32yo Female *18+* 🚫minors DNI
Lover, reader, writer, and reblogger for all Chris Evans, Henry Cavill (especially Syverson) and Sebastian Stan characters! I’m mainly here to read other’s work and reblog my favorites!
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I plan to write about Chris Evans Characters, Henry Cavill Characters, possibly some Sebastian Stan and Glen Powell.
Series Summary: After Bucky cheats on you, you leave the Tower shattered, humiliated, and convinced that love has only ever made you smaller. Steve comes back from a mission to find you gone - and when he learns the truth, his loyalty is tested in ways he never expected.
Wordcount: 9.9k
Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female Reader (no use of y/n)
Warnings: tower fic, alternative mcu, slow burn, healing arc, hurt comfort, emotional hurt comfort, angst with comfort, infidelity angst, second chance at love, cheating / infidelity, emotional betrayal, toxic ex relationship, Bucky Barnes is OOC, forced kiss, non con elements (very light), boundary violation, sexual assault implications, emotional manipulation, jealousy and possessiveness, panic attacks / panic response, vomiting due to distress, STI scare / medical testing mention, violence / physical fight, blood mention, breakup grief, trauma recovery, found family, protective steve rogers, soft steve rogers, toxic bucky barnes, self-worth issues, mentions of emotionally abusive family dynamics, reader has a difficult childhood, happy ending, MDNI, some chapters will have smut or explicit intimacy
A/N: Beta read as always by Cassie. Also, again, some talks happen here, because communication is the key kids.
Important note about Bucky: Bucky is very OOC in this fic. I want to be very clear about that from the start: I know he is OOC, I know canon Bucky would not act like this, and I am not presenting this as my interpretation of canon Bucky Barnes.
This story uses him in a deliberately darker, more toxic role for the sake of the angst, conflict, and Reader’s healing arc. So please, before sending me an ask or leaving a comment to tell me that Bucky would never behave this way: I know. That is what this warning is for.
I will not be replying to complaints about Bucky being written OOC. You have been warned, and if this version of him is not something you want to read, please feel free to skip this fic.
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You found the pancake place almost by accident.
It sat on a corner just off a broader avenue, all bright windows and painted lettering and the kind of cheerful, aggressively comforting interior that seemed designed specifically for people who had made it through something unpleasant and now needed syrup about it. The sign outside promised all-day pancakes and custom toppings in a font too enthusiastic to be entirely trusted.
Steve parked anyway.
When he held the door open for you, the smell hit at once – butter, coffee, sugar, vanilla, bacon, warm batter on a grill. The place was busy without being crowded. Families with children. Two students sharing a tower of something pink and impractical. An older couple reading the paper over bottomless coffee. Music played low from ceiling speakers, something soft and harmless that asked nothing of anyone.
It was ridiculous.
It was exactly right.
A hostess led you both to a booth by the window. Sunlight fell in pale strips across the table, catching in the syrup bottles and the steel coffee pots. The menu was absurd. Page after page of pancake combinations with fruit, whipped cream, nuts, sauces, chocolate, caramel, powdered sugar, peanut butter, cream cheese drizzle, ice cream if one had fully abandoned restraint.
Steve looked at it for a moment, then at you.
You looked like someone trying very hard to behave like a person having breakfast after a clinic appointment, and not like someone whose mind was still stuck several hours behind the rest of the day.
Your eyes moved over the menu. Stopped. Moved again. Stopped for longer on nothing at all.
Steve knew that look.
You were not deciding what you wanted.
You were enduring the act of deciding.
When the waitress came by – kind eyes, tired smile, the sort of woman who called everyone honey without making it feel performative – Steve ordered first to spare you from having to think too long. Chocolate chips and banana slices. Coffee. Water.
Then she looked at you.
You glanced once more at the menu and said, “Just the plain stack. Maple syrup.”
No toppings. No whipped cream. No fruit. No indulgence. No decision beyond the most basic version available.
The waitress nodded as if there was nothing sad about that at all and left.
Steve poured you water from the sweating pitcher without asking. You took it, drank a little, and set the glass back down with too much care.
Outside the window, the city continued in its usual indifferent way. People crossed at the light. A car honked. A cyclist nearly got flattened by impatience and lived to complain about it. Cities never paused for private catastrophe. Steve had known that for a very long time, but today it seemed especially offensive.
He looked back at you.
You had gone quieter again since the clinic. Not shattered. Not actively panicking. Something else. Held. Folded inward. As if your mind had taken all the forms, the information, the blood draw, the doctor’s calm voice, the instructions about timelines and follow-up testing and notifications, and set them somewhere just behind your eyes where they could keep vibrating without yet becoming words.
Steve did not ask what you were thinking.
If you wanted to tell him, you would.
So when the pancakes came, he focused instead on practical things.
The plates were ridiculous.
His stack looked like a child’s fantasy breakfast – thick pancakes with melting chocolate chips between the layers and banana coins arranged over the top, butter sliding slowly into the heat of them. Yours were exactly what you ordered: plain, golden, a neat square of butter softening in the center, a small pitcher of maple syrup on the side.
For a second, Steve thought maybe the simple comfort of the smell alone would help.
It didn’t.
You cut into the top pancake and then… did nothing with it. You pushed the piece through syrup with the side of your fork. Then nudged it back. Then divided it into two smaller pieces as though the right geometry might make eating happen.
Steve watched for thirty quiet seconds.
Then another fifteen.
Then he said, “If you don’t start eating, I’m making you take half of mine.”
Your head came up.
There was nothing sharp in your expression. Only tired surprise, as if the threat itself required more energy to process than you had available.
“What?”
He cut into his pancakes as though discussing the weather. “Half. Minimum. And you’ll hate them because I got chocolate chips.”
You stared at him for another second. “That’s coercion.”
“That’s care.”
“You’re very bossy for someone who once wore a star on his chest and tap-danced for war bonds.”
Steve’s mouth twitched. “That feels like a cheap shot.”
“Accurate shot.”
“Eat.”
You made a face at him that lacked any real heat. Then you looked down at your plate again and still did not move.
So Steve did.
He reached across with his fork, stole two banana slices from his own stack, and dropped them onto the edge of your plate.
You looked up at him with an expression halfway between suspicion and confusion.
He shrugged one shoulder, the motion deliberately casual.
“It’s your favorite fruit.”
That stopped you.
Not dramatically. You did not tear up, did not smile, did not say anything immediate. But he saw the hit land. A small thing. Tiny, really. Two slices of banana on a breakfast plate. The kind of detail anyone might have forgotten. The kind of detail Steve remembered because he remembered things about you, because he had been paying attention long before anyone named what that attention was.
You looked back down at the plate.
Then, finally, you took a bite.
Just one at first.
Steve said nothing.
He only cut into his own pancakes and gave you the dignity of not watching too openly while relief moved quietly through him. A few seconds later, you took another bite. Then one with a piece of banana. Then another.
Little by little, the plate began to look touched by intention instead of avoidance.
Not much conversation passed between you after that, but it did not feel strained. You let him pour you more coffee even though you only drank half. He pushed the syrup nearer without comment when you ran low. Once, when your fork slowed and your gaze drifted out the window again, he tapped the edge of your plate lightly with his own and you rolled your eyes and took another bite just to prove you still could.
By the end, you had eaten more than half.
Not enough, in Steve’s private opinion, but enough to stop the hollow look from worsening. Enough that he did not actually have to force half his own breakfast onto your plate.
He considered that a victory.
The waitress brought the check and called you both sweetheart as if the word belonged to everyone. You reached for Tony’s card again before Steve could stop you.
“This is still self-care?” he asked.
Your mouth twitched faintly. “Recovery is expensive.”
He let it go.
Outside, the day had sharpened toward afternoon. The earlier softness was gone. The light had grown cleaner, less forgiving. Steve helped you onto the Harley and, once the helmets were on and the engine rumbled back to life beneath you, turned the bike toward the city.
There was no reason to stay.
The clinic would send the results by email when they came in. The doctors had made that clear. Some of them might take a day or two. Others longer. Follow-up might be needed depending on timing. There was nothing to do nearby except wait in the orbit of a medical building and let dread stretch itself thinner and meaner with every hour.
So you went back.
The ride into New York felt different than any of the others.
Not lighter. Not healed. But steadier.
You did not cry this time.
Steve noticed that almost immediately because he had become absurdly tuned to the language of your grip around his waist. Yesterday, and even earlier today, sorrow had announced itself in sudden tightening hands, in the trembling of your body against his back, in the quiet convulsions he felt more than heard.
Now your arms held him firmly and consistently. Your cheek rested once against his back, then your forehead. No tremors. No silent collapse. Only tiredness. Thought. Maybe even resolve, though he did not dare name it too soon.
The city rose gradually around you again – bridges, traffic, glass, brick, noise. The closer you got to Brooklyn, the more Steve felt something in himself resist the return. Not because he wanted to keep you on the road forever, though some part of him probably would have liked that. Because road delayed endings. Cities insisted on them.
When they reached the safehouse building, he killed the engine and helped you off the bike. You took off your helmet and shook out your hair, looking more awake than the day before, more composed than the morning, and also strangely farther away.
Steve knew that look too.
Thinking.
Deeply. Seriously. In the way people did when the adrenaline had burned off and the emotional facts of the last twenty-four hours had to be laid side by side to see what they amounted to.
He carried your bag upstairs without comment and stood just inside the apartment while you set the helmet down and closed the door behind you.
The place felt familiar now in a way it had not the first time. The couch. The table. The shattered old phone still bagged by the trash because Tony would probably want its remains later. Your water glass from before. The temporary shape of refuge.
Steve turned toward you, already knowing what he wanted to say before he found the words.
He wanted to stay.
Not in some sweeping, dramatic sense. Not to pressure you. Just… stay. Sit in the apartment with you. Make sure you ate again later. Be there when the first stretch of waiting started gnawing at you. Be close if the silence turned ugly.
The offer was already half-formed in him when you spoke first.
“Can you give me a few hours?”
He stopped.
You were standing with one hand still on the back of a chair, the other loosely at your side. Your expression was careful. Not shut down. Not rejecting him. Just serious.
“Three or four,” you said. “I need to think a little.”
The words landed with a small, clean ache.
Not because he took them badly. He didn’t.
Because he understood them at once.
Of course you did.
The last day and a half had been too much by any standard. Bucky’s betrayal. Leaving the Tower. Sam and Natasha and Tony orbiting the fallout. Steve showing up. Crying in his arms. Kissing him. The forest. The motel. Panic. The clinic. Breakfast. The road. None of it had happened with enough distance between one event and the next for reflection to catch up. You had mostly been surviving in motion.
Now, for the first time, you were asking for stillness on purpose.
Thinking time.
Not to escape him. To find yourself inside all of it.
Steve nodded immediately.
“Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”
Relief moved through your face – small, but unmistakable. Maybe because you had expected him to be disappointed. Maybe because asking for space always carried the risk of being heard as withdrawal. He hoped his answer spared you that.
“I’m not asking you to disappear,” you said after a second, as if you wanted to be sure he understood.
“I know.”
“I just…”
You looked away then, toward the window, toward the room, toward anything but him for a second.
“I need to hear my own head without…” You trailed off, then gave a tired little shrug. “Without everything else.”
Steve knew exactly what you meant.
Without the constant pressure of his presence.
Without the comfort that made not-thinking easier.
Without kisses clouding pain, or pain clouding want, or want clouding judgment.
Without him becoming the answer too quickly to a question you had not yet had time to ask properly.
“I know,” he repeated.
The silence that followed was gentle.
Not the sort that begged to be filled. Just an ending approaching.
Steve stepped closer then, slow enough that you could have stopped him if you wanted. You didn’t. You stayed where you were, watching him now with that same exhausted attentiveness you had worn all morning and half the night before. There were shadows under your eyes. Your mouth still looked slightly pink from syrup and coffee and all the things neither of you had named since the motel. You looked like someone who had survived something intimate and frightening and unfinished.
He had no idea what the right goodbye for that looked like.
So he chose honesty in the only form he trusted fully right then.
He kissed you.
Softly.
Not with the heat from the motel room. Not with the hunger from the forest. Just a gentle, quiet kiss meant to say the things words would only tangle: I understand. I’m not offended. I’m still here. Take the time.
Your lips softened under his immediately.
For one brief second, your hand came up to rest at his wrist. Not to hold him there. Just to touch.
Then he drew back.
Your eyes stayed closed a moment longer before opening.
“I’ll give you the hours,” he said.
You nodded.
“And then?”
He let out the smallest breath, almost a smile but not quite. “And then if you want me back here, I come back.”
You looked at him for a long second. Then you nodded again, slower this time.
“Okay.”
Steve picked up his helmet.
The walk back out of the apartment felt longer than it should have. At the door he looked back once and saw you standing exactly where he had left you, arms folded loosely now, thoughtful already, the room gathering around you in quiet layers.
He wanted to say one more thing.
Something wiser than call me if you need anything. Something less clumsy than don’t sit here alone with the worst version of your thoughts. Something that would keep the next four hours from swallowing you whole.
In the end, he only said, “Eat again later.”
That won him the faintest shadow of a smile.
“Bossy.”
“Yeah.”
The door closed behind him.
On the ride back to the Tower, Steve felt every mile.
Not because he feared what waited there. Though he did not exactly look forward to it either. The building still held Bucky, still held all the sharp edges of the last two days, still held the fallout Tony was no doubt digging through frame by frame. But that was not what sat heaviest in him.
What sat heaviest was absence.
The abrupt loss of your hands, your voice, the weight of you on the back of the bike, the small domestic rhythm that had started to form between the two of you in crisis and on the road and over pancakes and motel coffee. He had gotten used to your presence faster than was probably wise. Not in some naive way. Simply in the bodily sense. His day had started arranging itself around the fact of you being there.
Now, with the city moving around him and the Tower rising in the distance again, he felt the empty space of that arrangement.
By the time he reached the building, the sun had shifted westward enough to throw long reflections over the glass.
He parked.
Took off his helmet.
Stood for one second longer than necessary with one hand on the handlebar and the engine ticking softly under him as it cooled.
Then Steve headed back inside to the Tower, carrying clean fatigue, unresolved hope, and the quiet knowledge that somewhere in Brooklyn you were finally sitting alone with your own thoughts – and that when those thoughts reached their conclusion, for good or bad, they were going to lead back to him.
By the time the elevator started its smooth climb toward the common floor, Steve had gone over the next few hours in his head more times than he cared to admit.
The mirrored walls threw back a version of him he did not especially want to examine too closely – tired, still road-worn despite the shower and fresh clothes, mouth set harder than usual, thoughts clearly somewhere else. The Tower hummed around him in its usual sterile, expensive calm, and for one absurd second he wanted nothing more than to turn around, get back on the Harley, and go sit outside your safehouse door until your three or four hours were up.
He did not.
You had asked for space.
He would give it.
That did not mean he had to sit idle while the rest of the Tower remained full of people who could still hurt you by proximity alone.
The elevator chimed for the common floor.
Steve did not get out.
Instead, after one beat of stillness, he reached past the panel and pressed another button.
Down.
To the lab.
If anyone in this building had already thought three steps ahead on security, access, damage control, and whatever digital mess still remained attached to your name, it was Tony. Steve would have bet money on finding him exactly where Tony always went when anger got productive.
He was right.
The lab doors slid open to the familiar wash of blue light, music, mechanical noise, and organized chaos. Tony stood at the main console with two holographic screens split open in front of him, one full of security timelines and the other what looked like a systems access panel. Bruce was there too, perched on a stool near one of the side benches with a tablet in his hands and a look on his face so sober it seemed to have drained all color from the room.
Tony looked up first.
Steve did not waste time.
“Tony, you need to change her access. Make sure Bucky can’t get into her room.”
Tony stared at him for half a second, then rolled his eyes with all the energy of a man personally offended by being underestimated.
“Good morning to you too,” he said. “And I already did.”
Of course he had.
Steve almost would have been annoyed if the relief had not arrived first.
Bruce glanced up from the tablet and gave a single dark nod. “As of twenty minutes ago. Door code, biometric access, the whole thing. FRIDAY’ll flag it if he even tries.”
Steve let out a breath he had not noticed himself holding.
Bruce’s expression did not soften, exactly, but there was something quietly fierce in it that Steve recognized. Bruce liked you. Most people in the Tower did, but Bruce liked you in that more specific way reserved for the few who gave him patience without patronizing him. You listened when he talked. Really listened. Even when he disappeared into scientific jargon thick enough to drown half the room, you never interrupted just to hear yourself speak. You might not have understood every word, but you respected that the words mattered to him.
Bruce remembered things like that.
It showed now in the way he looked at Steve – not questioning why he had come straight here, not needing the explanation laid out.
Tony, meanwhile, had already gone back to stabbing at a screen with more force than the interface required.
“Also,” he said, “while you were out not sleeping at home – and no, I don’t want details, spare me the sepia romance – I found the name.”
Steve stopped.
Bruce looked up again too, though judging by his lack of surprise he had already heard.
For one second Steve simply stared at Tony.
“That was fast,” he said.
He sounded almost surprised. Almost. Mostly he sounded tired.
Tony gave him a flat look. “You continue to underestimate how efficient I become when I’m pissed off.”
Steve’s jaw tightened.
He had known Tony would find out. Had known it the second Tony started talking about footage and timestamps and refusing to do what Natasha had done. Still, knowing a thing in abstract and hearing that the answer now existed in the room were two very different experiences.
He took one step closer to the main console.
“Who?”
Tony turned one screen with a vicious flick of his fingers.
A still image came up – grainy security footage from a hallway Steve recognized only after a second. Side corridor off one of the lower residential levels. Not heavily trafficked. A woman, in profile, turning half toward Bucky in a way that left far too little room for innocence.
Tony did not dramatize it.
He did not need to.
“Denise.”
Steve felt the shock hit clean and hard.
He had expected many names before that one.
Not Denise.
“Jesus,” he said before he could stop himself.
Because Denise was not some random woman from another department. Not a stranger from a bar. Not a disposable piece of collateral drifting around the edges of Tower life.
She was someone you knew.
Someone you worked with.
Not one of your closest friends, maybe – not the way Natasha or Sam stood in your orbit – but close enough. Present enough. Trusted enough that her face belonged naturally in the same rooms as yours. Steve had seen the two of you together more than once over post-mission coffee, over tactical review, over those easy in-between conversations that happened when people spent enough time alongside one another to become part of each other’s everyday landscape.
He stared at the screen harder.
“She’s married.”
Tony’s mouth flattened. “Wasn’t aware adultery needed a second application form.”
Steve passed a hand over his mouth.
Not because Tony was wrong. Because the extra layer of it made the whole thing uglier in a fresh direction. This was not one betrayal. It was a network of them. Denise betraying her spouse. Bucky betraying you. Both of them doing it inside the same building, inside the same ecosystem of trust and routine and shared work.
And Denise knew you.
That fact lodged like a splinter under Steve’s ribs.
Bruce set the tablet down on the bench beside him. “How much contact do they still have professionally?”
Tony answered before Steve could. “Too much. Which is why I’ve already started mapping overlap in their schedules.”
Steve looked from the screen to Tony. “You can do that?”
Tony gave him another look.
“Rogers, I can disable a nation-state before lunch. Yes, I can compare two agents’ calendars.”
Bruce rose from the stool then, coming to stand nearer the console. “We should assume proximity alone is a problem now,” he said quietly. “Even if she doesn’t know yet. And when she does know…” He did not finish.
He did not have to.
Steve knew exactly how that sentence ended.
When she does know, she should not have to keep turning corners and finding either of them there.
Tony minimized the footage with a hard jab of two fingers. “I already sent myself a copy. Not because I intend to show it to her unless she asks. But because if anyone suddenly develops the urge to revise history, I’d like to remain difficult to gaslight.”
Steve almost said Denise did not seem the type.
Then he stopped himself.
What did that even mean anymore?
Who exactly seemed the type?
Bucky had not seemed the type either, if the last few days had proved anything. Or rather, Steve had built a version of Bucky in his head where certain kinds of ordinary cruelty simply did not fit, and life had taken visible pleasure in dismantling that assumption piece by piece.
He looked at the panel again, though the image was gone now.
“Does she know that we know?”
Tony snorted. “No. And I haven’t decided whether that’s mercy or tactical advantage.”
Bruce folded his arms. “Don’t turn this into a game.”
It came out offended, which meant he probably was at least a little, but the anger underneath it was real enough that Steve did not bother calling it out.
Steve straightened. “I’m going to Fury.”
That drew Tony’s eyes back to him.
“Yeah,” Tony said after a beat. “That’d be the grown-up move.”
Steve ignored the wording.
“We need the assignments changed,” he said. “Anything coming up where she’d be working with Denise or Bucky.”
Bruce nodded once at that, immediate agreement.
Tony’s mouth tightened again, but this time in approval. “I’ll send over the overlap I found.”
“Thanks.”
Tony waved a hand as if the word only irritated him. “Go. Before I decide to solve this in a way with more lasers.”
Steve turned and headed for the doors.
Behind him, Tony called, “And Rogers?”
He looked back.
Tony had already pulled another set of screens open, but his gaze when it lifted held a rare and ugly sincerity.
“She’s going to ask eventually.”
Steve knew who he meant.
Denise.
Not just who was it in the abstract, but specifically whether the answer had been kept from her too long by people trying to protect her from one more blow.
Steve nodded once. “I know.”
Then he left.
Fury’s office suite felt, as ever, like walking into the center of an oncoming storm that had chosen paperwork as its aesthetic.
Minimal. Controlled. Dark wood, glass, steel, the whole place set up to remind people that sentiment did not belong there unless it arrived disguised as operational necessity. Steve had always respected that about Fury right up until the moments he hated it.
Today, operational necessity happened to be on his side.
Natasha was already there when he entered.
Of course she was.
She stood off to one side of Fury’s desk with a tablet in one hand and one ankle crossed loosely over the other, but there was nothing loose in her expression. She glanced at Steve once as the door shut behind him, read his face in a second, and seemed unsurprised by whatever she found.
Fury did not bother with preamble.
“I heard.”
Steve believed that.
News of the break had clearly moved fast enough through whatever channels it needed to move through. Fury knowing about Bucky was no surprise. Fury knowing about your departure was no surprise either. A top-level Avenger-adjacent operative walking out of the Tower after a private implosion was exactly the kind of thing nobody in charge liked learning about late.
What surprised Steve slightly was that Fury did not ask for explanation.
Maybe Natasha had already provided enough.
Maybe Fury had taken one look at the relevant names on the schedule and jumped straight to logistics. That was more his style anyway.
Steve stepped up to the desk. “I need future missions reorganized.”
Fury lifted one brow. “You and everyone else.”
Natasha held up the tablet. “I already started.”
That got Steve’s attention.
She moved to the desk, swiped once, and turned the screen so he and Fury could both see. Several operations over the next three weeks had been marked up in red and yellow – team pairings, deployment windows, contingency notes.
“Anything involving her and Barnes is gone,” Natasha said. “Obviously. Anything involving her and Denise needs to go too.”
The name landed in the room without commentary.
Steve glanced at her.
Natasha met his eyes for one second and that was enough. She knew, because that what who she had seen with Bucky, that one time. There was no visible surprise in her now, only the colder, more refined fury of someone whose suspicions had hardened into fact.
Fury’s expression changed not at all. “Denise.”
Not a question.
Natasha nodded once.
For a brief moment, no one spoke.
Steve felt again the ugly shock of it. Denise. Married Denise. Friendly Denise. Familiar Denise. Someone who had stood in briefing rooms and debriefing rooms and near your shoulder often enough that the betrayal now seemed to spread backwards through memory, poisoning scenes that had once looked ordinary.
He forced himself back to the practical.
“Sam can cover some of the Barnes replacements,” he said. “I can cover the others.”
Natasha shook her head slightly. “Not all of them. Some of the European surveillance runs need a woman in place without changing the cover structure.”
Steve looked at the screen again.
She was right.
Fury leaned back in his chair, hands folded loosely over the desk in that way of his that meant he was already three decisions ahead and only letting the rest of them catch up out of courtesy. “Can you take any of hers?”
Natasha nodded. “Some. Not all, but enough.”
Steve looked at her. “You sure?”
One corner of her mouth moved in a humorless almost-smile. “Steve, if it keeps her from being stuck in a van with the woman who helped Barnes blow up her life, yes. I’m sure.”
That answered that.
Bruce would have volunteered too, Steve suspected, if the work had fit. Sam definitely would when told. Tony would probably have tried if anyone let him near field scheduling. The whole Tower had turned quietly, almost instinctively, toward shielding you from impact where it could.
Steve found that both comforting and infuriating.
Comforting because you had people.
Infuriating because you needed shielding at all.
Fury took the tablet from Natasha and scanned the marked assignments.
“This one,” he said, tapping a line item. “Barnes gets dropped entirely. Rogers, you take point.”
Steve nodded.
“This one– Wilson.”
Another nod.
Natasha pointed at a third. “I can take her slot there without compromising the cover. Denise keeps the original deployment.”
Fury considered for one second, then inclined his head.
So it went.
Not dramatic. Not emotional. Just the cold work of rearranging a future before it had the chance to do more damage. Steve respected that. There was relief in it, in a way. A problem he could help solve with concrete action, not just patience and comfort and promises in motel rooms.
Still, every new line they struck or reassigned carried its own reminder. This was how far Bucky’s choices had reached. Into schedules. Into op structures. Into who could stand beside whom in briefing rooms without the oxygen changing.
By the end, half a dozen missions had been altered.
Natasha volunteered wherever she could without overloading herself. Sam’s name went onto two substitutions. Steve took the rest of Barnes’s slots that he physically could. Denise’s pairings with you were erased. Future contact minimized. Containment, as much as such things could be contained.
When Fury finally set the tablet down, the plan was ugly but workable.
“Done,” he said.
Natasha exhaled once through her nose. “For now.”
Fury looked at Steve. “Where is she?”
Steve held his gaze.
He did not answer directly.
Fury’s eye narrowed slightly, then he gave the barest dismissive wave, as if to say fine, don’t tell me, I already expected that. “Keep it that way until she decides otherwise.”
Steve nodded.
That, more than anything, made it clear Fury understood the shape of this better than his manner suggested. Operational security was one thing. Respecting the fact that you had left to get out from under the weight of the Tower was another. He was doing both.
Natasha shifted beside the desk and asked, “How is she?”
Steve could have given the easy answer.
Tired. Shaken. Hanging on.
All true. None enough.
He thought of the forest. The motel. The clinic. The pancakes. The way you had asked for a few hours alone not because you wanted him gone, but because you needed to hear your own thoughts without his presence muddying them.
“She’s thinking,” he said at last.
Something flickered in Natasha’s face then. Understanding, maybe. Approval. Maybe both.
Fury only grunted.
The meeting ended with no ceremony. Natasha gathered the revised assignments. Fury began issuing follow-up instructions into his tablet before Steve had even fully stepped back from the desk. The machine moved on because that was what institutions did.
As Steve turned for the door, Natasha fell into step beside him.
They walked in silence until the office door shut behind them and the corridor muffled Fury’s world again.
Then Natasha said, very quietly, “Tony told you.”
Steve nodded.
“Denise.”
Again, not a question.
“Yeah.”
Natasha’s expression hardened by imperceptible degrees. “I should’ve said something when I saw them.”
Steve glanced at her.
There was no self-pity in the statement. Only clean anger turned briefly inward.
“You didn’t know enough then,” he said.
“I knew enough to dislike what I was looking at.”
“That’s not the same as knowing what to do with it.”
She did not answer right away.
Then she said, “She’s going to hate that it was Denise.”
Steve looked down the corridor toward the elevators.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”
Because betrayal by a partner was one thing.
Betrayal by someone adjacent, someone familiar, someone near enough to your life that you could not dismiss her as anonymous – someone who had looked you in the face and carried on anyway – that was another wound entirely.
And sooner or later, that wound was coming too.
Steve only hoped that by the time it arrived, you would not be facing it alone.
When Steve finally made it back to his room, the silence inside it felt wrong.
Not empty. Wrong.
He closed the door behind him and did not move again for several seconds. He just stood there in the middle of the room with his hands hanging uselessly at his sides, his mind still full of too many overlapping things – the clinic, Natasha’s tablet, Fury’s cold practicality, Tony’s anger, Denise’s name, your face in the doorway of the safehouse when you asked him for three or four hours to think.
The room had all the usual pieces of itself. Bed made. Desk orderly in the way his spaces always tended to be. Duffle from the mission shoved half out of sight. Lamp off. Curtains open just enough to let in the late afternoon light. Nothing had changed in here.
And yet he could not shake the sense that he was standing in a place he had already, somehow, outgrown.
He dragged a hand down over his mouth and exhaled.
He should have used the time sensibly. Written the report. Checked in on the field summaries from the mission. Read the follow-up brief Tony had probably already sent to Fury. Done any one of the hundred practical things still waiting for him.
Instead he turned and went straight for the bathroom.
The second shower of the day was less about cleanliness this time and more about something closer to reset. The water ran hot. Steam gathered. He stood under it longer than he needed to, letting it beat against the back of his neck while the muscle there finally started to give.
His thoughts did not.
They kept circling back to you.
Not the dramatic moments first, though those were there too – the way panic had ripped through you in the motel room, the way you had shaken in his arms afterward, the softness of that last kiss before he left you at the safehouse. What stayed with him most in the shower were the smaller things. You eating the banana slices because he remembered they were your favorite. Your hand finding his in the clinic waiting room. The way your voice sounded when you asked for time, careful and serious and trying not to hurt him even then.
He tipped his head back under the water and shut his eyes.
Four hours, you had said.
Not forever. Not distance. Just time.
Enough to think.
Enough to sort through what the last day and a half meant when laid side by side instead of survived one blow at a time.
Steve respected that.
He also hated every second of not knowing what conclusion you might reach inside that time.
He shut the water off before the thought could go any farther.
