doesn’t feel like I’m failing.”

Your throat gets a little tight.

“Bucky…”

“I’m serious,” he mutters. “You…you get that? How big that is for me?”

You shift closer, pressing your body along his, your hand sliding up to cradle the side of his neck.

“I do,” you say.

He huffs, frustrated with his own words.

“I don’t—I’m not used to people lettin’ me have…boundaries.” The word sounds awkward on his tongue, like a new language. “Not like that. Not where I can say ‘this is too much’ and it doesn’t turn into an argument or a mission parameter I get overruled on or—” He cuts himself off, jaw tightening.

You smooth your thumb along his throat, soothing.

“Or a punishment,” you finish quietly.

His eyes flick to yours again, sharp and a little wounded. You don’t look away.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “Or that.”

The silence stretches for a second, full and heavy. Then he blows out a breath.

“It was weird. Standing in there with all of ‘em. Hearing ‘happy birthday’ and not…” He trails off, searching. “Not flinching ‘cause I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

You swallow.

“You didn’t expect to feel that. Or, well, not feel that…”

He lets out a rough little laugh.

“Doll, for a long time, the only people who remembered this day did it to remind me I was theirs. A useful piece of inventory.” His gaze goes distant for half a heartbeat, then clears. “If they marked it at all, it was just a box on a chart. One more thing they owned.”

Your hand tightens on him, just a bit. He notices. His metal fingers flex at your hip in answer, the subtle weight grounding both of you.

“Then afterward,” he goes on, voice softer, “I started forgetting on purpose. ‘Cause every year I made it felt like an accident. Just another thing that happened to me, not something I had any say in. It was easier to just move on. Pretend it was any other day.”

“And now?” you ask, barely above a whisper.

He’s quiet for a long moment.

“Now,” he says eventually, “I’m lying here in a bed I share with someone who bought glitter and let Alexei near confetti…all for me.”

You snort in spite of everything.

“A dangerous act of love.”

“Reckless, really,” he agrees, mouth tugging up for a second before flattening again. “And I got a cake with crooked writing on it, and a bracelet that says I’m not alone, and earplugs from a woman who pretends she doesn’t give a shit about any of us.” His lips twitch. “And I got you, crawling outta bed at the ass crack of dawn to bring me coffee and spend the whole day running around making sure every person in that room showed up with something that would mean something to me.”

Your eyes sting.

“And then,” he adds, voice dropping, “I come home with you and you…you do this.” His hand lifts, vague, encompassing the bed, the room, your bodies still pressed together. “You say all those things. You…touch me like that. You tell me you love the parts I’ve spent my whole fuckin’ life trying not to look at.”

“Bucky—”

“I don’t get it,” he blurts, and it’s not sharp, it’s raw. Honest. “I don’t…I don’t know what version of me you’re seeing in your head, but it sure as hell ain’t the file I’ve got.”

You sit up a little more, straddling one of his legs now, so you can cup his face in both hands. His stubble scrapes your palms, his eyes are bright, guarded and glassy all at once.

“I’m looking at you,” you say. “Right now. This you. The one in front of me. Not some cleaned-up fantasy. Not a mission report. Not a file. You.”

He swallows, throat bobbing against your thumbs.

“You keep saying that,” he murmurs. “I keep…trying to believe it.”

“You don’t have to try tonight,” you say. “Just let it sit there. You can doubt it tomorrow if you want. But right now, let it exist.”

He stares at you like you’re asking him to walk off a ledge and promising he’ll fly.

“I don’t know how to do that,” he admits.

Your heart twists.

“Okay,” you say softly. “Then I’ll go first.”

You lean in and brush your lips over his, just a brief touch, more grounding than anything else.

“I love you,” you whisper. “I love you when you’re good. I love you when you’re grumpy and suspicious and pacing the tower like a haunted cat. I love you when you wake up from nightmares and stare at the ceiling for an hour thinking I don’t notice. I love you when you’re laughing with Yelena over something stupid, when you don’t toss Alexei out the nearest window, when you’re quiet with Ava, when you let John win an argument because you know he needs it, when you listen to Bob ramble even though you could walk away.”

