★ summary: the galerie d'apollon is broken into early one sunday morning, instantly bucky knows his parisian love affair is in the middle of it
★ pairing: bucky barnes x jewel thief!reader
★ warnings: 18+ mdni, smut, p in v, oral f & m receiving, stealing, theft and desecration of historical artifacts, spanking, squirting, cum play, bucky barnes has a filthy mouth & basically fucks you in stolen jewels
★ word count: 3.9k
★ notes: girl who was reallyyy into the louvre heist
Bucky’s eyes haven’t left the screen ever since he entered the briefing, drawing out everyone’s overlapping voices. “Historic Jewels Stolen from the Louvre” flashed across the screen, Val standing underneath, talking undoubtedly about how this was supposed to be the top priority, as if there weren’t thousands of issues more important than this. All he could focus on was how this had your name written all over it.
“Bucky? Bucky?” A voice he soon realized was John spoke. “You good?”
He nodded, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Yeah, sorry, just zoned out there. Jewel robbery, yes.”
The team side-eyed him, clearly catching onto his bizarre behavior. The biggest thing he disliked about the Thunderbolts was that all of their skill sets made it very hard to keep secrets around them. They were the nosiest people he had ever met, so content to share each of their secrets. Bucky had some secrets he’d rather keep close to the chest.
“Val wants us on this; she thinks it’s connected to that art smuggling trafficking ring in Madripoor.” Yelena offered the information. “15 minutes until the jet’s ready.”
In those fifteen minutes, he spent five actually packing, and the other ten frantically trying to get you to answer your phone. Bucky and you had been close friends ever since you met on a mission in Romania, where Bucky caught you actively stealing from an ex-Hydra operative's home. You weren’t even aware of who he was, but you had him bound and gagged in the closet, while you collected artwork and jewels he shouldn’t have had. You called it a victimless crime and said he should have thanked you for making his job easy.
He did thank you, letting you run off into the night, much to Sam’s chagrin. It was months later that he got a letter in the mail with nothing but a postcard from Paris with a phone number on the back. There started your long-distance love affair, as you called it. Late-night calls, radio silence while he was on missions, long weekends strolling the countryside when he wasn’t stateside. He made sure to never ask about your escapades, as his attempts to control you would have never worked anyway.
In recent years, you flew under the radar, but the Louvre? It was so close to your apartment in Paris that his palms were sweating nervously the whole plane ride there. He knew at some point he’d have to break off from the group and find you, but how?
“They did this in the middle of the day?” John scoffed, scrolling on the mission tablet.
Alexei let out a loud laugh, “The French are so stupid, chainsaws? Middle of the day? This. Ridiculous. Never get away with this in Russia.” He pointed aggressively at the screen, John ripping the tablet away.
“There’s no way these are professionals; this seems too sloppy.” Ava pointed out, twiddling with her helmet.
“The password was Lourve. The CCTV password was Louvre.” John spoke, disbelief rattled in his voice. “Did they know they were in charge of protecting these priceless jewels?”
“This is the most ridiculous call we’ve ever been on.” Ava sighed, running her hand against her face.
“Barnes?” Yelena asked, snapping her fingers in front of his face. He wasn’t engaging in the conversation, content to stare out the window with his leg shaking nervously.
“You’ve been acting so weird. He’s been acting weird, right?” John spoke to Bucky, then turned around to ask everyone else's opinion.
“Shut up, Walker. Yes. I don’t know? How tight is the security? Cameras?”
“If you paid attention,” Yelena’s eyes narrowed at him, “No security cameras on any entry or exit points. Not that it would have mattered since the password was so stupid. They entered through a second-story balcony. In and out in seven minutes.”
Bucky let out a low whistle, “Seven minutes. No cameras, no witnesses, just 100 million dollars worth of jewels gone. And we’re supposed to do what exactly?”
“Figure out if it’s connected to the trafficking ring,” Yelena repeated, staring at him dumbly.
“If it's not, we get to go home, right? I’m not tracking down twice-stolen jewels.” Ava yawned.
“It’s up to Val. She has big donors in France, apparently.” Yelena scoffed, leaning back in her seat.
By the time the jet landed, Bucky’s knees were sore from frantically shaking up and down, anxious to get his feet on the ground. He hadn’t seen you in months and hadn’t been back in Paris for years. Memories of the two of you flooded every corner of this city. Even the Louvre itself, while they walked the perimeter, he couldn’t stop thinking of the time you took him here, showing him around diligently.
Your heels clicking around the museum floor, your hand in his. “Galerie d’Apollon,” You spoke, your voice laced with amazement. Every time you spoke French, it made shivers run up his spine. His eyes couldn't believe it as he looked over the ornate walls and paintings from floor to ceiling, but still, his eyes were fixated on you. You drifted over to one of the cases, a pout on your red lips.
“Honte,” you said, “A shame these beautiful pieces are locked away, they deserve to be against flesh. Sparkling in the sun.”.
“Regarde-toi.” Bucky’s French was rusty, long abandoned since his Winter Soldier days, but he’d never forget the smile that appeared on your face at his words.
“You watch yourself, mister. Re-learning French for moi?”You teased, dragging him endlessly through the halls. That night, you kissed him for the first time. He joked that being around so much expensive art put you in a good mood. He’ll never forget the next words you said, “Being around you is priceless. I’d rather that than any jewel. No matter how shiny.”
He was pulled out of his memory by John snapping in front of him, determined to get on his last nerve. “Snap at me like a dog again and you’ll lose the hand, Walker.”
“Jeez, calm down. You keep ignoring us.” He winced, walking away like a child on the verge of a tantrum.
“I might have some old contacts in the city. I was thinking about it if you gave me a minute,” Bucky groaned, “Give me a few hours.”
“Sure. Keep us updated.” Ava grumbled, eyeing him as he sauntered away.
Bucky took multiple trips around the city, triple-checking he wasn’t being followed before he sauntered up your doorstep. A small corner loft flat that you adored, refusing to leave despite Bucky’s multiple attempts to move you to New York City. Before he could give himself the courage to knock, the door was flung up, Bucky bracing himself for impact.
“Y/n”, the strange woman whistled, side-stepping him to leave, “I told her the Americans were coming. At least they brought the hot ones.” With a few mutters in French, she was off, leisurely walking down the cobblestone street.
“Mon amour!” You greeted, leaning against the doorframe to get a look at the man. Stress riddled his features, no doubt from his journey here. “I want to ask what brings you here, but…”
His eyes squinted in annoyance, pushing past you to walk into the apartment. You slammed the door with a groan, turning around to watch where he very obviously looked around every open surface.
“Where are they y/n?”
“No hello, no how are you, no it’s so nice to see you, my love,” You mocked, “It’s been months, James.”
His hand found his hip, rolling his eyes at you. “Hello, my love, where are the jewels?” His monotone voice only fueled your desire to irritate him.
“What jewels?” You jutted your bottom lip out, giving him your best doe eyes.
He let out another sigh, like a disappointed father. “Y/n.”
“James.”
“If you just let me know where they are, we can figure this out. I can get Val off your trail-”
“I’m finding the insinuation that I’d get caught to be insulting.” You interrupted, “You only have to upper hand because you know me. Otherwise, the trail is cold and you know it.”
“So you are admitting to doing it?” His eyebrow raised.
“Why are you so tense, baby?” You smiled, sauntering over to him. Letting your hips sway aggressively. “You’re so pent up.”
A chill ran up his spine at your darkened eyes focused solely on him. “Maybe because my lover just committed a jewel heist that I’ve been sent to solve.”
“You gonna arrest me?” You mocked, letting your hand rest on his chest. Rubbing his abs through his tight plain black tee. “I’ll turn around right now and let you handcuff me. If you promise to make it rough.”
His cock twitched, glaring down at you. “You’re such a minx.” Your hand paused at his belt, looping your finger in the leather, pulling him against you.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
He leaned down, your faces just barely touching. “Missed you, honey.” You whispered, pressing your lips to his gently. He was putty in your hands, his knees nearly buckling when you kissed him. He relished the feeling of you pressed against him, tasting your familiar chapstick. His resolve was crumbling, slowly but surely.
“I really need to return the jewels.” He muttered against your lips, causing you to groan.
“Bucky, at least let me suck your cock, then you can arrest me.”
The brashness of your words made him groan, his hands winding around your hair. “You’re just trying to distract me.”
“It’s working, isn't it?” Your hand cupped his bulge through his pants, gripping his length.
His teeth bit down on his bottom lip, letting out another guttural moan. “Fuck, okay on your knees.”
“Yes, sir.” You giggled, plopping down to your knees with no hesitation, both of you pulling at his pants. His cock was springing out of his boxers, the veins protruding. You wasted no time, unhinging your jaw and taking him into your mouth.
“O-oh god. It’s been so fucking long,” His metal hand curled your hair into a makeshift ponytail, “Too fucking long. I’m not gonna last”
You bobbed your head in agreement, running your tongue against his shaft. His knees were shaking in pleasure each time you gargled around him. His hips stuttered, fucking into your throat. Your nose shoved into the tuff of hair on his pelvic bone, gagging around him messily. Salvia dripping all over your face. His grip on your hair faltered, letting out whimpers of your name.
“F-fuck, I’m gonna come.” He was fucking into your mouth, hips stilling only to blow his load down your throat, to which you swallowed greedily. Releasing him with an obnoxious pop, pressing your head against his thick thighs.. His face was red, his eyes glazed as he peered down at you.
“Time to arrest me?” You asked, looking up at him from where your head lay near his still hard cock. God bless the super soldier serum.
“Get up and come here.” His voice is hoarse. He grabbed your hand, leading you into your bedroom. Hands fumbling at your clothes, desperate to have nothing between the two of you.
“Baby.” He raised an eyebrow at you when you took a step back, stepping behind the dressing screen. He watched your silhouette as you shed your clothes. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head when you turned the corner. There you stood, completely naked, nothing on your body except the large emerald necklace that once belonged in the cushioned case at the Lourve. The emeralds encased in jewels sat perfectly between your tits, the diamonds glittering in the light.
“Don’t they look good on me, baby?” You sighed, throwing your hair over your shoulder. “I told you they’d look better against flesh.”
“F-fuck.” All Bucky managed to get out, his cock, leaking at the sight. “We can’t-”
“Don’t I deserve pretty jewels?” You pouted, lying down on your satin sheets. Your hair falling around your bare shoulders. With each movement, your tits bounced against the necklace, making Bucky wince.
“This is so wrong.” He breathed out, eyes still unmoving from your body.
“Is it?” You sighed, letting your legs slowly spread open for him. Give him a view of your wet pussy, glistening just like the diamonds around your neck. “It can’t be wrong if it feels this good.”
All of Bucky’s thoughts flew out the window, his knees falling to the mattress, grabbing your legs in his hands, his head leaned down to lick a long stripe up your clit.
“Knew you’d cave.” You giggled, moaning when he pinched the inside of your thigh at your remark. Flattening his tongue against you, he led two fingers to your entrance, letting your cunt swallow them greedily. With each thrust of his finger and flick of his tongue, your back war arching, the jewels catching in the light. It was a sight to behold, one that had Bucky mewling against your sopping cunt. The vibrations are only bringing you closer to your peak.
“Oh, right there, don’t stop, I said don’t fucking stop.” You nearly screamed, as if he would ever consider it. Your legs were shaking violently around his head as his tongue lapped every inch of your release that spilled from you, soaking the bottom half of his face. Your orgasm hit you so violently, you saw black, having to catch your breath when he came back up for air.
“Holy fuck, it’s been too long.” You breathed out, chest rising and falling dramatically.
“Agreed,” Bucky grunted, wiping his face off with his shirt before discarding it with the rest of your clothes on the floor.
“Now come over here and fuck me.” You demanded with a giggle in your voice, watching your broad boyfriend. His black vibranium arm contrasted his pale skin, his tufts of black hair on his chest and above his cock making your mouth water.
Your giggles turned into shrieks when he dragged your legs off the side of the bed, placing your ankles by his head. Pressing soft kisses to your calves while he spreads your legs for him. His tip nudges your entrance, sliding himself in with precision. Even with just his tip inside, you were already out of breath, your body welcoming his thickness with each inch he gave you.
“So fucking tight.” He groaned, hands gripping your legs so tight you knew there’d be bruises.
A moan of his name left your mouth when he bottomed out. Relishing the feeling of him filling you up again, fucking into you so wildly. The jewels rattled against your neck with each thrust, Bucky’s resolve slipping.
“Come here.” He ordered, pulling you off the bed so he could scoop you up in his arms, his cock still nestled deep inside. Your legs wrapped around his hips, his hands holding your sides, holding you like you weighed nothing. He moved your body against his, fucking up into you as if you were his own personal fleshlight.