Afterward, he dressed simply – clean shirt, jeans, something comfortable enough to sit in a safehouse for hours if that was what the evening became. Then, instead of returning to the bathroom mirror or the desk or the report waiting untouched, he went to the closet and pulled out a small overnight bag.
That decision came so naturally he barely registered making it.
He packed without overthinking.
A change of clothes.
A clean T-shirt.
A sweater in case the safehouse turned cold after dark.
Toothbrush, toothpaste, razor.
Phone charger.
A spare pair of socks because some habits from war never really left him, and being caught without clean socks still struck him as one of civilization’s more preventable failures.
He paused once with the bag open on the bed, looking down into it.
The sight might have embarrassed him under other circumstances. The quiet assumption built into it. That you would ask him to stay. That he wanted to be ready if you did. That he was planning around your possible need without waiting to be told the need existed.
It should have felt presumptuous.
Instead it felt practical.
And maybe that told him more than he wanted to know.
He zipped the bag shut and set it near the door.
Then, because four hours was still four hours and the mission week and the sleepless motel night were sitting heavily in his bones whether he acknowledged them or not, he crossed to the bed, lay down on top of the blanket, and set an alarm on his phone.
Two hours.
Enough to take the edge off.
Enough to keep him from showing up at your door looking like death and pretending he felt fine.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep took him faster than he expected.
Not gently. Not restfully. More like a switch thrown in a body that had reached the limit of pretending it was running on discipline alone. He dropped into it hard and came back out of it the same way when the alarm cut through the room two hours later, sharp and mechanical and immediately infuriating.
For one second he did not know where he was.
Then the room came back. The Tower. His bed. The bag by the door. The fact that he had promised to give you time and that enough of it had now passed to make his chest tighten all over again.
He sat up, scrubbed a hand over his face, and reached automatically for the phone to kill the alarm before it could sound a second time.
Two hours had not made him well rested.
But they had made him functional.
That would do.
He stood, stretched the worst of the stiffness out of his back and shoulders, grabbed the bag, and headed for the door.
The Tower had shifted into evening by then. Lights lower in the corridors. More doors shut. Fewer voices. The sort of lull between the end of official work and the beginning of whatever passed for private life in a building full of damaged overachievers.
Steve took the stairs partway down before cutting across toward the garage access where Stark kept the less theatrical cars.
The bag strap sat heavy over one shoulder.
He had almost reached the turnoff by the secondary elevator bank when Bucky stepped out from the corridor ahead.
Steve stopped.
So did Bucky.
For one ugly, stretched second, the whole hallway seemed to lock around them.
Bucky looked worse than he had upstairs in the wrecked bedroom, though in a different way now. Cleaned up, technically. Fresh shirt. Face washed. No blood on his hands anymore. But the damage had only gone inward. He looked hollowed out. Eyes shadowed. Mouth gone tight in that specific way that meant he had either not slept at all or slept badly enough it did not count.
Then Bucky’s gaze dropped to the bag.
Steve watched him see it.
Watched the understanding hit.
Not the full understanding, maybe. Not where Steve was going exactly. But enough. Enough to know Steve was leaving with more than keys in hand and no intention of being gone for only an hour.
Something changed in Bucky’s face.
Hope, maybe, for one stupid instant – hope that Steve had come to him, that this was movement toward some conversation he wanted, some mercy, some route back into the center of things.
Then that hope died almost immediately when Steve gave him nothing.
No greeting.
No explanation.
No acknowledgment at all.
He simply walked.
He went past Bucky as if Bucky were another piece of hallway architecture. Present, unavoidable, and entirely undeserving of special notice.
Bucky half turned as Steve drew even with him. Steve felt the movement more than saw it.
He did not slow down.
Not when Bucky’s breath caught as though he meant to speak.
Not when silence stretched long enough that one word from either of them might have changed the shape of the corridor.
Steve kept going.
He had no useful sentence for Bucky right now that would not either turn into violence or spend itself uselessly against a man already drowning in what he had done. And more than that, Steve refused to carry your hours of thinking back through Bucky’s orbit like some reportable event. Those hours belonged to you. Not to him. Not to Barnes.
So he said nothing.
The garage level felt colder than the floors above.
Rows of cars sat under clean white lighting, every one of them more expensive than Steve would ever have chosen for himself. Stark’s collection ran from absurd to ostentatious to almost reassuringly plain when one looked hard enough.
Steve chose one of the plain ones.
No roaring engine.
No aggressive lines.
No machine designed to announce itself three streets before arrival.
Just a dark sedan with decent suspension, good brakes, and the sort of presence that vanished easily into Brooklyn traffic.
He tossed the bag into the passenger seat, got behind the wheel, and drove out into the city.
Evening traffic had started building by then, but not badly enough to trap him. The streets moved in fits and starts under a sky already beginning to lose color at the edges. He drove with both hands steady on the wheel and the windows up against the cooling air, the city blurring by in storefronts, taillights, pedestrians, scaffolding, glass reflections, street vendors closing for the day.
Every few minutes, his mind flicked back to the safehouse.
To you alone in there.
Thinking.
Maybe pacing.
Maybe sitting on the couch with the new phone in your hand and Tony’s ridiculous credit card on the table beside you.
Maybe crying again.
Maybe not crying at all, which in some ways worried him more.
He did not rehearse what he would say when you opened the door.
There was no point.
If the last two days had taught him anything, it was that trying to script tenderness in advance usually ruined it. Better to show up honestly and meet what was there.
By the time he parked outside the building again, four hours had passed since he left you.
Precisely enough.
Steve cut the engine and sat for one second in the sudden quiet.
Then he got out, took the bag, and went upstairs to the safehouse, hoping – more than he cared to admit – that when you opened the door this time, you would let him in again.
When you opened the door this time, Steve knew before he even crossed the threshold that something had shifted.
Not vanished. Not healed. The safehouse still carried the quiet weight of everything that had happened there – the bottle rinsed and left upside down by the sink, the broken remains of your old phone bagged near the trash, the couch that had held your grief the night before. But the air felt different now. Less like a place where someone had been trying not to drown, more like a place where someone had started, however shakily, to reassemble herself out of the wreckage.
And underneath that, unmistakable, floated the smell of food.
Warm oil. Chili. Basil. Coconut milk. Something sweet and sharp and savory all at once.
Steve stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The overnight bag hung from one hand. You stood a few feet away in clean clothes again, hair half dry at the ends as though you had splashed water on your face and pushed it back while thinking, and there was more color in you now than there had been when he left. Not much. But enough that he noticed at once.
He glanced toward the kitchen counter.
“You cooked?”
You looked at him with such immediate offense that, under any other circumstances, he might actually have laughed.
“Are you out of your mind?” you asked. “You know I could probably set even water on fire.”
Something warm and almost disbelieving moved through him at the sound of that tone. Dry. Familiar. More you than some of the last day had allowed.
He set the bag down by the chair and lifted one brow. “That bad?”
“That bad,” you said gravely. “I went out and bought a few things and then passed a Thai place. I got… kind of everything.”
Steve let his gaze flick once toward the bag by the counter where takeout containers had been unpacked in varying degrees of order. Rice. Noodles. Little plastic tubs of sauce. A paper bag folded down at the top. Two sets of disposable chopsticks. You had arranged it all with the careful practicality of someone who did not want to stare directly at what she had been doing with her hands for the last few hours.
Then your eyes dropped to his overnight bag.
Steve felt that glance land.
You said nothing.
No question. No visible hesitation. No arch remark about optimism or presumption. You only looked at the bag for one brief second and then looked back up at him as if its presence made enough sense that it did not require discussion.
Relief moved through him so quietly he might have missed it if he had not been watching for every reaction you gave him now.
He took that silence for what it was.
Permission.
Or at least, not refusal.
So he crossed the room and joined you at the counter while you started opening containers with the kind of absent concentration people used when their hands needed occupation more than the task itself mattered.
There was a lot.
Pad thai. Red curry. Green curry. Basil chicken. Spring rolls. Fried rice. Some kind of noodle dish Steve did not recognize but that smelled aggressively good. A small clear tub of sliced chilies floating in vinegar. Another of crushed peanuts. A cardboard box with what looked like mango sticky rice.
He looked at the spread, then at you.
“You really did get everything.”
You gave one shoulder a small shrug. “I couldn’t decide.”
That was true in more ways than one, he suspected.
Still, the fact that your indecision had turned toward food and not inward destruction seemed like a win he was not going to argue with.
You both settled at the little table by the window. Steve took the chair opposite yours, the overnight bag still near enough that he could see it in the corner of his vision. The room had the look of evening about it now. The city outside was dimming by degrees, the window reflecting more of the apartment back inward with each passing minute. Lamps on. Takeout boxes open. The two of you facing each other in a safehouse that had stopped feeling entirely temporary.
He wanted to ask immediately.
What had you thought about.
Where had your mind gone in those four hours.
What did his returning mean to you now that you had asked for time and gotten it.
What, exactly, were the terms of whatever was unfolding between you besides hurt and comfort and too many kisses to still call accidental.
He wanted to ask all of it.
He did not.
He could feel how much care the moment still required. The wrong question too fast could turn the whole evening brittle again.
So instead he reached for the nearest container and said, “What did you go buy?”
You were in the middle of spooning rice onto your plate. You did not look up right away.
“Toothpaste,” you said. “And condoms.”
Steve choked.
Not dramatically enough to spill anything, but enough that a piece of rice and a startled breath went down wrong all at once. He coughed, reached blindly for his water, and heard – actually heard – the tiniest betrayed laugh escape you before you covered it by taking an entirely innocent-looking bite of noodles.
He stared at you over the rim of the glass while he swallowed and recovered what remained of his dignity.
You met that stare with an expression so deliberately mild it was practically criminal.
Then, because you were not remotely finished, you pushed the water bottle a little farther toward him with two fingers and said, “You should drink.”
Steve set the glass down slowly.
“Are you doing this on purpose?”
Your eyes widened just a fraction in a performance so unconvincing it would have offended him if it were not also fascinating.
“What, telling you what I bought?”
“Yes.”
You leaned back in your chair and crossed one ankle loosely over the other. There was a softness around your mouth now that had not been there when he arrived. Not quite a smile. Something more dangerous because it was trying not to be one.
“I thought honesty was important.”
Steve let out a breath that might have become a laugh if it were not tangled too tightly with the image your words had put in his head.
Condoms.
Bought by you.
Deliberately.
Not in panic. Not by accident. Not supplied by some clinic pamphlet or shoved across a counter in the abstract.
You had gone out, on purpose, and bought them.
The knowledge landed in him with a heat so immediate he had to look down at his plate for one second just to keep his face under control.
You saw enough anyway.
Of course you did.
When he looked back up, your expression had changed. Still edged with mischief, yes, but something more careful underneath it now. Watching him. Measuring what the reaction meant. Maybe how far it went.
Then you said, quieter this time, “Just in case you wanted to… try the beginning of last night again.”
The words entered the room and changed its temperature.
Steve went still.
He had spent the drive over here trying not to decide too much in advance about what your thinking time meant. He had told himself to meet whatever he found honestly. That was one thing in theory. It was another to sit across from you with curry steaming between you and hear you say that in a voice balanced on the edge between composure and invitation.
He set his chopsticks down.
Not because he was rejecting the food. Because suddenly his hands seemed too aware of themselves to do two things at once.
Your own composure wavered first, just a little. You looked down at your plate, then back up at him, and for the first time since he arrived he saw the vulnerability underneath the teasing. The possibility that this mattered enough to hurt if mishandled.
Steve spoke carefully.
“That what you spent four hours thinking about?”
Your mouth tightened at one corner. “Not only that.”
No, he thought. Of course not.
He believed that too.
Those four hours had not been some long lead-up to a joke and a box of condoms. He could see that plainly in the way you sat now – more grounded than before, more yourself, but also more deliberate. As if you had taken the last two days apart piece by piece and put some of them back down in a different order.
He waited.
When you went on, your voice had lost almost all of the humor.
“I thought about whether I was just grabbing onto the first good thing because I felt horrible.” You glanced at the takeout container in front of you as though the noodles might offer witness. “I thought about whether I was about to make a huge mess of you because I’m angry and sad and lonely and I don’t know how to be any of those things quietly.” A beat. “I thought about whether I’d hate myself tomorrow if I kissed you and tried to sleep with you again.”
Steve did not interrupt.
He barely breathed.
You looked up then, and the directness in your face nearly undid him.
“I don’t think I would.”
The silence that followed was not empty.
It thrummed.
Outside, a siren moved somewhere far off through Brooklyn. Inside, the refrigerator hummed. One of the takeout lids settled with a tiny plastic pop as it cooled. Small sounds. Meaningless sounds. And still Steve heard each one because of how sharply the rest of him had tuned to you.
He leaned back slightly in the chair, one hand coming up to rub once at the back of his neck.
“You make it really hard to stay calm when you say things like that.”
Some of the tension left your shoulders then. Not all. Enough.
“That’s not a no.”
Steve almost smiled.
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
You looked at him over the table with that same expression you had worn in the forest when you were not sure whether the question itself was too much to ask and decided to ask anyway.
“It’s not a yes either.”
“No,” he said again, more softly this time. “Because I need to know one more thing first.”
You waited.
Steve held your eyes.
“If we do this,” he said, “is it because you want me? Or because you want to stop thinking for a while?”
The question cost him something to ask.
Not because he feared the answer. Because he knew it might be both, and he did not know yet whether he could live with being used as relief if he already wanted so much more than that.
You were silent for a long moment.
Then you put your fork down too.
“It started as the second one,” you admitted. “Or maybe that’s all it was at first. Yesterday morning. In the forest.” You took a breath. “But that’s not all it is now.”
Steve’s pulse climbed.
You looked almost irritated by the honesty of your own next sentence. “I wanted you to come back.” A pause. “I wanted you specifically. Not just company. Not just someone kind. You.”
That landed somewhere deep and dangerous.
Steve felt his whole body register it.
You must have seen some part of that on his face, because your own expression changed in response – softening, but not into pity. More like relief at no longer being the only person in the room saying something difficult.
Then, perhaps because you had already crossed the hard part, you added with the driest ghost of a smile, “Also, I did in fact buy condoms.”
That made him laugh despite himself.
Not loudly. But helplessly enough that some of the tension broke.
You smiled properly then, small and quick and real.
The sight of it hit harder than the joke.
Steve exhaled once and reached for his water again, not because he needed it this time but because it bought him a second to get his thoughts into a line that would not do damage.
When he spoke, his voice had gone low.
“If we try anything again tonight, and you panic again, we stop.” His fingers tightened lightly around the bottle. “No apology. No shame. No making it about me.”
You nodded immediately. “Okay.”
“And if you change your mind in the middle, we stop.”
“Okay.”
“And if all you actually want is to eat Thai food, make me choke on my water, and sleep next to somebody who doesn’t make you feel unsafe–”
That got a tiny snort out of you.
“–then that’s enough too.”
You looked at him for a long second after that.
Then, very quietly, “You always leave me room to back out.”
Steve’s chest pulled tight.
“I’m trying to leave you room to choose.”
The words seemed to settle over both of you.
You looked down first this time, but not out of discomfort. More like you were letting the sentence live in you for a minute.
Then you reached for a spring roll and took a bite.
It was such an ordinary motion after everything that it nearly made him laugh again.
“Eat,” you said around it.
He blinked. “What?”
“You heard me.” A little more color had come into your face now, enough to support a proper look. “If we’re going to have emotionally loaded conversations about sex and choice and whatever else, you’re still going to eat your curry before it gets cold.”
Steve stared at you, then at the food, then back at you.
Something warm unfurled in his chest.
Not desire this time.
Something quieter. More dangerous, maybe, because of how deeply it reached.
Companionship. Ease. The beginning of a rhythm.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
You rolled your eyes. “Don’t call me that.”
He picked up his chopsticks again and obeyed.
Dinner resumed, though not quite as if the conversation had never happened. More as if it now sat there with you openly, another presence at the table, no longer needing to hide inside jokes or unfinished gestures. The tension remained, but it had changed flavor. Less brittle. More aware.
You both ate properly this time.
Steve let himself enjoy the food because it was genuinely excellent and because he knew you had bought far too much with the specific hope, perhaps unconscious at the time, that the evening might last. He watched you steal some of his basil chicken after pretending you did not want any. You watched him lose patience with the tiny plastic forks and switch to the chopsticks with quiet superiority. At one point he slid the container of mango sticky rice toward you without a word and you gave him a suspicious look before taking some anyway.
The safehouse windows gradually darkened into mirrors.
At some point your foot brushed his under the table and stayed there.
Neither of you mentioned it.
And through it all, he did not yet ask what your conclusion was in any grander sense.
He suspected he already knew enough for tonight.
You had let him back in.
You had not questioned the overnight bag.
You had bought condoms and admitted why.
You had told him you wanted him specifically.
Whatever else remained unresolved – and there was plenty – it was not a question for the dinner table anymore.
By the time the food had been reduced to scattered leftovers and half-folded cartons, the room felt warmer, softer, more lived in. The edge that had lived in Steve since the motel bathroom had not disappeared entirely, but it had loosened. You looked tired again, though not in the brittle way from before. More in the way people did after finally speaking the thing they had been turning over in private for hours.
Steve pushed his plate away and looked at you.
“So,” he said.
Your eyes lifted.
“So,” you echoed.
He did not smile this time, though the softness in his face might have counted as one from anyone else.
“Do you want me to stay?”
You held his gaze.
“Yes,” you said.
No teasing. No hedge. No irony.
Just yes.
And Steve, who had packed the overnight bag before sleeping because some part of him already knew, felt the answer settle through him like certainty finding its place.
warnings: pre-TGM, slight age gap reader is 22 & jake is 26, reader is a nursing student, misogynistic undertones, not quite enemies to lovers, she just doesn’t like him much @ first, dry humping kind of, making out, groping, interrupted makeout, forbidden relationship
summary: in which… being ice man’s youngest daughter— and secretly dating one blonde aviator.
m’s notes: while no looks are described, both ice man & his wife in the movie are white! not proofread! i luv them so i hope u do too <3 i would also love to write more for these two! written in the app!
all rights reserved @backtoarkansas
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as the youngest of four, you’d always gotten away with more than your sisters— and a great deal more than your brother. north island was small, but the majority of your neighbors were elderly— a nosy bunch of retired navy men and their snooty wives.
you may have gotten away with more, but you still managed to be the most protected— atleast by daddy. you were the youngest, his little girl. he scared away any guys you brought home, none of them were good. some were too much like him.
your parents had been married a long time; thirty years, married as soon as your dad got out of the academy. the walls were littered with pictures of the ceremony— daddy was in his navy whites and mama’s smile was a mile wide in each shot.
they say they’d gotten pregnant with your eldest sister, becca, on their honeymoon in hawaii. mama complains that he brought her along on these historical tours through hawaii— and warns you to always check pamphlets when planning a vacation with your future husband.
after becca came charlie, your eldest (and only brother). he was in the navy like dad, and was stationed on a base in california with his fiancée taylor. soon came mary— just two years older than you. you two were thick as thieves, and often growing up were mistaken as twins.
you came last, red faced and crying— mama swore then you were the last one. no more chunky kazansky babies were coming, from her atleast. your childhood was perfect— loving parents, good relationships with your siblings. you had everything you ever needed.
straight a’s through school, salutatorian in your graduating class— you never really knew what you wanted to do. for awhile you wanted to be a teacher, like mom. then a pilot, like daddy. winter of your senior year though, you decided on a cushy state school for nursing.
dating was easy. you were hot, after all. you partied, drank on weekends; yet kept up with school. dated casually, some asshole guys— but doesn’t everyone in college? useless guys you never lost sleep over, they bored you.
in the spring of 2022, you were twenty one— turning twenty two in the fall, with two years left of college before officially becoming a nurse. in the summer, you still lived at home with your parents; it was nice. all three daughters lived at home in the summer. you’d stay up and have sleepovers, go shopping, go to the beach.
you’d been single for eleven months— celibate, even. and it was dreadful. you didn’t want a boyfriend, not anyone from school, anyway. messing around wasn’t in your repertoire. you weren’t one for little games, midnight texts of u up?
it felt like an endless loop. there were no eligible bachelors on north island, none at school. none on vacations across the world. it felt like the sea had dried up, leaving you flopping at the bottom- searching for any semblance of a reliable man to spend your life with, give your parents grandchildren.
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come fourth of july weekend, the house was packed. charlie and taylor had come to visit, as they always did for dad’s favorite holiday. with the dogs, the four children, and friends from base in and out the door at all times, you rarely had quiet.
july second was dad’s favorite— the navy air show. he’d flown in it when you were little, hair pulled back into tight pigtails that bradley bradshaw would tug on. bradley was older than you, by a couple years— and stepped into the older brother role in charlie’s absence.
you pranced up to him on base— he was dressed in his slacks and dress whites, engaged in conversation with a blonde pilot. you elbow bradley in the back; he turns, startled. when he looks down and sees you, a big stupid grin stretches across his face. he pulls you in and gives you a noogie, mussing up your hair.
“hey chicken little.” you grin, squinting up at him, you’d called him that once as a kid; meant to insult. bradley, however just laughed in your face. he reaches over, fixing up your curls.
“lookin’ all grown up, squirt.” you huff, batting away his hands— you two chat mindlessly about school for awhile. growing up, bradley always had a crush on your sister becca, so you tease him about that; he shoves you. the blonde beside him perks up, bored.
“rooster, you gonna introduce me to your friend or continue being rude?”
this draws your attention to him. he looks like a ken doll, straight teeth, blonde hair, green eyes. he looks like a total douche. bradley rolls his eyes, lifting his arms in defense. he introduces you: “and birdie, this is bagman—” bradley’s friend elbows him, “hangman. this is hangman.”
hangman sticks his hand out to you, grinning. you swear the gleam of his teeth half blind you. “jake seresin, is my real name, sweetheart. you can call me jake.” you shake his hand, biting back a snarky retort. i won’t be calling you anything.
“so, you’re ice man’s daughter? which one are you? not the one rooster here is down bad for i’d assume.” he’s cocky, the kind of guy who puts you down to get ahead. you keep repeating his name back in your head, to ask daddy about later. jake seresin. jake seresin. jake seresin.
“i’m the youngest— actually. you’re thinking of rebecca. my oldest sister.” your response is cool, and you make eyes at the aviator over your sunglasses. he hums, nodding. it’s now you realize he’s still gripping your hand, and you yank it back to your chest, his smile makes your stomach flip, curling in on itself.
you turn to bradley; “show’s about to start, roo. i should get back to daddy.” his friend smirks at the name, “come find me before you leave, my parents will want to see you.” the pilot nods, and kisses you on your cheek.
“see ya, birdie.” you turn, muttering a polite goodbye to jake before rejoining your parents and siblings. jake watches you go, before turning to bradley.
“dibs.” he smirks, knocked breathless by your presence. bradley shouts, breaking into a scold— but jake is too focused on you.
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you can feel piercing eyes melt the back of your head through the whole thing. it’s a bit boring now— you’re twenty second year sitting through the same ceremony. but the look on daddy’s face makes you feel bad for your boredom.
when the ceremony ends, and the crowd erupts into cheers and claps, you slip away from the group. you mutter some excuse to your mother about looking for bradley. instead of finding your mustached friend, you stumble into his little friend. literally. your chest collides with jake’s, his hands reach out and grip your forearms.
“woah there, careful now, princess.” he’s got a toothpick between his perfect teeth. “looking for something? someone?” you huff, trying to step past him. in truth, you had been looking for him. but didn’t want to admit that.
“yeah— seen bradley?” you peek around, looking for him. in a sea of other naval men, bradley is nearly impossible to find. jake’s thumbs rub the soft skin of your arms and hums— he hasn’t taken his eyes off of you once.
“you told him to find you, princess. i don’t think you’re here for little old rooster.” jake grins wickedly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. you swallow nervously, looking up at him.
“well— i’m not- here for you. i don’t know you—”
jake interrupts you, “you wanna get to know me though, don’t you?” he says your name in a low, gravelly voice, the words inch up your spine and curl in a haze around your head.
you grasp jake’s wrist, peering around the two of you before pulling him into the nearest family bathroom and locking the door behind you. “listen—! my father is a very important man, so don’t get any funny ideas about this! i don’t want— you.” the words fall lamely flat between you, he chuckles.
“baby, if you didn’t want this why did you bring me to a private bathroom and lock the door behind you? he steps closer, not so close as to make you feel trapped, but close enough for you to feel him all around you— overpowering your senses.
your lips cut him off before you can speak again. he tastes like mint gum and iced tea. his hands are on your hips, lips meeting yours hungrily. he’s a really good kisser, his tongue pushes against the seam of your mouth, nudging your lips open. you pull back.
“fuck— wait.” you wipe at your mouth, coming slightly to your senses. “you could get in trouble, can’t you? my daddy’s your boss—” jake laughs, you were worried about his job?
“i don’t give two shits about my job right now, baby.” and his lips crash against yours again. jake’s warm palm slips down, lifting your thigh to hook over his hip— jake pressed against your core.
you’re interrupted by a sharp knock on the door, a startled squeak leaves your mouth as jake pulls apart from you. through the teeny peep hole, you’re met with bradley’s face. your stomach drops promptly to your ass. “fuck.” you mutter, pulling the bottom of your dress down. jake looks confused— you reach for the handle of the door, letting it creep open.
bradley’s face is priceless— when jake appears in his view, your smeared lipstick over his mouth, bradley’s blood runs cold. “what the hell—! i introduced you two an hour ago!” his voice cracks, and you shush him.
“be quiet! someone could hear you!” you try to quiet him, but bradley groans-
“oh please, birdie— don’t tell me he fucked you in that nasty bathroom.” you feel hot, shaking your head furiously. “of course i didn’t, bradley! what the hell!”
heels click on the floor down the hall, and your frazzled mother appears before you, she calls your name. “there you are, baby! we been lookin’ all over for you! c’mon, s’time to get goin’ home.” you smiled at jake and bradley, kissing bradley’s cheek. she reaches for your arm, tugging you a bit toward the car. you give one last look over your shoulder, and jake mouths to you—
Welcome to the Thrombey Crime Family. If you’re gonna stay along for the ride, you may want to get to know the boys and see how they’re all connected in the end.
The Boss
Ransom Drysdale may not have been the oldest of the family, but was the one who sought power. The mastermind of the Thrombey Family, he wields his power from behind closed doors. Leaving the difficult tasks to his right hand and top hitman.
The Hitman
The eldest brother, Lloyd never really cared for the responsibility of the family business. He much preferred making the marks squeal, and bleeding them dry. Sometimes though, Ransom wished he wasn’t quite so bold, or quite so devastating in his attacks.
The Right Hand
Brought in as a teen, Ari Levinson worked his way up to earn the trust of even the eldest members of the family. Now, all orders from Ransom go through him. Ari’s gotten so confident in his role, he’ll make the tough calls on his own, even if they’ll get him in trouble.
The Secret Agent
Steve Rogers and his partner wind up on assignment to infiltrate the Thrombey family. All the research in the world can’t prepare them for what they find when they finally earn the family’s, and specifically Lloyd’s trust.
The Enforcer
When the tasks seem below Lloyd’s pay grade, the family sends in Curtis Everett. No one’s really sure how exactly he came to the family, but they do know that he prefers to work alone. Curtis will occasionally help Lloyd, if he has to, but does not choose to work with him. His hits are all his own.
The Family Lawyer
Thankfully for Andy, he doesn’t have to deal with the rest of the family too much. Ransom tends to handle all of their legal issues directly. And Andy? There’s a reason he only works for the Thrombey Family - there hasn’t been a charge that’s stuck since he started working for them.
The Gambler
Frank Adler just needed a loan to get him through to the end of the month. But of course he borrowed his money from the wrong people. Now, he’s gotta find a way to pay them back, or risk putting his entire family in danger.
Summary: After 5 years of being single, you find your new roommate worming his way into your strictly planned routine. Suddenly, you aren’t the only one pulling all the weight, and you’re not sure what to do about it. The guard you carefully placed around your heart feels close to breaking, and you’re surprised to find you aren't entirely opposed. One romance novel and one rehearsal dinner later… the truth will come out.
warnings/tags: No use of Y/N. Post-college roommate AU. Not canon compliant. Mentions of romanogers or whatever their ship is called. Roommates to lovers. Idiots to lovers. Brief mention of the notebook by Nicholas sparks (cited in APA bc I didn’t know how to cite that in fanfiction lmao). Hyper independent!Reader. Anxious!Reader. Mention of past relationship. Light trauma and attachment styles. Angst because it’s my drug of choice. Smut (I’m scared). Soft!Dom!Bucky. Praise and dirty talk. PinV. Unprotected smut- please do not treat this like a sexEd class. Oral (F! Receiving). Fingering. He has a kink for taking care of you? Idk let me know if I missed anything.
MDNI !!! 18+
wc: 10k
Disclaimer: first time writing smut this detailed. Go easy on me, or don’t. I’ll be anxious about posting this either way lol. Proofread by me and only me (I have no friends to talk abt this with so like we should totally be mutuals tehe)
It really seemed like a no-brainer to you when the topic came up at the engagement dinner. Steve and Natasha weren’t trying to kick him out. In fact, it wasn’t even their idea. He was the one who said it made the most sense, that they needed their space and he should find his own. Sam joked that he just didn’t wanna hear the bed banging on the other side of the wall, if they “knew what he meant.” Bucky’s face, and the red on Steve’s cheeks, told you he wasn’t too far off.
So, when he mentioned to you that he wanted to keep a roommate, you didn’t hesitate to offer that he move into your apartment. After all, Wanda had moved out a year ago when her and Vision found a house on the outskirts of the city. You had the extra room, and you didn’t mind offering him help. You had known him for years throughout college, if only through mutual friends, but you enjoyed his company. He was the type that didn’t expect anything out of you during conversation. It flowed naturally, or if it didn’t then you simply sat in comfortable silence. You had discovered through several discussions that you shared the same taste in literature, and you both preferred the night to the morning.