His eyes close, lashes damp.

“I love you when you’re soft,” you go on, voice barely more than a breath. “When you tuck your chin on my head in crowded places so I feel safe. When you stand between me and doors without thinking about it. When you make my coffee the way I like it even if you’re not having any. When you let me put those stupid fairy lights up because they make me happy even though you’d rather sleep in the dark.”

He huffs something that might be a laugh and might be a sob.

“And I love you when you’re not okay,” you add. “When you snap. When you shut down. When you don’t have the words yet. When you flinch at your own reflection. When you need to leave a room and you don’t know how to say it. None of that makes you less worthy of this.” You squeeze his face gently, making sure he’s looking at you. “Of cake, and glitter, and people singing badly, and me…” Your voice shakes. “Me laying you down and telling you every single thing about you that I adore until your brain finally stops trying to argue with me.”

His breath shudders out of him.

“You keep saying you don’t understand why I love you,” you finish softly. “But maybe you don’t have to. Maybe it’s enough that I do.”

For a long moment, the only sound in the room is his breathing.

Then he laughs.

It’s a broken little sound, wet and shaky at the edges, but it’s real. He lifts one hand — the metal one — and covers yours where they cradle his face, his fingers dwarfing yours, the cool plates a contrast to your warm skin.

“You’re gonna kill me,” he says hoarsely. “You know that?”

You smile through the heat in your eyes.

“Bit late to worry about that now.”

He snorts, then goes quiet again.

When he speaks next, his voice is rougher. Smaller.

“I, uh…” He looks away for half a second, then drags his gaze back to yours like it costs him. “I know I don’t say it enough. Or at the right times. Or the right way.”

You shake your head. “You say it, Bucky. All the time. Just not always with words.”

“Yeah, well.” His mouth twists. “I wanna say it now. Out loud. So you don’t ever have to wonder.”

Your breath catches.

He takes a moment, gathering himself. His fingers tighten on your hand, his eyes searching your face like he’s trying to memorize it.

“I love you,” he says.

No hesitation. No qualifiers.

It hits you like a physical thing.

“I love you,” he repeats, like he wants there to be no misunderstanding. “More than I thought I was still capable of. More than I wanna admit most days ‘cause it scares the hell outta me.” His throat works. “And it…it scares me how good today felt. ‘Cause that means I want more of it.”

Your chest feels too full.

“I want…” He swallows. “I want more birthdays with you. More mornings. More stupid parties with bad cake and worse singing. More nights where you touch me like you did and say things like that about a guy who spent most of his life being told he was nothin’ but a weapon.”

You can’t stop the tears now. They slip hot and silent down your cheeks.

“I don’t know what I did to get this,” he admits. “To get you. To get them. To get a day that didn’t feel like something I was surviving.” He exhales, shaky. “But I know I don’t wanna go back.”

You lean down and kiss him, slow and sure, letting every bit of what you feel pour into it. He kisses you back like a man clutching a lifeline he’s finally decided he’s allowed to hold.

When you pull back, your foreheads rest together, breaths mingling.

“You’re not going back,” you whisper. “You hear me? This is your life now. Messy, loud, glittery, emotionally confusing. Mine. Yours. Ours. You get to keep it.”

His eyes slip shut. A tear slides from the corner of one. You catch it with your thumb.

“Happy birthday, Bucky,” you say softly. “I’m really, really glad you were born.”

He lets out a long, helpless breath, like something inside him finally, finally unclenches.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, voice wrecked but settled. He turns his head just enough to press a kiss into your palm. “For the first time in a long time…me too.”

You smile, climbing down to curl back into his side, tucking yourself into the space over his heart where you belong. His arms come around you automatically, holding you close like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he loosens his grip.

You can feel his pulse under your cheek, steady and strong.

He breathes in the scent of your hair, the faint lingering sweetness of cake and your skin and the day you built for him, and for the first time he can remember, the thought that comes isn’t I made it.

It’s I want more.

As the room settles around you, soft and dim and safe, his voice rumbles low through his chest.