“Oh my fuck.” You gasped, your head lulling into his shoulder. Your body going slack as his hips never faltered. The jewels pressed against his chest, stretching the skin there each time he moved your body up and down his cock. A white ring of release forms at the base of him, the slick sounds bouncing off the walls in your bedroom.
“This is my pussy isn't it?” Bucky growled, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your shoulder, hands digging into your ass, spreading your cunt even further apart. You felt like you were being split open.
“Yes.” You gasped, “All yours.”
“That’s what I thought.” He grunted, feeling you squeeze around him. “Gonna cum for me?”
“Whatever you want, whatever you want.” You babbled, drooling onto his skin as he fucked you stupid. You came with a shout, Bucky’s own high falling shortly behind.
He lay you gently onto the bed, taking his time before slipping his drenched cock out, his cum leaking onto your cunt.
“God, I’m in love with you.” He spoke in awe, plopping down onto the sheets with you. “Move to New York. Please.”
All you could do was laugh, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. “Your declarations of love amuse me when followed by a request to move to America.”
“It’s not all that bad. Besides, I’ll be there.” He smiled, wrapping the sheet over your legs.
“We could do that every day,” You hummed, thinking over your options. “I’d have to think about it. I’m not living in that building with you.”
“Course not. I’d buy you a house, wherever you wanted.” He promised, watching you deep in thought.
Rolling over, you grabbed a cigarette off the nightstand, lighting it with a match. “I have a present for you.”
Bucky was a dream, shirtless with the thin sheet draped over his cock. His hair is a mess from your hands running through it.
“Is it something stolen?” He laughed, taking the cigarette from you and stealing a puff. It always reminded him of Brooklyn nights as a teenager, stealing his dad’s rolled cigarettes to smoke in alleyways to impress his high school girlfriends. Now it reminded him of you, rolling around in priceless jewels with the Paris nightlife humming through your window. Just another weekday in your life.
“I like to use the term acquired.” You hummed, keeping the cigarette in your mouth, opening up your bedside drawer, pulling out the golden crown. “Crown fit for a king.” The gold was heavy in your hands. Your thumbs are rubbing against the wings of the engraved bird on the front.
“Wasn’t that technically for an Empress?”
“Oh shut up,” You giggled, crawling across the bed to place it on his head. He barely registered the weight, smirking at you. “You’re ruining my fun.”
“King, huh?” He smirked, sitting up.
“Yes, my lord, I even have my own crown you can bestow upon me.”
This was how you ended up bent over the bed, the crown sitting lazily on Bucky’s head while he thrusted into you from behind, while your own pearl-studded tiara sat on your head. He held your hands behind your back, his hips hitting your ass roughly.
“You wanted to be arrested, didn’t you?” He mocked, restricting your movement as he plowed into you. His hand came down on your asscheek with such force your whole body jumped, a red welt appearing in seconds.
“Punish me, please.” You gasped, trying your best to brace yourself with your hands behind your back. He pushed you further into the bed, your face shoved into the mattress.
“Stay there. Take it.” He tsked, each time you tried to pull your head up or wiggle away. “You’re gonna take what I give you. Aren’t you?”
At your lack of response, he smacked your ass again, causing you to cry out a pathetic string of yes’s. His cock hits your sweet spot with each thrust, your eyes rolling into the back of your head. Your cries were muffled by the sheets. Bucky could tell you were close by the way your cunt spasmed around him.
“You gon’ give me what I want?” He grunted, hand reaching around to strum your clit. “Yeah, you are, aren’t you?”
Between Bucky’s mocking tone, the pressure on your clit, and his cock hitting your stomach, you were gone in no time. Your release squirting out of your cunt in a spray, soaking his lower half. He never once stopped, fucking you through all of it. Your voice was growing hoarse from your own screams, choking on the satin sheets. Tears rushed down your face at the overstimulation, wincing when Bucky pulled out of you. He turned you over on your back, your body trembling while your cunt still dripped your release onto the floor.
“Open up.” He grunted, his flesh hand finding his raw cock, jerking himself off. All you could do was obey, opening your mouth wide for him while he came with a moan of your name. Ropes of white splattering against your face and chest, coating the priceless jewels. His eyes were bloodshot, stuck on the image of you in nothing but that damn emerald necklace, his cum marking you as his.
“Cameras in the bedside table.” You spoke, reading his mind. He fumbled around for the old Polaroid, snapping a shot of you spread out for him.
“Gonna carry this in my wallet,” he promised, tossing the developing film on the table. Followed by the golden crown. The priceless jewel looking out of place next to your bedside clutter. All you could do was giggle, looking at the two of you. Flushed and coated in each other’s release.
“You done yet, soldier?” You teased, sitting up slowly, pulling him close to you.
“You’re gonna fucking kill me one day.” He sighed, a smile on his face.
He was right where he wanted to be. He could pretend to take the moral road all he wanted, but he loved this; he loved you. Never once depriving yourself of anything, taking the world by storm, picking up everything around you in its wake.
It was a few more rounds later, before Bucky tapped out, you joked that his ancient bones couldn’t keep up with his super soldier cock. He did not find it as amusing as you did. Content to sit propped up against your headboard, playing with your hair as you lie in his lap.
“I have buyers for almost everything. They’ll be gone by the morning.” You informed him.
“I’m assuming one of them was the lady I met on the way in?”
You answered him with a nod, wrapping the sheets tighter around your frame. “She just wanted a brooch. Mostly everything is going to be melted down, and cash wired to my bank account. Then donated to multiple charities of my choosing.”
“Mostly everything.” He repeated, a knowing look on his face. “What are you keeping?”
“The emeralds, of course.” You smiled, reaching up to your neck to tap the jewels. The ones now laced with your sweat and surely traces of cum. “and the matching earrings.”
“Blood emeralds.” Bucky sighed, unable to keep his eyes off the diamonds sparkling.
“Better in my hands than theirs. Don’t you agree?” You rolled to the side, letting the sheet fall from your body.
“You’ve fucked my dick raw and you still want more? You greedy little minx.” He smirked, his hand gripping your ass.
“If I had known it just takes a heist to see you, I would have committed one months ago.” You purred, hands resting on his chest.
He rolled his eyes, “Please don’t do that.”
“Maybe next time I’ll steal Napoleon's throne to fuck you in.”
“He’s actually quite short, I don’t think I’d fit,” Bucky mused, racking through his brain for history fun facts Steve used to babble on about, “But the British thrones are so tacky.”
“Oh, darling, I agree. Maybe King Edward’s love chair?” You teased.
“That’s disgusting.” He shivered, “I don’t want my dick anywhere near that.”
“You do have Marie Antoinette’s sofa.” He mused, lost in thought over what historical artifacts he could fuck you on.
“You’re not putting your sweaty body on that.” You scoffed, “You can eat me out on it, but that’s it.”
I just do not get the stereotype when it comes to wlw sex. you guys only use finger or scissoring. I don't think you know what gay sex is even. Maybe you're queerbaiting lol
yea.. maybe because I'm still a virgin?? and im a lesbian, anon... literally ever since 2nd grade😀😀
Last Saturday, I received a DM from my follower saying that she accidentally reported my account for phising & scamming. She apparently was worried that my account will be deleted and advised me to contact Tumblr Support via Discord.
I was shocked when I heard that my account will be deleted so I immediately messaged the support and asked to reset my password—and I did (big mistake!)
I only realized it was a scam when they asked me to pay $350 and I was like.. I don't have any money since we were affected by the earthquake and yeah!
I searched about this issue here and realized that oh shit, it is indeed a scam. I emailed the official Tumblr Support and thankfully, they retrieved my account again.
IF SOMEONE WILL DM YOU SAYING "I accidentally reported your accout.." IT IS A SCAM. DO NOT REPLY OR BLOCK THEM IMMEDIATELY. If Tumblr has an issue with you or your account, they WILL EMAIL YOU and not on Discord or any other apps.
To avoid this issue, let's not mention users on our posts (taglist) so that the scammers cannot find new users to scam.
i am gonna preface by saying: your media consumption is not my responsibility.
this is a saying that goes for every adult in the community. this is something i say in almost all my fics and this is something i will continuously repeat. frankly, i do not care if you are a minor who actively chose to read my fics because at that point, i have done everything i can to make sure that it doesn't lead to this case.
all i ask is do not make it my problem.
if you are a minor and decide to age yourself up to an adult to be able to interact with fanfics, that is not my responsibility either. whether you are a child or not, at the end of the day, you are in charge of what you consume on the internet. i cannot police you outside this, i cannot tell you what to do, and frankly, i do not want to, because that is something you, your parents or guardians should be doing. not me, or anybody else on the internet.
what baffles me is the little context everyone has yet they continue to run their mouth. such little context, and so much to say. another thing that absolutely baffles me about this entire situation is the amount of times i have had to deal with minors invading spaces that were not created for them in the span of a month. four times. i have dealt with this issue four times in thirty days. that is once every week for the past fucking month.
now as i have stated, i am not responsible for anybody's media consumption. there is only so much i can do to prevent this from happening. but what drew me to my breaking point is the fact that i had a minor invade a personal space for me and my friends, who are all adults, by lying.
with this, i would like to remind everyone that i have always been an mdni account. i have always stressed this. it is in my intro. it is in nearly every post i have made. i have made it a big, bolded red. it is easy to find, and easy to see. but coming back to this, there is only so much i can do.
what my problem is that a fifteen year old pretended to be a twenty two year old on this app and in a private chat with friends. this is the context everyone is missing. i have always prided myself and my friends in our ability to be able to separate our personal relationships and our life here, but i think we can all agree that this is a line that has been absolutely crossed, not just once but multiple times, and is not something we can stay silent about any longer.
what is even worse is that it went on for a week (this may not seem long, but i assure you it is long when you are trying to hide the fact that you are seven years younger than what you say). people, in their personal space, believed this person to be twenty two years of age for an entire week. that is a huge violation of trust.
this person went on to fabricate things about themselves, such as their birthday, their major, etc. thousands of people have interacted with this child's explicit work not knowing she is a minor. that is the problem.
this is absolutely not something that can slide and be slipped under the rug. like i have stated multiple times, i am not responsible for the media consumption of others and i am absolutely not responsible for somebody lying to my face about who they are to the point where they have essentially played a character.
to reiterate this fucking point, i do not care what minors do. i do not care if you decide to read my fanfictions despite being told multiple times not to. what i care about is my privacy, and the privacy of those around me. what i care about is the blantant violation of boundaries that i have set up for a reason to be able to protect minors. i get it, i really do. trust me, i was once a minor who longed to fit into spaces that weren't for me, and maybe i am hypocritical for admitting that, but that is the reason why i, and so many others, are so heavy on protecting minors against the things that we were not protected from.
in the words of hyde, who are one of the many people affected by this situation, "if you're old enough to know you need to lie to be accepted into a space... you're old enough to know you do not belong in that space."
even with honesty in the end, i cannot let this slide. i absolutely cannot just let it go. this is not obsessing over "policing" minors. this is not "protecting themselves from harassment" because this is not harassment to begin with. it is protection, not only for them but the adults who are unaware of who they are fucking interacting with and talking to. this is absolutely nothing, but a blatant invasion of privacy and a violation of trust.
nobody is having a power trip. if i was, trust me this post would have been made a long fucking time ago. i have done everything i fucking can to keep my space away from minors and even adults who cannot seem to grasp the topics i write and talk about.
to any adult who is defending this and ranting on and on about something they know nothing of, shame on you. if you are an adult who is okay with not letting other adults know that they are reading explicit work of someone who is a minor, specifically a fucking fifteen year old, shame on you.
you are part of the problem for allowing this all.
**read touch and go here**
✮ synopsis: steve rogers has spent two years keeping you at arm’s length. but when a mission goes wrong and his skin meets yours, suddenly every wall he’s built starts crumbling.
(or: the soulmate fic where touch is the one thing captain america can’t fight.)
✮ pairing: steve rogers x soulmate!reader
✮ warnings: gunshot wound, severe blood loss, near-death experience, touch starvation/deprivation, PTSD, panic attacks, grief, hospitalization, steve's crippling self-destructive tendencies, some bone-deep yearning, angst with HEA, explicit sexual content
✮ word count: 17.2k (ur girl doesn't know how to shut up)
✮ a/n: this was supposed to be a drabble. like. idk. (I think I might like it more than 'touch and go' WHO SAID THAT)
series masterlist
bonus drabble 1
bonus drabble 2
The first time you see Steve Rogers cry, you're not supposed to be there.
The SHIELD medical bay at 2:47 AM is meant to be empty—just you, a dislocated shoulder from a mission gone sideways in Prague, and the ice pack you're too stubborn to ask someone else to help you position. But there he is, Captain America himself, hunched forward in the uncomfortable plastic chair beside bed seven with his face in his hands, shoulders shaking in that particular way that says everything hurts and I'm trying to be quiet about it.