You knew living together would be easy, and you were nothing if not capable of adapting. If need be, you’d just work around each other's schedules and respect the other’s space. You had never had any expectations of your roommates, not since you became used to your own capability. If you needed something done, you’d figure out how to do it. Wanda had said several times that she often wasn’t even aware you were around, given your nature to tending to yourself. You understood what she meant, because there was a point in time where you had to force the habit. Your last relationship was happy, you really had no right to complain… it was only that he never wanted to do any favor you asked. Something as simple as taking out the trash could turn into a huge argument about you “suffocating” him. Which was fine, you had found in the recent years that you liked your independence more than reliance on others.
So, when you offered, you assured Bucky that you knew how to pull your weight. You were not simply asking him just because you thought it’d be useful to have a man around.
You figured you were on the same page when he gave you an easy smile, a teasing scrunch of his nose, and leaned over to say, “Don’t you worry about a thing, sweetheart.”
Oh, you were wrong.
~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅
It started small, with chivalrous things you hadn’t realized you missed until he did them so easily. There was no show about it, no performance. It wasn’t grand or mind blowing.
He opened your door.
The day he moved in, you had been out grocery shopping, getting home right as he finished up. He had gone back outside to park his car. You beat him up the stairs, grocery bags making red indents in the skin of each of your arms. You didn’t mind, until you came to the door and found you couldn’t even reach it. You mumbled several curses while trying to maneuver for your keys and not drop the bags, this was a weekly occurrence after all.
“Let me,” came that familiar voice from behind you, two hands reaching for the bags on your arms before you had a chance to even respond.
He glanced down at your arms with a frown, looking at you as if disappointed. Then, bags in hand, he reached for his key and opened the door, waiting for you to enter first. You blinked at his steady smile, looking between him and the entrance to the apartment. When you walked in, he followed behind and came to set the bags on the counter.
“You don’t have to do that,” you stopped him as he began taking things out of the bags, “I’m sure you need to unpack.”
He simply scrunched his nose as if you were just being silly, “I am capable of both, you know.”
And you supposed you did know, given his success on the college hockey team. The strength and stamina shared between him and Steve was a highlighting topic among many broadcasting channels. Not that you paid attention, or anything. Still, though it was a helpful gesture, something about it made you uncomfortable enough to stop him again. “It’s just that…” you offered a smile, “I’m kind of crazy about organizing everything.”
He glanced between your eyes and the fidgeting of your fingers, stepping back with an easy smile and a, “Whatever you say,” before retreating to his room to unpack.
It continued like that, small things that you didn’t know how to feel about. After all, opening the door for others was just polite. It spoke to how introverted you were that it was a novelty. The same applied to carrying heavier objects, or offering to do your laundry when he was already putting in a load. You were baffled to have them returned to you perfectly folded.
You supposed you were just good friends who enjoyed each other's company, even if his accommodating attitude set you off balance. You enjoyed how he paid attention. Getting to know each other was a simple exchange of observations, where you learned that you mirrored the other often. Except for a few things.
It was late afternoon on a sunday, you had just stepped out of the shower and thrown on a long shirt and shorts. You stepped out of your room, into the living area where the golden New York sunset seeped through the windows. There was Bucky, haloed by the light, setting a book back on your shelves only to take another off. You stopped and watched as he ran his finger over the spine, then split the pages. His brows drew together, but his lip turned up.
“What is it?” You spoke up.
He looked up to you immediately, only his eyes seemed to drag up from your bare legs to your wet hair. That smile grew into a smirk, his tongue darting out over his bottom lip. He took his time, like he always seemed to. Like he didn’t know what it meant to rush. Yet he never left you hanging, “You’ve annotated every book on this shelf.”
It wasn’t a question, just an observation, lifting the book in his hands as if to prove the point. He was holding Pride and Prejudice. Your eyes widened as you took sight of your neat scribbles in pink ink, taking several steps forward and opening your mouth to respond.
Only, he beat you to it, eyes flickering back to the page, “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of Mr. Darcy described using the word ‘daddy.’”
Your mouth fell open completely, in fact your jaw might have unhinged itself altogether. The way he read the word aloud with no shame whatsoever? You remembered feeling embarrassed just writing it across the page.
You forced yourself to stand straighter, crossing your arms and clearing your throat.
“Well, you obviously haven’t been on booktok very often, then.” You raised your brow, turning the challenge onto him.
He only took it in stride, leaning a shoulder against the bookshelf and giving you a deliberate once over. “Oh really? You’re telling me there’s an entire community out there for the kinds of things you write in these margins?” He turned his attention back to the flipping pages, muttering more so to himself, “interesting.”
You scoffed, finally reaching out and snatching the book from his hungry eyes, “Oh, give me that!” You turned to place it back where it belonged, next to Emma. “And for your information, no. Not all of them are annotated.”
You expecting more teasing from where he stood, still leaned on the shelves. Like he was right where he wanted to be. Only, his smug expression softened into something closer to curiosity. “Yeah, I was wondering about that…” then he reached a corded arm over you, almost caging you between him and the bookshelf. You lowered your eyes immediately, because seriously, he wasn’t even flexing, were his biceps naturally that large? Was that normal? It felt disrespectful to even look. But he brought it back down soon after, holding in his hand the one book you hadn’t touched with a pen.
When he still didn’t move away, you took it upon yourself, taking a considerable step to the side. He only thumbed through the pages, as if to prove his point, “What’s so different about The Notebook?”
What couldn’t be more different? You wanted to say. You simply turned your eyes to the shelves, exhaling a dissatisfied breath. “It’s unrealistic.”
“Unrealistic?” He laughed, pointing to the top shelf, “More than The Chronicles of Narnia?” Which was littered with your takes on favorite moments and quotes.
You rolled your eyes, “It’s unrealism disguised as realistic.” You shrugged, trying not to sound bitter, “I mean, what kind of man genuinely asks a woman what she wants, and then vows to give her all of it?”
He didn’t miss a beat, “A good one.” His voice was softer then, and you didn’t like the look in his eyes when you met them again. Like he was reading you now, like you were a puzzle he was slowly piecing together. He looked as if he just found another fitted piece.
“Yes, well,” you tried to sound unbothered, because you were unbothered. It didn’t matter. It never had. “Sometimes you have to be ‘a good man’ for yourself.”
The conversation ended there, because you felt exposed under his gaze, and plucked a book before retreating back to your room. The Hobbit this time.
You hadn’t noticed the book was missing until you walked into the apartment a week later and noticed the unbalanced lean of other books on the shelf. Some had fallen over into the empty spot it had left. Your mouth turned into a frown, but you quickly brushed it off. Maybe he wanted to read it. Maybe he’d feel the same way you did in the end, that it was a pointless kind of fantasy, and you would laugh together about it.
When it returned to its spot, however, you felt your palms itch immediately. For what reason, you didn’t know. You asked him if he liked it the following morning, and he gave a simple “yeah,” that somehow made you more antsy. He didn’t give anything else but a shrug, before turning the conversation to teasing you about your inability to get a pancake to the perfect temperature without burning it on one side.
When you were alone in the apartment, you finally groaned in frustration and picked it up. You didn’t know what you expected, because you knew he didn’t so much as highlight his books, and yet…
You found quotes highlighted in marker to match the cover, small annotations written in black at the edge of the pages.
“She would tell him what she wanted in her life--her hopes and dreams for the future--and he would listen intently and then promise to make it all come true.”
“She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.” (Nicholas Sparks, 2000).
And off to the side: You deserve all of it. Everything.
You shut the book immediately and put it back, stepping away with a hand over your chest. It was as if you actually heard alarms go off in the back of your brain, red sirens flaring. It was unfair of him to plant any idea of that in your head. You wringed your hands and turned away, not liking the chasm that formed in your chest. The ache it created. Within minutes you had your bag and were out of the apartment, trying to get as far from that bookshelf as possible.
Then it became… more. He took notice of your work schedule several weeks in, noting when you would usually come home late and when you usually went without dinner as a result. Suddenly, you were coming home to dinner on the table and a Bucky who only smiled and asked about your day. Suddenly, the dishwasher was emptied before you had a chance to get to it. Suddenly, the washer wasn’t making that horrible noise anymore and the volume on your TV didn’t randomly move up and down. But he never mentioned the bookshelf.
You didn’t let it affect your expectations. He was just being nice, trying to make a good impression. It was sweet. Gentlemanly. You continued your routine as you had before he moved in, only more deliberately. In hindsight, you might not even have noticed yourself doing it. Anything you said you would do, you made sure it got done early. Even if he brushed you off and said he would take out the trash in the morning, you would wake up early and do it, responding innocently when he eyed the new bag in the can.
You worked hard at your HR internship, then came home and worked some more. You liked the space clean and organized, probably more than you even realized. It’s only that you were used to relying on yourself; not even your maintenance men were helpful–
“What are you doing?” Bucky said from somewhere above you, his tone sounding like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
You slid out from under the sink, wrench in hand, “There’s a leak.”
The crease in his brow was obvious, his mouth opened as if you said something offensive, “Didn’t you just get back from work?”
“Mhm.” You figured you could work and talk, leaning back under the sink.
“And you didn’t think to–hey!” Before you knew it, a hand was wrapped around your ankle, and you were tugged across the tile until you were no longer laying under the sink. Bucky had knelt down, like getting closer would get his point across, “I’m right here.”
Yes, yes he was. Right there. Close enough that you could lean up and you’d be sharing the same breath. You could pick the grey out from the blue in his eyes, the hint of something solemn, yet all you did was look at him with a questioning expression.
He sighed, shaking his head, “You’ve been working all day, let me fix the sink.” He held his hand out for the wrench.
You didn’t give it to him, “You’ve been working too.”
“From home,” he said simply, “You have been on your feet–”
“This doesn’t require me to be on my feet.” You motioned to the fact that you were very much on the floor.
He turned his head away, muttered something that sounded an awful lot like “unbelievable” before taking a deep breath and meeting your eyes again, “Why won’t you let me help?”
You didn’t want to open that topic at the moment, so you decided to hit him with the biggest card you had, “Do you not think I’m capable of fixing the sink?”
The look he gave you told you he was not going to fall for that game, but he only said: “I think you’re incapable of relaxing.”
You shrugged, “I’ll relax when the sink is fixed.”
“Or,” the wrench was plucked from your hand when you least expected it, “You go change, get settled, and I will have this fixed in thirty minutes.”
“Or,” you growled, reaching for the wrench he held high above your head, “you could let me–” you huffed, shifting to reach higher, “just give it–” you didn’t even think before using his shoulder as leverage, and your sentence turned into a squeal as you fell forward. Directly onto him. Your thighs split across his abdomen as you landed, his breath coming out in a rough exhale as he hit the tile. You hadn’t had much time to catch yourself and focus on grabbing the wrench, meaning you fell directly onto his chest.
You were certainly sharing air now.
The look on his face was… you didn’t have time to read the look on his face. You scrambled off him so quickly, muttering several “I’m so sorry”s and “oh my god”s because you were splayed completely across him and you felt way more than you should have and–
You only breathed once you got back to the safety of your room, realizing then that you basically just surrendered the battle. Your pride swelled, scolded you for losing focus all because you forgot what it felt like to be pressed up against…
You shook your head, not the time.
The next morning, you would turn the faucet to find the sink working perfectly. No leak at all. And Bucky wouldn’t mention a thing.
~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅
Somehow, it got worse after that. You noticed the vase on the coffee table, the green one you found thrifting, had a new bouquet every week. Now, when you came home late, he wouldn’t have just made you dinner, but he’d wait to eat his with you. At the table, without a phone in sight. When you went somewhere, found yourself cold halfway through whatever event you were attending, he’d appear with an extra jacket he’d brought, “because you were too stubborn to grab one, doll, even though you always get cold.” It was so… domestic. So unlike the life you had made.
So much so that at times, you panicked. Wanda and Natasha didn’t understand it, no matter how much you tried to explain it. They told you to lean into it, and you didn’t know how to tell them you couldn’t. You had been pretty certain that you were happy as you were. You enjoyed your alone time, your career, and the community you had made. You didn’t need romance. You had once been told that love was a disease to a woman with ambition, and you had believed it wholeheartedly.
Now, you weren’t so sure.
You found yourself conflicted once you realized that no, James Barnes was not going to turn around at some point and resent you for all the helpful things he had done. You weren’t sure when it became such an obvious part of his character. Maybe somewhere between him knocking on the door while you showered to place towels—fresh from the dryer—on your counter and him calling every clinic in town on a Friday night to see who could fit you in when you were sick.
“Fuck—“ he threw the phone down on the couch next to your hip. He was crouching in front of you, hand running over his frustrated face. “Every clinic closed at 5.”
You only hummed in acknowledgment, too achy to care. You had been in and out of sleep the entire evening, going between shivering with a fever and breaking into a cold sweat. You only became more aware when you noticed him standing, reaching for his coat, “What are you—“
“We’re going to the ER.” He said as if he wasn’t, in your opinion, half mad. He shrugged on his coat then did a once over for you, turning to your room to presumably grab your shoes.
“What?” You croaked in the most astonished voice you could muster, sitting up on your elbows, “Buck–no, there’s no reason–”
He looked over his shoulder at you as if you were the crazy one, motioning to your form spread across the couch, “You’ve been like this all day. You can barely walk, you won’t eat, you’re feverish–”
“Listen to me…” You pushed yourself up slowly, your heart thundering like each movement was equivalent to a mile, “It is just a cold, I’m sorry–”
He stepped forward then, “Why are you apologizing?”
“I didn’t mean to take up your day, and I don’t want you to have to spend your evening taking me somewhere or nursing me back to health.” You gave him a kind smile. You appreciated him, so much so that something else was blooming next to that ache in your chest. A sort of… fluttering. But this wasn’t his job, “I’m sorry if I’ve kept you.”
He was silent for the time it took him to close the remaining space, his expression looking as if you had spoken a different language entirely. He crouched next to you, shaking his head and gently wrapping his hands around your shoulders to help you lay back down, “I don’t have anywhere else to be…”
“Still, I–”
“Why do you apologize for existing?” The words seemed to spill out of him, as if he couldn’t quite keep them in.
“What?”
“You’re human,” he whispered your name, absentmindedly checking his watch. It was time for medicine again, he reached for the pain reliever and your water. You had to give it to him, he didn’t look the least bit burdened. “It’s natural to need others.”
You took the medicine, laid your head back down, “I’ve taken care of myself this far, I can handle a common cold.”
He gave you that same look from the engagement party, but this time you read his smile as something akin to pity, or maybe affection? He lifted a hand to slide over your cheek, curling in your hair and smoothing it over your pillow, “I know you have, but now I’m here too.”
It didn’t matter when, just that you knew. This kindness was who he was, only that didn’t make him yours. The sweet words, soft touches, helpful gestures… James Barnes was a good man. Perhaps one of the best you would ever come to know, and that in of itself was more difficult than anything. You couldn’t brush him off as incompetent, or ill-mannered, or drowning in toxic masculinity, which had been so easy when dating up to that point. Only you weren’t dating, he wasn’t yours.
It became apparent when, a year after moving in, he announced, “I’m thinking of looking for my own space.”
You were eating takeout on the couch when he said it, curled up on opposite ends of and talking about nothing in particular prior. Then suddenly every nerve in your body lit, your focus zeroing.
Had you been wrong? Did he think you were taking advantage after all?
All you could say was, “Oh.” You set your carton down, suddenly not hungry. Suddenly the quiet atmosphere of the room felt as if you were suffocating.
He seemed to track the movement, as if assessing. His mouth pulled into a frown, “Yeah.”
You pulled your lips inward, biting down on them as you looked literally anywhere else. Which time had it been? When your laundry was done in the dryer, and you hadn’t noticed because you were knee-deep in paperwork, so he folded all of it for you? You hadn’t known what to think when he handed you a pile of your neatly folded panties with a slight blush across his cheeks. Or was it when he noticed your books were overflowing, so he surprised you on your birthday by building in an entire new section to the shelves?
The apartment was practically screaming his name at this point, filled to the brim with his actions. The flowers, the late night dinners, the shelves, all of it. If he had been trying to worm his way in, he had done it.
“It’s just… I saw some listings go up down the street,” he continued, picking at his chow mein, “figured I’d give them a look. Couldn’t hurt, right?”
Right.
You forced your throat to clear, planting on a supportive smile. This was your best friend, moving onto a new chapter of his life, you should be happy. You nodded eagerly, “Yes, that sounds great… um,” you unraveled your legs from below you, “I think I’m ready for bed actually…”
He furrowed his brows, “Already? We’re not even through the first Scream.”
You scrambled for words, “It’s been a long day.”
“Ah, I see,” bless him and his ability to bounce right back, “Natasha said you’re an easy scare, but I never thought–”
You smacked his shoulder, “I am not! You’re the one who was so focused on your book the other day that you jumped at the sound of the doorbell!”
He waved his finger at you, “Not fair! I was reading Stephen King!”
“And what? You were scared the pages were going to jump out at you?”
His mouth fell open, “Oh, you’re not going anywhere–”
Bucky jumped up at the same time as you, blocking your exit from the living you. You squealed, trying to get around the coffee table, but fuck him for being a goalkeeper. He follows you around, and you resort to trying to step onto the table for a fast exit, only to find his arms wrapping around you from behind. You screamed, the giggle in your throat making you feel like a schoolgirl with a crush.
“Got you!” His voice was rough with laughter, and you felt him step back, easily picking you up completely.
“Oh my god,” you slapped his arm around your waist, “put me down!”
“Nope,” he fell back on the couch, bringing you with him. It was unfair, the way he held you, like your previous conversation never happened. His breath tickled your neck as he promised, “Not until we get through at least the first two movies.”
You did eventually make it back to your room that night, shutting the door and falling against it. Your hand came up to cover your mouth. You weren’t proud of the sobs that followed shortly after, or that chasm in your chest that now felt as if it had doubled in size. You groaned in frustration, pulling at your roots.
“There were rules, I had rules…” you pleaded to the ceiling, as if someone would hear you, as you sank to the floor. “I said I wouldn’t change my expectations… that I wouldn’t let it go too far.”
But at some point… it had. At some point, that fluttering you had felt began to wrap around the discomfort like a balm over your heart. It soothed, forcing your guard down. Letting you dream before you even realized you had been. Thinking about what it would be like to trust someone again. To have… not a man to babysit, but a partner who was equal to you in character and intelligence. You thought the girls who said they wanted a man they could turn their brains off with were naive, stupid even, until you started imagining how easy it would be with him. Not all the time, but like an even exchange. Being able to trust that he had you, just as he would trust that you had him.
It was becoming increasingly obvious what had happened.
“Damnit.” You sobbed, your forehead dropping to your knees.
You were upset, but also so angry. So pissed off at yourself for letting this happen. You were smarter than this, stronger than this. They said the most intelligent women didn’t fall for this bullshit, and here you were.
You let yourself cry quietly for another thirty minutes, then you forced yourself up. Off the floor, away from the door. You got ready for bed, and didn’t let yourself cry again. You had felt this before, and you had overcome this before. Yet, as you laid down, closing your eyes, you had a nagging feeling that one realization wasn’t going to go away.
You didn’t want to be alone forever, not anymore.
~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅
Claps rang out around the room, a few people drying tears on the corner of their napkins. Yelena’s maid of honor speech was funny and lighthearted, and yet still made hearts swell as she recounted childhood dramas and memories (or lack of) of late nights in college. She was even biting her lip at the end, trying to hold in a smile as she explained how Natasha never thought she’d find her person, until she met Steve. The cliche lines earned raised glasses, and knocked back champagne.
It was a gorgeous rehearsal dinner, with a small party. Both families had pitched in on the decorations. The colors were muted, but no less beautiful, with red roses centering each table. Candles lit up the entire room, washing everyone in a romantic, golden light. All of the guests were asked to wear colors while Natasha and Steve sat in white. It was everything Natasha had said was dumb before, and you enjoyed seeing her lean into it.
You enjoyed all of it, so much that it made that ache in your chest feel the size of a canyon. It was the same ache that had been building for a year, and you hated yourself for it. It was their day, and you wanted it to be perfect. But as you watched Steve pull her in, kiss her cheek, and the tension fall from her shoulders… all you could think was that you wanted that. That softness, that intimacy. Falling into someone and not wondering if they’d catch you.
But you’d been doing this for so long on your own, you weren’t even sure how to appeal to someone anymore. You weren’t necessarily flirty, or even playful unless you really knew the person. You also rarely found yourself attracted to strangers, so how would you even pick someone? There were too many variables, you wondered how anyone figured it out.
Bucky rose from the chair next to you a few moments later, after Yelena sat down. You watched him, in his blue suit, go to pick up the mic and smile to the room. He opened with something that made the room laugh, but you found yourself in a daze. There was nothing surprising about him, nor how he was dressed. You had seen him walk out of his room, had driven with him on the way here, had plenty of time to adapt to the way he seemed to take up the entire room, and yet… suddenly it felt as if he was the only one in the room.
You watched his eyes scan the room, “…Folks, I’m just the best man. I can’t speak for Steve or his feelings but, I believe love isn’t about lust or attraction… and yes, it is about friendship. About finding that woman who you want to share everything with, who you can’t get off your mind. But more importantly,” then his eyes landed on yours and he paused. Like it was just him and you and that wide smile, with eyes that matched his suit jacket. Then he found himself, cleared his throat, “it’s about finding the person you want to take care of for the rest of your life. The person that makes effort feel like a privilege…”
His eyes snapped away as he kept speaking, but you felt like you were about to throw up. This was the only variable. Every missing data point combined into one. Everything you wanted, right here.
And he would be leaving soon. Soon, you would be coming home to an empty apartment that still felt like him. You would have to move on and rebuild each wall, knowing all it took from him was a single look to knock them down.
Glasses raised, people cheered, the couple kissed. Bucky found his seat next to yours right as you swallowed a lump in your throat.
“How’d I do?” He leaned into your space, his arm coming around the back of your chair.
You managed a small smile, grateful for the steady and supportive tone of your voice, “Perfect, very romantic.”
Dinner was served, and everyone gathered. It was lovely, every single moment of it. The drunken laughter and kind remarks. Natasha and Steve fawning over each other. Sam teasing everyone in sight. Even Tony stood for a speech towards the end.
You chastised yourself every time the thought popped into your head: I want this. It wasn’t your day. It wasn’t yours to want. Even when your mind felt like it was racing a million miles a minute and you just wished that you had a soft place to land. A place to rest it all. Instead, you had driven away the one person who had been such a driving force in your life the past year. Now he was leaving too.
You tried to distract yourself by moving to the other side of the table with the excuse of visiting with Natasha to discuss bridesmaids plans for the next morning. It helped, for a moment. She was so lively about how she wanted everything done, and you were good with lists. Little boxes to check off, that was your area. The wine was a good call too, because two glasses in you were giggling and successfully avoiding glances from down the table.
It would only last so long though, you supposed, because once dinner was over you were out of options. You hugged every last person, even the family members you didn’t know, taking extra long on your goodbyes. But, finally, you met him back at the door with a tense smile.
Bucky stood with his hands in his pockets, angling his neck to get a better look at you, “You alright?”
You nodded, bouncing on your heels, “Yeah, ready to go?” The valet would be bringing the car back soon.
He only tensed his brows and raised the back of his hand to your cheek, “You sure, you’re flushed?”
“Oh,” you didn’t mean to flinch away, it was only a reflex, “I probably had too much wine.” Which you were regretting, just now remembering that wine did not get you tipsy in the same way vodka or tequila did. You were tired now, and every thought you had from earlier was rushing back. You turned for the doors, not wanting to continue the conversation and knowing he would follow. The valet had, indeed, brought the car around, and you hopped in the passenger side after thanking them.
Bucky took the driver's seat, adjusting his arm behind your head to reverse out of the narrow lot. He was mostly quiet, save for when he made sure you were buckled. You held your breath against the swelling emotions, trying to bat away the voices in your head. You felt at war, like the two different sides of yourself wanted very different things. One screamed it’s better this way, while the other responded it doesn’t have to be. Both had valid arguments.
In the five years you had been single, you had made the most progress in your career and financial independence. You knew yourself better, had built a better routine, and had become comfortable without the opinions of others. However, there had also been nights where all you wanted was a pair of arms wrapped around you. There were times you ate dinner, and wished you had someone across from you to talk about your day with. Someone to dance in the kitchen with… or even the more intimate aspects. Someone who took their time with you, learning every inch of your skin without a selfish expectation. Someone who just wanted to be with you.
That lump in your throat became too much, and you coughed into your elbow, trying to release some of the tension in your chest. You began to feel pins and needles breaking out over your skin, your hands feeling restless and unsure of what to do with themselves.
You felt his eyes glance over at you before focusing back on the road. You were on a backroad now, the dinner having been out of the city. After several moments of quiet traveling, he finally spoke, “I’m not sure if I told you, you look stunning tonight.” It was a soft compliment, his hand slowly reaching over to squeeze your knee, because of course he knew something was wrong. “This dress is lovely.”
It was too much, all of it. You couldn’t even remember the last time a man complimented something specific on you. When it was dangled in front of you like this, you found you enjoyed it too much. You felt greedy with the need for more, like you wanted this to be your normal.
But he was leaving.
The sob tore from your throat before you could stop it, all of it suddenly becoming too much. You brought a hand to cover your mouth, turning away, but it was already too late. Bucky only squeezed your knee one last time before bringing his hand back to the wheel with a pained sigh. You noticed the car slowing, finding him pulling over to the shoulder. You grunted in disapproval, something like an apology. For causing a scene? For being selfish? For having agreed to this in the first place? All of the above?
Once the car stopped, you heard him unbuckle and turn to you. Then, a hand gently pried the one from your mouth, “Sweetheart? Talk to me.”
You only hung your head, your teeth clenching around more sobs. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to block everything out.
He was persistent. He moved your hair behind your ear, trying to get a look at you, “What’s going on,” with a plea of your name he said, “please?”
You shook your head, “I-I’m sorry, I don’t know–”
“Don’t apologize,” then he was taking your cheeks in his hands, giving you no choice but to turn to him. He made a pained noise when he saw your tears, his thumbs brushing under your eyes, “Tell me what it is, pretty girl. Tell me, and I’ll fix it.”
That felt like salt on a wound, your breath releasing from your chest broken and cracked. You tried to turn away, but he wouldn’t let you. One hand slid to cup your nape while the other unbuckled you, tugging your knees till you faced him more. It only made you cry harder.
“You gotta talk to me, I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me.”
You finally broke with a, “You don’t need to do anything!”
He wasn’t having it, “Bullshit. You’ve been out of it all night, and now you’re bawling your eyes out. Best believe I’m going to figure out what caused those tears and–”
“I’m tired!” you emphasized the words, trying to give them more meaning than they had on their own.
His brows furrowed, “Of what?”
“Everything! All of it.” You motioned your hands as if that was a good explanation, “I’m so fucking selfish! It’s someone else’s night and all I could think about–all I’ve been thinking about–is how goddamn tired I am of doing everything myself.”
“You don’t have to,” a hand runs through your hair, smoothing it, almost lulling you.
“But I can! I was! For a long time! And-and then suddenly…” you trailed off, shrugging your shoulders and finally forcing yourself to look away from him.
He squeezed your knee again, “Suddenly?”
You shook your head again, but not necessarily to his question. More so, to the tone of his voice, the earnestness of it. He cared so much, and it was as heartbreaking as it was exhilarating to be the center of his attention.
It must have been the exhilarated side that quietly answered: “You.”
“Me?”
“You!” You repeated with more confidence, “You showed me something different and now you’re leaving and… I don’t know…” You searched for the words, “do you ever get tired of being alone?”
Your question seemed to send the car into such thick silence that you couldn’t stand to stare out the front dash anymore. Slowly, you turned to look at him. For the first time, he wasn’t looking at you. His eyes were downcast, his mouth hung as if he had no clue what to say.
Shame spread across your cheeks. You’d really done it this time. In a matter of months, weeks for all you knew, he’d be gone. He wanted to leave, and here you were saying silly things. Embarrassing yourself. This was why you hadn’t dated.
But that was a lie. You hadn’t dated because you hadn’t felt this in a very long time. If ever.
When Bucky finally did move, it was to shift the car back into gear. His other hand moved back to the steering wheel at the same time that you said, “I’m sorry.”
It was his turn to shake his head, “Just…” his voice was rough, pained, “Just let me take you home. I think… I think you need to see something.” He pulled back onto the highway, careful of the speed limit despite the way his fingers drummed restlessly on the steering wheel.
The ride was quiet, save for your sniffles as you tried to quit crying. You had no idea what he meant, no clue what he might want to show you at home that you didn’t already know about. Or maybe it was something else… a lease he’d already signed? His bags packed neatly in his room? Maybe he just wanted out of this car before telling you how tiresome this past year has been for him. Either way, you were determined to pull it together by the time you entered the parking garage.
And you had, for the most part. To his credit, he didn’t seem the least bit angry getting out of the car. You both walked calmly up the stairs to the apartment, and you waited for him to unlock the door. When you walked inside, however, he did not lead you to his room to show you any documents or boxes. He did not turn and give you a piece of his mind.
He walked to the bookshelf.
Your face twisted in confusion as his hands went directly to the spine of the book he was after, not even taking a second to search. Like he knew the exact spot it lived in like the back of his hand. And when he turned, you saw the cover was the same book he had pulled months ago when you had stood against those shelves together. The Notebook. The same book he had annotated for you without a word, that you had put back before even beginning to flip through the pages.
Now, however, he was thumbing through them himself. When he stopped, three fourths through the book, he opened it fully and turned it to you. His eyes met yours again, the first time since you had spoken in the car, as he handed you the book. You took it without question, looking at him for a few moments before finally turning your eyes to the page. And right there, where highlight draws over lines of Noah confessing to Allie what is loving her has meant to him, is the only annotation written in your favorite pink ink:
When I read these love stories, about a man who cares for a woman until his dying breath, I only ever think of one person. Love at first sight might not exist, but I have cared for you from the very first moment. Then again at every party, every class, every dinner, and every night in this little apartment.