“Hey,” he mutters.

“Yeah?” you murmur back, already half-asleep in the warmth of him.

“Next year,” he says, like he’s making a decision. “Same thing. You, me, bad cake. Maybe less confetti.”

You smile against his skin, heart stuttering in that happy, aching way.

“It’s a date.”

He squeezes you closer.

“Happy birthday to me,” he says under his breath, like he can’t quite believe he means it.

You drift off to the sound of his heartbeat, his arms around you, and the quiet certainty that he does.

moonypoppy

Mar 9

the-wandering-wonder

"I'll Make It Fit"

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 2,917

Rating: E (smut)

Chapter: 1/1

Summary: In a cramped Bucharest apartment, Bucky gives you more of him than you thought you could take. It starts with him between your thighs and ends with him asking, in a voice far smaller than he ever lets himself use, if he was too much.

Tag List: @solemnlywickedwolf @mrscarlislecullen @buckys-girl-blog @quantumbarnes

You’re already shaking.

Flat on your back, sheets twisted under your fingers, thighs trembling where they frame his shoulders. Your skin is damp, sticky with sweat and spit. Your pulse is hammering in your throat, in your ears, between your legs where he’s been wrecking you with his mouth for what feels like forever.

He’s still got your taste on his tongue.

You can feel it — the way his breath brushes over your swollen cunt as he pulls back, the way his lips look slick and a little bruised, the way his stubble’s glistening just enough to make you whine.

“Bucky,” you gasp, chest heaving.

He looks up at you from between your thighs, eyes glassy and dark, pupils blown wide. There’s a lazy little smirk on his face, like he’s proud of the mess he’s made.

Your legs spasm when he presses one last kiss to your inner thigh. He chuckles, low and pleased, and starts to push himself up, big hands sliding to your hips as he rises over you.

You watch, dazed, as he braces his metal forearm beside your head and reaches down with the other to shove his sweatpants lower on his hips. The waistband catches on his cock for a second — and then it springs free.

Your eyes widen.

“Oh,” you breathe.

He’s…big.

Thick and heavy, flushed dark at the tip, veins standing out along his length. There’s a bead of precum glistening there, catching the low light as he gives himself a lazy stroke, thumb smearing it over the head.

Your whole body tightens.

“I—I don’t think it’s gonna—”

You don’t even finish.

His hand snaps up, fingers closing around your jaw, firm but not cruel. He tilts your face up, drags your gaze from his cock to his eyes.

They’re wild. Hungry. Locked on you like there’s not a single thing in this shitty little Bucharest apartment that exists except for you spread out under him.

“Oh, it’s gonna fit, sweetheart,” he says, voice low and wrecked.

Your breath stutters.

His grip on your jaw softens just a fraction, thumb brushing your cheek. He dips his head, mouth hovering over yours, breath warm and beer-and-you scented.

“Don’t worry, baby.” He lowers his mouth to your throat, lips hot and damp against your racing pulse. “I’ll make it fit.”

You shiver — from the promise, from the sheer certainty in his tone.

His hand leaves your jaw and slides down, down, big palm skating down your sternum, between your ribs, over your stomach. His fingers splay, pressing gently against your lower belly like he’s mapping where he’s about to be.

Then he reaches lower, cool metal knuckles grazing your still-slick folds, and you jolt.

“Look at you,” he murmurs. “So fuckin’ wet already. You’ll take it.”

He lines himself up, head nudging against you, blunt and hot and so much. Your hips twitch, instinctively trying to shy away and press closer all at once.

“Relax for me,” he whispers, voice right in your ear. “Breathe.”

You try.

The first push is slow. He presses forward with careful, relentless pressure, the thick head stretching you open in a way that makes your throat close around his name.

“Bucky—”

“I got you,” he grunts, brows knitting as he watches himself disappear into you. “Just like that. That’s it, baby.”

He pauses, letting you adjust, chest heaving above yours. Every muscle in him is pulled tight, like it’s taking everything he has not to slam in hard.

You feel so full already.

He strokes a hand up your side, over your ribs, thumb brushing under your breast before curling around the back of your neck. His other hand is firm on your hip, anchoring you.