You freeze in the doorway, good arm holding your bad arm, heart suddenly hammering against your ribs like it's trying to break free. The fluorescent lights hum overhead, too bright, making everything look sharp-edged and surreal. Your mouth goes dry. There's a metallic taste on your tongue—adrenaline, maybe, or just the copper-tang of exhaustion that's been following you since your transport touched down six hours ago.
He's still in his tactical gear—dirt-streaked and blood-spattered from wherever he's been. You'd heard whispers in the hallways. A Hydra facility. The Winter Soldier, recovered. Captain Rogers, who never fails, who never breaks, bringing his best friend home after seventy years. You'd seen him from a distance when they'd brought Barnes in, shield on his back like it weighed a thousand pounds, and thought what you always think: beautiful and untouchable as a monument.
Now, though. Now he's just a man in a room that smells like antiseptic and grief, crying over—
The bed. There's someone in the bed.
Barnes. James Barnes. The Winter Soldier. Bucky. Whatever name he's wearing today. This is your first time seeing him up close, seeing him as something other than a ghost story whispered in SHIELD corridors. He looks smaller than the legends suggest, more human than weapon.
He's unconscious, or close to it, hooked to machines that beep in rhythms that must mean something to someone who isn't you. But what catches your attention—what makes your stomach twist and drop like you've missed a step going downstairs—is the woman curled against his side.
You don't know her, have never seen her before, but you know what she is. It's in the way she fits against him, like two pieces of something broken made whole. The way even unconscious, his body angles toward hers, his metal arm—and God, that's the arm that's killed presidents—draped protectively across her waist. The way her hand rests over his heart, monitoring his breathing even in sleep.
His soulmate. The Winter Soldier has a soulmate.
And Steve Rogers is crying over them.
Your shoulder throbs, sending white-hot spikes down your arm, and you bite the inside of your cheek hard enough to taste blood. You should leave. This is private, sacred, none of your business. But when you try to shift backward, your shoulder screams—a sharp, electric agony that races down your spine and makes your vision go spotty at the edges. The small sound that escapes your throat—half-gasp, half-whimper—cuts through the quiet like a gunshot.
Steve's head snaps up.
His eyes are red-rimmed, devastated, the blue of them turned dark and stormy with an emotion so raw it feels like looking directly at an exposed nerve. There are tear tracks on his cheeks, catching the harsh fluorescent light, and his lips are parted like he's forgotten how to breathe properly. For a second, neither of you moves. You're caught in the doorway like a deer in headlights, your pulse thundering in your ears, and he's frozen mid-grief, and the moment stretches taut as wire between you.
The air feels charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. Your skin prickles with it, every hair on your arms standing at attention.
Then his face closes off. All that naked emotion disappears behind the Captain America mask, so fast you'd think you imagined it if your heart wasn't still trying to claw its way out of your chest from the impact of seeing it.
"You need help?" His voice comes out rough, scraped raw, gravel and exhaustion and something else threaded through it. He clears his throat, stands, and suddenly the room feels smaller, the walls pressing in. He's always so much—six feet of genetically enhanced perfection that makes your body confused about whether it wants to fight or flee or something else entirely that you refuse to examine.
"I—" Your voice catches, sticks in your throat like you've swallowed glass. You force yourself to look at your shoulder instead of his face, but that means looking at the way his hands flex at his sides, the way his weight shifts like he's fighting the urge to move toward you. "Dislocated. From Prague. I can manage."
"You can't." Matter-of-fact, not unkind, but there's something underneath it—a tension that makes your stomach flip. He crosses the room in three strides, and you have that thought again—monument—but monuments don't usually smell like gunpowder and sweat and something cedar-sharp that makes your hindbrain light up with interest you absolutely cannot afford.
He stops just short of you, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off him, close enough that you have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. The movement makes your shoulder scream, and you can't quite suppress the way your breath hitches.
"Really, I'm—"
"Stubborn?" There's something almost like amusement flickering across his face, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth, but it makes your chest go tight and warm. "I know. You once tried to extract yourself from a building collapse with three broken ribs and a concussion."
You blink, stomach doing something complicated and uncomfortable. He knows that? He noticed that? Your skin feels too tight, like your body's trying to contain something that won't fit.
"Sit." He gestures to one of the beds, and when you don't move immediately—frozen by the way he's looking at you, intent and focused like you're a problem he needs to solve—his head tilts slightly. "That's an order, agent."
"You're not my CO," you point out, but you're already moving, because arguing with Steve Rogers while your shoulder feels like it's full of ground glass and your body is betraying you with all these inconvenient reactions seems like a losing proposition.
He follows, and you're hyperaware of him in that way you always are—the space he takes up, the way air seems to bend around him, the way your skin prickles with awareness even though he hasn't touched you. When you sit on the bed's edge, the paper crinkles beneath you, too loud in the quiet. He stands in front of you, and you have to focus on the SHIELD logo on his chest because looking at his face feels dangerous right now, like staring directly into the sun.
"This is going to hurt," he says, and his voice is lower now, closer. You can feel it rumble through the space between you.
"I know." Your good hand is gripping the edge of the bed so hard your knuckles have gone white. Your heart is doing something irregular and concerning in your chest.
"I mean it's going to—"
"Captain Rogers." You finally look up at him, find him watching you with an expression you can't parse—something intense and careful and guarded all at once. The fluorescent light catches in his hair, turns it more gold than blonde. There's a smudge of dirt on his jaw. "I've been in the field for six years. I know what a shoulder reduction feels like."
Something shifts in his jaw, that little muscle tick you've catalogued along with a hundred other Steve Rogers tells. Your breathing has gone shallow, and you don't know if it's from the pain or the way he's looking at you—like you're something he needs to be careful with.
Finally, he reaches for your arm.
He's wearing tactical gloves.
Of course he is. Steve Rogers always wears gloves on missions, black leather that make his already large hands look even more capable. You've never thought about it before—lots of agents wear gloves. Protection, grip, a hundred practical reasons.
But now, with him this close, with his hands carefully bracketing your injured arm, you notice the deliberateness of it. The way the leather covers every inch of skin from fingertip to wrist. The way he's careful, even now, not to let any exposed skin above the glove brush against you. There's a gap, barely an inch, where his sleeve has ridden up, revealing a strip of pale skin. You stare at it, pulse jumping in your throat for reasons you don't understand.
"On three," he says, and his voice is closer now, quieter. You can feel the heat of him, the solid presence that makes your good hand want to reach out and—
Your fingers twitch on the bed. The paper crinkles.
"One."
He adjusts his grip, and even through the leather, even through your tactical shirt, your nerve endings light up like a circuit board. Your breath catches, stops, starts again too fast.
"Two."
You're watching his face because you have to look somewhere, and that's when you see it—a flicker of something that looks like resignation. Like loss. Like he's steeling himself for something that's going to hurt. The tendons in his neck are taut, and there's a bead of sweat trailing down from his temple despite the cool air.
"Three."
The world whites out. Pain floods your system, sharp and immediate, and your vision goes sparkly at the edges. Your good hand flies up instinctively, searching for something to anchor you, and finds—
His vest. Your fingers curl into the tactical fabric, knuckles brushing against the solid wall of his chest beneath. You're falling forward, or maybe he's moving closer, and suddenly your forehead is almost touching his chest, and his hands have shifted to your shoulders—careful, still gloved, but holding you steady.
"Breathe," he says, and maybe it's the pain, but his voice sounds different. Softer. Rougher. His thumb moves in a small circle against your shoulder, probably meant to be soothing, but it sends electricity racing down your spine. "You're okay. Just breathe."
You realize you're making small, hurt sounds into his vest, and his body has curved around you slightly, protective, blocking you from the rest of the room. Your working hand has somehow fisted completely in his tactical vest, and you can feel the rise and fall of his breathing, too controlled to be natural. His heart beats against your knuckles, faster than you'd expect for someone with enhanced everything.
"I'm good," you manage, though your voice comes out embarrassingly breathy, wrecked. "I'm—thank you."
You pull back, look up, and freeze.
He's so close. Close enough that you can see the flecks of green in his blue eyes, the way his pupils have dilated slightly. Close enough to count individual eyelashes, to see the faint scar on his lower lip. Close enough that when his lips part slightly, you feel his exhale ghost across your face.
His eyes drop to where your hand grips his vest, and there's something almost stricken in his expression. His throat works as he swallows, and you track the movement helplessly.
Then his gaze snaps to your face, and for a second—just a second—his eyes drop to your mouth.
The air between you goes electric.
His hand on your shoulder tightens infinitesimally, leather creaking, and you're suddenly aware that your bodies are still curved toward each other, that if you just leaned forward an inch—
He jerks back. Takes three full steps back, actually, like he needs the distance. Like proximity to you is somehow dangerous. His breathing is slightly uneven, and there's a flush high on his cheeks that wasn't there before.
"You should get that x-rayed," he says, and his voice is too loud in the quiet room, just slightly unsteady. He's Captain America again, professional and distant, but his hands are clenched at his sides and he won't quite meet your eyes. "And ice. Twenty minutes on, twenty off."
"I know the drill." Your voice sounds strange to your own ears, throaty and affected. Your good hand is still raised slightly, fingers tingling from where they'd gripped his vest.
He nods, sharp and efficient. Turns to go back to his vigil beside Barnes's bed. But something makes you speak, words tumbling out before your brain can catch up with your mouth.
"He's lucky."
Steve stops. His shoulders go rigid, the line of his spine straightening like someone's put electricity through it.
"Barnes," you clarify, though you shouldn't. Your tongue feels thick in your mouth, clumsy. "To have someone who—to have her. His soulmate. They're both lucky."
When he turns to look at you, there's something hollow in his eyes, something that makes your chest ache with recognition you don't want to examine. The muscle in his jaw is working again, and his gloved hands clench and unclench at his sides.
"Yeah," he says quietly, and the word comes out like it's been dragged over broken glass. "Lucky."
He says it like the word tastes like ash, like something burned and bitter on his tongue.
"Steve—" You don't know what you're going to say, don't know why his name feels like something precious in your mouth, why your body is still leaning toward him like a plant toward sunlight.
"You should rest." He cuts you off, gentle but firm, and there's something almost desperate in the way he's not looking at you. "That shoulder needs—"
An alarm goes off. Not the gentle chime of a normal medical alert, but the sharp, angry wail that means something's wrong. Steve's already moving, heading for Barnes's bed where machines are screaming and the woman—his soulmate—is sitting up, hands pressed to her temples, saying "Something's wrong, something's—"
Barnes jackknifes upright with a sound that isn't quite human, metal arm swinging blindly, and his soulmate catches his hand without flinching. The moment their skin connects, some of the wildness bleeds out of his eyes.
"Bucky." Her voice is steady despite the chaos. "You're in medical. You're safe. I'm here."
You should leave. This is definitely not for you to witness. But you're frozen, watching how Barnes's entire being reorganizes itself around her touch, how his breathing slows to match hers, how the machines gradually stop their shrieking as his vitals stabilize. The way she runs her fingers through his hair, and he melts into it, face pressing into her palm like he's trying to absorb her through skin contact alone.
And you watch Steve watch them, standing two feet away but somehow miles distant, his gloved hands clenched so tight at his sides that the leather creaks.
You've never wanted a soulmate. The odds are astronomical, the chance of finding them slim to none, and you've seen what happens to people who lose them—the hollow-eyed grief that never quite fades. Better to never have one than to lose them. Better to be whole on your own than broken in half of a pair.
But watching Barnes fold into his soulmate's arms like coming home, watching her hold him together with nothing but touch and presence and fierce, protective love—
Your chest aches with want so sharp it steals your breath. Your skin feels too tight, too hot, like your body is trying to tell you something your mind won't acknowledge.
When you look at Steve, he's already looking at you. For just a second, you see your own longing reflected in his eyes, the same hollow ache of watching others have what you'll never possess. His gaze drops to your hand—the one that had gripped his vest—and something flickers across his face, too fast to read.
Then he looks away, jaw tight, and the moment breaks, and you're just an injured agent who needs to stop projecting feelings onto a superior officer who barely knows you exist.
"Get some rest," he says without looking at you, voice carefully controlled. "That's an order."
This time, you don't argue. You leave him to his vigil, to his grief, to whatever it is that makes Captain America cry in hospital chairs over other people's happy endings.
Your shoulder throbs in time with your heartbeat as you walk away, and you tell yourself that's the only reason your chest hurts. That's the only reason your skin feels like it's burning where he almost touched you. That's the only reason you can still feel the ghost of his vest under your fingers, the phantom heat of him curved around you.
You're very good at lying to yourself at 3 AM.