Oh.
You blinked several times, reread the words to the point that he probably thought you were illiterate, but you only wanted to make sure they were real. Then you looked up at him, with his bitten lip and puppy-dog eyes. You mouthed wordlessly for several seconds before landing on a single question, “James–”
“I was betting on you getting curious when the book was missing,” he shrugged, “I guess I was wrong.”
You shook your head, “You weren’t, I-I did look. I just didn’t get too far because…”
“You got scared.” He understood.
You finally met his eyes, “You don’t think I’m too much?”
The exhale he let out was soft and full of pity, yet he still stepped forward. “I think,” he said, “that you have been left alone for far too long,” he gently took the book, setting it on the arm of the couch next to you, “and I am sorry that anyone ever made you think you had to do this alone.”
You couldn’t breathe, “I—“
“I love you.” His hands cradled your face once again, tilting your head up so he could look at you properly. He was so close, close enough to do whatever he pleased, and yet he still waited.
Only until you said: “I love you too.”
Then he was kissing you without reprieve. There was no hesitancy in the way he took your purse from your shoulder, dropped it to the floor, and backed you against the door. You took no time in responding, your mouth matching his kiss or kiss. Your hands lifted to his shoulders, sliding down to fist his shirt in your fingers. It was a consuming sort of kiss, and not just for the fact that you hadn’t kissed someone in years. It was him, and it was overwhelming in the way that it felt right.
You forced yourself to pull back before you could melt into him, giggling when his lifts tried to follow yours. “I just…” you leaned against the door, looking up at him, “I thought you wanted to leave?”
His breath was already ragged, and you could practically hear his heart pounding. It didn’t stop him from shaking his head, “No, sweetheart.” The words were breathed against your forehead before his lips dropped to your skin, planting kisses on your forehead before reaching your cheeks, “I never wanted to leave, but being near you and…” his exhale was hungered, full of longing, “and not having you, it’s like torture.”
“I know the feeling…” you replied, voice no more than a whisper.
The groan he let out was like nothing you had heard from any man before, and then his lips were on yours again. There was nothing held back about it. He fisted your hair and tugged your head back, his tongue sliding along yours when you gasped. You didn’t need him to hold you there, you were more than happy to arch into him, and he knew it. His hands slid down next, over the fabric of your butter yellow dress, brushing your thighs right where the hem ends. He mumbled something against your mouth, but you were too focused on the taste and feel of him. His muscles were both hard and soft all in one, and it was the safest place you had ever been. And as you ran your hands down the definition of his abdomen, you found yourself dizzy with more than just love.
He pulled away when it was obvious you hadn’t heard him, and only then did you notice his fingers brushing up under your dress. Your breath hitched, fingers flexing against him. He nudged your nose with his, whispering again, “Will you let me?”
You knew what he was asking without any clarification, because your body was miles ahead. Still, you hesitated. Could you do this? Did you still even know how? What if you messed up? Or couldn’t please him? Or–
Bucky whispered your name, thumb brushing your cheek, “You’re overthinking.”
“It’s just been a long time for me.” You bit your lip, watching his eyes track the movement.
He nodded like he knew, because of course he knew. “I just want you to relax, okay? Let me take care of you.”
You weren't prepared for how easy it would be to listen to the gentle command, to uncurl your fingers from his shirt and let go of the urgency because he had you. One of his arms wrapped around your waist, the other gripping the back of your thigh as he pulled you up to wrap your legs around him. And then he really was against you, and you gasped once again against his mouth. He smiled as he turned to walk down the hall, undoubtedly knowing that you can feel all of him pressed to you. And judging by your perception of size, "all" was a considerable amount.
He entered his room, kicking the door shut behind him, and brought you to his bed. He kissed you once more before laying you down on the white comforter and leaning back to get a better look at you. Your hair fanned across the bed, your dress riding up your thighs. He smirked down at you, his hands coming up to your thighs.
"Gorgeous," he mumbled, more to himself, and ran his hands down to wrap around your ankles. You squealed as he gave a sudden tug, pulling you to the edge of the bed where your thighs fell on either side of him. Your dress was ridden up to your hips by that point, putting the cotton of your ordinary panties on display.
Not that it seemed to make any difference to him, he was still intent on looking his fill. So much so, you felt yourself start to squirm at the attention, letting out a whine.
He only tutted, shrugging off his suit jacket before his hands went to the buttons of his shirt, "Patience, sweetheart." Then he was shirtless, and you couldn't have formed a remark if you wanted to. He was all definition under soft, tanned skin. When he finally brought himself down, his body covering yours, you did not hesitate to run your hands along his chest and shoulders.
You could have stayed there like that for a long while, just feeling him pressed against you. But Bucky was the one losing patience all of the sudden, with his lips against yours and his hands at the hem of your dress. You moaned when he bit down on your bottom lip, pulling it into his mouth, and he used the moment to drag your dress up your sides and over your head. It had been wired, leaving you without the choice of a bra, not that you regretted it when you heard the groan he let out at the sight of you under him.
Then his mouth was on you, leaving nips along your collarbone before dropping down to your breasts. You cursed in response to the sensation, gasping his name as your fingers flew to his hair.
"Fuck," his lips let go of your nipple just to mumble against your skin, "dreamt of this, having you under me," he sucked a hickey onto your skin, "thought I was an awful man for wanting you at my mercy, but look at you," his hips rolled into yours, you arched and pulled at his hair, "you're loving this."
"Please," you breathed as his mouth closed around the other nipple, sucking it into his mouth.
"Please what, baby?" He trailed kisses down your stomach next, before he dropped off the bed. Next thing you knew, he was kneeling in front of you.
You could only squirm, feeling pinned under him, "I-I don't know..."
He hummed, still so pleased with you, "I know, I know what you need. You just lay there and take it, doll."
The very idea made your insides burn, pleasure licking up your spine as his lips ghosted along the seem of your panties. He kissed over them, completely shameless to the eroticism of his actions. You, on the other hand, were speechless. Your thighs were already close to shaking and he had barely touched you. He knew the effect he had too, if his smirk was any clue. He watched for your reaction as he brought his hands to the sides, slowly bringing them down your legs.
You closed your knees on instinct, but he wasn't having it. He pulled them apart with a warning look at you and placed one thigh over his shoulder, his other hand pinning your knee to the bed. You couldn't take your eyes off his expression though, seeing the hunger in his eyes when they finally fell on you. He exhaled, his voice rough, "look at you," then his thumb was pushing through your folds, dragging down the seem of your cunt. "Already so wet for me. I think I deserve a taste, don't you?"
You gasped, not even thinking when you started nodding, your hips already grinding against his thumb.
He hummed, nipping at the inside of your thigh, "So good f'me." Then he was on you, his tongue dragging from your entrance up to your clit before his mouth sucked hard. It was your turn to cry out a curse, your hips coming off the bed. But he adjusted, an arm wrapping under your thigh and coming back up to hold your hips down. "So sweet," his voice vibrated against you, "can't believe you kept this from me."
"Didn't want to," you whined, words barely coherent, "didn't wanna--"
"Mm," he pulled back, thumb replacing his mouth and working your clit while he watched your reaction. "We're gonna make up for all that lost time, yeah baby?"
You nodded incessantly, muttering pleas as his pointer finger found your entrance.
"Gotta get my pretty girl ready," he mumbled, more so to himself, as he pushed the finger in and found immediate resistance. He wasn't discouraged, though. His mouth found your clit again, laving and sucking until your thighs began to shake. Slowly, you began to relax to the point that he was able to move the finger in and out, curving it into the spot that made you let out a needy whine.
"There she is," he smiled against you, and you thought you might have found heaven. When he used a second finger with his tongue, his arm pulling your hips flush against his mouth, you found yourself repeating words over and over. "Please"s and "I love you"s tumbling out. He talked you through all of it. The second your eyes rolled to the back of your head and your mouth opened with a scream, he was encouraging you with "good girl"s and "give it to me"s and "please, baby"s.
He didn't stop until you were tugging on his hair and trying to pull him back up. When he sat up, he was breathing heavily and his pupils were blown wide. And when he brought himself back onto the bed, you could so clearly see the evidence of his arousal. You bit your lip, hard, and looked up at him with an expression you were sure gave away exactly what you wanted. If it didn't, it didn't really matter, because then you were tugging him down over you.
His mouth met yours again, and you tasted yourself on him. It was consuming, but you didn't let it distract you from moving your hands to the zipper of his slacks. You weren't about to waste any time, and with the way he was grinding against you, he wasn't either. He kicked his pants and boxers down the minute you pushed them past his hips, both of you groaning at the feeling of skin on skin.
He kissed you hard once more, taking a moment to admire you, before leaning up on his forearm. Using his other hand, he brought your leg over his hip. His forehead dropping down to yours, he whispered, "You gonna let me take care of you?"
You could only nod, feeling him adjust and run the head of his cock up through your wetness and against your clit. You could barely see straight.
He smiled, pleased, "Breathe for me, okay? Relax." He waited to watch you obey, pulling in a deep breath and melting against him all over again. Then he pushed against you, the tip of him sinking slowly inside. He took the moment to pinch the nipple of one of your breasts, making you cry out and push against him. It made the pleasure of him thrusting into you sharper, better than you ever remember this being.
He cursed once again, moaning your name against your ear as he pulled out only to sink back in. "So tight. Perfect. And just for me, aren't you?"
You nodded, eyes rolling back as he set a rhythm.
But he grasped your chin, made you look at him, "Say it, tell me you're all mine."
It took you a minute to find your words, too focused on the feeling of him dragging inside you. There was no way it had always been like this, there had to be something different about James Barnes. Him and the way his cock pushed inside you, making stars dance in your vision.
"'m yours, Bucky, all yours. Please--"
"That's right," he pushed harder, his thumb dropping back down to press against your clit, "My perfect girl and her tight cunt, all for me." He dropped his mouth to your breast, sucking and biting down gently, "All for me to take care of."
The words mixed with all of the sensations happening in your body were too much. You felt your legs tighten around him, your hips lifting to meet his, mumbling his name and whining into his neck when you began to press kisses into it.
"Mhm, that feel good, doll?" the room was full of the noises of slapping skin and heavy breathing, "You gonna cum for me?"
You cried out, hands grasping at his back and nails dragging across his skin, "Uh huh, please!"
"Don't gotta beg me, I'll give you anything you want. As long as you keep letting me take care of you." He groaned, his thrusts turning sporadic, "Fuck, and letting me spread those legs and ruin this pussy. Please, baby..."
You felt your body tighten around the pleasure, the buildup from your first orgasm to your second feeling ten times more intense. And being pinned down underneath him while he whispered dirty words and promises of love only added to the pleasure as it hit you. You screamed his name so loud he was forced to put a hand over your mouth so the whole apartment wouldn't hear. He didn't last much longer either, his mumbles turning to whimpers of your name as he thrust through his orgasm.
You were both left with ragged breaths and sweaty skin after, letting out quiet laughs as your kisses turned lazy and sweet rather than rough. He ran his hands up and down your sides as you combed yours through his messy hair.
"Are you okay?" You found yourself asking.
He chuckled, "That's my line." Then he slowly began to pull out, watching your reaction as you winced at the soreness. He brought a hand to your hip, rubbing soothing circles into the skin.
You bit your lip, feeling a hint of that worry seep back in as he gave you a once over, "But... are you?"
He met your eyes again, reading you like a book. You watched as it dawned on him what you meant, and he leaned down to press a kiss to your forehead, swiping your hair from your cheeks. "I'm not sure I could be better," he pulled back, "I love you. I mean it, I'm not going anywhere."
You sighed, any last bits of tension seeping from your muscles, "I love you too."
He smiled, standing and scooping you up into his arms once more. You squealed again, securing your arms around his neck and bringing your lips to his for one last peck. He then buried his nose into your neck, breathing in your scent as he walked towards the bathroom.
"What are we doing?" You rested your head on his shoulder as you let him take you wherever he pleased.
"Taking care of you," he said simply, "You barely ate at dinner. So, I'm gonna get you cleaned up, then we'll eat something."
You hummed, and for once didn't worry about the where, or why, or how of it all. You let him take the lead, knowing he had you. You were safe. You were loved.
~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅
note: this might have felt a little daydreamy... and that's because it really was just me daydreaming about actually finding a competent man. As a hyper-independent, anxious girly, I won't be putting bets on it. But I sure can dream about Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. :)
Please remember to repost and support your creators!
Warnings: Suggestive tension, brat-taming dynamic, soft-dom Steve
Words: 298 words
A/N: Entry for June Jukebox Scribbles over @societynsoelsscribbles
Prompt: June 2nd - “No I can't promise that I won't do that.”
Steve’s hand rested on your knee beneath the table, warm and heavy enough to feel like a warning.
You ignored it on principle.
Across the room, Sam laughed at something Bucky said, but Steve’s attention never left you. Not after the third little contradiction. Not after the smile you gave him over your glass or after you brushed your mouth against his jaw and whispered something entirely inappropriate during dessert.
Now, in the car outside your apartment, he cut the engine and turned to you.
“Question.”
You bit back a smile. “Answer.”
His eyes narrowed, but smiled anyway despite himself. “Are you going to be a good girl tonight and ask for what you want?”
Your thighs pressed together.
“Or,” he continued, voice dropping, “are you going to make me drag it out of you because you’d rather act like a brat until I have to boss you into behaving?”
You swallowed, heat crawling up your neck.
He waited.
That was the worst part. Steve could wait forever. He could sit there in the driver seat, looking righteous and impossible, while you ruined yourself with anticipation.
You looked out the windshield. “No, I can’t promise that I won’t do that.”
A quiet exhale left him.
He was prepared for that answer.
“Look at me.”
You did, slowly.
Steve’s hand slid from your knee to your thigh, fingers flexing once. “You know what happens when you make me work for it.”
“You like working for it.”
His mouth curved. So did yours.
“There she is,” he murmured, leaning closer. “My pretty little troublemaker.”
“I didn’t admit anything.”
“Course you didn’t.” His knuckles brushed your cheek. “But you’re about to.”
jake seresin x reader x bradley bradshaw (wc 5.6k)
summary: when Jake, your ex boyfriend, comes back into town he doesn’t like to find that Bradley is stepping on his toes. he decides to show you who you really belong to
warnings: smut, 18+ content, swearing, descriptions of violence, blood
author’s note: whew okay here we go. this originally started out as a Jake fic and just evolved okay. i would like to clarify that I didn’t set out to make Jake the bad guy. maybe he’ll redeem himself. inspired by ‘Darlin’ by Chase Matthew so give it a listen!
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Bradley's palm curves around your hip and gives it a squeeze before he steps away from the bar. He dips his head down as he does so to accommodate for the noise level of the room, his nose brushing your hair. "Well I better be off. I'll see you later, darlin'. Tell your mama I said hi."
The gesture is friendly and innocent. Habitual in the way a friend would reach out to another. You don't think twice about it.
You smile warmly up at him, leaning into him before he takes his leave. "I will, Bradley. Drive safe."
No sooner than he's gone, his empty spot is replaced at the bar top.
"Why's he call you darlin'?"
Jake's voice makes your heart drop in your chest.
His palms are braced on either side of you against the bar top as he leans down over you. You couldn't escape if you wanted to. Instead you turn in your seat to face him, your eyes already narrowed back indignantly at his accusing ones. You cross your arms in front of your chest without even thinking about it.
"Jacob."
Your once warm smile is replaced by something more straight faced and cold. No one would guess that your heart rate has just picked up tenfold.
"Matter a' fact, how's he know your mama?"
There's a snarl no-so-hidden in his cowboy pretty grin. Something biting and mean and—jealous.
Bingo.
"You know he's just a friend," you answer flippantly, already turning your stool back around.
Jake catches it before you make it very far, jerking it back around so that you're facing him once again. Now you're almost nose to nose, and you can see every shade of green in his eyes.
"Is that what you wanna call it?" Jake asks, sounding like his feathers are more than just ruffled. His tone is a bit cocky, a bit pissed.
Your relationship with Jake is complicated to say the least. The two of you have been on and off again for months now with no end in sight. You fight, you break up, you get back together, and then you just end up doing it all over again. And even when you're broken up, you're not really broken up. You're still his drunk call at 2am, and when you dress up for a night out, making him jealous is always on the forefront of your mind.
Really, Bradley is just a friend. He was just a friend. A familiar face that you're comfortable enough to run to when you don't know what else to do. Comfortable enough that you may or may not have made out with a few times.
Okay so you really don't know what Bradley is. Just that he's nice, warm in ways that Jake isn't.
He was there when Jake wasn't.
"I'm not calling it anything because it's nothing," you insist. "You're being crazy."
And that really pushes his buttons.
He tisks, blowing air through his teeth in exasperation. "Crazy," he repeats, shaking his head as if the word itself has offended him. "No, what's crazy is that there are rumors going around this town that my girl is going out pretending to be someone else's."
You bite your tongue but don't say anything. You hope he doesn't catch onto the nervous way you swallow.
"Not so crazy now, huh, darlin'? "
You don't respond to his accusation but you don't deny it either. Jake knows you're playing him.
Instead you try to steer back the conversation. "Last time I checked, I wasn't your girl."
Last time you checked, the two of you were freshly broken up and Jake was half way across the country. If you're being honest, you can't even remember the reason the two of you broke up. You probably didn't even know what the reason was at the time. The two of you do so much screaming that it gets hard to tell.
Jake fixes you with a look. "We both know damn well you're always going to be my girl."
Oh.
Now is probably a bad time to finally note how good he looks. His face is fuller than the last time you saw him, healthier and flushed with color. There's a hint of a five o'clock shadow that he doesn't usually allow to grow and his eyes are brighter. His body is fuller too, the strong build of his chest practically strains against his white t-shirt.
"So what's ole boy got that I don't? What's he do that I don't? Because baby, last time I checked, you liked being railed in the back of my Chevy."
Immediately your face flashes red. Not only because there are plenty enough people around to hear him—and did hear him—but because the memory is too engrained in your mind to forget.
You're off of the stool and dragging him towards the closest door in seconds. You pass Natasha in the process, and you know you'll be hearing about this later. Her sharp gaze doesn't miss anything. The swinging door of the ladies room rattles as it closes behind you.
Jake smirks when you let him go. "Oh sorry. Am I only allowed to say that when the door's closed?"
He's definitely not sorry.
You jab a finger into his chest, hard, and you revel in the satisfaction that comes with his huff of surprise. "Look, I know we keep trying and trying, but we don't work. I mean it when I say I've moved on, Jake, and it's about time you do too. So go bitch about your broken heart somewhere else."
Jakes grabs ahold of your elbow before you can turn away and yanks you close to him. His grip on your arm is tight enough to bruise. Rather than fight him, because you know it would be useless, you glower, breathing heavily through your nose. At nearly half a foot taller than you are, Jake seemingly towers over you. The pissed off look in his eyes makes them an even harsher green; a green that has held you captive since the day you met.
"Since when do you go around telling our friends that I'm 'trash' ?"
For a moment he has you, and you stop actively trying to tug your arm away. Your eyes lock in a stand still with his. His green eyes challenge you with quiet intensity, daring you to own up to all of your smack talk.
"That I'm just a fuckboy, right?' He presses.
You couldn't deny that there had been multiple occasions when one too many beers got your mouth moving and the Dagger Squad was on the receiving end. Phoenix and Coyote specifically. Phoenix knew when to keep her mouth shut.
Coyote on the other hand... Really, you should know better than the mouth off to Jake's best friend.
It's no use trying to deny it.
"Let go. We're not fighting over this," you growl, snapping your eyes out of the trance he'd locked you in, trying to pull your elbow away from him.
Instead of releasing you, he pulls your body closer as he walks you backwards so that you're chest to chest and pressed against the bathroom wall. You can feel his heart thumping hard against his ribs.
"But that's all you ever wanna to do, isn't it? All you ever want to do is fight." His hand that is holding your hip to his own slides down to grip the back of your thigh and hikes your leg up around his side, putting your center directly in contact with the bugle in his jeans. Reflexively, your hips rut up into him. He chuckles, and you can hear the smirk in his voice. "Oh, that's what you wanted, huh?"
You're about to snap at him, tell him you're not some whore that he can just fuck the attitude out of, but then he leans down and licks a trail from the juncture of your neck all the way up to your ear. The hot heat of his mouth sends the warm leak of arousal straight to your core.
Your fingers fist into his now wrinkled t-shirt, doing your best to shove him away. To his credit, he draws away just slightly. Jake is man enough to give you some space.
"Let go, Jacob."
"C'mon," he invites—challenges, the corner of his mouth twisting up into a rueful smile. "For old times sake."
You press your knee up into his crotch and feel how hard this interaction has made him. "You think I'm in love with you, Seresin?"
"Yeah, actually. I think you're pretty obsessed with me." His smirk is relaxed and cocky. Too cocky for someone who has been MIA for six months.
You growl and lean into his face, taking it upon yourself to undo the distance you'd created earlier. "I don't even fucking like you. You're nothing to me. You're a nobody."
To his credit, Jake doesn't seem bothered by your harsh rebuke. If anything, it spurs him on. Because it means to some degree, you still care.
That's the thing about Jake. It doesn't matter how pissed off he makes you, how much of a jerk he is, how much you tear him apart in front of your friends for the hell that he's put you through, you will always hold something for him. Hatred maybe, but as long as there's still a little bit of a spark, you're always going to let him back in.
"Then why're you still here?" He urges.
He's right.
You could leave. You could shove him away like you mean it and walk right out of the bar, call Bradley to pick you up in an instant. He wouldn't stop you. You wouldn't hear from him for another six months and then someway, somehow, you'd end right back up in this situation.
"I hope you brought a condom," you respond instead.
Jake scoffs, leaning in closer to you. "Why? We both know you like it raw, baby."
"I don't know where your dick has been," you retort. And before he can open his mouth, you continue, "Lord knows you didn't go six months without getting it wet."
Instead of replying, Jake hikes your knee up further over his hip, bunching your dress up further over your hips. "How about instead of insulting me, you spread your legs and let me get to work?"
It's not a suggestion because before you can open your mouth, his fingers are pushing aside your panties and sliding right against your clit. Your hips jerk at the brief sensation but Jake wastes no time getting to the point.
You bristle involuntarily when his fingers abruptly enter you. His middle and index finger slide right into your weeping cunt without resistance, forcing apart your silky walls. You don't mean to whimper but it's been so long since someone's touched you like Jake has.
"All that fuss and you're dripping," Jake huffs. "I've barely even touched you."
A snarling thought forms in your mind at his cockiness but nothing comes out except another breathy gasp. His fingers slide all the way in, down to the second knuckle, and your walls clench around him. His hands are big and all you can think about is how much bigger his cock is.
"She ain't got much to say now, does she?" Jake purrs. You can feel the tips of his fingers rubbing along your walls. "I think you missed me."
Your pussy clenches around his fingers in response and he chuckles before pressing them further inside. "Fuckin' sucking me in," he huffs, and you can feel the ridges of his knuckles slide against the slick walls of your cunt as he allows your spasming muscles to pull him in.
His thumb finds your throbbing clit and finally, you find your voice. "Jake— Jake, I'm gonna come," you say breathlessly, the fist that you'd had balled in his shirt moving to push his hand away. "Please, I can't—"
Without warning, Jake hikes your knee up further around his waist and presses his thumb firmer against your clit. The sudden onrush of stimulation almost makes you cry.
"You're almost there, baby. I can feel you squeezing me. Just let me make you feel good," he encourages, refusing to let up despite your pleas.
When your hips involuntarily buck up, Jake holds you in place, and all you can do is let him as your head falls back against the wall. His two fingers curl inside of you and that's all it takes. Molten fire shoots through your belly and electrifies your spine.
The orgasm lasts what seems like forever. Your body is flushed and tingling and entirely over stimulated. "Okay, okay, Jake please," you whine breathlessly. You have to forcibly push him away so that you can recover from the aftershocks without being drawn into another orgasm.
Your pussy spasms as Jake slowly removes his fingers, his other hand still supporting your now limp body against him. You flinch at the over stimulation as his thumb gives one last swipe over your clit before he removes his hand.
And then, without his green eyes leaving yours, he draws his two fingers up to his mouth and sucks. They glisten against the wet press of his mouth, and his throat bobs as he swallows.
You're not sure if it's you breathing heavy or him, but the level of arousal in the room is audible. You feel something drip inside of you. Literally.
At your evident fixation, Jake pulls his fingers from his mouth and smiles. His prefect pretty boy smile is devilish. He leans in close and his smile twists into a smirk.
"I'll see you around, darlin'."
And then he's gone, pressing through the bathroom door and leaving it swinging behind him as if he's got no shame in being caught. The retreating click of his boots echos on the hard wood floor of the Hard Deck as he walks away.
A hand catches the door just as it stops swinging. "You did not," Phoenix hisses, and it's more of an incredulous statement than a question.
Instead of answering her, you cross your arms, as if the action will collect some of your lost dignity. "You knew he was back in town?"
It's her turn not to answer you. You cock an eyebrow. Finally, she sighs exasperatedly. "He asked me if you were seeing anyone."
"Of course he did," you mutter, leaning over the sink to look into the mirror and try to swipe away your smudged lipstick. The adrenaline running through you is starting to fade into that familiar, frustrated ache.
"Please tell me you didn't say anything about Bradley."
Phoenix leans against the doorframe, watching you pull yourself together with that analytical gaze that makes her such a good pilot. Her gaze isn't judgmental—just tired.
"I told him you were busy. I told him you were seeing someone else—which you were, until ten minutes ago," she emphasizes. "But you know Jake. Tell him he's not cleared for landing, and he just takes it as a challenge to clear the runway himself."
You turn around and lean back against the cool tile of the wall, crossing your arms over your chest. "How long is he in town?"
Phoenix looks away.
"No," you breathe.
"Orders came through last week," Phoenix confesses quietly. "And he's not just passing through this time. He's stationed here at Miramar for the foreseeable future."
The air in the bathroom suddenly feels thin, like you've just shot up 14,000 feet. You've spent six months building a life that didn't involve constantly looking over your shoulder or waiting for midnight phone calls.
You press the heels of your palms into your eyes, trying to ward off your sudden impending migraine and also physically shut out Phoenix's words.
"Of course he is. It's not like he has anything better to do than move across the country to come and fuck up my life," you mutter, more to yourself than anyone.
Phoenix sighs, shifting so that she's leaning against the bathroom sink, facing you. She crosses her arms, her shoulders sagging just a little. The dim overhead lights of the bar bathroom hum above her, casting a shadow across her troubled face.
"Look, I didn't tell him about Bradley to start a dogfight. I told him because I thought that it would actually make him back off for once. Give you some breathing room."
You let out a humorless, miserable laugh and drop your hands from your face. "When has Jake Seresin ever seen a full flight pattern and backed off? It's like an open invitation to him."
You look at your wrinkled dress in the mirror and can still feel where his hands were on your hips, tight enough to bruise. Your skin feels sticky with sweat and filthy from the tiles of the bathroom wall. And worst of all, the deep, throbbing ache between your thighs is a humiliating reminder of how effortlessly he dismantled six months worth of personal growth within just five minutes.
Phoenix must be able to read the look on your face because she removes herself from the sink and walks over, placing a gentle hand on your arm. "I'm not judging you for whatever happened. I know Jake. I know you two loved each other at some point. I know it's not easy," she reassures you gently. "But I also know that somewhere out there is a guy who would drop everything in an instant to come and get you."
Bradley.
Bradley, who had so sweetly inserted himself into your life when you needed him and never left. Bradley, who kissed you softly and then tickled you with his mustache until your chest ached from laughing. Bradley, who only left the bar after you'd reassured him repeatedly that you were gonna be okay without him.
You needed to call Bradley.
You pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration. "Gosh, Nat. He's probably halfway down the highway by now."
Phoenix doesn't budge. "It doesn't matter. He'll come get you. Just call him."
After a moment of hesitation, you nod and retrieve your phone from your purse. You scroll through your contacts until you find Bradley's name in your call history.
Brad <3 (incoming call) 4:13 pm
As your thumb hovers over his name, Phoenix steps away to give you some space. "I'll walk out first and make sure Jake is distracted. Just stay in the bathroom until Bradley gets here. Try not to let him see you leave."
As Phoenix slips out of the door, you press the call button and lift the phone to you ear listening to the steady, rhythmic ringing as the call goes through. Every second feels like and eternity, like at any moment, Jake will walk right back in and catch you red handed.
On the fourth ring, the line clicks open.
"Hey, there, pretty girl," Bradley's voice crackles through the speaker, sounding relaxed and steady. The engine of his Bronco rumbles steadily in the background. "Everything okay? I just got onto the main road."
The sound of his voice—safe and familiar, completely unaware of the disaster that just unfolded in the bathroom—makes a lump form in your throat.
"Hey, Bradley," you start, doing your best to keep your voice from crackling. Your nose is doing that thing where it starts to burn and your eyes are prickling with unshed tears. "Yeah, um, just a change of plans... Are you... can you turn around and come get me?"
There's a brief pause on the line, the heavy hum of his truck's engine the only sound filling the silence before he speaks again.
"Turn around?" he asks, his tone shifting from relaxed to alert. "Yeah, baby, of course I can. But, hey—are you sure you're okay? You sound like you're about to cry."
Bradley knows you. He knows the exact pitch of your voice when you're stressed or trying to hide something.
"Yeah, I'm... I'm fine," you lie, pacing around the small bathroom with your phone pressed to your ear so that you can hear him clearly over the background noise. "It's just... The bar got really crowded and there's a lot of people, and I just... I really want to go home now."
"Did something happen?" Bradley's voice has dropped into a tone that says he's on edge and is about to come flying back down the road if you don't convince him that you're okay within the next ten seconds. "Are you safe?"
"Bradley, listen to me. I'm safe, I promise," you say quickly, raising your voice so that it sounds more confident than you feel. The last thing you need is for him to come storming into the Hard Deck looking for a fight. "Nothing happened. I just really want to go home."