“You okay?” he rasps.

You nod, but your voice cracks when you say, “Feels…big.”

He huffs out something like a laugh, but it’s strained, broken at the edges.

“That’s ’cause I am, sweetheart.” His thumb strokes the side of your throat. “You can take it. You were made for it, look at you—”

He pushes in again. Another inch. Then another.

Slow. Steady. Inescapable.

Your mouth falls open on a strangled sound that isn’t quite a sob and isn’t quite a moan. Your fingers clutch at his shoulders, digging into solid muscle as the stretch builds past what you’re used to, past what you thought you could handle.

“Bucky, I—oh, fuck—”

“Shhh.” He kisses your jaw, your cheek, your temple, all while his hips keep rolling forward. “You’re doin’ so good for me. Taking me so fuckin’ pretty.”

He’s halfway in now, and you already feel split open. Full to the point of dizzy. Your thighs shake around his hips, heels scrabbling against the sheets.

You pant against his mouth, voice shaking. “I don’t know if there’s room for more.”

He groans — a filthy, guttural sound.

“There is,” he growls. “There fuckin’ is.”

His hand leaves your hip and slides under your knee, pushing your leg up, opening you wider around him. The new angle is brutal and perfect. He steals another inch, then another, until your eyes are rolling back.

You feel him everywhere.

“You feel that?” he pants. “That deep stretch? That’s me, baby. That’s all me.”

Tears prick hot at the corners of your eyes from the intensity of it — not pain, not really, just too much in the best way, your body struggling to make sense of how wide and deep he goes.

“Bucky—oh my God—”

“That’s it.” His voice drops into something dark and worshipful. “Take me. Fucking take me.”

He bottoms out on the next slow thrust.

You scream.

It’s instinctive, your back arching off the mattress, your nails clawing at his shoulders, your walls clenching hard around him like you’re trying to force him back out and drag him deeper at the same time.

He groans against your neck, shaking with the effort it takes to hold still once he’s fully sheathed.

“Holy shit,” he gasps. “You’re…fuck, you’re squeezin’ me so tight—”

You can’t form words.

All you can do is feel — the massive weight of him inside you, the heavy heat of his body pinning you down, the press of his chest against your nipples, the tremor in his arms where he brackets your head.

He nuzzles against your throat, lips brushing your jaw as you whimper.

“Breathe through it,” he murmurs. “C’mon, sweetheart. You can do it. You’re takin’ all of me. Look at you.”

He eases back a little. Just a few inches.

Then pushes back in.

Slow. Controlled. Devastating.

You gasp with every stroke, the drag of his length along your walls sending sparks up your spine, your toes curling with the sheer stretch of it.

“That’s it,” he rasps. “That’s my girl, my perfect girl.”

His rhythm builds — still careful, still deliberate, but heavier now, deeper, his hips smacking softly against yours with each thrust. The bed frame groans. Your breaths go high and frantic.

“Too much?” he asks, even as he drives back into you with a growl.

“Too—too good,” you manage.

He smiles against your neck, feral and fond.

“Good,” he murmurs. “’Cause I’m not stoppin’ ‘til this perfect little body remembers exactly what it was built for.”

His cock drags deep, hitting that spot that makes your vision blur. You cry out, clutching him tighter, and feel him shudder.

“Yeah,” he grits out. “There it is. Feels like you’re tryin’ to milk me already.”

He pulls out slow, almost to the tip.

Pauses.

“Open your eyes,” he orders.

You obey.

He’s staring down at you, sweat on his brow, hair hanging messy around his face, eyes dark and intense.

“You see me?” he pants. “You see what you’re takin’?”

You nod, helpless.

He sinks back in, every thick inch, watching your face contort around the pleasure.

“That’s my girl,” he growls. “Take me. Take all of me.”

And you do. You can’t do anything else.

One shift of his hips, one subtle change in the way he’s braced over you, and suddenly he’s slamming right into that spot that makes your whole body jolt. He finds that angle like he was born to.

Your mouth falls open on a wrecked sound.