But your traitorous body remembers the way he'd jerked back from you, the way his eyes had gone wide with something that looked like fear when he'd realized how close you were.
Whatever Steve Rogers is afraid of, you're starting to think it might be you.
The next time you see him is three days later, and your body knows he's in the room before your brain catches up.
You're bent over a terminal in the east wing surveillance room, trying to make sense of intel that feels like it's been encrypted in ancient Sumerian, when every hair on the back of your neck stands at attention. Your spine straightens involuntarily, muscles tensing like an animal sensing a predator—or worse, like iron filings responding to a magnet.
"Agent."
Just that. Just your title in his Captain America voice, all professional distance and careful neutrality. But your treacherous body reacts like he's whispered something filthy in your ear—pulse jumping, skin flushing hot, stomach doing that uncomfortable flip that's becoming alarmingly familiar.
You don't turn around. Can't. Not when you know what you look like right now—haven't slept in thirty-six hours, hair in a messy bun that's listing severely to the left, yesterday's coffee staining your SHIELD-issued crewneck. Not when you can feel him taking up all the oxygen in the room just by existing in it.
"Captain Rogers." You're proud of how steady your voice comes out, even as your fingers have gone white-knuckled on the edge of the desk. "Something I can help you with?"
Silence. Long enough that you almost turn, almost give in to the gravitational pull of him. Then: footsteps. Measured, deliberate. He's moving closer, and your body tracks his approach like sonar, every nerve ending pinging with proximity alerts.
He stops just outside your peripheral vision—close enough that you can smell him (soap, leather, that cedar-sharp scent that makes your hindbrain whimper), far enough that there's no chance of accidental contact. You notice he does that a lot. Maintains exact distances like he's calculated the precise minimum safe zone between bodies.
"The Brussels intel." A pause. You hear him shift, leather jacket creaking. "Fury wants us to run point together."
Your hands still on the keyboard.
Us.
Together.
Run point.
"Us," you repeat, carefully neutral, still not turning around because if you look at him right now your face will do something stupid. Something that reveals how your stomach just dropped through the floor at the prospect of working closely with him. Of being in proximity to Steve Rogers for an extended period when just standing in the same room makes you feel like you're about to vibrate out of your skin.
"Is that a problem?"
There's something in his voice—a challenge maybe, or a test. Like he's waiting for you to admit what you both know: that whatever this thick, electric tension between you is, it's becoming harder to ignore.
"No, sir." You turn then, because not looking is starting to feel more obvious than looking, and immediately regret it.
He's in civilian clothes—dark jeans that shouldn't be legal on someone with his thighs, a navy shirt that clings to his chest in ways that make your mouth go dry. The leather jacket that does things to his shoulders that ought to be classified. But it's his face that kills you—that careful, composed expression that doesn't quite hide the way his eyes darken when they meet yours, the way his jaw ticks when you unconsciously wet your lips.
"Good." He steps closer—just half a step, but your body reacts like he's pressed you against the wall. Your breathing goes shallow, chest rising and falling too fast, and his eyes track the movement before snapping back to your face. "Briefing's at 0800."
"I'll be there."
He should leave. The conversation's over, message delivered. But he doesn't move. Just stands there, looking at you with an expression you can't read, and the air between you feels like it's getting thicker, harder to breathe. Your skin prickles with heat despite the aggressive air conditioning, and you can feel your pulse in your throat, your wrists, between your legs—
"Your shoulder." The words come out rough, like he's had to drag them from somewhere deep. "How is it?"
"Fine." Your voice sounds breathy, affected. You clear your throat, try again. "Good. It's good. Thanks to you."
Something flickers across his face at that—almost pained, like you've said something that hurts. His hand comes up, and for a heart-stopping second you think he's going to touch you. Your whole body goes still, waiting, wanting, every cell screaming yes, finally, please—
But he just runs it through his hair, a gesture that's so uncharacteristically unguarded it makes your chest ache.
"Steve—"
"I should go." He cuts you off, already stepping back, and the loss of proximity feels like someone's turned off the sun. "Early morning."
He's halfway to the door when you speak, words tumbling out without permission.
"Why do you do that?"
He stops. Doesn't turn. "Do what?"
"Pull back." Your heart is hammering so hard you're sure he can hear it with his enhanced everything. "You get close, and then you just—" You make a frustrated gesture he can't see. "It's like you're afraid of me."
His shoulders tense, and when he turns to look at you, there's something raw in his eyes for just a second before he shutters it away.
"I'm not afraid of you."
"Then what—"
"I'm afraid of what I want from you."
The words hang in the air between you like a grenade with the pin pulled. Your breath catches, stops entirely. Your body goes hot and cold at once, skin too tight, like you're having an allergic reaction to honesty.
He looks as surprised as you feel, like the admission escaped without his permission. His hands clench at his sides—you notice he's not wearing gloves, and for some reason that feels significant. Dangerous. His fingers are long, elegant despite their strength, and you have the sudden, visceral thought of what they'd feel like on your skin.
"Captain—"
"Steve." His voice is rough, wrecked. "Just... when it's just us, call me Steve."
Your throat feels like you've swallowed glass. "Steve."
He makes a sound—small, strangled—and takes a step toward you before catching himself. The muscle in his jaw is working overtime, and his hands—Jesus, his hands are actually trembling.
"This isn't—" He stops. Tries again. "I can't—"
"Can't what?" You stand, and your legs feel like water but you need to be closer to him, need to understand what's happening in the space between his words. "Steve, what—"
"0800," he says, and it sounds like surrender. "Don't be late."
He's gone before you can respond, leaving you alone in a room that feels too cold without him in it. Your skin feels raw, oversensitized, like you've been flayed open and exposed to the elements. You sink back into your chair, legs finally giving out, and press your palms against your burning cheeks.
I'm afraid of what I want from you.
Your body is still humming, vibrating at some frequency that feels like it's going to shake you apart. You can still smell him in the air—leather and soap and something unmistakably Steve that makes your hindbrain want to follow him down the hall, pin him against a wall, and find out exactly what he wants from you.
But you don't. You sit in your chair, stare at intel you can't process, and try to convince yourself that whatever's happening between you and Steve Rogers is just chemistry. Just proximity and adrenaline and two people spending too much time dancing around each other in small spaces.
You're getting better at lying to yourself.
But your body remembers the way his eyes had gone dark when he watched you breathe. The way his hands had trembled. The way he'd said your name like it was being torn out of him.
0800 can't come fast enough.
The briefing room is too small.
That's your first thought when you walk in at 0755, coffee clutched like a lifeline, to find Steve already there. He's studying a holographic map of Brussels, one hand braced on the table, the other holding a tablet. The morning light from the floor-to-ceiling windows turns his hair gold and throws his profile into sharp relief, and your step falters in the doorway because he looks like something out of a Renaissance painting—all strong lines and perfect angles and terrible beauty.
He doesn't look up, but his shoulders tense slightly. He knows you're there.
"Morning," you manage, proud when your voice doesn't crack.
"Agent." Back to titles, then. Back to distance. But when he glances up, his eyes catch yours and hold for a beat too long, and you see him swallow.
You take your seat—across from him, with the whole width of the table between you like a demilitarized zone. But it's not enough. The room's too small, the air too thin. You can see the rise and fall of his chest, the way his thumb taps against the tablet in a rhythm that matches your elevated pulse.
"The target's a bioweapon," he says without preamble, swiping something on his tablet that makes the hologram shift and expand. "Hydra remnants, we think. They're moving it through Brussels tomorrow night."
You force yourself to focus on the intel, not on the way his hands move when he talks, precise and economical. Not on the fact that his sleeves are rolled up, revealing forearms that make your mouth water—all corded muscle and prominent veins and a dusting of hair that catches the light.
"Extraction point?"
"Here." He rounds the table to point at a specific building, and suddenly he's beside you, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off him. Close enough that when you breathe in, you get a lungful of his scent that makes your head spin. "Warehouse district. Minimal civilian presence after dark."
You turn your head to look at the map, but that's a mistake because now his face is inches from yours. You can see the barely-there freckles across his nose, the way his lips part slightly when he breathes. His eyes drop to your mouth for a fraction of a second before he jerks back, stepping away so fast you feel the displacement of air.
"We'll go in quiet," he says, voice rougher than before. His hand comes up to rub the back of his neck, a gesture you're starting to recognize as his tell for when he's affected. "Two-person infiltration. Quick and clean."
"Just the two of us?" The words come out more breathless than you intended.
He nods, still not looking at you. "Fury wants it kept small. Discreet."
Discreet. Right. You can be discreet. You can be professional. You can absolutely handle being alone with Steve Rogers on a mission without doing something stupid like wondering what his hands would feel like in your hair, or how his voice would sound saying your actual name in the dark, or—
"Questions?"
You realize you've been staring at him, and your face goes hot. "No. No questions."
"Good." He's already moving toward the door, eager to escape, but he pauses at the threshold. When he looks back, there's something almost vulnerable in his expression. "We leave at 1400. Quinjet bay three."
"I'll be there."
He nods, starts to go, then stops again. His hand tightens on the doorframe, knuckles going white.
"You should wear tactical gear," he says without turning around. "Full coverage. It's going to be cold."
There's something about the way he says it—careful, deliberate—that makes you think he's not really talking about the temperature. But before you can respond, he's gone, leaving you alone in a room that still smells like him.
You spend the rest of the morning trying to focus on mission prep, but your mind keeps circling back to the way he'd looked at your mouth. The way he'd jerked back like you'd burned him. The way he'd specified full coverage like he was trying to minimize the chance of—what? Of skin contact? Of touching?
By 1400, you're wound so tight you feel like you might snap. The tactical gear feels heavy, constrictive, like it's pressing all your sensitivity inward. Every brush of fabric against skin feels amplified, every movement hyperaware.
You find him in the quinjet, running preflight checks with the kind of focus that suggests he's trying very hard not to think about something. He's in his Captain America suit—the deep blue that somehow makes his shoulders look even broader, red and white accents catching the cabin lights. No skin visible except his face and that thin strip at his neck where the cowl doesn't quite meet the collar, every inch of him covered like armor against something more than physical threats.
"Ready?" He doesn't look at you when he asks.
"Always."
The flight to Brussels takes six hours. Six hours of sitting across from each other in a quinjet that suddenly feels impossibly small. Six hours of trying not to stare at the way his hands move over the controls, sure and competent. Six hours of him studiously avoiding your gaze while the tension ratchets higher with every passing minute.
Halfway through, you shift in your seat, and your knee brushes his under the table. It's barely contact—layers of fabric between you—but you both freeze. His hands still on the tablet he's holding. Your breath catches in your throat. For a moment, neither of you moves, like you're both waiting to see what the other will do.
He pulls his leg back.
You curl your hands into fists and stare out the window at clouds that look soft enough to touch, trying to ignore the way your knee burns where it brushed his, trying to ignore the way he's breathing just a little too carefully across from you.
"You should get some rest," he says finally, voice neutral. "It's going to be a long night."
You don't tell him there's no way you could sleep, not when every cell in your body is hyperaware of his presence. Not when you can feel the weight of his carefully maintained distance like a physical thing.
Instead, you close your eyes and pretend, counting your breaths, trying to ignore the way your body hums with proximity to him. Trying to ignore the fact that in a few hours, you'll be alone with him in the dark, dependent on each other in the way that missions make necessary.
Trying to ignore the way your skin already aches for something you've never had.
When you fake-wake an hour later, he's watching you.
The look on his face—unguarded, soft, almost pained—makes your chest tight. But the second he realizes you're awake, his expression shutters, locks down, becomes Captain America again.
"Descending in twenty," he says, all business.
You nod, start checking your gear, and pretend you didn't see the way he was looking at you like you're something he wants but can't have. Pretend your heart isn't racing from that single, stolen moment of his true face.
Twenty minutes to Brussels.
Twenty minutes until you're alone with him in the dark.
Twenty minutes until whatever this is either snaps or shatters.
Your hands shake as you load your weapons, and you tell yourself it's just pre-mission adrenaline.
You're getting worse at lying to yourself.
The warehouse district in Brussels looks like every other warehouse district you've ever infiltrated—all concrete and shadows and too many places for things to go wrong. Your breath mists in the December air, visible for half a second before disappearing, and you're hyperaware of Steve beside you, the way his body heat seems to radiate even from three feet away.
Three feet. Always three feet.
You've been in position for forty minutes, watching the target building through night vision, and the tension between you has ratcheted so high you can practically taste it—metallic, electric, like the air before lightning strikes.
"Two guards, northwest corner," you murmur into comms, watching them through your scope. Your finger rests against the trigger guard, steady despite the way your whole body feels attuned to Steve's presence. "Rotation in approximately ninety seconds."