You hear the distinct rhythmic click of his turn signal and the aggressive crunch of his tires as he does what you can assume to be a U-turn in the middle of the highway.
"Alright. I'm turning back now," Bradley says, his voice firm and grounding. "I'll be there in five minutes. Make Phoenix or one of the guys wait with you, okay? Don't stay by yourself."
"Okay," you answer softly, some of the tension finally leaving your body. "Thanks, Bradley."
"Don't worry about it, pretty girl. I'll see you in a few minutes."
"Okay, bye."
The line clicks dead and you lower the phone from your ear, taking a deep breath as you do so. Bradley's coming, but the hard part isn't over yet. You have about three minutes to figure out how to get past Jake and out of the bar before Bradley decides to come get you himself.
You take another deep breath and push open the bathroom door.
Immediately, you spot Phoenix just a few feet away. She's at a table with Bob and a couple of the other guys, looking engaged in a conversation, but every so often, she looks back over at the bathroom door.
When her eyes lock with yours, she subtly nods her head over to the other side of the bar.
Jake is exactly where you hoped he wouldn't be.
He's perched leaning with one arm on top of the jukebox and beer in his other hand. Coyote and Omaha are standing there beside him, talking loudly, animatedly retelling some sort of story. Jake laughs, his perfect white teeth flashing in a cowboy pretty smile. He looks completely unbothered and totally immersed in the conversation.
But the second you step into his line of sight, his head turns. Those piercing green eyes lock onto you and hold your gaze. He tracks your movement through the bar with a predatory stare.
You look away, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he's completely unmoored you, and make a beeline for the front doors of the bar.
Head up. Eyes straight. Keep moving.
As you pass the jukebox, you can feel Jake's eyes burning holes into the side of your face. You almost make it past him, when his slow, southern drawl cuts through the room.
"Gonna leave without saying goodbye, darlin'?"
You stop, your heart pounding out of your chest. Ignoring him in front of the Dagger Squad will only make this whole thing look worse. Slowly, you turn around to face him.
"I'm tired. I just want to go home, Jake."
Jake chuckles, stepping away from his jukebox kingdom. His white t-shirt hugs his swollen biceps as he walks towards you. He looks you straight in the face and smiles. He's dangerously handsome and he knows it.
"Is that right?" he asks, his voice sounding innocently curious. "That's funny. You didn't seem all that tired a few minutes ago. You actually seemed pretty awake to me."
Your face burns, but before you can snap back, the sound of a truck parking just outside draws your attention. Through the open windows of the bar, you see Bradley's blue Bronco park right out front.
Jake's eyes flicker to the window at the same time that yours down. The amused, dangerous smile on his face falters just a fraction. He looks back at you.
"Well, look at that. Your ride's here."
"Yeah," you say, already turning for the door, feeling relief flash through you. "He is. See you around, Jake."
You don't wait to see if he follows you. You turn on your heels and push through the heavy front doors, the cool night air hitting your face like a breath of fresh air.
Bradley's truck is idling, the blue Bronco sitting right out front. Through the windshield, you can see Bradley sitting in the driver's seat, his hands tapping impatiently against the steering wheel, his eyes scanning the front exit anxiously. The moment he sees you, the tension in his shoulders visibly drops.
You pull the passenger door open and climb inside. The cool blast of the air conditioner is a stark contrast the the sweaty atmosphere of the bar. You shut the door quickly, cutting off the noise of the bar entirely.
Bradley immediately reaches over to take your jacket, his eyes searching your face. He reaches out, his large, gentle hand catching your chin, turning your face so that he can get a good look at you.
"Hey, hey," Bradley says softly, his brow furrowed with concern. "You're all frantic. What's going on?"
"Nothing, I—" but before you can even get the words out, Jake Seresin waltzes out of the front doors of the Hard Deck, his cowboy boots clicking as he walks. He's got that look on his face. The one that says he's looking for trouble.
Bradley is jumping out of the drivers seat before you can even think to stop him.
You yelp.
"Bradley, please—" you lunge for his arm across the console but he's quicker, and you only weakly manage to catch the edge of his t-shirt before he's storming out of the car.
You scramble out of the passenger seat, your hands clawing at the handle of the passenger door faster than you knew you were capable of moving.
Bradley, however, is quicker. He meets Jake halfway under the dim glow of the bar's porch lights, effectively cutting off Jake's path to the truck.
“Fuck off, Seresin," Bradley growls, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous register than you've never heard from him. His board shoulders are squared, his feet planted firmly in the gravel.
Jake stops where he is, but he doesn't step back. He just stops a few inches from Bradley, capitalizing on the few inches he has on the brunette aviator. You can see him thinking, as he sucks his tongue to the front of his teeth and cocks his head.
"Relax, Bradshaw," Jake drawls, voice dripping with a sickening amount of southern sweetness and effortless confidence. He tilts his head towards the Bronco, his pretty green eyes flashing in malicious amusement. "Just coming out to make sure my girl gets home safe. Didn't know she called a taxi."
"Your girl?" Bradley asks, his tone incredulous. "You go AWOL for six months and then decide that you're just going to inject yourself back into her life? I'll tell you something, Bagman. You're good but you're sure as hell not that good."
Jake lets out a sharp, amused laugh. His eyes are sharp and cold. He leans in as his voice drops low. "Oh I think I am that good, Rooster. But don't take it from me. Why don't you ask her."
Jake straightens and turns his glinting green eyes to you. "Darlin'," he drawls. "Why don't you tell Bradshaw here just how good I am? Or should I?"
Bradley's entire body goes rigid. His jaw clenches so tight that you see the muscles jump in his neck. Your heart drops.
"Shut up, Jake."
The disgusting implication lands exactly where Jake intendeds it to.
"You keep your fucking hands off of her," Bradley seethes, his voice sounding unsteady for the first time tonight. He steps so close into Jake's space that they can probably feel each other's breath on their faces.
"Am I lying, baby?" Jake asks, his dripping a confidence that says he knows you won't say otherwise. He tilts his head, his green eyes daring you to look Bradley in the eye and deny it. "Go ahead. Tell him how good I felt."
You're crying at this point, hot tears rolling down your face. "Jake, stop it!" you beg, you voice cracking as you say it.
Bradley finally turns his head towards you. The look on his face breaks your heart.
His brown eyes, usually so warm and steady, are searching yours with a quiet, desperate plea. He's begging you to deny it. To lie. He doesn't care if you lie at this point. Just don't tell him it's true.
"You know, Phoenix told me you were seeing someone," Jake continues, his voice cutting through the tense silence. "She conveniently forgot to mention it was Bradshaw. But hey, I get it. Old habits die hard, don't they."
With a low, animalistic growl, Bradley reaches his breaking point.
He lunges, his right fist coming into contact with Jake's jaw with a sickening crack. The sheer force of the blow sends Jake stumbling backwards. The only reason he doesn't fall to the ground is because he stumbles, catching himself on the porch railing just in time.
"Bradley! Stop it!!" you shout, rushing after him as he advances towards Jake.
Jake is on his feet by the time Bradley reaches him, and he doesn't waste the opportunity. The moment Bradley is within range, Jake swings. Bradley sees it coming soon enough to at least brace himself. The blow clips the edge of his jaw, hard, but if anything, it only makes him angrier. He lunges again. This time, the punches don't stop.
"Jake!!" you shout, and this time your frantic voice is enough to send the front doors of the Hard Deck flying open.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!" Coyote exclaims, as he takes in the scene unfolding before him. "That's enough!!" he shouts. Payback, Fanboy, and Phoenix are right on his heels, racing down the steps to break up the brawl.
Bradley has successfully pinned Jake against the side of the Bronco, his forearm pressed hard against Jake's throat as he draws his fist back to swing again. Bradley's face is contorted into a look of pure, unrestrained fury. Jake's face is red and bloody, but he's still looking at Bradley with a malicious glare in his eyes.
Before Bradley's fist can land, Fanboy and Payback are yanking him off of Jake. It takes both of them, but somehow they manage to move Bradley's massive frame. Bradley fights against their grip, his boots digging into the gravel as he thrashes, still spitting insults.
"Don't you ever fucking touch her again!!" Bradley roars, his voice raw. "You hear me?! I'll fucking kill you!!"
Coyote helps Jake to his feet, shaking off the other pilot despite his insistent protests. "I'm cool, man. I'm cool."
Jake leans over and spilts a glob of blood into the gravel. Despite the dark purple bruise already forming where Bradley first hit him and the blood and dirt covering his clothes, Jake looks over at Bradley and smirks.
"I hope you got all that out of your system, Bradshaw. Because I'm not fucking going anywhere," Jake says, and his voice carries out across the parking lot. "I'll see you in the air tomorrow."
And then with the press of Coyote's urging hand on his shoulder, he turns and walks back into the bar, using his hand to wipe the blood from his face as he goes.
Jake doesn't look back as the heavy wooden doors of the Hard Deck close behind him, leaving nothing behind him but the tense, heavy silence of the parking lot.
"Get out of here, Rooster," Payback says quietly, finally letting go of his grip on Bradley's arm. Bradley just stand there for a moment, his chest still heaving. All the fight has left his shoulders, and now he just stands there in the parking lot looking utterly broken.
Without a word, Bradley, turns on his heels and walks straight back to the Bronco. He doesn't wait for you. He just climbs into the driver's seat and slams the door shut so hard that the entire frame rattles.
You stand in the gravel of the parking lot, completely frozen.
Phoenix appears at your side. "Go home," she states sternly. "Get in the car. No matter now mad he is, he'll take you home."
You swallow, and then softly you nod. "Okay, I'll call you when I get home."
Slowly, you walk towards the car and get in.
Bradley starts puts the car into reverse and pulls out of the parking lot without a word. He's still breathing heavy, his eyes fixed dead ahead as he pulls out onto the road.
There's blood all over him. His knuckles are split and theres a mixture of his own and Jake's blood drying on his hands. His bottom lip is also split and bleeding, the crimson red color smeared across his face. The cut made by Jake’s academy ring on his eyebrow is the most worrying. It's open and actively bleeding, dripping down his face and onto his ruined t-shirt.
He doesn't speak for a long time. The anger that was keeping his shoulders tensed earlier is back, as well as the agonizing silence of the parking lot.
"Bradley..."
He doesn't respond to the sound of his name. He doesn't want to listen to you explain yourself right now.
But Bradley isn't stupid. And above all else, Bradley knows Jake Seresin.
PAIRING: Steve Rogers x Reader
WORD COUNT: 2.6k
WARNINGS: domestic fluff, established relationship, steve is tired okay?, SMUT (free use implication, so much oral (f receiving), steve is a munch, fingering, tonguefucking, spit kink, spit as lube, couch sex, p in v, mating press, creampie, cockwarming if you squint, cock pronouns (like ONCE), multiple orgasms) porn with very little plot.
SUMMARY: Steve gets home and there's no better way to get his head out of thinking about work than to put it right between your thighs.
+fran: I'm in such a Steve kick lately, this ovulation he has me by the clit and he's not letting go. I love how fluffy this is and I too need this man to eat me out until there's nothing in either of our heads. This is straight up blond man propaganda. Here's a little nugget of a fic while I write bigger ones.
Steve Rogers, way back when, wouldn't be called uptight.
He wasn't much of a rule follower to begin with, seeing things morally grey instead of black and white. He's always been someone that just wants to do the right thing, whatever the cost of that may be.
Steve Rogers in present day, however, would be uptight by 2020s Manhattan standards.
His entire presence commanded obedience. Authority.
Steve's star-spangled broad shoulders, squared when he stood with his hands on his belt ever the proper man, drew every eye in the room to him like a magnet.
His voice never wavered when barking orders left and right, always a man with a plan. If strategy A failed, he was already halfway through strategy B, and had already thought of a third alternative.
The entire weight of the world had always been on his shoulders, for the better part of 108 years.
Steve is, however, much like a working dog. He's restless. He needs a job to do, and do well, even when his actual job stresses him the fuck out.
So when he's walking up the stairs of your condo in the Village, his throat tired from yelling over gunfire, his feet exhausted from running miles in combat boots, and his shoulders tense from holding back frustration during the debrief, the sound of your voice while you talk on the phone is a soothing balm for his soul.
He unlocked the door and walked in, the dimly lit apartment making him feel like he could finally let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
You were curled up on one end of the couch, throw blanket lazily over your legs as a candle burned on the kitchen isle and some trashy reality TV on, while you talked with your best friend on the phone about the events unveiling in front of your eyes.
Your weekly debrief, you called it. Steve thought it was cute.
"Okay, but here's the thing," you were saying into your phone, eyes glued to the television. "I don't actually think she's mad about the text messages."
Steve really didn't understand half the appeal of those shows. Every week he'd come over and find some new catastrophe unfolding. Someone was cheating on somebody, someone was throwing a drink, someone was crying in a confessional interview, someone was apparently there "for the wrong reasons."
And somehow you knew every single person's name, history, motivations, and interpersonal grievances.
Steve let the door latch with a soft "click" and he dropped his duffel by the counter and shrugged his shoes off.
You turned your head at the sound immediately, your face softening the instant your eyes locked with his.
There was something about being looked at like that after a day spent getting shot at, yelled at, and blamed for things outside of his control.
Something about knowing there was one place in Manhattan where nobody expected Captain America.
He was just expected to be Steve, or Babe, or Honey, or Stevie, or—
"Hold on," you told your friend, reaching out to him with one hand, which he knew was code for "come here and kiss me".
He smiled with the side of his mouth and complied, walking over until he was behind you, making you tilt your head back to kiss him, a little murmured "I missed you." against his lips before you went back to your conversation.
He finished walking around the couch, laying down on top of you as you made space of his waist and torso between your legs, his arms instinctively wrapping around your waist as he nuzzled his face into your sternum.
Steve Rogers melted.
That was the only word possible for the exhale he let out as soon as your fingers tangled in his hair, nails gently scraping at his scalp as he let his entire weight just rest on you.
"You okay, baby?" Your voice was low, not even a hair above a whisper, and he just hummed in agreement against the soft fabric of your tank top.
"Do you need to go? Baaabyyyy." You rolled your eyes at the phone.
"Don't start."
"Oh, I'm absolutely starting. Did Captain America just come home and immediately turn into a golden retriever?"
Steve huffed a quiet laugh against your shirt. Your hand immediately moved to the back of his neck, nails grazing softly until you pushed your hand past the collar of his cotton shirt, scratching lightly at his back.
If he was a cat, he'd be purring right at that moment.
"No, because listen," you told your friend, eyes narrowing at the screen. "The issue isn't that she lied." Steve watched you. "The issue is that she lied badly." Completely, utterly, disgustingly in love. "Those are different crimes."
Blue bird sky eyes that look up at you like you invented spring. Like your voice alone makes flowers bloom and birds sing.
His chin rests comfortably on your stomach, one arm draped across your waist while your fingers absentmindedly travel back up to continue scratching at his scalp.
The way you laugh when someone says something stupid on the show makes him understand poetry. Because regular sentences in language aren't enough to explain what it feels like when somebody becomes your favorite thing in the entire world.
Steve had always been… tactile when he was tired. Like a working dog, he'd find something to occupy his mind until he was so tired, the inside of his skull was nothing but tv static.
Not clingy, exactly just drawn toward you in the same way a sunflower turns toward sunlight.
His fingers slipped beneath the edge of your thank top, resting against the warm skin of your side, fabric riding up and exposing your stomach to him as he pressed absentminded kisses against the skin there.
Your eyes flickered to him, another kiss on the lower left side of your stomach, big calloused hands pushing your shirt a smidge up again.
When he grazed the skin with his teeth and soothed it with his tongue, you realized what he was getting at. Some flavor of "I gotta go, love you, bye" and the call was disconnected.
"Steve." No answer. His hands slowly came back down the length of your waist, "Steve." He was in his own little world, fingers hooking them hem of your sleep shorts and pulling them down.
You let him, because what woman in her right mind would prevent Steve from seeking comfort, specially if that comfort was eating your pussy until you saw double?
He threw the shorts somewhere in the room, nothing but a grunt here or a groan there coming out of his mouth in the meantime.
You put your right foot on his chest softly, as to catch his attention, sparkling eyes looking up at you with a little "hmm?" to match.
"Are you okay?"
He sighed happily. He knew you knew you didn't have to worry about him, he's a super solder, a hero, a goddamn Avenger, what could a mere civilian like you do?
But he still loved your worry. Loved… your love.
Steve chuckled softly and kissed the inside of your ankle, something along the lines of "always okay when I'm with you" being printed against the skin of your leg as his kisses went higher and higher and higher.
He stopped quickly when he got to your core, place a wet kiss over your panties and pulling them down your legs in one swift motion. The plane of his chest resting against the couch as he settled your legs over his shoulders.
His arms wrapped around you legs, hands resting on top of your thighs to keep you open for him. He nuzzled his face against you first, eyes closed as he licked a flat, wide strip up your cunt.
The soft gasp coming from your lips only spurred him on, your left hand reaching down to tangle in his blond locks again while your right hand rested on his forearm.
Steve looked like he was in a trance. Hypnotized by the taste of you. He hummed against you, satisfied you were giving him what he wanted. Letting him take what he wanted.
His tongue was soft, warm, wet as it lapped against your folds. He'd tense the muscle closer to your clit and circle it with his tongue before sucking it between his plush lips, only to slow down and do it again.
The day had scraped him raw in a hundred tiny ways, and now he was tucked into the safest place he knew.
You.
"Mmmm, that feels good…" You settled further into the couch, letting your legs fall open around his head as he lazily made out with your pussy. His right hand reached up to shove your shirt further up, massaging your breasts once they were exposed, rolling and tugging on the nipple.
His tongue zig-zagged between your folds, bottom to top, and he sucked your clit briefly, setting it free with a soft "pop" once he felt your thigh twitch.
"Needed this," he kissed your inner thigh. "needed you." Steve leaned further down, tensing his tongue to tease your entrance, and then burying his face in your heat.
"Oh! Oh, G— Steve, f—mmm…" you were already babbling. The feel of his hot tongue inside of you made your hips jerk, his nose nudging your clit in the process.
The wet noises were loud enough he could hear them even though your thighs were squeezing around his head. And God, this is what he needed, plush skin and muscle tensing under him, suffocating him in all that was you.
"Gonna co—hah!—come all over your pretty face." Steve moaned, he moaned into you, hips grinding onto the couch cushions as yours did so against his face, pushing himself to be impossibly close to you.
He sucked your clit into his mouth again, his tongue flicking it while it was trapped between his lips.
Your moans grew louder, sharper, until you soaked Steve's lips and chin in wet pleasure. He let you ride the wave of your first orgasm, aftershocks flowing through your body like electricity through water.
He dragged his right hand down from your breast to rest above your pussy, keeping you where he wanted you, and used his thumb and index finger to spread you further.
"Baby, please…" It was a mix of oversensitive and hungry pleas, which Steve took as a green light to keep going. He flattened his tongue again, licking long paths bottom to top, dipping his tongue in your entrance, and then keeping the path up.
You supported yourself up mostly by your right elbow and your grip on Steve's hair, staring at the scene in front of you with your mouth hanging open, panting.
His left hand travelled down and he covered his index and middle fingers in your slick, pulling away ever so slightly to pool spit in his mouth and let the hot saliva flow softly from his mouth onto your clit.
His fingers drove into you slowly with a wet squelch echoing into the room, curling them towards him when he got your folds to touch his palm. "Was only gone a day, sweetheart." He pumped his fingers. "How come you're so tight still, mmm?"
He chuckled when you had no response but a needy whine, the scene was a sight, really. Captain America absolutely lost in the pleasure of seeing his girlfriend completely pliant, missing any bottoms, with her tank top bunched up above her breasts, while he had a soaked face and a raging hard on.
Humming as he licked and teased your clit once again, this time pumping his fingers in and out, and again, again, again, until he slurped every single drop of your second orgasm, feeling you squeeze your cunt around his fingers while your thighs squeezed every thought that didn't revolve around you right out of his skull.
You pulled him up forcefully by the collar, crashing your lips together, moaning as you tasted yourself on him. Your tongue licked into his mouth like you alone could make him forget everything that happened during the mission, even without knowing details.
Your hands grazed down his chest over his shirt, quickly finding the hem of his sweats, palming him through them. "Did you touch yourself while I was gone?" His voice was breathy against your lips, almost strained.
You shook your head, biting your lip. "Not as good when it's not you."
Steve whined, like audibly whined at your praise as you pushed his pants down enough to free his cock. "Good girl."
It slapped against your stomach heavy, hard, and leaking, and Steve immediately reached down to rub the head up and down your slick.
"Put it in, baby, please." You sucked on his bottom lip. "Missed you so much."
Steve chuckled as he lined himself up with your entrance. "Me or him?" He didn't wait for an answer, in days like these he never did. He just pushed his entire cock in to the hilt, knocking the air out of your lungs. "Me. Or. Him?" He asked again.
Your eyes squeezed shut, "You, baby, fuck—" you panted against his mouth, tiny puffs of air matching his every thrust. "Missed your voice, your scent, your laugh—" another harsher thrust knocked the thought out of your head. "Missed your cock too, ah!"
You felt every drag of him inside of you, the vein on the side that split into two, the bulbous head of him that notched so perfectly around the spongy spot inside of you, you'd think they made him in a lab.
Well, they did. But you're pretty sure the SSR had no involvement in how perfect Steve Rogers' dick was.
That was all him.
He reached down to snake his arms under your knees, bringing your legs further up and out, until his pelvis was flush with your entire bottom.
"That's a good girl." He sighed, pulling all the way out only to slam all the way back in again. "Always so good."
The more Steve fucked you, the less oxygen you felt you had in your lungs. Every muscle in your core was tightening by the second, everything becoming too loud, too hot, too heavy, too good.
"Gonna fill you up, sweetheart. You want that?" His lips dropped to your neck, sucking and licking on the skin there. You nodded. "But I need you to come on my cock, Princess. Can you do that for me?"
You nodded even more enthusiastically.
Steve licked his thumb and down to your clit it went, making your eyes cross and roll and the wave of pleasure crashed onto you again. He felt you clamp down on him, shudders licking up his spine as rope after rope of cum leaked out of him.
Steve thrusted both of you through the aftershocks, until he finally let his entire weight rest onto you as your nails once again grazed his back and neck.
He lifted his head from where he was resting his forehead against your collarbone and gave you a peck on the lips, then another, then another, until it turned into a slow, deep kiss.
He motioned to pull out and start to clean up, but you squeezed your legs around his waist. "Just stay with me a little longer here, Stevie." He looked at you like he always did when you asked that, when he knew you asked for it more for him than for you, but still gave in, staying with you until your breaths evened out while the TV played in the background.
bro honestly idk what took over my body in this ovulation... I already humped my husband every single day this week. THE SHACKLES.
Summary: A wounded Sheriff Barnes seeks shelter in a young widow’s home, and finds himself wrapped in a warmth he no longer believes he deserves, and longing for something he thought long buried.
Series Summary: After Bucky cheats on you, you leave the Tower shattered, humiliated, and convinced that love has only ever made you smaller. Steve comes back from a mission to find you gone - and when he learns the truth, his loyalty is tested in ways he never expected.
Wordcount: 9.8k
Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female Reader (no use of y/n)
Warnings: tower fic, alternative mcu, slow burn, healing arc, hurt comfort, emotional hurt comfort, angst with comfort, infidelity angst, second chance at love, cheating / infidelity, emotional betrayal, toxic ex relationship, Bucky Barnes is OOC, forced kiss, non con elements (very light), boundary violation, sexual assault implications, emotional manipulation, jealousy and possessiveness, panic attacks / panic response, vomiting due to distress, STI scare / medical testing mention, violence / physical fight, blood mention, breakup grief, trauma recovery, found family, protective steve rogers, soft steve rogers, toxic bucky barnes, self-worth issues, mentions of emotionally abusive family dynamics, reader has a difficult childhood, happy ending, MDNI, some chapters will have smut or explicit intimacy
A/N: This is the first of my favourite parts of this series.
Important note about Bucky: Bucky is very OOC in this fic. I want to be very clear about that from the start: I know he is OOC, I know canon Bucky would not act like this, and I am not presenting this as my interpretation of canon Bucky Barnes.
This story uses him in a deliberately darker, more toxic role for the sake of the angst, conflict, and Reader’s healing arc. So please, before sending me an ask or leaving a comment to tell me that Bucky would never behave this way: I know. That is what this warning is for.
I will not be replying to complaints about Bucky being written OOC. You have been warned, and if this version of him is not something you want to read, please feel free to skip this fic.
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You both walked back to the Harley slowly.
There was no urgency in either of you anymore, not for the moment. The trail wound lazily back through the trees, and you followed it without hurry, your hand still in Steve’s as though neither of you had thought to let go and then quietly decided not to. The forest had changed in the hour you had spent under it. Or maybe they had. The light had shifted, warmer now where it pierced the canopy, and the air carried that late-afternoon softness that made every sound seem a little farther away.
Steve felt the difference in you.
Not healed. Not even close. But less jagged somehow. Your grief had not vanished, nor the humiliation, nor the exhaustion. He knew better than to mistake a few kisses and a walk beneath old trees for anything that miraculous. Still, something in your body had unclenched. Your shoulders no longer sat quite so high. Your breathing no longer came as if every inhale had to push through broken glass. Every now and then he looked sideways at you and caught you staring at nothing in particular, thoughtful and sad and calmer than before, and he let the silence stretch because it seemed to be doing you good.
You emerged from the trees into the clearing by the road where the Harley waited, black and still in the slanting light.
The second you stepped up beside it, your stomach growled.
Not quietly.
Not delicately.
It made a long, offended, deeply human noise loud enough in the open air that Steve actually stopped short.
Then he laughed.
He could not help it.
It escaped him warm and sudden, the first real laugh he had let himself have since he walked into the Tower and found out you were gone. It startled him almost as much as it did you. The sound felt strange in his own chest, rusty from disuse over the last day, but good too. Honest.
You turned toward him with immediate indignation, one hand flying to your middle as if that somehow made the betrayal less public.
“Oh, very nice,” you muttered.
Steve was still smiling when he said, “We’re getting you food.”
You narrowed your eyes at him in mock offense. “You say that like I’m some kind of stray.”
He reached for the helmet and held it out to you. “A starving stray.”
That earned him a look that would have been deadly if not for the fact that your mouth twitched at one corner.
Good, he thought.
That was good.
He got you onto the bike again, waited until your arms came around his waist, and headed back toward the road with no more plan than the simplest one: keep you moving, keep you out of the city, keep you fed, keep the day from closing in too hard.
You found the diner by accident.
Or maybe Steve steered toward it because it was exactly the kind of place he would have looked for even without realizing it. Low building, wide windows, neon sign half-flickering over a gravel parking lot, the promise of endless coffee and good fries and a waitress who had seen every kind of heartbreak in the world and had no intention of commenting on any of them. It sat just off the road as if it had always been there, waiting for tired people who did not want questions.
Inside, the air smelled like frying oil, coffee, sugar, grilled onions, and old chrome.
A jukebox glowed dimly near the back. The booths were red vinyl, patched in a few places. The menu was laminated and sticky at the corners. Somewhere in the kitchen, plates clattered and a cook shouted something nobody in the dining room needed to understand. The place was half full – truckers, two older women sharing pie, a young family corralling a toddler, a man eating alone with a newspaper folded beside his plate.
It was perfect.
Steve slid into a booth across from you and watched as you picked up the menu with the wary concentration of someone rediscovering appetite by force. For a moment he thought you might overcomplicate it, stare too long, claim you were not that hungry after all. Instead you glanced up once and said, “Burger?”
“Burger,” he agreed.
“And fries.”
“Definitely fries.”
That got him the smallest smile.
When the waitress came by, you ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and water. Then, after half a second’s hesitation that Steve noticed and pretended not to, you added, “And a vanilla milkshake.”
Steve looked down at the menu very quickly.
It was a pointless reflex. Childish, even. But the second the words left your mouth, some completely unhelpful part of his mind lit up with the fact that your mouth was going to taste like vanilla later if he kissed you again.
He refused to follow the thought.
Absolutely refused.
So naturally it stayed.
He ordered the same minus the milkshake and then focused with almost military precision on the salt shaker until the waitress left.
When he looked back up, you had caught something in his face and were giving him a look narrowed with sleepy suspicion.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That sounded like a lie.”
“It wasn’t.”
It was, technically. Or rather a concealment of mental evidence that would have been catastrophic to present in open court.
You squinted at him another second, then let it go, perhaps because your energy had limits and because the booth and the hum of the diner and the simple promise of food had already started working on you in visible ways.
Steve liked watching that more than he expected.
You sat with your elbows on the table, fingers loosely around the sweating glass of water, hair falling forward now and then until you pushed it back. Cleaner than this morning. More awake. Not bright, not carefree, not fixed – but present in a way you had not been the night before. There were still bruised places in you; he saw them every time your face went still for too long. Every time some shadow crossed your eyes and stayed there. But now there was also this: hunger, irony, the faint return of your old expression when you looked at him like you expected him to say something annoyingly decent.
When the food came, Steve felt an absurd wave of relief.
You did not pick at it.
You ate.
At first a little slowly, as if your stomach had to be persuaded the world had room for food again. Then with more certainty. Fries first, dipped in ketchup. Then half the burger. Then most of the rest. Steve kept his own pace deliberately normal, not staring, not encouraging, not making a production out of the simple fact that you were feeding yourself. But he noticed everything anyway. The color returning a little more to your face. The way your shoulders softened as your body got what it needed. The fact that after the first few bites you stopped looking at the plate like it was a task and started eating like it actually tasted good.
He liked that far too much.
And the milkshake.
He should not have enjoyed that as much as he did either.
It arrived in a tall metal mixing cup with a frosted glass beside it, pale gold-white and thick enough that the straw stood almost upright. You took one sip, closed your eyes briefly, and made a tiny sound of approval.
Steve nearly laughed again.