“Right there?” he pants.

You nod frantically, fingers digging into his shoulders, your nails scoring lines down his back as he pulls out slow and drives back in, perfectly, deeply, again and again.

“Yeah,” he growls. “I know. I feel it.”

His thrusts get heavier, the wet smack of your bodies meeting punching into the room along with your breathless whimpers. Every backward drag of his cock sets your nerves alight, every forward stroke makes your vision go white at the edges.

You can feel him everywhere.

Thick and hot inside you. Sweat-slick and heavy on top of you. Breath scorching your neck, your cheek, your lips when he steals messy, open-mouthed kisses between thrusts.

“Listen to you,” he hisses in your ear. “Moanin’ so pretty. You hear yourself, baby?”

You hadn’t — not really — until he says it.

You hear it now.

The wet, choked little cries you’re making. The soft gasp every time the head of his cock hits that perfect place inside. The desperate, broken sound of his name in your mouth like a prayer you can’t stop repeating.

“Bucky—Bucky, please—”

“Please what?” His tone goes hoarse and sharp. “Say it. Use your words for me.”

You’re clinging, shaking, the coil inside you tightening so hard it hurts.

“Please don’t stop,” you manage, voice shaking. “Please—oh god, don’t stop—”

His rhythm stutters for half a second. Then he swears, low and filthy, and obeys.

He fucks you like he’s got orders. Like he’s got one goal and it’s your orgasm and nothing else.

His hand slips down between your bodies, thumb finding your clit with obscene ease. The added friction is too much, too sharp, too good. You jolt, a higher, wilder sound ripping from your chest.

“That’s it,” he pants. “C’mon, sweetheart. I got you. Look at me.”

You drag your gaze up to his, barely able to focus.

He’s a mess.

Hair sticking to his forehead. Jaw clenched. Eyes blown wide, locked on your face like he’s memorizing every twitch, every tremor. There’s a muscle in his jaw jumping with the effort it takes not to lose control.

“Wanna see you when you come,” he breathes. “Wanna see you fall apart on my cock.”

The words hit you as hard as the next thrust.

Your body arches, back leaving the mattress as everything snaps tight.

And then breaks.

You shatter around him with a cry, the orgasm ripping through you like a wave you didn’t see coming. Your vision goes white-hot, your legs clamp around his waist, and your nails dig into his skin hard enough to leave half-moon marks.

Your walls clamp down on him, pulsing, squeezing.

He chokes.

“Fuck—oh, fuck, that’s it—”

He doesn’t stop moving. He rides you through it, thrusts turning ragged and desperate as you convulse around him, every clench dragging a guttural sound from his chest.

“Look at you,” he groans. “Grippin’ me so tight—gonna fuckin’ milk me dry, aren’t you?”

You’re gone, babbling, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes. Every brush of his thumb on your clit sends another aftershock skittering up your spine.

“Bucky—too much—too much—”

He growls, but his hand eases off, shifting back to your hip, fingers digging in like a brand.

“Yeah? Then come with me,” he grits out. “One more for me, baby. You can do it. You’re so good, so fuckin’ good…”

It’s the praise that does it.

You’re still sensitive, still spasming around him, and when he buries his face against your neck and gasps, “My good girl, takin’ all of me, look at you,” your body betrays you.

You break again.

Smaller than the first, but sharper, your whole frame trembling as another wave rolls through you, pulsing around him like you were made to wring him out.

He feels it. And loses it.

“Jesus Christ—” he snarls, hips jerking. “I’m—fuck—I’m not gonna last—”

You cling, pulling him closer, wrapping your arms around his shoulders like you can pin him to you.

“Come inside me,” you whisper, voice wrecked. “Please, Bucky. Wanna feel it.”

He lets out a noise that’s almost a whimper.

“Don’t—don’t say that unless you—” He cuts himself off with a curse, driving in deep, staying there, grinding hard as his whole body goes taut.

“I mean it,” you gasps against his ear. “Please. Fill me up. I want it.”

That’s it.