"Copy." His voice in your ear makes your stomach flip, low and authoritative. Through your peripheral vision, you catch him adjusting his shield, the movement precise, controlled. Everything about him is controlled. Has been since you touched down three hours ago. Maybe since before that. Maybe since that moment in the briefing room when he'd told you to wear full tactical gear like he was trying to armor you against something more than bullets.
The silence stretches, fills with things unsaid. Your skin prickles beneath the kevlar, every nerve ending hyperalert. Not from danger—not yet—but from proximity to him that feels more intimate than touch. You can hear him breathe, steady and measured. Can smell that cedar-sharp scent that cuts through the industrial stink of the district. Can feel the weight of his attention even when he's not looking at you.
"You know," you say quietly, because the silence is becoming unbearable, "for a stealth mission, you're thinking very loudly."
A pause. Then: "I'm not thinking anything."
"Liar." The word slips out before you can stop it, soft and knowing, and you feel him go still beside you.
"Agent—"
"You said when it's just us, I could—" You swallow, throat suddenly dry. "We're alone, Steve. You can use my name."
Another pause, longer this time. When he speaks, his voice is rougher. "The guards are moving."
He's right. You track them through your scope, watching them disappear around the corner, and try to ignore the way your name apparently burns in his throat, the way he can't seem to say it even when you've given him permission.
"Window's open," you confirm. "Ninety seconds, like clockwork."
"Let's move."
You're up and moving before the words finish forming, bodies falling into perfect synchronization. He goes high, you go low, covering angles with the kind of wordless communication that feels like dancing, like inevitability. Your breath syncs with his as you cross the open ground, and you tell yourself it's just tactical breathing, just professional compatibility.
You're getting worse at lying to yourself.
The side entrance is exactly where intel said it would be. Steve makes quick work of the lock while you cover him, and the domestic intimacy of it—you protecting his back while he works—makes something twist in your chest.
"Got it." The lock clicks open, and he pulls the door wide, weapon raised.
You follow him into darkness.
The warehouse is a maze of shipping containers and scaffolding, all deep shadows and blind corners. Your night vision paints everything in shades of green, turning Steve into something otherworldly as he moves ahead of you, all lethal grace and coiled power. You've seen him fight before, but there's something different about moving with him like this, just the two of you in the dark. Something that makes your body hyperaware of every gesture, every signal.
He holds up a fist—stop. You freeze instantly, trusting him implicitly. He tilts his head, listening to something you can't hear, and you watch the line of his throat, the way his pulse beats steady and strong beneath the skin.
Then you hear it too—footsteps, multiple sets, coming from the east corridor.
Steve looks back at you, and even through the night vision, you can see something pass across his face. He points to himself, then forward. Points to you, then to a stack of crates that would provide cover.
You shake your head. You're not letting him go alone.
His jaw ticks—that tell you've catalogued along with all his others. But there's no time to argue. The footsteps are getting closer.
You move together, silent as shadows, until the first hostile rounds the corner.
Steve takes him down in one fluid motion, shield connecting with a dull thud that the man doesn't get up from. But there are more—so many more—and suddenly the warehouse explodes into chaos.
"Contact!" you shout into comms that suddenly fill with static, jamming signals flooding the frequency. "Multiple hostiles—"
A muzzle flash in your peripheral. You pivot, fire twice, watch the figure drop. Steve's shield sings through the air, ricocheting off three targets in quick succession before returning to his hand. You move back to back without thinking, covering each other's blind spots, and the contact—even through layers of tactical gear—makes your skin burn.
"We need to move!" Steve shouts over the gunfire. "The bioweapon—"
"I know!" You drop two more hostiles, reload with practiced efficiency. "Northwest stairs, we can—"
The explosion knocks you sideways.
Your shoulder hits concrete hard, night vision flickering, ears ringing. Through the smoke, you see Steve fighting like something out of legend—shield and fists and absolutely ruthless efficiency. But there are too many. They keep coming, and you're separated now, a wall of hostiles between you.
"Steve!" You fight toward him, muscle memory and desperation driving you forward.
"Get to the weapon!" His voice cuts through the chaos. "I'll hold them—"
"Like hell!"
But more fighters flood in, and you're forced back, forced to watch him disappear behind a wall of bodies. Your chest goes tight with something that's not quite panic but close—the thought of losing sight of him, of something happening while you're not there to cover his six.
You fight harder, brutal and efficient, trying to close the distance. Your body moves on autopilot while your mind tracks him through glimpses—the flash of his shield, the sound of his voice calling out positions.
Then you hear it. His sharp intake of breath, pained.
"Steve?"
"I'm fine." But his voice is strained, and you catch sight of him favoring his left side, blood dark on his tactical suit. "The weapon—"
"Fuck the weapon." You slam a new magazine home, determination crystallizing into something sharp and desperate. "I'm coming to you."
"No!" The authority in his voice stops you short. "That's an order—get the bioweapon. I'll meet you at extraction."
Every instinct screams against leaving him, but he's right. The mission. Always the mission.
You run.
The stairs are clear—too clear. Your instincts scream trap, but there's no time. You take them three at a time, hip protesting from the earlier fall, listening to the sounds of fighting below. Steve's still engaged, still fighting, and you track his progress through the warehouse by sound alone.
The lab is exactly where intel indicated—third floor, northeast corner. Also exactly as unguarded as you'd feared.
Trap. Definitely a trap.
But the bioweapon is there, contained in a small metal briefcase that seems too innocuous for something that could kill thousands. You grab it, already turning back toward the stairs when you hear Steve's voice crackle through the static.
Not "Agent." Your name, sharp and desperate, and the sound of it makes your blood freeze. "Get out. Now. They're—"
The static cuts him off.
"Steve? Steve!"
Nothing.
You're already running, taking the stairs so fast you nearly fall, the briefcase clutched tight against your chest. The warehouse has gone quiet—too quiet. No more gunfire. No more fighting.
Just silence.
You round the corner into the main warehouse floor and see him.
He's surrounded, on his knees, blood running from a cut above his eye. Six hostiles have weapons trained on him, and his shield is nowhere to be seen. But what makes your blood turn to ice is the seventh figure—a man in tactical gear holding something that looks like—
"No!" The word tears from your throat as you recognize the device. Sonic disruptor, strong enough to disorient even a super soldier.
The man's finger depresses the trigger.
Steve convulses, hands going to his ears, and the sound he makes—
You're moving before conscious thought catches up, pure instinct driving you forward. The briefcase clatters to the ground as you raise your weapon, laying down cover fire that sends three hostiles scrambling. But you're exposed now, in the open, no cover between you and—
The first shot catches you in the vest.
The impact slams you backward, driving all the air from your lungs in a whoosh that whites out your vision. Your body armor holds—SHIELD makes good gear—but the force spins you sideways, and before you can recover, before you can breathe—
The second shot finds the gap.
Right where your vest meets your hip, that vulnerable slice of space where mobility trumps protection. The bullet tears through tactical fabric and skin and muscle like tissue paper, and the pain—
The pain is exquisite.
White-hot agony blooms from your hip, spreading like wildfire through your nervous system until every cell is screaming. You hear yourself make a sound—sharp, breathless, more surprise than scream—and then your legs are failing, and you're falling, and the concrete rises up to meet you like an old friend.
Your name rips from Steve's throat like something being torn from his chest cavity.
Through blurring vision, you see him move.
The sonic disruptor doesn't matter. The six weapons trained on him don't matter. He erupts from his knees with a sound that's barely human, pure rage and desperation, and bodies go flying. He fights like something mythical, like something out of the stories they tell about Captain America, except there's nothing heroic about this.
This is brutality. Devastation.
Your hands shake as they try to find the wound, fingers slipping on something warm and wet that's spreading way too fast. The pain is enormous, eating at the edges of your consciousness, white-hot and pulsing with each heartbeat. Your tactical pants are already soaked, the fabric clinging to your skin, and when you lift your hand it's painted crimson in the warehouse's emergency lighting.
That's... that's too much blood. Way too much.
Your body starts to shake—shock, probably, or blood loss, or just the simple animal recognition that you're badly hurt. Your teeth start chattering, and you can't make them stop, jaw clenched so tight you taste blood from where you've bitten your tongue.
"No, no, no, no—"
Steve crashes to his knees beside you so hard the concrete cracks. His hands—his bare hands, when did he lose his gloves?—hover over you for a fraction of a second before pressing against the wound. The pressure makes you scream, body trying to curl away from the pain, but he holds you down, holds you still.
"Hey, hey, look at me." His voice cracks completely, nothing like Captain America's steady authority. This is just Steve, terrified and desperate. "Look at me. Stay with me."
You try to focus on his face, but it keeps fracturing, splitting into doubles and triples before reforming. Your eyes won't track right, keep sliding away like they're too heavy. His face is covered in blood—from the cut above his eye, from other wounds you can't catalog—and there's something wild in his expression, something that makes your chest tight for reasons that have nothing to do with the bullet.
"Steve—" Your voice comes out wrong, too wet, copper flooding your mouth. When you cough, something warm splatters across your lips.
"Don't talk, don't—just stay still. I've got you." He's pressing so hard against the wound that new pain blooms, sharp and bright, making your vision white out at the edges. But his hands—his hands are shaking where they press against you, and that seems wrong somehow. Steve Rogers's hands don't shake. "Med evac's coming. Two minutes. Just two minutes, you have to—"
His voice breaks completely, and you realize he's crying. Captain America is crying over you, tears cutting clean tracks through the blood and dirt on his face.
"'S okay," you slur, though it's not, though nothing is okay. Your tongue feels thick, clumsy. "'M okay."
"You're not okay." It comes out harsh, angry, but his hands on your wound are so careful, desperately trying to hold you together. "There's so much blood. Why is there so much—"
That's when you see it. His bare hands are pressed against your wound, skin to skin where your tactical gear has been torn away, and you wait for something—for warmth, for electricity, for whatever cosmic sign is supposed to indicate a soul bond. But there's just the cold creeping up your limbs and Steve's devastated face above you.
"Please," he's saying, over and over, like a prayer or a plea. "Please, just hold on. Just—"
He reaches for your face with one blood-slicked hand, maybe to check your pupils, maybe to keep you conscious, and that's when it happens.
His palm cups your cheek, and the world explodes.
Not with pain this time, but with something else entirely. Something that races through your dying body like lightning finding ground, like coming home, like every cell suddenly remembering what they're made for. The bond slams into place with the force of a freight train, decades of waiting condensed into a single moment of contact that rewrites everything you thought you knew about existence.
The warmth that floods through you has nothing to do with healing and everything to do with recognition. With rightness. With the soul bond that's singing in your bones, drowning out even the pain, making everything else fade to background noise. You can feel him—not just his hand on your face but him, his emotions crashing into yours like a tidal wave. Fear and longing and desperate denial and—
He rips his hand away like you've burned him.
"No." The word comes out strangled, broken. He's staring at his hand like it's betrayed him, then at your face with something that looks like pure horror. "No, not—not like this. Not now—"
The loss of his touch hits worse than the bullet did. Your body convulses, a sob ripping from your throat that you can't control, can't stop. The bond—new and raw and screaming—feels like someone's reached into your chest and started pulling things out. Every nerve ending is firing wrong, confused, desperate for the contact that just got ripped away.
"Steve." Your voice breaks on his name, barely human. The world is going fuzzy at the edges but this—this burning absence where his hand was—this is crystalline. "Steve, please—you're—we're—"
"Don't." He's pressing against the wound with just fabric between you now, using torn pieces of his uniform to maintain pressure without skin contact. His whole body is shaking, violent tremors that make his hands unsteady. "This can't—I can't—"
"Please." The word comes out slurred, desperate, all your walls crumbling with your blood pressure. Your body moves without permission, trying to arch toward him, and the movement sends agony through your hip but you don't care, can't care, not when every cell is screaming for him. "Need—need you t'touch me. Please. Hurts—hurts so much without—"
A whimper escapes, high and broken, and you're crying now—real tears mixing with blood from where you've bitten through your lip trying not to beg.
"I can't." He's sobbing openly, pressing harder against the wound as your blood soaks through the fabric barriers he's maintaining. His face is wrecked, destroyed, tears cutting tracks through dirt and blood. "I can't do this to you. I can't—everyone I touch—everyone I—"
"'M dying." It's matter-of-fact, clear even through the growing fog. Your body knows it, feels it in the way everything's going cold and distant.
Your hand lifts, trembling so hard it's more spasm than movement, reaching for his face. He catches your wrist with fabric-covered fingers, holding you back, and the sound you make—wounded, animal, barely human—seems to physically hurt him.
"You're not dying." Fierce, desperate, a lie that cracks in his throat. "You're not. Med evac's thirty seconds out. You're going to be fine, you're going to—"
"Hurts." The word is pure anguish. Not just the wound but the rejection, the bond screaming, tearing, dying in your chest. Your body's shutting down but somehow the ache of his denial cuts deeper. "Steve, please—am I—did I do something wrong? Am I not—not what you wanted—?"