“What?” you asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“You keep saying that.”
“Maybe because it’s true.”
“Or because you’re a terrible liar.”
He picked up another fry to hide his smile. “Eat your milkshake.”
You snorted softly at that and did exactly that.
By the time you finished, there was more life in you than when you walked in. Not joy, exactly. But blood sugar and warmth and the first reliable signs that your body had decided to continue participating in the day.
When the check came, Steve reached for it automatically.
You were faster.
The credit card Tony had tucked into the phone box flashed silver between your fingers before Steve could object.
You laid it on the little tray with an air of solemn responsibility and said, “This also counts as self-care.”
Steve stared at you for a second.
Then he shook his head, smiling despite himself. “That’s a stretch.”
“It absolutely is not,” you said. “Burgers, fries, and milkshakes are basic emotional medical treatment.”
“That does sound like Tony’s logic.”
“Exactly. I’m honoring the spirit of the gift.”
He did not argue again.
Partly because you looked more like yourself defending the principle of Tony-funded milkshakes than you had at any other point all day, and he would not have interrupted that for much.
When you left the diner, the light had deepened toward evening.
The sky had begun its slow turn toward gold. The air cooled another degree. The road stretched ahead in long quiet lines and you did not once suggest turning back toward the city.
In fact, once you were on the bike again and Steve asked through the quiet between ignition and motion, “You want to head in?” you answered immediately, “No.”
Just that.
No.
And Steve, who had already known the answer before he asked, nodded once even though you could not see it and took you farther away.
He drove because driving was easy. Because road gave shape to time. Because as long as the miles kept unspooling under the wheels, nobody had to decide what the evening meant yet. The city disappeared fully in the mirrors. Highways gave way to smaller roads and then larger ones again. You passed gas stations, sleepy towns, stretches of river, stone walls, fields going bronze in the lowering sun. Sometimes you held him tightly. Sometimes more loosely. Once in a while he felt your helmet touch the center of his back, soft and regular, and suspected you had closed your eyes.
He would have kept going for hours.
Days, maybe, if that was what you needed.
The thought came and settled in him without drama. Not as fantasy. As fact. If you had told him you wanted to ride until the road ended, Steve suspected he would have found a way to make that happen too.
When the sun began leaning seriously toward the horizon, painting the edges of everything amber, he pulled off onto a quiet shoulder near a line of pines and cut the engine. The world rushed back in around them – cicadas, wind, the metal tick of the cooling bike.
You climbed off more slowly this time and pulled your phone from your bag while Steve stood beside the Harley with his helmet in one hand.
The screen lit your face pale blue for a moment as you searched.
He watched the changing expressions there: concentration, a brief frown, annoyance at one listing, faint relief at another. You were looking for function, not charm. Cheap enough to justify the choice. Clean enough not to feel like punishment. Close enough not to waste what remained of the evening.
“Any luck?” he asked.
You angled the screen toward him. “There’s a motel about fifteen minutes from here. Reviews say it’s not disgusting, which I think is all we can really ask.”
He leaned in enough to read the listing.
The place looked exactly like what it was: a roadside stop with floral bedspreads in the promo photo and the kind of sign that advertised free wi-fi as if that still inspired awe. But the reviews mentioned clean sheets, hot water, decent locks, and no bedbugs.
Good enough.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The motel sat just off a state road, low and flat and arranged in a horseshoe around a parking lot with painted lines fading under years of tires. The office glowed yellow through the front windows. A vending machine buzzed beside the ice machine. There were flower boxes under two of the windows trying very hard to make the whole place look more charming than it actually was.
Steve parked.
The sky behind the building had gone peach and bruised lavender at the edges.
Inside the office, the air smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and old carpet. A television behind the desk played some local news channel at low volume. The woman at the front counter barely looked up at first, then took one glance at the two of them – road-weary, close, quiet in the particular way that suggested a private story – and shifted into the impersonal politeness of someone wise enough not to ask unnecessary questions.
You stepped forward before Steve could.
“One room,” you said.
The woman nodded. “King okay?”
“Yes.”
Steve said nothing.
Not because he had not heard. Not because the decision did not travel through him with immediate force. It did. He felt every implication at once – the practical one first, that you did not want separate rooms tonight any more than you had wanted him in the chair the night before. Then all the others, more dangerous by far, rising just behind it. Proximity. Trust. Temptation. The fragile, terrible fact that he wanted exactly what you were asking for and still needed to be better than wanting alone.
But none of that belonged in the motel office under fluorescent lights with a woman waiting for a credit card and the television muttering in the background.
So Steve said nothing.
He only stood beside you with his jaw set in its quiet way and let you choose.
You paid with Tony’s card again. “Still self-care,” you muttered under your breath, and this time Steve did laugh softly.
The clerk handed over the keycard, gave directions to the room, and wished you both a good evening in the vague tone of somebody who had long since learned that “good” was a flexible term.
Outside, dusk had deepened.
Steve carried both helmets and your bag while you walked beside him to the room, the gravel crunching under your boots, motel windows glowing one by one as people settled in behind their curtains. Somewhere nearby a shower ran through thin walls. A truck door slammed. The smell of cut grass mixed with hot asphalt slowly cooling after the day.
At the room door, you took the keycard from him and unlocked it.
The room beyond was exactly what the listing had promised: not charming, not luxurious, but clean. One bed with a quilted cover in a pattern trying a little too hard to look cheerful. Two lamps. A small table. A television bolted to the dresser. A bathroom visible through the half-open door with harsh white lighting and tiles from another decade. The curtains were floral. The air conditioner rattled faintly but worked.
Safe. Dry. Quiet enough.
Steve set the helmets down by the door and the bag on the table.
Still he said nothing about the bed.
Partly because he knew that if you wanted to explain, you would.
Partly because asking Are you sure? would insult the deliberateness of the choice. You had not made it lightly. Not by now. Not after the day you had had, the questions you had asked, the truths already spoken between you. You knew what one bed meant physically. You also knew, he suspected, what it did not mean yet. Steve trusted you enough not to force either of you into a speech about it before one was needed.
So he only looked around once, taking inventory the way he always did in unfamiliar places. Windows latched. Second-floor room. Good line to the parking lot. Bathroom clean. One chair. One bed.
Then he looked at you.
You stood just inside the room with the keycard still in your hand, staring at the bed for one second too long.
Not regretting it.
Just acknowledging it.
Steve stepped closer, slow enough to leave you all the room in the world to change your mind.
“You okay?” he asked.
You turned your head toward him and gave a small tired nod. “Yeah.”
Then, after half a second, with a kind of honesty that made his chest ache, “I just didn’t want to be alone tonight either.”
Steve’s answer came quiet and immediate.
“I know.”
And because he did, because the room now held evening and road-dust and the long day’s worth of unspoken feeling between them, because all of that was true at once, he reached out and took your hand again.
Not to lead.
Only to let you know he was still there.
The keycard slipped from your hand and hit the carpet with a soft plastic click neither of you noticed.
One second you stood in the middle of the motel room with the door barely shut behind you, your fingers still warm in Steve’s, the whole space carrying that strange suspended quiet that came right before a moment tipped one way or another.
The next, you turned to him and caught his face in both hands and kissed him.
It was not cautious.
Not a question, not this time.
It was hunger, relief, exhaustion, longing, the whole impossible day compressed into one sudden decision. Steve had just enough time to register the startled heat of your palms against his jaw before instinct took over and he kissed you back with exactly the same force.
The helmets by the door. The floral curtains. The television bolted to the dresser. The ugly motel art on the wall.
All of it vanished.
Your mouth moved against his like you were trying to outrun thought itself, and for one dangerous, breathless stretch, Steve let you. His hands found your waist, then your back, pulling you closer until there was no room left between you at all. Somewhere at your feet, the keycard lay abandoned.
You broke from his mouth only to trail kisses along his jaw, and then lower, to his throat.
Steve’s head tipped back before he consciously meant for it to.
He shut his eyes.
A sound escaped him – low, helpless, entirely too honest – and under ordinary circumstances it would have embarrassed him straight to the roots of his hair. He knew that even while it happened. Knew it dimly, as one might know there was weather outside while being too consumed by heat to care.
Right now, it did not matter.
Nothing mattered except the fact that your mouth was on his skin and your hands were in his hair and every place you touched felt like a lit fuse.
He got one hand behind your neck, the other at the small of your back, not controlling, only guiding, and he moved you both toward the bed with more care than the kiss itself allowed. Your mouth came back to his before either of you reached it. The edge of the mattress caught against the back of his knees, and a second later the two of you fell onto it together in a clumsy, breathless tangle of limbs and sheets.
The mattress bounced.
Your legs caught with his. One of your hands stayed at his neck while the other slid beneath the collar of his shirt, and when the sound that left you vibrated between his lips – small, broken, wanting – it went through Steve like a shock.
Something inside him gave.
Not restraint exactly. Something older. More structural.
For one terrifying instant it felt as though both your minds had simply gone quiet, the complicated parts shutting off one by one until only instinct remained. Need. Warmth. Mouth. Hands. The pull of another body too close to resist and too wanted to step back from.
Steve moved over you almost without thinking, bracing his weight so he would not crush you, one knee slipping between yours as the kiss deepened again. His body met yours in one accidental, heated line–
And then everything changed.
You shoved at him.
Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to stop.
Steve pulled back at once.
He barely had time to see your face before you were already off the bed, already on your feet too fast, swaying once as the room seemed to tilt under you. You made it to the bathroom in three stumbling steps. The door slammed. The lock snapped into place.
Then he heard it.
Vomiting.
The sound hit him so sharply he was on his feet before he knew he had moved.
“Hey–”
He stopped himself at the bathroom door with one hand already half-lifted to knock. Every instinct screamed at him to get in there, to make sure you were upright, breathing, not falling apart where he could not see you. But the lock was engaged, and the violence of the sound on the other side told him this was not something he could force his way into without making it worse.
So he stood there instead, useless and rigid and listening.
The motel bathroom amplified every ugly detail. The choke of it. The scrape of hurried breath between heaves. Water running full blast for a second, then cutting off. A glass set down too hard against the sink. Silence. Then another wave.
Steve’s whole body had gone cold.
Not because of the vomiting itself. That was awful enough. But because he had seen the exact second panic had seized you. The way desire had cut out like a wire severed. The way you had looked past him rather than at him, as if something much larger and darker had entered the room all at once and swallowed whatever had been happening between you.
He pressed the heel of his hand briefly against the bathroom door, then forced it away.
“Talk to me,” he said through the wood, keeping his voice as calm as he could. “You don’t have to open the door yet. Just talk to me.”
No answer.
Only the sound of the sink again.
He waited.
Every second stretched.
He imagined too many possibilities at once. The alcohol from the night before hitting your stomach wrong after the burger and shake. The emotional whiplash of the day catching up with your body. The memory of Bucky and the abrupt collision between wanting Steve and remembering exactly what Bucky had done to you.
That last thought landed hardest.
Because the second it occurred to him, he knew.
Or rather, he knew enough.
He closed his eyes.
Of course.
Of course your body would remember what your mind had not had to say out loud yet. Of course desire could turn to terror in half a breath when betrayal had not only been emotional but physical, when another woman was no longer abstract but lived somewhere in the fact that Bucky had touched you after touching someone else, had kissed you, slept beside you, held you in those days while lying through his teeth.
The room felt suddenly too small.
Steve stepped back from the door only because he did not want you opening it to find him practically pressed against the frame.
When it finally unlocked, the sound seemed unnaturally loud.
You came out pale and shaken and with tears standing bright in your eyes.
Your face had changed.
Not just the physical aftermath of being sick – though that was there too, the flushed skin, the dampness around your hairline, the rawness at your mouth – but something deeper. Panic had hollowed you out from the inside. It sat naked in your expression, making your eyes too wide, your breathing too shallow, your whole body look like it was still braced for impact.
Steve had seen that look before on battlefields, in hospital hallways, in the seconds after somebody realized the danger was not theoretical anymore.
His chest tightened hard.
“Talk to me,” he said again, more softly this time.
You shook your head once as if the movement itself might knock the words loose.
Then they came all at once.
“I need bloodwork.” Your voice broke so badly on the second word he almost moved before you finished. “I– I don’t know if he gave me something, an STI, an STD, I don’t know, I don’t know–” Your breath hitched violently. “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry, Steve, I’m so sorry–”
You were apologizing to him.
That, more than anything, made something hot and merciless flare in Steve’s chest.
Not at you. Never at you.
At Bucky.
At the fact that this was now part of what he had left in his wake – that even your fear had to pass through shame before it reached language, that you stood there trembling and sick and panicked and somehow your first instinct was still to apologize.
Steve crossed the room in two strides.
He stopped just short of touching you.
Close enough for you to see every part of his face clearly. Far enough that if touch was the wrong thing, you had room to breathe.
“Hey,” he said.
He waited until your eyes found his.
“Do not apologize to me.”
Your mouth trembled. “I–”
“No.” His voice stayed gentle, but there was iron in it now. “Not for that. Not for this. Not for being scared.”
The tears in your eyes spilled over.
Steve wanted to gather you up and hold you the way he had the night before, but he did not do it yet. Panic made touch complicated. He knew better than to assume.
Instead he kept his hands at his sides and grounded himself in steadiness.
“You hear me?” he said. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for.”
You stared at him like you wanted to believe that and did not yet know how.
Your breathing was getting faster again.
Steve recognized the spiral before it fully took you.
“Okay,” he said, shifting into the same calm practical tone he would have used for someone injured and trying not to worsen the damage. “One thing at a time.”
Your eyes squeezed shut for a second. He saw you try to follow the instruction and fail halfway, saw how the panic kept jumping tracks under the surface.
“What if–” you started, then stopped, your voice fraying. “What if he– what if I–”
“We don’t know anything yet.”
He said it clearly. Firmly. Not as denial, but as structure.
“We don’t know that he gave you anything. We know you’re scared, and we know you want to get tested. That’s what we know.”
You drew one ragged breath. Then another.
Steve seized on the small improvement.
“Can you look at me?”
You opened your eyes again.
“That’s it,” he said quietly. “Stay with me.”
Your hands were shaking badly now. Not the small tremor from the forest. Full panic tremor. Adrenaline. Your fingers kept trying to curl into fists and failing.
Steve made a choice.
He lifted one hand slowly, giving you plenty of time to refuse, and held it out palm up between you.
“Can I touch you?”
The question seemed to cut through the panic just enough to reach whatever part of you still processed gentleness.
You nodded.
Only then did he take your hands.
Both of them.
God, they were cold.
He wrapped his fingers around yours and held on, anchoring without squeezing too hard. Your pulse fluttered wildly against his skin. He drew you one step closer, then another, until there was only enough space between you for air.
“You’re okay,” he said.
The words were not fully true – not in the broad sense. You were not okay. Of course you weren’t. But in the immediate sense, here in this room, in this second, you were safe, breathing, not alone. Sometimes that was what okay had to mean.
“We’ll get the bloodwork done,” he said. “Today, if we can. Tomorrow morning if that’s faster. I’ll take you.”
Another tear slipped down your face.
Steve let go of one of your hands only long enough to wipe it away with his thumb.
“I’ll take you,” he repeated.
Your lips parted on a shaky breath. “You don’t–”
“Yes,” he said.
No hesitation.
No room for argument.
“Yes, I do.”
Something in your face broke at that – not into panic this time, but into relief so sharp it looked painful. Your shoulders folded in a little. The fight went briefly out of them.
Steve kept going before fear could fill the space again.
“We can find a clinic right now. Or an urgent care. Or wait until morning and go somewhere that does the full panel properly. Whatever you want.” His thumb moved once across your knuckles. “But you are not doing this alone.”
The panic in your eyes flickered, surged again, then caught against the steadiness in his voice.
“I should’ve thought about it before,” you whispered. “I should’ve– I should have done it yesterday or this morning or before I kissed you and before–”
“Stop.”
Not harsh. Immediate.
You froze.
Steve took a breath, tried to bleed the anger out of his tone before it reached you. You did not need to feel it as directed at you. “You don’t get to do that to yourself.”
Fresh tears gathered anyway.
“You were dealing with shock,” he said. “With hurt. With everything else he dumped on you. The fact that this hit you now instead of earlier doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.”
Your chin wobbled once. You looked impossibly young in that moment – not childish, not fragile in any insulting sense, just stripped down to the rawness people carried when they were too scared to defend themselves properly.
Steve wanted, with a force that shocked him, to go back in time and drag Bucky bodily out of your life before any of this could touch you.
Useless impulse.
He buried it.
“What if I made things worse?” you asked in a whisper so small he almost didn’t hear it.
“You didn’t.”
“What if–”
“You didn’t.”
He said it again because repetition was sometimes the only thing strong enough to push back against panic.
You looked at him helplessly. “I’m scared.”
That finally did it.
Steve pulled you into him.
Not abruptly. Not like before, with the weight of desire behind it. This was something else entirely – protective, immediate, almost fierce in how instinctive it was. One arm came around your shoulders, the other around your back, and the second you felt the contact you collapsed into it with a sound so broken it nearly took his breath away.
“I know,” he murmured into your hair.
You clutched at the front of his shirt.
“I know.”
Your whole body shook again, though not with sobbing yet. With adrenaline bleeding off. With the aftermath of panic hitting muscle and bone now that you had a place to put it.
Steve held you tighter.
He could feel the heat of your face against his chest, the dampness from tears, the way your breathing still came too fast. He shifted one hand up between your shoulder blades and started the same slow motion he had used the night before, broad steady passes meant to teach a frightened body that it did not have to stay at war readiness forever.
“It’s okay to be scared,” he said quietly. “That makes sense. We’ll deal with the rest one step at a time.”
He did not tell you there was nothing to worry about.
That would have been a lie, and you would have heard it as one.
Instead he gave you what he could: a sequence. A plan. A shape for the fear to move inside.
“When you stop shaking this hard,” he said, “we’ll get you some water. Then I’ll look up the nearest place that can test you. If there’s somewhere open tonight, we go tonight. If not, we go first thing in the morning.”
Your fingers knotted harder in his shirt.
“What if it’s too soon to know?” you asked into his chest.
He closed his eyes for a second.
A fair question. A real one. He did not know the exact timing for every test window, and he wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
“Then we ask,” he said. “We get whatever they can do now, and we ask what needs follow-up later. We do it right.”
You made a small sound that might have been assent.
Steve kept holding you.
The motel room had become unnaturally still around the two of you. The air conditioner rattled in the corner. A car passed outside with tires hissing briefly on the road. Somewhere in the next room a television laugh track flared and died. Ordinary noises. Irrelevant ones.
Eventually your breathing began, slowly, painfully, to lengthen.
Not calm yet.
But less wild.
When Steve judged that you were no longer on the edge of spiraling again, he leaned back just enough to look at your face.
Your cheeks were wet. Your eyes still too bright. Your mouth tense with the effort of not unraveling again. But you were with him now. Present. Listening.
He brushed his thumb lightly under one eye.
“Do you want to sit down?”
You nodded.
He guided you to the edge of the bed and sat beside you, not too close at first, until your hand found his on its own and held it there as if the contact itself kept the room from tilting.
Steve pulled out his phone with the other hand and started searching.
Urgent care. STI testing. Women’s health clinic. Pharmacy. Anything within driving distance. He read quickly, filtering times, services, distances, whether they accepted walk-ins. He hated how imprecise it all felt. Hated the little disclaimers and business hours and cheerful websites. Hated that panic had to be met with forms and appointments and logistics.
“There’s an urgent care twenty minutes away,” he said after a moment. “Might be able to do some of it tonight. There’s also a clinic tomorrow morning that looks more specialized.” He glanced at you. “What do you want?”
You stared at the far wall for a second, thinking through a body that had not yet fully settled.
“Tomorrow,” you whispered. “I don’t think– I don’t think I can sit in a waiting room right now without losing it.”
“That’s okay.”
He meant that too. No pressure. No judgment. Just information and choice.
“We’ll go tomorrow morning.”
The instant he said it, you sagged with visible relief. Not because tomorrow was better. Because the decision had been made.
Steve turned off the screen and set the phone aside.
You were still holding his hand.
After another few seconds, you said, without looking at him, “I’m sorry.”
He almost groaned.
“Absolutely not.”
This time a weak, miserable huff of breath left you that might almost have been a laugh if your face were not still wrecked with panic.
Steve took that as progress.
He lifted your joined hands slightly so you had no choice but to look down at them. “You don’t ever have to apologize to me for stopping.”
You swallowed.
“Or for being scared,” he added. “Or for remembering something important at the worst possible second.”
Your eyes closed again.
“I just–” You pressed your free hand to your forehead. “For one minute I wasn’t thinking and then I was, and it was like…” Your voice frayed. “Like everything dropped out from under me.”
Steve knew.
Not personally. Not exactly. But he understood the structure of it. How the body could outrun fear until one physical sensation snapped a hidden trap shut.
He reached up and moved your hand gently away from your forehead before it could rub the skin raw.
“That doesn’t make what happened before the bathroom a mistake,” he said carefully.
Your eyes opened.
He held your gaze.
“It just means something else was there too. Something we had to stop for.”
The panic in your face softened into grief at that, which was easier to bear. Sadness he could sit with. Terror was harder.
You nodded once.
Then, after a long moment, in a very small voice, “Are you mad?”
Steve stared at you.
“Mad?”
“That I–” You made a helpless motion toward the bathroom, the bed, everything. “That I killed the moment.”
For one second he could not speak at all.
Then he turned fully toward you, took your face gently in both hands, and made you look at him.
“No.”
The word came low and absolute.
“No, I’m not mad. Not at you. Not about that. Not about anything you did.”
Your eyes searched his face with painful intensity, as if you needed to find even the smallest crack in the answer.
He gave you none.
“Okay?” he said.
Your lower lip trembled.
Finally, you nodded.
He let his hands slide away slowly, thumbs brushing your cheeks as they went, and felt a fierce kind of tenderness hit him all over again.
You were still scared. Still shaky. The day was nowhere near done with you. Tomorrow would be ugly in its own way.
But you had said it out loud now.
And he was here.
For this moment, that had to be enough.
Steve stood and went to get you water. When he came back, you drank because he handed it to you and because some part of you had resumed trusting him to decide the small necessary things when your mind was too crowded to do it cleanly. Afterward he found a washcloth in the bathroom, ran it under cold water, and brought it to you without comment. You pressed it to the back of your neck and shut your eyes.
The panic had receded to the corners now, waiting but no longer devouring the room.
Steve sat beside you again.
This time, when your hand found his, he turned it over and linked your fingers together.
Tomorrow, he thought.
Tomorrow you would handle the clinic, the bloodwork, the explanations, the timing, the questions.
Tonight, he would get you through the next hour.
Then the hour after that.
And whatever else came, he would still be here when it did.
You took off your shoes in silence.
It was not a heavy silence this time, not the kind that meant something had broken open and no one knew how to step around the pieces. This one felt more worn than wounded. Both of you had been dragged through too much in too few hours, and now the room had settled into that strange exhausted quiet that came after panic, when the body no longer had the strength to keep performing disaster at full volume.
Steve set his boots by the wall. You toed yours off more carelessly, one falling onto its side near the bed, the other skidding half under the little table. Neither of you bothered correcting it.
The motel room looked even less romantic now than it had before. Cheap lamp light. Floral bedspread turned down unevenly. The hum of the air conditioner. A muted television in some other room leaking through the wall in brief muffled bursts. The whole place felt temporary in the most literal sense – meant for passing through, not staying.
Maybe that helped.
Nothing in it asked anything of you except that you get through the night.
Steve crossed to the bed first and sat on the edge. You stood there for one extra second, arms folded loosely around yourself, looking at the mattress with that faint tension he had started recognizing in you by now – the hesitation of wanting comfort and fearing what it might cost someone else.
Then you climbed in.
Not close.
You lay down on your side near the edge of the bed with a careful inch or two of space between your body and his, as though the events of the last hour had redrawn all the boundaries and you were no longer certain where it was safe to place yourself.
Steve looked at the ceiling for a moment, then turned his head toward you.
You were staring the other way.
He could see the set of your shoulders, the way you held yourself slightly too still. Not relaxed. Not sleeping. Braced.
So he reached for you.
Not abruptly. Not to surprise.
He slid one arm around your waist and drew you gently back against his chest, giving you plenty of time to resist if resistance was what you wanted. You did not. You came with almost painful readiness, your body yielding to the pull as if some deeper instinct had been waiting for him to remove the need to choose.
There.
You fit against him with your back to his front, not quite curled but close to it. His arm settled across your middle. One of your hands came up to rest lightly over his forearm without really seeming to think about it.
For a few quiet seconds, neither of you spoke.
Then you said, into the dimness, “I don’t want you to… risk catching anything because of me.”
Steve shut his eyes briefly.
The wording of it got to him.
Not I don’t want to touch you.
Not I don’t think I can do this.
Not even I’m scared this time.
It was concern turned outward again. Toward him. Toward his body. Toward what he might be exposed to because you could not yet promise yourself clean certainty.
He tightened his arm around you by the smallest fraction.
“With the serum,” he said quietly, “the risk’s pretty low.”
You made a soft, unhappy sound. “Still.”
Still.
Yes.
Still.
Steve knew what you meant. Statistics and probabilities had nothing to do with the moral shape of it. You did not want your fear becoming his consequence too. You did not want one more thing to spread outward from what Bucky had done.
For one stupid moment Steve’s mind went where he did not want it to go – toward Bucky, toward the serum in Bucky’s blood as well, toward the possibility that maybe whatever reckless, selfish choices he had made had at least not extended into this particular horror.
Steve cut the thought off instantly.
He did not want Bucky in this bed, in this room, in this hour.
So he only said, “We’re not doing anything tonight.”
The words came steady and simple, meant to ease, not to distance.
“I know,” you murmured.
Steve rested his chin lightly near the back of your head. Your hair still smelled faintly clean from the shower, though the day had layered motel soap and cold air and a trace of diner vanilla over it now.
You did not sleep.
Neither did he.
It became obvious gradually. In the way your breathing never quite deepened. In the little shifts every ten or fifteen minutes as you tried to find a position your mind would agree to stay in. In the way Steve himself stared at the dim shape of the curtains and listened to the air conditioner and the distant traffic and knew with absolute certainty that rest was not coming on its own.
After a while, maybe because the silence had started to turn restless, maybe because he remembered nights from long ago when people survived them by talking about anything except the thing that had happened, Steve said softly, “You know, when they had me doing the Captain America stage tour, one of the girls in the chorus line hated me.”
You gave the tiniest startled shift against him.
That was promising.
“What?”
He smiled into the dark, though you could not see it. “Not all at once. At first she thought I was funny.”
“Hard to imagine someone looking at the little striped uniform and not falling in love.”
That one made him laugh under his breath.
“There you are.”
You huffed softly. “So why did she hate you?”
Steve adjusted his head a little on the pillow and let himself drift backward into the memory.
“Because I kept stepping on her feet.”
You turned your head slightly, enough that he could feel curiosity sharpen beneath the fatigue. “You?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true.”
He felt the smile in your voice even before you said, “Captain Coordination himself?”
“That came later,” Steve said. “Back then I had about three rehearsals, boots that didn’t bend right, and a shield they kept insisting I spin at exactly the wrong point in the number.” He paused. “The first few times I went out there, I was trying so hard not to look like an idiot that I looked exactly like an idiot.”
You laughed then.
Not loudly. Not long. But really laughed.
It moved through your body in a small warm ripple against him, and Steve felt something deep in his chest ease at the sound.
He went on because now he wanted to keep it there.
“There was one dancer – Marlene, I think – who finally grabbed me by the elbow backstage after rehearsal and told me if I kicked her in the shin one more time she’d use the shield to cave my head in.”
You made another little sound against the pillow. “Reasonable.”
“I thought so too.”
“And what did you do?”
“I apologized.”
“Did that help?”
“No.”
That got a second laugh.
Steve smiled into the darkness. “But I did get better. Eventually.”
He told you more after that.
About the endless loop of the same music and the same speech and the same choreographed heroics under hot stage lights. About the way the uniform itched. About kids in the audience who saluted so solemnly it made his chest hurt. About how humiliating it had been, at first, to know men his age were already overseas while he was out there selling war bonds like a patriotic wind-up toy. About the way he had learned to read a crowd anyway, learned where to smile, where to ad-lib, how to survive absurdity by committing fully to it.
You listened.
Really listened.
Not in the passive way people did when they waited for their turn to speak. You asked questions at the oddest, best places. What songs they used. Whether he got recognized afterward in bars. Whether the girls in the chorus line made fun of him to his face or only behind his back.
“To my face,” he said.
“That’s respect.”
“That’s New York.”
You hummed. “Fair.”
When his story finally ran out of momentum, the room stayed quiet for a few moments. Then you said, almost shyly, “I did Quantico in winter.”
Steve lifted his brows though you couldn’t see it. “That sounds miserable.”
“It was.”
You shifted a little, not pulling away, only settling more fully into his arm now that the words had opened.
“The shooting range at six in the morning was basically punishment disguised as training,” you said. “Everything hurt, all the time. And there was one instructor who seemed to take it personally every time I beat one of his favorite boys on the physical tests.”
Steve smiled. “You beat them often?”
“Enough.”
“Now that,” he murmured, “I believe.”
He felt you smile faintly against the pillow.
You talked more after that, and the more you spoke, the more Steve began to hear the shape of younger versions of you he had never known. The cadet at Quantico with too much pride to complain and too much spite not to use it as fuel. The sharp-eyed trainee who discovered she was very good at reading motive and pattern and the places violent men thought nobody looked. The profiler who lasted long enough in that unit to know she could do the work and then chose crime organized over behavioral analysis because she preferred chasing living networks to writing reports about broken minds after the fact.
“I liked the profiler work,” you admitted quietly. “At first.”
“What changed?”
You were silent for a moment.
Then, “Too much sitting in rooms with photographs and trying to think your way into the heads of men you’d cross the street to avoid in daylight.” A breath. “I was good at it. I hated how good.”