He buries himself to the hilt, every muscle straining, a broken shout tearing from his throat as he finally comes. You feel it, hot and thick inside you, each pulse making your already-sensitive body twitch.

He shudders through it, whole weight sagging, forehead pressed to yours, breath tearing out of him in rough, uneven bursts.

For a long moment, there’s nothing but breathing.

His. Yours. The creak of the bed as his big body sinks down, careful not to crush you but unable to hold himself up fully.

Then slowly, he starts to move again.

Not out. Just…adjusting. Like he can’t quite believe he’s really there. Really inside you. Really allowed this.

You feel him start to pull back, like he’s about to roll away, about to apologize.

You don’t let him.

You wrap your arms tighter around his neck and your legs around his waist, holding him there, keeping him inside you, keeping that warmth deep where you can feel it.

“Stay,” you whisper.

His breath hitches.

“Yeah?” His voice is small like he doesn’t trust it. “’M not too heavy?”

“You’re perfect.” You press a kiss to his cheek, his jaw, the corner of his mouth. “Stay.”

He melts.

You feel it in the way his shoulders unclench, in the way his weight settles a little more onto you, supported by his forearms bracketing your head. In the way his nose nudges at your temple like he’s trying to hide.

“Did I hurt you?” he murmurs after a beat, words muffled against your skin. “I was tryin’ to go slow, I just—once I was in, I—”

You cut him off with a soft kiss.

“Bucky. You were perfect.”

His throat works. He swallows hard.

“’S a lot of me,” he mutters. “Didn’t wanna…overwhelm you.”

You huff a shaky little laugh. “Kind of the point, babe.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes searching your face. You reach up and smooth sweaty strands of hair away from his forehead.

“You made me feel so full,” you say honestly. “So wanted. Safe. I liked it. All of it.”

Something in him cracks at that.

His face softens, mouth trembling just a little. One big hand comes up to cradle your cheek, thumb stroking the skin still heated from earlier.

“You tell me if it’s ever too much,” he says quietly. It’s not a command. It’s a plea. “I’ll stop. I don’t…I don’t ever wanna be someone you have to take instead of want.”

Your chest aches.

You turn your head and press a kiss to his palm.

“I’ll tell you,” you promise. “Right now? I feel…perfect. Fucked stupid, but perfect.”

He snorts — actually snorts — and the sound is so surprised, so boyish, that you feel your heart squeeze.

“Yeah?” he mutters, a shy little grin tugging at his lips. “Kinda like you that way.”

You swat weakly at his shoulder. He catches your hand, kisses your knuckles.

Eventually, he slides out of you with a low groan, both of you wincing at the emptiness that follows. You feel him drip out and start to shift, but he’s already moving — reaching for an old tee on the chair, grabbing it, wiping you up with careful, almost reverent swipes.

“Sorry,” he murmurs when you flinch at the overstimulation. “Sorry, sorry. Almost done.”

You watch him as he works — big hands, gentle touch, brows furrowed in concentration like this is the most important thing he’s done all day.

When he’s satisfied, he tosses the shirt aside and pulls the blanket up over you, then hesitates.

“Do you—uh—want space? A minute? I can sleep on the couch if—”

“Bucky,” you interrupt, reaching for him. “Get in the bed.”

His eyes flick to yours, searching. You tug the blanket up in invitation.

He caves.

Of course he does.

He slides in beside you, big body sinking into the thin mattress, then immediately pulls you into his chest like it’s reflex. One arm under your shoulders, one draped heavy and possessive over your waist.

You tuck your face into the warm, familiar curve where his throat meets his shoulder. His heart is still beating a little fast under your palm.

After a while, when your breathing has evened out and your muscles have stopped twitching, you feel his lips brush your hairline.

“Was it really okay?” he asks quietly.

You smile against his skin.

“It was perfect,” you murmur. “You were perfect. You’re perfect, Buck.”

He lets out a shuddery breath, the last of his tension finally, finally bleeding away.

And as you drift, he holds you like he’s still half afraid you’ll vanish.

He doesn’t fall asleep until your breathing goes soft and steady and you mumble his name one last time against his chest — like a promise you aren’t going anywhere.

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