"No." The word rips from him with enough force to echo off the warehouse walls. He's shaking so hard the fabric between you vibrates with it. "No, you're perfect. You're everything. You're—Christ, you're everything I never let myself want. That's why I can't—"
"Don' understand." Your vision is tunneling fast now, darkness eating the edges. Your body won't stop shaking, violent tremors that make your teeth chatter. "'S supposed to—soulmates supposed to—to help. To make it better. Why won't you—why won't you just—"
Another sob tears from your chest, weaker this time. Your reaching hand falls, fingers still twitching toward him.
"Because I'll destroy you." Raw, bleeding, the words torn from somewhere deep and wounded. "Because everyone I've ever—because I'm not meant for this. For you. You deserve someone who—someone whole. Someone who isn't—"
"Jus' wanted—" Your voice is fading, each word a monumental effort. Your body feels like it's floating and sinking at once. "Jus' wanted to know what it felt like. To be yours. Steve—'m so cold—”
Your eyes are sliding shut, but you force them open one more time, finding his face. He looks shattered. Broken. Like watching you die is killing him too.
"'M sorry," you whisper, and you don't know what you're apologizing for. For dying? For being his soulmate? For not being enough to make him want to hold you? "Sorry I'm not—not worth—"
"Stop." His voice breaks completely. "You're worth everything. You're worth—"
But you're already going under, the last sensation being the phantom burn of where his palm touched your cheek for those thirty-seven seconds. The bond screams and screams and screams, and then—
The med evac arrives in a thunder of sound and motion, but you can't process it anymore. Hands are moving you, lifting you, but all you can focus on is Steve's face, the way he's looking at you like you're taking his soul with you.
"I'm sorry," he's saying, over and over, his voice following you into the darkness. "I'm so fucking sorry. You deserve better. You deserve everything."
The last thing you see is him standing there, your blood painting his bare hands red, looking like a man who's just given up the one thing he wanted most in the world.
The last thing you feel is the phantom burn where his palm touched your cheek, the bond screaming for a connection that's been severed, your body trying to reach for something that's already gone.
The last thing you think, with the last conscious part of your mind, is that you would have been good to him. You would have been so good to him, if he'd let you.
But maybe that's why he pulled away.
Maybe he knows something you don't—that good things don't last, that soulmates are just another pretty lie the universe tells to make the dying easier.
Your hand falls limp, still reaching for him, and the darkness takes you under.
The medbay ceiling has exactly 247 tiles. You know because you've counted them approximately forty-three times since waking up, which was—what? Two weeks ago? Three? Time moves differently when your body is trying to rebuild itself from the inside out and your soul is trying to tear itself apart looking for someone who won't come.
The gunshot wound is healing. Slowly, methodically, with the kind of grinding precision that modern medicine excels at. They'd had to do surgery twice—once to stop the bleeding, once to repair the mess the bullet made of your intestines. The scar will be ugly, they tell you with professional sympathy, as if that's what you're worried about. As if the external scarring could possibly compare to whatever the fuck is happening inside your chest where the bond lives.
Or dies. You're not really sure which anymore.
Your nights follow a pattern now, predictable as clockwork. At 10 PM, the ward goes quiet, lights dimming to that particular hospital twilight that never quite achieves darkness. At 11:47 PM—always 11:47, like he's calculated the exact time the night nurse finishes rounds—you hear it.
Footsteps in the hallway. Careful, measured, but with that particular weight that only belongs to him. Your body recognizes them before your mind does, skin prickling with awareness, the bond flaring to life like struck kindling.
The first night, you'd opened your eyes.
He'd frozen in the doorway, silhouetted by hallway fluorescents, and for thirteen seconds (you counted), you just stared at each other. His face was—God, his face was something you'd never seen before. Raw. Destroyed. Like someone had reached inside him and rearranged everything until it no longer fit right.
"I—" he'd started.
You'd waited, heart hammering so hard the monitors had started alarming, bringing nurses running.
By the time they'd cleared out, satisfied you weren't dying, he was gone.
Now you know better. You keep your eyes closed, breathing deep and even, and let him have whatever this is. Whatever he needs.
He sits in the chair by the window—always the same chair, the one that creaks slightly when he shifts his weight. For the first ten minutes, he just sits there, breathing. You match your inhales to his, careful to keep them sleep-slow even though your heart is racing, even though every cell in your body is screaming to reach for him.
Sometimes he talks.
"They're releasing you tomorrow," he says tonight, voice barely above a whisper. "Fury told me. Said you're healing well. That you'll be able to—that you'll be fine."
Fine. The word sits between you like a lie neither of you believes.
"I know you're awake."
Your breath doesn't catch. You've gotten very good at this game.
"I know you're awake," he repeats, softer. "Your heartbeat changes when I'm here. Just a little, but—" A pause. The chair creaks. "I memorized it. Before. The sound of your heartbeat. Didn't mean to, it just—happened. Enhanced hearing and all."
You want to open your eyes so badly it's physical pain, but you don't. Can't. Because if you do, he'll leave, and even this—this careful distance, this monitored proximity—is better than nothing.
"I'm being reassigned."
Now your breath does catch, just slightly. You hear him shift forward.
"Fury thinks it's best. For both of us. Different divisions, different missions. Clean break." His voice cracks on 'clean' like the word itself is cutting him. "It's better this way. You can—you can find someone else. Someone who isn't—"
Broken, you want to finish. Scared. Frozen in a past that no longer exists.
But you keep your eyes closed, keep your breathing even, keep pretending that your chest isn't caving in with every word.
"I watched Bucky with his soulmate," he continues, and you've never heard him sound like this. Lost. "Watched how easy it was for them. How she touched him and suddenly he was whole again, was himself again. How the bond just—fixed things. Made sense of them."
The chair creaks again. Closer now. You can feel the heat of him, smell that cedar-sharp scent that makes your body ache with want.
"I thought—" He stops. Starts again. "I thought if I didn't have a soulmate, I could pretend I didn't belong here. Could keep one foot in the past, you know? Keep waiting to go home to a time that doesn't exist anymore. But then you—"
Silence. Long enough that you almost open your eyes, almost give up the pretense.
"You make me want to stay," he whispers, and it sounds like a confession. Like something torn from him against his will. "You make me want to belong here. In this century. In this life. And that fucking terrifies me."
Your eyes burn behind closed lids. Your throat aches with words you can't say.
"So I'm leaving. Because you deserve someone who isn't terrified of wanting you. Someone who can touch you without feeling like the universe is ending. Someone who—" His voice breaks completely. "Someone who didn't let you bleed out rather than accept a bond."
You hear him stand, the chair scraping slightly against linoleum. Feel him hesitate, that particular stillness that means he's fighting himself.
Then warmth. Just for a second. The ghost of fingers near your hand where it rests on the blanket, not quite touching but close enough that you can feel the heat of his skin, the way the air shifts between you.
"I'm sorry," he breathes. "I'm so fucking sorry."
Then he's gone, and you finally let yourself cry—silent, body-shaking sobs that you muffle in the pillow so the night nurse won't come. The bond aches like a severed limb, phantom pain for something you had for exactly thirty-seven seconds in a warehouse in Brussels.
Tomorrow, they release you.
Tomorrow, you go back to a life where Steve Rogers is just someone you pass in hallways, someone who looks through you like you're a ghost, someone who touched your face once while you were dying and then decided you weren't worth the risk.
Tonight, though. Tonight you lie in a hospital bed and count ceiling tiles and pretend you don't know that he stands outside your door for another twenty-three minutes before he finally makes himself leave.
Your apartment feels like a crime scene you're returning to.
Everything is exactly as you left it three weeks ago—coffee mug still in the sink, laptop still open on the counter, the ghost of your normal life preserved in amber. Except you're different now. Hollowed out and reconstructed wrong, like someone took you apart and lost a few crucial pieces in the reassembly.
The first night is the worst.
You'd thought the hospital was bad, with its antiseptic smell and endless fluorescent twilight. But at least there, you could pretend Steve might appear. Could lie to yourself that the footsteps in the hallway might be his.
Here, in your own space, there's no such illusion.
The bond aches constantly. Not the sharp, immediate pain of the first few days, but a bone-deep throb that makes everything feel wrong. Food tastes like ash. Sleep comes in fragments, always interrupted by dreams of warehouse floors and the phantom warmth of a palm against your cheek. Your skin feels too tight, like your body is rejecting itself in the absence of touch it's only had once.
You try to go back to work after a week.
Fury takes one look at you—hollow eyes, hands that won't stop shaking, the way you flinch when anyone gets too close—and sends you home.
"Medical leave," he says, not unkindly. "Take the time you need."
You want to tell him that time won't fix this. That you could take a year, a decade, and you'd still be searching every room for a ghost who won't appear. But you just nod, gather your things, and pretend you don't see the pity in his eye.
The second week is when the anger arrives.
It starts small—irritation at the barista who makes your coffee wrong, frustration with the TV remote that won't work properly. But it builds, feeds on itself, until you're standing in your kitchen at 2 AM, hurling the mug Steve never saw you drink from against the wall, watching it shatter into pieces that still somehow hold more cohesion than you do.
How dare he.
How fucking dare he.
To touch you, to activate a bond you didn't even know existed, and then rip himself away like you're something toxic. To visit you every night but never when you're awake to actually see him. To make decisions about your life, your future, your soul without even asking what you want.
You track his missions through the internal SHIELD networks you're not supposed to have access to anymore. London. Moscow. Cairo. Always moving, always running, like distance could somehow break what's already broken. Your clearance hasn't been revoked yet—an oversight, probably—so you read his reports, clinical and detached descriptions of operations that tell you nothing about whether he's eating. Whether he's sleeping. Whether his soul feels as flayed as yours.
Probably not. He chose this, after all.
The third week is when you see him.
You're not prepared. How could you be? You're just buying groceries, standing in the cereal aisle like a normal person pretending to care about fiber content, when you feel it—that familiar prickle of awareness, the bond flaring to life like muscle memory.
You turn, and there he is at the end of the aisle. Frozen, like he's been caught. He looks—
He looks like shit.
Hollow eyes, sharp cheekbones like he hasn't been eating, a carefulness to his movements that speaks of bone-deep exhaustion. His hands are shoved in his pockets, probably to stop himself from reaching for you. Or maybe just to hide how they're shaking.
For a moment, you both just stand there, two people separated by twenty feet of fluorescent lighting and an unbridgeable chasm of his making.
You watch his mouth form your name. Not quite speaking it, just shaping it, like even that much is more than he's allowed himself.
Your body moves without permission, taking one step toward him, and he takes a step back.
Right.
The message is clear. Crystal fucking clear.
You turn around, leave your half-full cart in the middle of the aisle, and walk out of the store with as much dignity as you can muster. Make it all the way to your car before the shaking starts, before you have to grip the steering wheel just to keep yourself anchored.
Twenty feet.
He couldn't even stand to be within twenty feet of you.
That night, you draft seven different resignation letters. Because fuck this. Fuck playing this game where you pretend you're okay, where you pretend that seeing him doesn't make you want to scream or cry or claw your own skin off just to escape the constant ache of the bond.
You don't send any of them.
But you keep them, just in case.
Week four is when Natasha shows up at your door.
"You look like hell," she says without preamble, pushing past you into your apartment.
"Thanks. Great pep talk. You can go now."
She ignores you, taking in the disaster you've let your living space become—dishes piled in the sink, curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, the general apocalyptic ambiance of someone who's given up.
"He's not doing any better, you know."
You laugh, bitter and sharp. "Good."
"He sits outside your building sometimes." She says it casually, like it's nothing, like it doesn't make your heart stutter and race. "At night. When he thinks no one will notice. Just sits in his car and stares up at your window like a fucking Victorian ghost."
"He made his choice."
"He made a stupid choice," she corrects. "Because he's a stupid, self-sacrificing idiot who thinks he's protecting you."
"From what?" The words explode out of you, months of frustration and hurt finally finding voice. "From having a soulmate? From being loved? From fucking touching another human being?"
"From him." Her voice goes soft, which is somehow worse than when she's being cutting. "From what he thinks he is. What he thinks he'll do to you."
"That's not his choice to make."
"No," she agrees. "It's not."
She leaves after that, but not before placing a small piece of paper on your counter. An address. A time. Tomorrow, 3 PM.
"He won't be there," she says. "But you should go anyway."
You stare at the paper for a long time after she's gone, memorizing numbers you'll probably never use.
But when tomorrow comes, you go anyway.
Because maybe you're just as much of a self-sacrificing idiot as he is.
Or maybe you're just tired of being angry.
Maybe you're just tired, period.