Steve understood that more than he wanted to.
“You wanted something more concrete.”
“Yeah.”
He let his thumb move once where it rested over your hand. “Makes sense.”
You told him about your first organized crime operation before Fury pulled you into a SHIELD-adjacent unit. About a months-long infiltration that amounted mostly to boredom, bad coffee, and pretending to care deeply about the supply chain for counterfeit electronics until suddenly it stopped being boring and turned dangerous within twelve hours. About the first time you realized you could walk into a room full of men who thought they were predators and leave with every one of them underestimating you in a different way.
“I used to collect the assumptions,” you said.
Steve chuckled. “Collect them?”
“Like trophies. Too young, too quiet, too pretty, too angry, too emotional, too whatever.” Your voice had gone drier now, more alive. “Makes it easier to break someone once you know exactly what stupid thing they believed about you.”
“That’s a little terrifying.”
“You’re welcome.”
He smiled into the dark again.
There was intimacy growing there now that had little to do with the bed and everything to do with the conversation itself. The kind made not of confessions exactly, but of details. The silly, specific, unheroic things people did not usually tell unless they wanted to be known in three dimensions. He had always known you were sharp. Capable. Hard to knock off center. But hearing you talk about Quantico and profiling and the quiet petty revenge of outperforming arrogant men by simply existing better than they did – this was something else. Not revelation. Texture.
You became more yourself the longer you talked.
Still hurt. Still carrying too much. But unmistakably yourself.
At some point the conversation drifted, as late-night conversations tended to do, toward things that seemed unrelated until they weren’t.
It started with Steve mentioning a museum poster he once saw used as set dressing on the bond tour, something laughably wrong they had stuck behind him in a lobby scene for propaganda photos. That led somehow to painting.
And that led to you surprising him.
“I don’t understand modern art,” you said with absolute seriousness. “At all.”
Steve laughed softly. “None of it?”
“Some man once glued a banana to a wall and people wrote essays.”
“I think that was after my time.”
“Lucky you.”
“So what do you like?”
You were quiet just long enough to make him think you might refuse the question out of fear it sounded unsophisticated.
Then you said, “Monet.”
Steve blinked in the dark.
“Monet?”
“Yes.”
He could hear the defensive note already sneaking into your tone and found it unreasonably charming. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You sound like you’re judging me.”
“I’m not judging. I’m–”
“You’re surprised.”
“A little.”
You twisted partly in his arms then so you could look back at him over your shoulder, hair spilling across the pillow between you. In the dim light your expression was mostly shadow, but he could still read the indignation in it.
“He painted water lilies,” you said, as if that settled every possible objection. “And gardens and sky and actual things. Things you can look at and feel something about without needing a pamphlet and a theory degree.”
Steve bit back a smile. “That is a very convincing argument.”
“It should be.”
He gave in and let the smile happen. “Have you ever been to the Louvre?”
You made a tiny noise that sounded almost wistful. “No.”
“You’d like it.”
“I know.” Your voice softened. “I’d really like to go, one day.”
One day.
The phrase hung in the dark with strange weight.
Not because it was romantic. Because it was a future tense. A simple wish cast beyond the immediate wreckage of the present. Steve heard that and, absurdly, felt hope stir in him – not for himself, not even for the two of you in whatever this was becoming, but simply because wanting to see the Louvre sounded like the voice of someone who still expected to have days beyond this one.
“What else?” he asked. “If we’re making the list.”
You hesitated. “List?”
“Things you want to do one day.”
You were quiet longer this time. He wondered if he had pushed too far. Then you said, “See Acadia again, maybe. But properly. On purpose. Not because I got dragged there for family obligations.”
“That sounds fair.”
“And… I don’t know. Eat real ramen in Tokyo. Rent a cabin somewhere for a month and not answer my phone. Learn to sail, maybe.”
“Sail?”
“I don’t know,” you muttered. “It sounds peaceful.”
Steve filed each one away without trying.
Acadia. Tokyo. A cabin. The Louvre. Sailing.
When you turned the question on him, he almost refused out of reflex. Not because he lacked answers. Because he was not used to saying them aloud.
But the room had become too honest for deflection.
So he admitted he still wanted to see the Alps in summer and not war. That he’d like to walk through modern Brooklyn without feeling like a ghost every third block. That he wanted, one day, to go somewhere with water and no schedule and do absolutely nothing useful for a week.
You laughed softly at that. “You? Nothing useful?”
“It’s aspirational.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
He made a low sound of agreement.
The hours passed that way.
Not in one straight conversation but in strands that braided together – stories, questions, half-jokes, brief silences that no longer felt strained, then another small topic picked up and turned over between you. At some point you both rolled onto your backs to stare at the ceiling while still touching, your shoulder against his, his arm under your neck. At some point your hand found his again and stayed there. At some point fatigue smudged the edges of everything, but neither of you seemed willing to let the talking stop entirely because the talking had become its own kind of shelter.
Steve had not expected that.
The kisses, maybe. The proximity. The charged uncertainty.
But not this easy, growing complicity.
The way you interrupted each other without irritation. The way he learned the exact pause that meant you were about to say something dry and lethal under your breath. The way you learned which stories from his past he turned into jokes only when they still mattered more than he liked to show. The way your voice changed when you spoke about work versus art versus childhood. The way being funny came back to you in flashes as the night wore on, as if some part of your real personality was testing whether it was safe to reenter the room.
By the time the first weak traces of dawn crept pale around the curtains, neither of you had truly slept.
Steve saw it in your face when you finally sat up a little, rubbing at your eyes. Felt it in his own body too – heavy-limbed, overtired, strangely clear in the way people got when exhaustion had passed through dullness and come out the other side.
“Morning,” you mumbled.
He huffed a laugh. “Technically.”
That almost won him a smile.
There was no point trying to rest more after that. The clinic would open soon. The anxiety waiting in the next room of the day had started to stir again anyway, subtle at first, then harder to ignore. Steve saw it gather in you in tiny signs: the way your hand lingered too long around a paper cup of motel coffee neither of you really wanted, the way you stared at your phone screen without reading it, the way the lightness of the night’s conversation began retreating behind more immediate dread.
So you both got up.
Steve showered quickly after you, changed back into yesterday’s clothes, ran cold water over his face longer than necessary, and met you outside by the bike. You looked steadier than the night before but quieter, the motel’s morning brightness too unforgiving to hide behind.
The ride to the clinic felt shorter than any of the others.
Maybe because now there was an endpoint neither of you could pretend not to see.
The place itself was part urgent care, part women’s health clinic, in one of those low suburban medical buildings designed to look reassuring and accomplished only in seeming forgettable. Clean windows. Potted plants by the entrance. A glass door with hours posted in careful lettering. Inside, everything smelled like disinfectant and coffee and recycled air.
Steve offered to wait outside when they reached the desk.
You looked at him, eyes shadowed and tired and still far too vulnerable after the night they had just had, and said, “No. Stay.”
So he stayed.
The intake questions were the worst part at first.
Not because they were cruel. Because they were ordinary.
Forms. Dates. Last sexual contact. Reason for visit. Boxes to check. Little blank spaces where private fear had to become legible enough for administration. Steve sat beside you in the waiting area while you filled them out, one line at a time, and every so often your pen paused midair as if the wording itself had caught in your throat.
He did not try to read over your shoulder.
He only sat close enough that your knee touched his.
When the nurse called your name, you looked at him once. He stood with you without a word.
In the exam room, when you explained the situation in careful half-sentences to a doctor who was professional enough not to flinch and kind enough not to make false promises, Steve stood a little behind you and to the side, present but not crowding. He listened while terms like panels and follow-up windows and precautionary protocols passed through the room. He watched your face as you nodded at instructions that seemed to take more effort to absorb than they should have. He watched you give blood with your jaw set harder than necessary, determined not to shake in front of strangers.
He thought, with quiet fury, that you had already been brave enough for one lifetime and had no business being asked for more.
Still, you gave it.
When it was done, when the tests had been ordered and the blood drawn and the next steps explained, when all that remained was waiting and a paper bracelet in the trash and the antiseptic smell of the room still clinging to the air, Steve put his hand at the small of your back and guided you out into the daylight again.
It was full morning now.
The day had properly begun.
And for all the fear that still waited in what came next, something else had settled between you over the course of the night too: a kind of companionship neither of you had named, made of old war stories and Monet and ramen in Tokyo and the way you now reached for his hand without thinking.
Steve closed his fingers around yours as you stepped off the curb toward the Harley.
You looked at him once, tired and pale and real.
He did not say it’ll be fine.
He only said, “We’ll get breakfast.”
And the small, grateful sound you made in answer told him that, for now, that was exactly the right thing.
Summary: Steve really doesn't like the person you're interviewing, so afterwards he fucks you senseless.
Trigger Warning(s): unprotected sex, cursing, degradation, slight forcing, mentions of breeding kink, not proof read, maybe some typos
Word Count: 3.4k
A/N: After many moons searching for this post from a deleted account (I finally was able to get my old tumblr name back!!!) I present to you this filthy piece ~ I wrote this back in 2022 (I think) when I was supposed to be doing homework. Here I am, four years later reposting this piece that is my absolute guilty pleasure! Please enjoy ~
**Minors and ageless blogs do not interact. 18+ only**
“You’re interviewing him?”
You turned to look at your boyfriend as you buttoned up your blouse. You cocked a brow at the tone of his implication. You had been getting ready for a meeting for an interview that was to be done in an hour when he stalked into the room.
Ever since Steve had found out you were interviewing Loki for his part in the literal destruction of New York City, he had been making comments here and there on why this was a bad idea. Maybe he was right, but you were just over the moon Loki had even agreed to do an interview with you.
"Babe, I don't really see what's the problem," you responded nonchalantly, taking your time to button up the last few buttons. To show some boobage or to not. You chewed on the inside of your lip in thought.
Steve scoffed. "Are you kidding me? He just tried to take over New York City, causing millions in destruction. He's dangerous."
"Dangerous." You repeated. "Everyone is dangerous, Steve, even The Avengers. Besides, there's going to be, like, a bunch of police guys there guarding him. I actually think they might be S.H.I.E.L.D. agents."
You watched as the muscles on Steve's arm flexed as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"Jesus Christ, Steve--"
"Language--"
"Why don't you just come with me? Brood in the corner like my silent protector."
It was silent for a few heartbeats, and you thought Steve might laugh in your face. Instead, he shook his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
"Fine," Steve said, leaning back against the door frame. "Button up your shirt again, I missed the show."
You giggled and rolled your eyes, but obeyed. You unbuttoned your blouse, then buttoned it back up again slower this time, giving a good show.
You walked into the interview room: Loki's cell. He was held behind some type of glass box, the floors some sort of dark, holographic tile. The room was bare, housing only a dozen or so S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Loki had escaped once from a cell similar to this, the chances of him escaping again were likely. These agents wouldn't be able to do much to stop it.
You stepped towards the glass, stopping a foot or two from the cell. Loki was already standing, and as he stalked towards you, he made sure to trail his eyes over your body.
"Did you get all dressed up for me?" Loki drawled, a smirk tugging on the corners of his lips.
You rolled your eyes and pulled out the small recorder that was tucked into the waistband of your tight skirt. "I hate to bruise your ego, but it's actually a job requirement," you responded, tripling checking the recorder had enough charge. You had checked the decent sized black rectangle before you left the apartment and then on your way over here. A nervous habit and the constant feeling that something would go wrong.
"An enjoyable job requirement. For me," Loki commented.
You heard a low growl come from Steve and felt the warmth from his chest as he stepped closer to you.
"Oh," Loki hummed. "A displeasure to see you Mr. America." Loki took a few steps closer. "Did they send you in to keep guard, too?"
"No," Steve answered roughly. "And it's Captain."
"Yes, so sorry. Mr. Captain." Loki smiled wide, clearly enjoying making your boyfriend irritable.
You couldn't help but giggle and look down. Loki was charming and funny. Too bad he was an absolute menace to society.
"Mr. Laufeyson--" you started, pressing the record button.
"Oh, I like the sound of that," Loki purred.
"--I want to make you aware that from this point forward, I'll be recording or conversation for the interview you agreed to."
The door that lead to Loki's cell closed with a loud thud and you walked down the quiet hallways in silence. Steve hadn't said much since speaking up before the interview, and you had this gut feeling that something was wrong. You stole a glance toward him and frowned. He was brooding, his brows knitted together with irritation. Even as pissed as he looked, he still looked so beautiful, like he was carved by the hands of a goddess.
"Stop staring at me," Steve said sharply.
You frowned at the roughness in his voice. "You're angry."
"I'm not."
You moved your gaze back to the labyrinth you were walking through, deciding to stay quiet. It was no use trying to talk to Steve when he got in these moods. His walls would come up and anything you'd say would just bounce right back at you. You'd just have to wait until you got home.
The next few minutes were filled with the sounds of your shoes echoing off the dark floors. At this point, you weren't even sure where you were going, and you were hoping that Steve would guide you in the right direction. But he stopped, causing you to stop with him.
"What--?"
"I told you, you shouldn't have done that interview with him," Steve hissed.
You turned towards him, your brows furrowed with confusion. You opened you mouth, but closed it as soon as Steve continued.
"The whole time--the whole fucking time--he was doing nothing but flirting with you. Commenting on your clothes, commenting on your hair, commenting on your hips--"
"I do have nice 'birthing hips,'" you interjected playfully.
Steve backed you up against a wall, his hand slamming against the tile above your head. "That's not the fucking point," he growled, his face inches from yours.
"Language," you breathed. Your thighs instinctively rubbed together at the close proximity of your bodies. With just a slight arc of your back, your aching breasts would be flush against his chest. You mentally kicked yourself. Now wasn't the time to have your head in the gutter. Not when Steve was finally addressing the situation at hand.
"You looked like you were enjoying the flirting, too," he spat. "Did you?"
You were at a loss for words. Of course you enjoyed the playful flirting. You enjoyed the senseless comments just to irritate Steve and the below the belt jabs just to get a response out of him. How could you not? Steve was always so tense, so worried about his image in public that it came home with him. He didn't know how to let loose, how to just be Steve Rogers instead of Captain America.
"Yes," you finally answered. "I enjoyed it. A lot."
Steve pushed himself off the wall and ran a hand through his perfectly combed hair. "Fuck--" He took a deep breath and looked at you, then looked away. He seemed to be having an internal battle with himself.
"I liked the way you reacted to it," you continued bashfully, looking down. "Y'know, this--" You quickly gestured with a hand to Steve and stepped away from the wall.
You felt stupid at the disclosure, but you didn't want Steve to think you enjoyed the flirting because of who it was coming from. You liked the way Steve would place a subtle hand on your hip or gently brush back your hair whenever Loki would make a sly remark. Steve wasn't the possessive type, and you enjoyed it. But you also didn't know him being possessive would do these things to you. Your breasts felt heavier, your nipples pebbled, and your core ached with a neediness you had never felt before.
"This..." Steve trailed off. He gave a breathy chuckle and shook his head. "You're mine."
You blinked, taking a shallow breath. You needed to hear him say that again, needed to hear him say that while he was in you.
Steve shook his head again and backed you up against the wall once more. "You're mine." He buried his head in the crook of your neck and gave you a rough kiss against the sensitive skin. "Mine."
"I'm yours," you whispered, digging your fingers into his shoulders. You tilted your head back, exposing more of your neck for Steve to explore.
He pushed a knee between your legs and pried them open as much as your skirt would allow. His thick, muscled thigh rest on your lower thighs. If only you could hike this skirt up more, you thought, you'd be able to get some friction on your core. Your hips bucked and you licked your lips.
Were you really going to do this right here in the hallway? Steve tangled a hand in your hair and tugged roughly, eliciting a soft moan from your lips. To hell with this being a public space, you wanted Steve now. Your hands trailed down the blue button up he was wearing down to the gold buckle of his brown leather belt. You groaned in frustration, the belt lodged deep within the buckle.
"Steve Rogers and very horny girlfriend," echoed Fury's voice through the PA system. "Go fuck in your own house before I have you arrested."
Your hand froze, as did the rest of your body. How could you have forgotten you were in a public S.H.I.E.L.D. hallway with dozens of cameras? Nick Fury was practically watching the beginning of a porno. You moved your hands away from Steve's belt buckle and fixed your skirt. He stepped away from you, fixing his shirt. That's when you noticed his smirk. Had he planned all this? Realization hit you like a semi truck. Fury had exposed you all over the speakers. Speakers that sounded everywhere. Everywhere like in Loki's cell. After all the shameless flirting, Steve had proven to Loki that you were his.
You frowned. How could Steve have done this? It wasn't like him at all to dangle you like some prize.
"Real fucking mature, Steven."
"What's wrong, angel? You haven't spoken to me the whole ride home."
"Can it Steven," you snapped, tossing your purse on the kitchen counter. "You used me back there."
Steve scoffed. "Did I make a little scene in that hallway knowing Fury would say something? Maybe, sure. Did I know that Loki would hear? Yes. But, Angel, what was I supposed to do when you liked his flirting?"
You whirled on the ball of your foot toward Steve and pointed a finger at him. "You tricked me! I thought you were finally showing--I don't know, this dominant and possessive side? And I thought it was genuine, not some fucking show!"
Steve gave a heavy sigh. "Angel--"
"Don't fucking 'Angel' me, Steven." You pointed at him again, this time poking his chest. "I wanted to fuck you in that hallway. I was ready to fuck you in that hallway."
Steve grabbed you by the wrist and pulled you closer to him. "I was more than ready to fuck you in that hallway, too," he said, his voice a tad more gentle. "I would have fucked you against the glass of Loki's cell to claim you." A hot shiver ran down your spine and fluttered in your core. "I would have fucked my cum deep inside you until it ran down your legs for everyone to see. Especially him."
Your breath caught in your throat and the anger that was once boiling over in your blood had now dispersed. What replaced it was a deeply rooted lust that burned to your very core. Your blood, your body was on fire and the only way to sate it was to rip the clothes from your body and ride Steve until dawn.
"Do you want that, Angel?" Steve ran a hand down your arm and gently turned you around. His hand ran over your abdomen, his fingers catching in the buttons of your blouse. Your back was now flush against his chest and you felt something hard against your lower back. You breathed a shaky sigh of anticipation as he untucked the shirt from the tight skirt. His fingers worked to free the buttons and you shivered at the tension it caused your body.
You could only nod as the last button was freed, your chest nearly exposed. Your nipples hardened further at the coolness of your shared apartment, your lace bralette doing nothing to keep you warm.
He ran his hands up your bare stomach, then to the bottom of your bralette. His fingers dipped under the black, Lacey fabric and caressed the bottoms of your breasts. Another shaky sigh passed your lips and you rest your head back against shoulder. The feeling of his fingers sliding and squeezing your tender breasts, pinching and rolling your nipples between his fingers had you squirming for more. Wonton mews fluttered through your lips and your own hands rest over his, begging to handle you more rough.
Warm, wet kisses trailed along your neck to the outmost corner of your jaw. Your skin tingled where his lips met your flesh, tingled and buzzed until you felt as if you were going to explode. Steve had never handled you like this, had never been so passionate with you before.
Sex had always been mostly simple with Steve. Standard missionary was the go-to, with the occasional cowgirl. Everything else was…uncharted territory. Of course, you didn’t mind the simplicity, but this…this was amazing.
You pushed your bottom against his hard bulge and whined softly. “Steve,” you mewled. “I need more—please.”
Steve paused his ministrations on your breasts, his breath shaky against your neck. He slid his hands out of your lacy bralette, pausing at the bottom. In an instant, his fingers were digging into the lace, ripping the fragile fabric in two. Goosebumps pimpled over your breasts as the cold air of your apartment enveloped you skin. You gasped softly, the sudden show of aggression catching you off guard. His hands found place at the hem of your skirt, pushing the tight professional ware down your ass.
“What do you need, sweetheart?” Steve asked, his voice an octave lower.
You shakily stepped out of the skirt now pooled at your feet, now only standing in your opened blouse and a simple black thong. You shrugged the blouse to the floor, the remnants of your bralette falling with it. You turned around to face Steve in your nakedness.
“I need you,” you answered timidly, your gaze on the floor. “I need you inside me.” It was weird to tell him what you needed, having never spoken to each other during sex other than the occasional “you like that?” But you felt brave and…sexy. You took the smallest step closer, your fingers teasing the button of his jeans.
Steve let out a shaky breath, his hands gripping your hips tightly. You managed to undo the button one-handed and drag the zipper of his pants down, your fingers brushing against his clothed cock. You felt him twitch slightly, and you couldn't help the smile that tugged on your lips. He must be so hard, probably harder than he's ever been.
"Do you need me, too?" you asked, your hand fingering the hem of his boxers. Where was this braveness coming from? You slipped your hand inside his underwear, gently grabbing his cock. Your thumb swiped along the head of his penis, smearing his pre-cum.
Steve swallowed hard, and you could see the effort it took for him to bring his hand to caress your cheek. "I want you to suck my cock," Steve grunted.
Your thumb stopped its ministrations and you pulled your hand from his boxers. "No." You stepped back, looking Steve up and down.
Steve cocked his head to the side, his brows furrowed. "'No'?" he repeated. He took a step towards you, and you took a step back, your lower back brushing against the kitchen island counter. Steve shook his head and pulled up the shirt he wore. Understandably, you were quite distracted by his chest and the dark hairs leading down to--
You let out a small yelp as Steve grabbed you by the backs of your knees and placed you on the counter. He forced your legs apart, running a finger over the thin g-string covering your heated mess. A finger pushed the thin fabric aside and delved inside your needy cunt. His finger flexed and curled almost instantly, and you let out a loud moan.
"You sound so needy," he growled, pulling his finger out. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, spreading your juices. "Is it me that's got you like this? Or him?" He shook his head, disgust shining through his features. "Slut."
You winced at the word, at the harshness of it. Did he really mean that? "Steve," you started, "of course it's you--" You were cut off with a loud moan pushing through your lips as Steve inserted two fingers inside you. His fingers curled once more, and with it your toes.
"This pussy belongs to me," he pumped his fingers inside you, his other hand pushing down his boxers and pants. "Your pussy belongs to me."
Without a warning, Steve's fingers abandoned your needy core, and in its place was his cock. The thickness stretched you out, and the head of his penis hit against your puffy walls. He pulled out quickly, then bottomed out inside you once more. His hands gripped your hips roughly, his thrusts just as rough. You cried out each time, nearly feeling him in your stomach. It was too much, but not enough at the same time. You had never been fucked like this before, and you relished in it. Relished in the way Steve's balls slapped against you with a wet snap. Relished in the way Steve made a mess of you--your wetness dripping down to the counter.
"I belong to you," you whimpered, back arching. Your hands gripped his thick biceps, your nails digging into his flesh.
Steve's thrusts faltered and he finally looked at you. He pulled you flush to his chest, your bare breasts against him. He gripped your chin and looked deep into your eyes. "Say it again."
You were caught aback, never having seen Steve so vulnerable before. You moved your hands up to rest on his shoulders. "I'm yours, Steve. Body and soul."
It was as if a switch had been pressed in Steve. One minute you were on the counter and the next you were bouncing against the wall. Steve thrust up into you, his cock never leaving the warmth of your pussy. His grip on your hips was ironclad as he fucking you on the wall. You screamed in bliss and in pain. You'd never been explored like this--Steve had never explored you like this. His cock was hitting places you didn't even know existed or felt good. He shifted his position, thrusting into you at a different angle and you saw stars. Tears leaked from the corner of your eyes as your orgasm washed through your body. Your legs wrapped around his torso, your ankles locking around each other.
Steve fucked you through your orgasm, sweat lining the both of your bodies. Your hands tangled in his hair and tugged lightly, another cry emanating from your lips. You ground your hips down against him, your clit rubbing against his pelvis. You could feel another orgasm coming, could feel the tension in your body rise. Your fingers tightened on the strands of Steve's hair as another orgasm was nearing its peak. Your back arched as your body trembled with another orgasm, your legs shaking. Steve's thrusts faltered and he groaned loudly. His cock twitched inside you as he pushed himself as deep as he could in your battered cunt. He allowed himself to spill his seed within you, and you both stayed in that position for quite some time. Even when you felt his cock soften within you, you stayed like that, each breathing hard.
"Steve?" you breathed, untangling your fingers from his hair.
"Hmm?" he answered. His head rest on your shoulder, his breath fanning against your neck.
"Did you really mean that? That you'd fuck me in front of Loki?"
Steve lifted his head and looked at you. "Well, maybe not in front of someone--"
"But like," you paused timidly, "in public?"
Steve chuckled. "I wouldn't mind, angel. We can try it one day."
summary: you’ve known clark kent your entire life. you know him better than you know yourself, if you’re being honest. and you are way too comfortable with him.
warnings: 18+, mdni, smut (piv, unprotected sex, handjob(?) idk you’ll see, fingering, oral, praise, clark talks you through it, cum.. eating..?, finger licking/in mouth, cute n soft, BIG DICK!clark, size kink/difference, dacryphilia undertones, aftercare, clark gets exposed to a breeding kink, porn with little bit of plot), fluff, shy (at first) and soft!clark, teasing mainly from reader to annoy clark, lowk secondhand embarrassment, reader finally in her last year of university after taking a long fucking time to decide on what she wanted to do with her life, pet names (honey, sweetheart, baby), no use of y/n, NOT proofread // wc: 7k
yari yaps: i’m supposed to be writing my bwatober fic. but NOOOOO mr. kent has me in a chokehold and im a useless writer that can’t focus on deadlines (bwatober will be posted soon i promise i js cant work on it when this was on my mind) // divider credits
“So, I've been wondering— and you don’t have to answer— but is your dick different from humans?”
You say the words without even looking up from your textbook and notebook. A pen continues to twirl between your fingers as you absentmindedly fidget. The choking noise that fills the air concerns you for half a second, forcing you to look over your shoulder and at the man who was quietly going through his articles on his laptop before you rudely interrupted him.
“You haven’t talked in hours,” he mutters, referring to how you crashed his apartment just to study. He removes his glasses off of his face– frames that he doesn’t even need to wear– to drag a hand down his face like it would wipe away the absurdity of your question. “And this is what you say?”
“My anatomy class finally moved on to sex,” you say, as if that was supposed to explain anything.
“… Right.” Clark looks exhausted. He probably wishes he never opened his front door to you, but here you were. Well, even if he didn’t, you could always use the spare key that he gave you ages ago. “You know, I think I like you better when you’re not talking.”
You roll your eyes at his sass, “C’mon. You know why I'm asking this.”
Of course he does. You were the first person to know of his abilities— right after his Ma and Pa. You'd been there to watch him soar into the sky for the first time, finally unafraid. You watched him discover ice breath, and remembered how distraught he was as he looked at you.
Clark sighs, chest rising and falling dramatically with the breath. “My… reproductive organs are similar, from what I can tell.”
“From what you can tell,” you repeat, raising an eyebrow.
“I didn’t exactly grow up with Kryptonian anatomy lessons,” he shoots back immediately. “I haven’t seen a spliced Kryptonian in a museum— a body donated for science and research.”
You pause, then shrug slightly. “I guess.”
He huffs. Actually huffs, like he’s throwing a mini tantrum over your lack of thought to your question. Despite it, he still settles back onto the couch. His muscles no longer feel locked in place, he can breathe normally—
“So you don’t have an alien dick?”
“Sweet lord— what are you going on about?” he whines, looking at you with pleading eyes. You ignore it in favor of expanding your knowledge on his biology.
“You know,” you say, waving a hand in the air, “Some of the rifts— there’s documents on the corpses that come through. talking about how some male presenting aliens have both uterus and testicles, like they can impregnate and be pregnant, too—“
“I don’t have a womb,” he says, followed by your name falling from his lips in exasperation.
“But are you sure?”
“You know those released documents also included strong evidence that those aliens also had a menstrual cycle,” he quickly says. Clark moves his laptop off of his thighs, and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. He’s one second away from burying his face into his hands. “I haven’t— I think I would know if I was bleeding from my pen… from my thing.”
Clark's ears are red. Bright red. He can’t even hide it.
Suddenly, your questions are no longer out of simple curiosity. Now, you want to poke the bear. Except the bear is too sweet and kind to tell you to knock it off, to get out of his apartment, and to leave him the hell alone.
“Your thing?” you tease, a smile spreading across your face. “Your cock, Clark.”
“Do you have to be so vulgar?”
“It’s basic anatomy.” You cross your arms over your chest. “One that you claim to have.”
“I don’t—!” He runs his hands through his hair, clearly stressed. You can’t help but giggle at the sight. “I don’t claim to have regular anatomy, whatever that means.”
“So you admit that your body is biologically built differently.”
“I mean, yes, but not like that!”
“Like what?”
“Please,” he groans, nearly desperate now.
“Ooh, begging,” you say as your grin spreads even wider. “Are you trying to keep Kryptonian biology a secret?”
It doesn’t take much for him to break. You knew that. Always have, and always will. Clark was scarily easy to bait.
“My dick is normal!” he finally shouts, face still flushed. You swear he’s sweating, too.
“But how do you know that?” you ask. You’re not even trying to hide the lilt in your voice. “You compare lengths in the locker room in school?”
“Oh my— stop. please.”
“So guys don't do that? That’s just a myth said online?”
“You’re not totally off,” he quickly says, only to pause a moment later. “Can we talk about something else? Anything else?”
You pout at him, giving him your best pleading eyes you could muster. For someone made of steel and ice, this man melted at the sight of you. He always did.
A deep sigh escapes his chest as he leans back into the couch. “My college ex said my… penis… was above average. I haven't seen other men’s… things, but i’m assuming since she didn’t have an issue with it then it has to be normal.”
Your eyebrows raise. “Do you not watch porn?”
Your name falls from his lips in utter shock, matching the look on face. “You do?”
“You don’t?”
Clark stares at you, as if he’d been slapped with a bucket of freezing water. You can only stare back, waiting for his response.
“… No,” he finally mutters.
“Huh,” you say, taking in the sight of him. Even seated, he’s large. If you stood in front of him right now, you’d barely be taller than him. “Well, it makes sense that you’d be above average. with your height and all. Do you think that is also Kryptonian?”
“I don't know.” Clark shrugs, and it seems like the embarrassment of the topic is slowly melting off of him. “Probably?”
You hum, contemplative. “So, your dick doesn’t have ridges on it? Like spiky nubs along the shaft? Do you think your sperm count is higher than the average human male? Must be stronger, too. I wonder if a normal human woman would be able to carry your children to term without complications.”
A frown takes over his face at your rapid fire questions and commentary. Though he doesn’t look as bothered as he was earlier. It's as if he’s really thinking about it this time.
“I would really hope that whoever carries my children won’t have any complications, but that’s another thing that I wouldn't know until the time came.” Clark's pointer finger taps thoughtfully on his knee as he continues to think, “All of your questions have to do with research that hasn’t been conducted on me.”
“You didn’t answer my question about the appearance of your cock, Clark.”
This time, a pretty red takes over his face. “Why are you so intrigued?”
“Just answer, or I'm gonna demand you to just show me so I can find out,” you groan.
“If I do show you, would you stop asking?”
It’s your turn to freeze in place, blinking at him. He's still the shade of a tomato, but he’s not cringing at his words. If anything, he seems determined. like this would really shut you up.
“Take your pants off then,” you dare.
Clark, ever so obedient and kind, moves. his hands reach for the button of his jeans, so certain and sure.
Suddenly, you realize how close the two of you really are.
You grew up together with neighboring farms in Smallville. The two of you used to sleep in the same bed as children when your parents dropped you off at Kent's for a sleepover.
As a child, the two of you used to change right in front of each other. Even as a budding teenager, you didn’t feel the need to hide away from him, though he was always a respectful kid and began to turn his head away on his own.
Clark went off to college first to pursue journalism. It didn't stop your contact with each other, even when he went off to Metropolis first. You simply told him you’d follow him soon. And you did.
You had your own place in the city, no longer dorming as it was your last year in university. Still, you spent more time in Clark's apartment than on your own. You had a key to his place, welcoming yourself and making yourself at home even when he was at work on the Daily Planet— especially when he was at work as superman.
You’d fussed over wounds you knew would heal at the sight of first light, and he would let you take care of him. Clark knew it calmed you down.
Clark always let you do what you wanted, and would always do as you asked.
And now, he was unzipping his pants.
“Wait,” you say quickly, as his thumbs hooked under the waistband of his briefs. “Are you okay with this?”
Clark's eyebrows pull together, eyes flickering up to you. “You’re the one who asked, and now you’re the one backing out?”
“I just… I don't want to make you uncomfortable if you don’t actually wanna…” you murmur slowly.
“It’s you.” His words are said like it’s normal— like being you was a good enough reason to do anything. In this case— take his pants off. “I don't mind.”
You swallow, a weird rush of sentimental feelings going through you. Then, you nod, steeling yourself. “Show me your weird alien cock.”
“It's not weird,” he grumbles, “You’re lucky I love you.” A moment later, he’s lifting his hips off the couch slightly as he pushes both underwear and pants down his thighs.
Your jaw drops, and you suddenly can’t breathe.
The sight before you— he was right. His cock isn’t weird. If anything, it’s the prettiest dick you’d ever seen.
Maybe it was the mix of him being carefully groomed as well and the fact the man before you was already pretty everywhere else, but you don’t think you’d ever seen a dick as nice as his.
Clark's soft, but he’s still big. His skin is smooth, resting against his pelvis, dormant and asleep. You wondered if he was a grower— if he got bigger than the estimated seven inches you were staring at.
Even his balls were fucking nice to look at. The seam of it— oh my God. You were going insane.
“So?” he questions, breaking the silence and your thoughts. He sounds nervous, “What’s the verdict?”
You lick your lips, taking a deep breath. “You're actually really beautiful, Clark."
He stares at you, and you’re certain it was the last thing he expected you to say. So, you clear your throat.
“I mean,” you start, “I've seen a good amount of cock. Yours is, by far, the best.”
Clark blinks at you, still digesting your words. “… Thanks. I guess.”
“Is it as soft as it looks?” you ask, finally getting a grasp of yourself again. “It looks soft. Like— your skin.”
He pauses for a moment, looking down at himself. Then, he reaches.
You lied. You don’t have a grasp of yourself. Your sanity is gone, thrown out the window at the sight you were witnessing.
Clark, sitting there on the couch, pants pulled down, with his hand wrapped around his cock. He's still flaccid, but he’s running his hand along his dick, trying to get the best answer for your question.
“Just feels like… the rest of me,” he murmurs, frowning as he concentrates. “Nothing really different. You wanna feel?”
You’re a dead woman.
You brought up this topic. At first, it was genuine curiosity. Upon seeing his reactions, you moved onto some lighthearted teasing. It wasn’t supposed to progress to whatever was happening now. In the back of your mind, you’re wondering if he’s doing all of this now just to mess with you like you did with him.
The curious look on his face tells you he’s not even thinking about it.
You should tell him it’s a bad idea. That there’s boundaries in friendships, and even though you’re so comfortable with him, maybe there’s things you shouldn’t be doing.
But your feet are moving, and you’re standing in front of him within a few steps.
“You sure?” you ask, hoping your voice comes out steady.
Clark releases himself, then nods.
You’re leaning forward before you have the chance to allow more rational thoughts to invade your mind. It’s as if your hand wasn’t connected to the rest of your brain, moving before you could even stop yourself– and holy shit your hand is small compared to him. He's warm to the touch, skin smoother than you originally thought.
His cock jumps in your hand, and Clark flinches. The gravity of the situation just dawned upon him, and blood was rushing throughout him, coloring his cheeks and hardening his dick.
“Wait,” he whispers, breath catching in his throat. “I’m sorry— I didn’t— I'm not meaning to—“
“You really are pretty, Clark,” you cut him off, a little mesmerized.
You can feel his eyes on your face, but you’re not looking back at him. You still can’t tear your eyes off the annoyingly pretty sight of his cock. Then again, you should’ve expected it. The rest of him was just as gorgeous.
There's a vein popping on the underside of the shaft, thick and pulsing against your palm. His skin is still smooth despite losing the soft feel of it. And you were shocked— he was a grower. Both length and girth filled out with the rush of blood, and your mind wandered.
His ex was fucking wrong. This man wasn’t above average. He was far from it— this was off the scale. He was Godly.
“I don’t think you’d be able to fit.”
The words slipped out of your mouth softly, mainly spoken to yourself more than him.
Clark's breath hitches. “What are you…”
“Just, theoretically, if we had sex, I don't think you’d fit in with me. You'd probably rip me apart— my hand barely can hold all of you when you’re soft, let alone hard. I don't know if it would even feel good to have you inside of me.”
“Oh my… You really can’t be saying these kinds of things while you’re still holding me,” he groans, head dropping back against the cushions as he shut his eyes.
“I’m not wrong,” you argue. “Logistically speaking, there’s no way this would feel pleasurable for me– you’d tear me in half before I even get to cum.”
He lifts his head, and you look up at him. He's still flushed, but now he looks offended. “If we had sex, I wouldn't just stick it in you. I know it’s bigger than average so I'd make sure you’re prepared first. I'd need to fit at least three fingers in you— comfortably— before either of us could imagine me inside you. Besides that, who says I wouldn’t make you cum at least twice before I even want my dick in you?”
You can’t help the warmth you feel in your nether regions— like a sudden zap that went between your legs to make you feel weak at the knees.
Clark notices. He always does.
He swallows, visibly nervous as a whisper comes from his lips. “Did I make it weird?”
You’re surprised you can even suck in a breath. You shouldn’t be able to breathe. Your autonomic nervous system should be failing, but here you are.
“Only weird if you think it’s weird, Kent,” you murmur.
“You smell different.”
Fuck him, and fuck those super senses of his. You should’ve known better— he could easily spot every single twitch in your body, the change of scent as pheromones exit your body, and the feel of the light tremble of your hand against him.
But despite all of that, a smile comes to your lips.
“Now you’re making it weird,” you tease.
A devastating grin spreads Clark Kent's face. “My apologies. Thought we passed weird when you didn’t take your hand off me,” he hums.
“You want me to?”
The smile falters, and his eyes meet yours. He's reading you. Your face. reactions. Anything he can use to figure out what’s going through your head. You're doing the exact same thing to him.
Finally, he speaks.
“No. Want you closer, actually.”
You don’t fight him when his hands reach for you, landing on your hips. You don’t fight him as he guides you towards him, your knees resting naturally on either side of his thighs.
You’ve released him now, but only in favor of your hands sliding up his chest before finding home on the broad expanse of his shoulders. He's looking up at you, blue eyes swimming with an emotion you see every day— love.
Only now you’re realizing that the simple love you!’s that you’ve been throwing at him meant something else entirely for him.
“There you are,” he murmurs, thumbs rubbing circles into your hipbones. “You only notice me when my dick is out and between us?”
“Thought you didn’t like that word,” you say, a little breathless.
Clark smiles a bit wider, eyes sparkling. “I don’t mind it every once in a while.”
A laugh falls from your lips as you stare down at him, taking in every ounce of affection he was oozing out at you. You want to say something to acknowledge his feelings, but not yet. Not when you’re currently hovering over him, his cock still out and slowly, but surely getting more firm as the seconds pass.
“You gonna show me how you’ll fit?” is what you say instead.
You’re in his bedroom within a blink of your eyes— comfortably beneath him as he hovers over you.
“Sorry. ‘m a little excited,” Clark confesses, breathless as if moving at the speed of light was difficult for him— of course not. It's you. You're the entire reason his heart rate picked up, that his hands were slowly turning clammy, and why he feels like he can’t breathe.
“I can see that. feel it, too,” you grin at him, and a groan pulls from his lips as he shuts his eyes. Still, he doesn’t move away. If anything, he presses closer, slotting himself perfectly between your legs, dick pressed right against your aching core.
“You're lucky I love you,” he sighs.
Clark descends on you, lips meeting yours in what you can only explain as home. He’s warm, always is, but never in a suffocating way. He’s like the first warmth of spring after a long winter.
“Take this off,” he murmurs against your lips, but is already moving to remove your shirt for you.
His hands slide under the fabric leaving goosebumps in his wake, and breaks the kiss for just a moment to pull it completely up and over your head. It’s discarded without another thought, tossed somewhere to the side.
He cups both breasts through your bra, lips trailing from the corner of your lips, down to your jaw, and finding their place on your neck.
“Gosh,” Clark sighs against you, peppering tickling kisses down to your collarbone, “I’ve dreamt about this moment before.”
“Do I live up to your expectations?” you ask, breathless. You arch, pushing your chest further into his palms.
He groans, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d say this entire situation causes him pain. Except you do know better, and he’s in heaven.
“Better,” is all he says before his kisses move even lower.
You’re certain he used his x-ray vision to locate your nipples over the thin padding on your chest. There’s no other way, you think, that he managed to be so precise. In the back of your mind, you wonder if he’s ever used this ability to feed some of his darkest desires.
No, you decide. Your sweet, kind Clark wasn’t like that. Though you really wouldn’t have minded it.
A soft moan slips out of you, cautious and shy. His response? To smile against your chest, and reach beneath you, undoing the clasp of your bra with a single manipulation of his fingers.
“You practice that a lot in college?” you whisper as he tugs the fabric off your chest.
“Mm… Not lots of practice, but enough,” he hums, eyes taking in the sight of you. He looks in awe, unable to believe this was truly happening to him. Soft hands run down your sides, just needing to feel you. “So pretty, sweetheart.”
Your heart flutters in your chest, and you can feel your skin warming. Just one compliment, one silly little nickname, and you’re melting for him. Maybe he’s got you wrapped around his finger more than you realized it.
“Want this gone,” you tell him, tugging on the hem of his t-shirt in attempts to gain some form of control over the situation.
Clark chuckles, and gives you a small nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
He doesn’t give you any time to appreciate the beauty of him— the sculpted muscles that lay beneath the slightly baggy clothes he wears in hopes it hides his superhuman physique. Usually, he keeps his shoulders pulled in, a slight slouch to his posture, but in this moment he’d never looked larger. Confident. Yours.
Your sweatpants and panties were being removed from you, joining whatever corner your shirt was thrown into.
Without hesitation, Clark fit himself right between your legs. His hands wrapped around your knees, moving you to hook over his shoulders comfortably. Of course, not without him pressing a sweet kiss to the inside of your thigh.
“You smell so good,” he whispers against your skin, lips trailing higher and higher up your leg until he was hovering right above where you needed him most. “Goodness… Already dripping for me and I haven’t even done anything.”
“You gonna hurry up and do something, Clark?” you ask, impatience pulling from you without realizing it.
“Easy there.” His eyes lock onto yours from below, a sparkle on them. “Gotta make sure you’re ready for me, baby.”
Before more whines of complaints can form in your head, his flattened tongue licks a slow strip between your folds, parting them and giving him perfect access to your aching clit.
A moan vibrates through your core, unabashed and utterly delighted.
“Tastes so good, too. Could stay here all day,” he mutters against you, breathing hot and heavy.
“Clark—“
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” he huffs. “One day.”
Clark didn’t verbalize the rest of his disappointment. Honestly, with the way he thoroughly laps at your core, you might have to reconsider your decision.
It’s as if he had been dying of thirst for his entire life. He dips his tongue in and out of your core, groaning in absolute joy, before moving to suck on the sensitive little nub that’s begging for his attention. You can’t help it when your legs start trembling around his head, threatening to close and trap him there. In the back of your mind, you realized that he wouldn’t care if you did. He’s able to hold his breath for over an hour, after all.
The sensations are all too much for you to handle, sparks flying behind your eyes as Clark seems to struggle to pull himself away from you. Eventually, he gives in. Tonight mercy is granted to you as you stop tugging on his hair to begin pushing him away instead. From the way his eyes are blown out, nearly every part of his eyes covered with black instead of blue, you know that you’ll find yourself back in this position another day.
But not right now.
Right now, you need him– all of him–
“Slow down,” he mutters to you as you yank him up your body. Clark rests beside you now, free hand helping him prop his head up to give himself a good view of your entire body. “Haven’t even started to stretch you out.”
You whine, heart still pounding from being brought to heaven and pulled back down to Earth. “Clark, you need to hurry up.”
“We have all the time in the world,” he coos at you in an attempt to try and soothe you. It doesn’t work. What does work is his fingers gliding up your thighs, reaching the warmth between your legs, and pushing in.
You always knew Clark’s hands were big. It matched the rest of him– long, slender fingers that seemed like they could whole the entire world with ease. If you verbalized any of this to him, he would tell you that he was doing exactly that– holding his world safely in his hands.
The introduction of a second finger has you squirming beneath him.
“You’re so soft,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead– a stark contrast from the filthy way his fingers were spreading you open with a scissoring motion. “So wet for me, aren’t you? Gosh… Can you hear yourself?”
Of course you can. The squelching noise coming from your lower half was hard to ignore, after all.
You coated his fingers in your essence, and Clark was certain you were seeping into his skin, marking him as yours. You wouldn’t be able to smell yourself on him, but he would still be able to smell you on his skin for days to come.
His digits curled slowly within you, rubbing against that extra soft, spongy part inside of you. His eyebrows shot up in amusement as you gasped out his name, hips lifting slightly off the bed.
“Right here, honey?” The low baritone, gravely whisper of his voice in your ear sent shivers down your spine. He was invading your every being, just as you’d done to him for years on end.
The stretch of his ring finger made the air in your throat catch.
“Easy,” he orders, clicking his tongue softly in disapproval.
“It’s— fuck, that’s… A lot,” you manage to stutter out, eyes screwing shut.
“If you think this is a lot, how can you ever imagine taking me?” he asks, almost teasingly.
A shaky breath exits your lips. “You’re— you’re enjoying this.”
“And you’re not?” Clark shoots right back at you before plunging all of three digits into your fluttering hole— right down to his knuckles.
Your best friend doesn’t wait for your answer. Instead, he begins to work into you, the length of his fingers slowly massaging in and out of you. You twitch beneath him, mouth falling open in a wordless moan.
Try as he might, his actions were only making you clamp down tighter around him. You were trying to suck him in, keep him deeper within you.
With one more slight curl, you were coming undone. Your fingernails digs crescent marks into his wrist, trembling as you attempt to keep your sanity intact.
Slowly, his fingers exit you.
“Mm… I don’t think you can take me tonight,” he mutters, more to himself than you. You nearly missed his words, all of your body paying attention to the way his fingers moved upwards to lazily circle at your clit. He presses a kiss to your temple, “Next time, hm?”
Your heart nearly stops in your chest as you look up at him, wide eyed and pleading.
“What?” you ask, voice hoarse and dry from the moans you gave him. “Clark— No, need you—“
“I’ll just hurt you if we do it today.” He shakes his head. “Need to spend more time. One night of prep isn’t enough—“
“What if I want it to hurt?” you cut him off, head spinning. Clark looks at you, eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “Just need you in me— need you to stuff me full. Need it so bad, Clarkie.”
He’s not convinced yet. You know it for a fact. He’s still thinking too rationally for your liking. But he’s pulled his hand away from your legs, resting it on top of your stomach instead— if he was truly unaffected by your words, he would’ve continued his ministrations. No, he was trying to keep his control by limiting his touch.
You couldn’t have that.
Your hand finds his cock again, eyes still locked with his. His lips part to suck in a tight breath of air as you slowly palm at him. You run your hand up and down his length slowly, then reach the tip. To your delight, he’s leaking.
“Look, baby. He’s crying for me,” you whisper to him, swiping your finger across the head of his dick, picking up a bead of precum in the process.
For the first time that night, Clark’s gaze breaks away from your eyes. His eyes drop down to your lips, watching as your fingers enter your mouth to lick off his arousal. His breathing picks up, ever so slightly.
You release your fingers with a pop, then move to rest them on his lips. He opens his mouth without any instruction or order, tongue wrapping around your fingers and licking, sending a new wave of excitement crashing through your body.
“So big, so hard for me,” you sigh, almost pouting at him, “And you’re not gonna fill me up?”
Clark moans around your fingers like it pains him, like he’s trying his best to hold onto the restraint that you’re chipping away from him.
“You know I’m on birth control,” you tell him, pulling your fingers from his lips. He moves forward slightly, as if trying to chase them. Once again, his eyes meet yours. “You wanna indulge me in some more research? This one would be an experiment, really.”
He swallows. “What kind of experiment?” His voice is broken.
You smile sweetly at him, resting your hand against his chest. You can feel his heart beating rapidly under your touch. He’s waiting, on the edge of whatever sanity he has left.
Finally, you whisper, “I want to see if Kal-El’s sperm can beat the efficacy of my daily pill.”
Within a breath, Clark pulls you to the cusp of his bed. Your legs only dangle off the edge of the bed for a few seconds before he pulls you to rest them against his hips. He shadows you, cock resting on your tummy as he leans over and presses a hard kiss to your lips. His teeth catch and tug, demanding entrance that you happily give him.
His hands rest on the inside of your thighs, spreading you open for him as he pulls back his hips slightly. The length of his cock drags against your skin, leaving a trail of burning desire and want. He coats himself in your slick, depositing a moan into your throat as he does.
The tip of his cock is right at your entrance, parting your puffy folds, and stops. You’re about to whine against his mouth, grab at his shoulders or wrap your legs around him, but he doesn’t leave you waiting for long.
Clark Kent is a fucking liar.
Three fingers and two orgasms was not enough to prepare you, prepare anyone, if you were being honest. Even with the fact you were quite literally dripping for him, it still wasn’t enough to ensure a smooth entry. Then again, he did warn you. This was partly your fault for egging him on until he couldn’t stop himself anymore.
Your lips still against his, eyebrows stitched together as you try to adjust to the foreign body entering you. Clark notices– of course he does– the way your muscles lock beneath him. Your lungs stop pulling in air, and you’re gripping his forearms so hard he actually registers a small nip of pain.
His voice cuts through the cloud in your mind. “Breathe, honey.” Clark showers you with kisses– your nose, cheeks, eyes, neck– anywhere he could reach. “I know it’s big, baby, I’m so sorry.”
With his words snapping you out of it, you suck in a greedy gulp of air as you open your eyes to look at him. “F… Fuck, Clark,” you gasp out.
“I know, I know,” he reiterates to you, patient and so understanding despite the fact you were the one that begged him for this. “Try to relax for me, okay?” Another kiss gets pressed to your eyes, his lips catching a stray, salty tear that slipped out. Your heart skips as you watch him swipe his tongue across his bottom lip, tasting your tears.
“You’re so big– God,” you say, voice cracking.
“Not God,” he corrects with a chuckle, “But yes.”
“Fuck you,” you whine, unsure how he can find this situation funny. Still, the way he lets out another small laugh above you does ease your body just a little bit– probably from the familiarity.
You focus on Clark, deciding that he will be the best way to distract yourself from his cock, as ironic as it may sound.
The way there’s a slight crinkle around his eyes as he smiles at you. If you focus, you can see yourself in the reflection of his eyes. There you lay beneath him, skin flushed with a light layer of sweat all over you, hair touselled and mussed up, yet he still holds a love for you that you don’t think you’re worthy of carrying.
His skin is warm under your touch, always is, but goosebumps are left behind wherever you touch. His body is reacting to you, showing you that the littlest things you do leaves a mark on him both physically, emotionally, and mentally.
How he touches you with extreme care, though you know it’s easy for him to break even the toughest of metals in his hand without even breaking a sweat. He’s always treated you delicately. Always a gentleman, opening every single door without complaint or annoyance, pulling out your chair whenever you have a meal together, and holding your hair back whenever you end up drinking a little too much. So kind, thoughtful, and nice. You wonder how much you’d have to push him to fully break you.
It’s only when your mind trails back into its sinful desires do you register his hips fully flushed against yours, his length sheathed within you.
Clark’s pulling in shaky breaths, hands resting on your hips with his thumbs rubbing circles into your skin. His forehead rests against yours as he closes his eyes, trying to get a grasp on his bearings once more.
“I… Sweetheart,” he grunts. “You’re still so tight around me.”
As if his words were to be a reminder of your situation, your walls flutter around him, sending pleasure through both of your bodies.
“Move,” you tell him, breathy. “Please–”
“Hang on,” he cuts you off, shaking his head. “I’m not paused right now for you. I might–” Clark cuts himself off, biting the inside of his cheek. For a moment, you thought he might curse aloud for the first time in years. Instead, he swallows thickly. “I might lose it right away if I don’t give myself a break right now.”
Pride swells in your chest. “Superman is a minuteman?” you tease softly.
“Hey–”
A shared moan stops whatever rant he was about to go on, thanks to your hips rolling against his. And you can feel it, how his dick twitches deep inside of you, already so close to the edge even though he just got there. You can also feel him pressing up right against your cervix.
His fingers dig into your hipbone– not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to warn. Clark pulls back, looming over you as he takes in a deep breath.
“You’re playing dirty,” he accuses, voice as tight as how he holds his jaw.
“So what if you cum fast?” you grin at him, hands moving to rest on his abdomen. “Don’t tell me Superman can’t go a couple rounds.”
His eye twitches, and you know you’ve hit him somewhere personal. Then again, baiting Clark Kent was always your favorite pastime.
“Of course I can,” Clark says with a tone you know all too well– one that lets you know he’s about to prove you wrong.
His hips pull back, cock dragging out of you so painfully slow until just the tip of him is left within you. You mistakenly believe that he’s going to slam back into you without any warning. He doesn’t.
Clark pushes back inside of you slowly, giving you the chance to properly feel the ridge of his tip as it meets the shaft of his dick. You can feel a pulsing vein on the underside, matching the rapid beat of his heart. You can feel him separating your gummy walls with each new inch of him, forcing you to accommodate his size. And you can feel the bulge in your lower abdomen– him– deep inside of you.
“Shit,” you gasp out, but you don’t have time for anymore words. He’s pulling out once again before thrusting back into you, setting an easy, comfortable pace. Despite it, you can’t even begin to form any thoughts. He’s splitting you apart, filling you in ways that you’ve never felt before.
“That’s it,” Clark chuckles from above you. You catch a lazy, nearly fucked out smile paint his face as he watches you. “You know, I think I like you better when you’re not talking.”
You whimper in response, unable to properly respond to him.
He hums, leaning back down to kiss you, his movements never stopping. “I got you, baby. Don’t worry– You’re so pretty like this.”
Clark swallows all your moans and whines like he’s desperate to have them. All you can feel is him– his hands running up and down your body to map you, the feel of his cock piercing in and out of you, his tongue brushing against yours, his muscles rippling and flexing whenever your hands find somewhere new to hold onto.
“You look so good like this. So perfect, so beautiful— gosh, you look so pretty with me inside you,” he murmurs against your lips, voice strained ever so slightly. He moans out your name when your walls flutter around him again, giving him one brief warning. His hips snap harder into yours, efforts renewed as he urges you to your doom. “C’mon, baby. Give it to me– need you to make a mess all over me.”
As one final push, Clark presses a hand onto your stomach, snapping the last bit of pressure within you. “God– Clark!” you cry out, eyes rolling to the back of your head as you begin to tremble beneath him.
All the while, he never lets up. If anything, the pace is faster, chasing your high with everything he has– prolonging your pleasure for as long as possible.
One more time, your name falls from his lips, this time strangled and needy before you feel a warmth deep inside of you. He’s coated you from the inside, both of your sticky juices mixing together into one substance as he lodges his cock deep inside of you, poking at your cervix.
Clark collapses over you, careful to keep most of his weight on his forearms. Still, his chest is pressed against yours, allowing you to feel the thumping beneath his skin.
He collects himself faster than you, lips trailing all over your neck and collarbones as his cock jumps within you, hard once more. When you look at him with disbelief, he gives you a stupid grin that you nearly melt for.
“What’s with that look?” he asks, nipping at your lips. “You only have yourself to blame for this.”
“I didn’t do anything just now.” You frown at him, though not entirely upset.
“No,” he agreed, “But you did challenge me to put a baby in you. I’m feeling competitive tonight.”
You almost wish you never said those words out loud, never teased or poked him until he broke. Almost.
Warm water sloshes around you as Clark lowers himself into the bath behind you. He instantly engulfs you with his size, his body granting you more heat than the tub you both sit in together. You lean back against his chest, closing your eyes.
Exhaustion ran deep in your bones. You don’t fight against Clark as he begins to scrub your skin with soap, cleaning off the sweat and stickiness that accumulated during your time together. Still, you know he can’t get rid of the markings he left behind.
You caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror when Clark carried you into his bathroom earlier. Purple, manmade flowers had grown across your skin, effectively ensuring you’d be wearing high neck clothing on days you didn’t feel like doing your makeup.
You should be mad. You should scold him for losing control, but frankly… you don’t really care, especially not when he lowers his head slightly to press a delicate kiss to your shoulder.
“How do you feel?” he murmurs against your skin.
“Good,” you sigh, content. “Might be sore tomorrow, thanks to someone.”
“You asked for it,” he reminds you, and you can feel him smile against your skin.
“Yeah, yeah,” you dismiss, but you’re smiling too.
Tomorrow, you both will have a discussion. A long talk on where you both stand in each other's lives, and how to ensure your relationship with each other won’t end up in flames. But all of that is for your future self to deal with.
Right now, you’ll revel in his touch, allow him to wrap his arms around you, and fall asleep to the sound of his breathing.
clark kent taglist: @superbassbuck @flockoff-featherface @unificsation @54nboo @earthsmightiestbenders @umbreoni @iamthatonefangirl @winterdecember18 @houseofhyde @blowingbarnes @heldbybarnes @bckyslover
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Warnings: subish Steve? Crying probone overstim unprotected p in v hyperstamina mating press at one point? Needy Steve
Author note: give me Steve Rogers neowww
Face stuffed into the plush pillow, drops of tears flowing down your face, Steve’s cock bullying in and out of you, his balls slapping against your soft skin over and over
"Baby, I’m so sorry." The apologies kept falling out of his lips. "You just feel so good I can’t stop." Your thighs were burning, cunt dripping with your previous orgasms. Your face is completely fucked out, moans still coming out every time he thrusts his member back deep in your weeping walls, the slapping sound filling the room at every thrust. His hand stayed on the plump of your ass, needing it in his big hand; the other holds your smaller hand, squeezing lightly compared to the relentless pounding of his cock.
Your eyes water more when the tip hits your cervix. "Steve," you cry out, voice cracking in desperation. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry." He rambles, cock twitching inside of you. "Just a little more. I swear I’ll do anything." If you could form a thought in your current situation, you would hear the sob in his voice, like he himself had been crying. He hits that spongy spot that makes you see stars over and over. "Yeah, you like that?" Huh? Are you going to come for me?" he all but moans. “I want to feel you come all over me." Your cunt pulses again, the coil in your stomach feeling too much; it almost hurts.
“Steve I-I can't it’s too much." Short labored breaths come from you. “You can, honey, please it would feel sooo good." He draws out his last few words, pressing kisses to your neck and then your shoulder.
You swore you saw light burst behind your eyes as the warmth deep inside you finally collapsed your clit pulsing, cunt contracting. Your moans were loud. you were so sensitive you felt the Steve collapse over you, pushing you deep into the mattress, almost making you lightheaded as he fucked into you like he was in heat, cock twitching again, and then he groaned, vibrating from his chest. You could feel him pumping you full of his cum, spurt after spurt, filling you up so full you could feel it dripping down your thighs, hot and glistening. He lets out more apologies, whining into your neck a moment then continues thrusting in you. God, he was still hard?
Steve Rogers lives to eat pussy. This man will have you folded in half, legs to the sky, his hands on your thighs while he absolutely devours you. He's sloppy, he's agile, he's sucking and licking everything he possibly can, he's fucking moaning like he's getting head. And he's using his stupid supersoldier strength to hold you in place or lift your hips up to his mouth while he kneels on the floor beside the bed.