The address leads to a small gym in Brooklyn, the kind that smells like old leather and determination. You expect it to be empty—Natasha said he wouldn't be there—but there's someone in the ring.
Barnes.
He's working the heavy bag with mechanical precision, each punch measured and brutal. The sound echoes in the empty space—thud, thud, thud—rhythmic as a heartbeat. He doesn't look up when you enter, but his shoulders tense slightly, that particular stillness of someone who's hyperaware of their surroundings but pretending not to be.
Your stomach does something complicated. You've seen him around the Tower these past couple months since Steve brought him in, but always at a distance. Always with her—his soulmate, the one who somehow reached through seven decades of programming to find the man underneath. The one who touches him like it's breathing, casual and constant and necessary.
"Natasha send you?" His voice is flat, careful.
"Yeah."
He stops punching, turns to face you. Takes you in with those winter-gray eyes that see too much, catalog too much. There's still something unfinished about him, like he's a sketch someone's only halfway through shading. Two months of freedom haven't quite erased seventy years of being someone else's weapon.
"You look like shit," he says, which isn't what you expected.
"Thanks. Everyone keeps telling me that."
His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but close. "Steve looks worse, if it helps."
"It does, actually."
This time he does almost smile, just a flash before his face settles back into its usual brooding. He unwraps his hands slowly, methodically, like he's buying time to figure out what to say. The motion is practiced, automatic—muscle memory that belongs to James Barnes, not the Winter Soldier. You wonder how many things like that he's had to relearn. How many small, human gestures he's had to excavate from under decades of conditioning.
"This is..." He stops. Runs a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up at odd angles. The gesture is so remarkably normal it makes your chest tight. "I don't usually do this. The talking thing. That's more—" A pause, like he's trying to remember who handles these things now, in this new life where he has friends instead of handlers. "That's not really my thing."
"Then why—"
"Because Steve's an idiot," he says bluntly. "And someone needs to explain why he's being an idiot, and apparently that someone is me." He tosses you a pair of wraps. "You know how to use these?"
"I'm on medical leave."
"Not asking you to fight. Just asking if you know how to wrap your hands. Gives you something to do while I..." He makes a vague gesture that somehow encompasses the awkwardness of the entire situation.
You do know how to wrap your hands. The familiar ritual of it—loop around the wrist, between the fingers, across the knuckles—gives your body something to focus on besides the constant ache under your ribs where the bond lives. He watches you do it, noting the slight tremor in your fingers that hasn't gone away since Brussels.
"He ever tell you about Peggy?" Barnes asks suddenly, like ripping off a bandaid.
You pause, stomach twisting into something complicated. "No."
"Course not." He leans against the ropes, and for a moment looks older than whatever age he's supposed to be. "From what I remember—and my memory's not exactly..." He taps his temple with his metal finger, the soft whir of recalibrating plates filling the silence. "But from what I remember, and what I've been able to piece together since, he loved her. Real love, not just wartime desperation. Had her picture in his compass, carried it everywhere. Used to moon over her like she hung the goddamn stars."
Your chest tightens, ribs suddenly too small for your lungs. You focus on wrapping your hands, but the fabric keeps slipping because your palms have gone sweaty.
"But he knew they weren’t soulmates."
"Yeah. And it didn't matter to him. He chose her anyway." Barnes's jaw ticks, and you can see him working through memories that might be his or might be stories he's been told—the confusion of it flickers across his face. "I was already gone when he went into the ice. But from what I've learned, when he woke up, she'd lived a whole life without him. Found her actual soulmate. Got married. Had kids. The whole American dream he thought he was fighting for."
The words land like stones in your chest, each one heavier than the last.
Steve chose Peggy. Chose her without destiny, without the universe's intervention, without biological imperatives. Just looked at her and decided she was worth defying fate for.
And you?
You're just what the universe assigned him. The consolation prize. The participation trophy for surviving into a century he never wanted to see.
Your hands still on the wraps. "That's not—she couldn't have known he'd survive—"
"Doesn't matter. Logic doesn't factor into it." His metal hand flexes, a nervous tic you've noticed before. "I think—and look, this is just my theory, thrown together from bits and pieces—but I think Steve maybe saw it as proof. That the universe was right all along. That choosing her was just him being stubborn, going against what was meant to be."
The words settle heavy in your stomach like you've swallowed cement. "So when he found out I was his soulmate..."
"Proof he's supposed to be here. In this century he's never felt like he belongs in." Barnes's voice goes quiet, almost careful. You can see him choosing his words, this man who's spent two months relearning how to have opinions. "Look, I've only been... back... for a couple months. I'm still figuring out who Steve is now versus who he was then. Half my memories of him are probably more fantasy than fact at this point. But from what I can see, if he accepts you, then he has to accept that this is where he's meant to be. That this is home."
"And he doesn't want that."
"He wants it so much it terrifies him."
Barnes moves to the speed bag, starts a rhythm that's almost meditative. His metal arm moves differently than the flesh one—more precise, less natural, like he's still learning to inhabit it.
"When they brought me in, when I was still more Winter Soldier than anything else, my soulmate—she didn't give me a choice." The rhythm falters for a moment. "Just kept showing up. Kept touching me even when I tried to—" He stops. Restarts. The sound fills the gym like a heartbeat. "Even when I was dangerous. Even when I couldn't remember her name five minutes after she said it."
You know this story, or pieces of it. Everyone at SHIELD does. But the way he tells it—halting, like he's still surprised by it—makes it feel different. Raw. Like he still can't quite believe someone chose to love him through the worst of it.
"I could have killed her. Almost did, more than once those first few weeks. But she kept coming back." The speed bag stills. His hands drop to his sides, and for a moment he looks lost, like he's forgotten what to do with them when they're not fighting. "I didn't get to push her away. Didn't get to decide I was too broken or too dangerous. She made that choice for both of us."
"And it worked out."
"Yeah." His voice does something strange here—goes soft in a way you didn't think it could. Like even after decades of violence, there's still something in him capable of gentleness. "Yeah, it did. But Steve—Steve's got this idea that he's protecting you. From disappointment. From loss. From him."
"That's not his choice to make."
"No. It's not." Barnes looks at you directly, and there's something almost sympathetic in his expression. "But he's gonna make it anyway unless someone stops him. And I'm too fucked up myself to be giving relationship advice, but—"
The gym door opens, cutting him off, and Barnes's entire demeanor changes instantly. It's like watching winter thaw in fast-forward—his shoulders drop, his face loses that careful blankness, even his breathing seems to ease. You turn to see a young woman entering, all bright eyes and gentle energy that seems to fill the space with warmth.
"Hey," she says, and Barnes is already moving toward her like she's got her own gravitational pull, like his body just naturally orbits hers. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah, doll. Just—" He gestures vaguely at you, and she turns that warm attention your way.
"Oh! You must be the one Nat mentioned." She extends her hand, and her smile is so genuine it makes your chest hurt. There's something knowing in her eyes, something that says she understands what it's like to love someone who thinks they're unlovable. "I've heard about you."
"Hopefully not all bad."
"Never." She squeezes your hand gently before releasing it. "How are you holding up?"
The question is so earnest, so carefully kind, that you almost start crying right there in the gym. Your throat goes tight, eyes burning with tears you refuse to shed.
"I'm—" You stop, unable to lie to this person who radiates the kind of empathy that makes dishonesty impossible. "Managing."
She nods like she understands, and somehow you think she does. Then she turns back to Barnes, and it's like watching a completely different person emerge. He leans into her space without seeming to realize it, his hand finding the small of her back with the kind of casual intimacy that speaks of constant touch, constant contact. The metal hand, you notice. The one that's caused so much damage. She doesn't flinch from it.
"You eat today?" she asks him quietly, reaching up to brush his hair back from his face. The gesture is so tender it makes your chest ache.
"Yeah, sweetheart." His voice is impossibly soft, private.
"What did you eat?"
A pause. His mouth quirks slightly—a ghost of whoever James Barnes was before the war, before the fall, before everything. "You."
She smacks his chest. "That doesn't count as food, James."
"Seemed pretty filling to me."
"Oh my god." She turns to you, cheeks pink but biting back a smile. "Six decades as an international assassin and he thinks he's a comedian now."
"I'm hilarious," Barnes says, completely deadpan, but his hand is rubbing small circles on her back, and the look she gives him—fond and exasperated and completely besotted—makes something crack in your chest.
Because this is what choosing looks like. This is what wanting looks like when it's not forced by biology or destiny or the universe's sick sense of humor.
Steve chose Peggy like this. Without destiny. Without force. Just looked at her and knew she was worth everything.
And you? You're just the assignment. The universe's way of telling him he can't go home. The anchor keeping him in a century he never asked for.
Your hands curl into fists inside the wraps, nails digging into your palms hard enough to hurt.
"We're gonna grab dinner," Barnes's soulmate says to you, still tucked against his side like she belongs there. "Real food," she adds with a pointed look at him. "You should come."
"I—no, thank you. I should—" You gesture vaguely at nothing, at the door, at escape.
"Think about what I said," Barnes interjects, not unkindly. His eyes are serious, understanding in a way that makes you want to run. "And..." He pauses, seems to wrestle with something. "Steve's an idiot. But he's an idiot who's been looking at you like you hung the moon since before Brussels. That's not the bond. That's just him."
They leave together, her hand in his, talking quietly about dinner plans and everyday things. You watch them go, Barnes letting her guide him toward something as simple as a meal, and the comparison burns in your throat like acid.
He never pushed her away. Even when he was dangerous, even when he was broken, even when he couldn't remember her name. He let her choose him.
But Steve? Steve took one look at the bond between you and ran.
Because with Peggy, he had a choice. He chose to love her.
With you, he doesn't. You're just what he's stuck with.
Your phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number.
He has a mission briefing tomorrow at 0900. Conference room C. Just saying.
You delete the text, but the information burns in your brain.
Maybe it's time to stop letting Steve Rogers make all the choices.
Even if you're just the consolation prize.
Even if you'll never be Peggy Carter.
Maybe especially then.
Conference Room C is empty.
You stand in the doorway like an idiot, staring at the polished table and empty chairs, at the blank whiteboard that mocks you with its pristine surface. The digital clock on the wall reads 09:07. You've been lurking in the hallway since 08:45, watching people filter in and out of different rooms, none of them Steve.
Of course.
Of course Natasha's intel was wrong, or maybe it was right and he changed locations when he realized you might—
Fuck this.
Fuck all of this.
The anger that's been simmering for weeks boils over, hot and sudden.
You're done.
Done waiting, done hoping, done letting Steve Rogers dictate the terms of your existence with his absence. Your hands shake as you turn to leave, the bond aching with fresh disappointment, and you're so focused on not crying that you don't hear the footsteps until—
A hand wraps around your elbow.
Even through the fabric of your shirt, you know it's him. Your body recognizes his touch like a key in a lock, every nerve ending suddenly alive, suddenly screaming. You're yanked sideways—not roughly, but with desperate efficiency—into a supply closet that smells like printer toner and industrial cleaner.
The door clicks shut, and you're plunged into darkness cut only by the thin strip of light under the door.
Your eyes adjust slowly, and when they do—
Jesus Christ.
Steve looks destroyed.
No, destroyed doesn't cover it.
He looks like someone reached inside him and hollowed him out with a rusted spoon. His uniform is torn—actually torn, with what looks suspiciously like blood staining the blue fabric black. There's a cut on his cheekbone that's already healing, but slowly, like even his enhanced body is too exhausted to properly function. His hair is matted with ash and something darker. His eyes are wild, pupils blown wide in the darkness, and he's breathing like he can't get enough air, like his lungs have forgotten how to work properly.
"Steve?" Your voice comes out tentative, barely a whisper.
He makes a sound—broken, animal, completely unintelligible. His hand is still on your elbow, grip tight enough that it should hurt but doesn't, and you can feel him trembling. Not just his hand. All of him. Vibrating with something that looks like shock but feels like barely contained devastation.
For a moment, you just stare at each other in the dim light. His chest heaves with each breath, and you can smell the mission on him—gunpowder and smoke and something else, something that makes your stomach turn. Death. He smells like death.
"Steve, what—"
He breaks.
With a deep, shuddering breath that sounds like it's being torn from the very center of him, Steve pulls you against him. It's not gentle. It's desperate, consuming, like a drowning man finding solid ground. One hand tangles in your hair, fingers twisting in the strands hard enough to make your scalp sing with that perfect edge of pain-pleasure. The other arm bands around your waist, and then—
His hand slides up under your shirt, fingers splaying wide against the bare skin of your back, and you both gasp.
The bond roars to life.
It's not the gentle warmth you'd imagined soulbonds to feel like. It's a flood, a tidal wave, every point of contact sending liquid heat through your veins like you're mainlining pure sensation. Your knees buckle, but he's got you, holding you up with desperate strength as he buries his face in the crook of your shoulder.
The noise he makes then—God, you'll hear it forever. Half sob, half relief, muffled against your neck as he breathes you in like you're the only thing keeping him tethered to earth. His body curves around yours, too tall, too broad, trying to eliminate every millimeter of space between you.
"Had to—" His voice is wrecked, barely recognizable, words pressed hot against your throat. "Had to find you. Couldn't—fuck, I couldn't breathe—"
His hand on your back moves restlessly, seeking more skin, and when his fingertips brush the edge of your bra, you shiver so hard he groans. The sound vibrates through your chest where you're pressed together, and you can feel his control fracturing, feel the way his hands shake with the effort of not taking more.
But he does take more.
His hand in your hair tightens, tilts your head back to expose your throat, and his mouth presses to your pulse point—not kissing, just resting there, feeling your heartbeat against his lips. The hand under your shirt spreads wider, slides higher, until his thumb brushes your ribs and you make a sound you've never made before.
"The mission," he says against your skin, and you feel more than hear it. "There was—Christ, there was this couple. Shopping for groceries when the building came down."
His whole body shudders, and he presses closer, pins you against the door with his weight like he needs the contact to stay upright. You can feel every line of him through the torn uniform—the hard planes of his chest, the way his stomach muscles clench with each ragged breath, the thick press of his thighs against yours.
"She died instantly." The words come out broken, wet. "But he—he lived long enough to feel the bond break. Have you ever—" His voice cracks. "I've never heard anyone scream like that. Like his soul was being ripped out through his chest."
"Steve—"
"All I could think about was you." His confession comes with another full-body shudder, and suddenly his mouth is moving against your throat, not kissing but talking, like he needs the contact to get the words out. "What it would feel like if—if I lost you before I ever—"
He pulls back just enough to look at you, and his eyes are wet, devastated, completely without walls. "I can't lose you. I can't. I'll die. I'll actually fucking die."
"You won't lose me," you breathe, but he's already shaking his head, already pulling you impossibly closer.
"You don't understand." His hand slides from your hair to cup your jaw, thumb brushing across your cheekbone with reverent desperation. "The bond—it's not—for normal people it's intense, but for me—" He makes a sound like he's in physical pain. "The serum amplifies everything. Every sensation, every emotion, every—"
He cuts himself off by pressing his forehead to yours, and you can feel him trembling with the effort of holding back.
"Steve."
"I need—" His hand at your back shifts, slides around to span your ribs, thumb brushing the underside of your breast through your bra, and you both freeze. The touch is electric, sends sparks racing down your spine, pooling low in your belly. "Fuck, I need to touch you. Need to—please. Please, just let me—"
"Yeah." The word comes out embarrassingly breathy, but you don't care because his hands are already moving, already taking.
He spins you suddenly, presses your back against the door, and then his hands are everywhere. One slides up to cradle your throat—not squeezing, just holding, feeling your pulse flutter against his palm. The other pushes your shirt up, fingertips tracing your ribs like he's memorizing you through touch alone.
"So soft," he murmurs, and it sounds like prayer. "How are you so fucking soft?"
His thumb finds the hollow of your throat, presses gently, and your head falls back against the door. He makes a sound like you've killed him, and then his mouth is on your neck, open and hot and desperate. Still not kissing exactly—more like tasting, like he needs to experience you with every sense.
Your hands come up to clutch at his shoulders, and he crowds closer, presses you harder against the door. His thigh slides between yours, and the pressure makes you gasp, makes your hips cant forward involuntarily.
"That's it," he breathes against your throat. "Let me feel you. Let me—"
His hand at your throat slides down, palms the curve of your breast through your bra, and the sound you make is embarrassing and needy and you don't care because he echoes it, his hips pressing forward to pin you completely.
"Been dying," he confesses against your collarbone, words muffled by skin and want. "Every day, dying by inches. Watching you walk past, smelling your shampoo in the hallways, hearing your laugh and knowing I couldn't—"
"You could have." Your hands find his hair, tangle in the sweat-damp strands, and he groans. "This whole time, you could have—"
"No." He pulls back to look at you, and his pupils are blown so wide there's barely any blue left. "Would've destroyed you. Consumed you. The bond, the way I need you—it's not normal. It's not healthy."
"I don't care."
"You should." But even as he says it, his hand is sliding up your ribs again, fingertips tracing patterns that make you shiver. "You should be terrified of how much I want you. How much I need to—"
He cuts himself off, jaw clenching, but his body betrays him. His hips press forward, and you can feel him hard against your hip, can feel the way he's shaking with want.
"Show me," you breathe, and he makes a sound like you've shot him.
"You don't know what you're asking."
"Then show me."
His control snaps like a rubber band stretched past its limit.
His mouth finds yours with the kind of desperation that makes your knees buckle, and it's nothing like you imagined during those long, empty nights. Nothing soft or careful or sweet. This is drowning. This is Steve Rogers trying to climb inside your skin through your mouth, one hand fisted in your hair to angle your head exactly how he needs it, the other pressed flat between your shoulder blades like he's trying to fuse your chest to his.
His tongue slides against yours, hot and demanding, and you taste copper—blood from where he's bitten his lip raw—mixed with something that's just fundamentally him. Something that makes your brain short-circuit, makes you grab at his shoulders just to stay upright. The bond roars to life under your skin, weeks of rejection suddenly reversed, and the whimper that escapes you would be embarrassing if you could think past the electricity racing through your veins.
"Fuck," he breathes against your mouth, not really pulling back, just speaking the word into you like he needs you to swallow it. His teeth catch your bottom lip, tug just hard enough to make you gasp, and he uses the opportunity to lick deeper into your mouth, thorough and filthy and completely at odds with Captain America's public persona.
Your back hits the door harder as he presses closer, and you can feel how affected he is—the way his chest heaves against yours, the tremor in his hands, the hard length of him pressed against your hip. It's overwhelming and not enough, too much and not nearly—
"Perfect," he growls, breaking away just long enough to trail his mouth down your jaw, teeth scraping in a way that's definitely going to leave marks. "You're so fucking perfect. Do you have any idea—" His hand slides under your shirt, fingertips tracing your ribs like he's mapping you for memory, "—what you do to me? How many meetings I've had to leave because you walked by and I could smell you?"
"Steve." Your voice comes out wrecked, barely recognizable. Your hands are in his hair now, tugging probably too hard, but he groans like you've given him a gift.
"I know, sweetheart. I know." His mouth finds your pulse point and sucks, and your vision whites out for a second. "I've got you. Let me—just let me—"
His hands shift with purpose now, one sliding down to grip your hip hard enough to bruise, the other pushing your shirt up, up, until cool air hits your stomach. And then—Jesus Christ—he's dropping to his knees with a fluidity that shouldn't be possible for someone his size, pressing his mouth to the skin above your waistband like communion.
You look down and nearly combust. Captain America—Steve—on his knees in a supply closet, eyes closed like he's praying, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your stomach that are somehow both worshipful and obscene. His tongue traces the line where your pants sit low on your hips, and your hands fly to his shoulders because your legs have forgotten how to work.
"Should've been doing this for months," he murmurs against your hipbone, and you feel the words more than hear them, vibrating through skin and muscle and straight to your core. "Should've been worshipping you. Should've—" His voice cracks, and suddenly his arms are banded around your waist, his forehead pressed to your stomach like he's hiding. "That man today, when his bond broke—the sound he made—"
"Steve." You card your fingers through his hair, gentle this time, trying to soothe whatever demon is riding him. He shudders against you, full-body, and presses closer.
"I can't lose you." The words come out muffled by your skin, but the desperation in them is crystal clear. "I can't. I won't survive it."
"You won't lose me."
It's probably a lie. You're both in a dangerous line of work. People die. Bonds break. But right now, with him on his knees looking like you're the answer to every prayer he's never let himself voice, you'd promise him anything.
"Promise." His hands tighten on your waist, and when he looks up at you, his eyes are wild, desperate, nothing like the composed soldier the world knows. "Promise me."
"I promise."
He surges up and kisses you again, different this time. Still desperate but searching, like he's trying to memorize you—the shape of your mouth, the sound you make when his tongue slides against yours, the way you shake when his thumb brushes the underside of your breast through your bra. It's overwhelming in a different way, intensity without hurry, and you're dizzy with it, drunk on the sensation of being wanted this badly by someone who's spent months pretending you don't exist.
When he finally pulls back, you're both wrecked. His lips are swollen, slick, and his pupils are blown so wide there's barely any blue left. You probably look worse—you can feel your hair sticking to your face with sweat, your mouth tender and used.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, thumbs stroking your cheekbones with a gentleness that makes your chest ache. "For Brussels. For after. For being such a fucking coward."
"I know." You do. It doesn't fix anything, not yet, but you know.
"I'll make it up to you." His thumb traces your lower lip, and you can't help the way your tongue darts out to taste it, salt and skin and Steve. His breath hitches. "However long it takes."
"You can start now." It comes out more breathless than the sultry suggestion you were aiming for, but something about your desperation makes his eyes go dark again.
He laughs, rough and ruined, and presses one more kiss to your mouth—this one soft, almost chaste, if not for the way his hand tightens possessively in your hair.
"Tonight," he says, and it sounds like a prayer. "Let me—let me shower, change, become human again. And then dinner. Real dinner. Where I pick you up and we go somewhere and I don't run when the bond makes me feel everything."
"And if you run?" You're trying for threatening but it comes out vulnerable, scared. Because he's run before. He's so good at running.
His hand slides to your throat, not squeezing, just holding, thumb pressed to where your pulse hammers against your skin. "You have my full permission to hunt me down and make my life hell."
"I will." And you mean it. You're done being the one left behind, the one reaching for someone who's already gone.
"I'm counting on it."
He steps back, and the loss of contact hits like cold water. Your skin feels too tight, too sensitive, nerve endings firing confused signals—where is he, why isn't he touching us, bring him back. You can see him feeling it too, the way his hands clench and unclench at his sides, the way his body sways toward you like you've got your own gravitational pull.
"Tonight. Eight o'clock."
"Steve?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time you have a bad mission, come find me. Don't wait. Don't hide. Just—come find me."
Something in his expression cracks open, vulnerable and raw and so un-Captain America it makes your heart skip. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He kisses you one more time—quick, fierce, a brand, a promise—and then he's gone, leaving you slumped against the door on legs that feel like jello. Your mouth is swollen, your skin still burning everywhere he touched, and you're pretty sure you've soaked through your underwear, but the bond...
For the first time in months, the bond doesn't ache.
It purrs.
It fucking purrs.
Tonight. Eight o'clock.
You're going to need a very long shower. And possibly a new pair of pants.
And maybe—just maybe—you're going to get what the universe has been trying to give you all along.
Even if you're not Peggy Carter. Even if you're just the consolation prize.
Right now, with the taste of him still on your tongue and bruises already forming on your hips in the shape of his fingers, you can't bring yourself to care.
"Tell me about Peggy," you say, and it comes out embarrassingly breathy because Steve's just shifted his hips in a way that makes stars explode behind your eyelids.
"Fuck." His hands tighten on your hips, fingers digging into soft flesh with bruising intensity. The pressure sends heat pooling low in your belly, makes your inner muscles flutter around him. "Can we... not?"
It's not the most unreasonable request in the world. He's inside you, after all, thick and perfect and stretching you in ways that make coherent thought impossible. You're straddling him on the couch, and he's maneuvering you exactly how he wants—one hand gripping your hip hard enough to leave fingerprints, the other splayed possessively across your lower back, controlling your rhythm with casual strength that makes you dizzy. Like you weigh nothing. Like you're his to position and please and wreck completely.
"Bucky says—"
A growl rumbles through his chest at the name, vibrating through your body where you're joined. His hand slides from your back to your throat in one fluid motion. Just resting there, feeling your pulse race beneath his palm. A reminder. A warning.
"Another man's name?" His voice is dark, edged with something primal that makes your stomach flip. "While I'm inside you?"
You gasp as he lifts you slightly, changes the angle, and your thighs shake with the effort of holding yourself up. "S-says she's the reason you stopped believing in soulmates."
Steve goes still. Not completely—he's still buried deep, still hard, still breathing like he's barely holding onto control—but his hands stop their restless movement, and his eyes snap to yours with something like exasperation mixed with disbelief.
"Are we really doing this?" His thumb presses against your pulse point, and you feel your heartbeat stutter. "You want to talk about someone else while I'm trying to fuck you through this couch?"
"I just—oh god—" Your train of thought derails as he rolls his hips up, deliberate and punishing, hitting that spot that makes your vision white out.
"What you need," he says, voice dropping to that Captain-giving-orders tone that should not work in this context but absolutely does, "is to stop overthinking and let me take care of you."
One hand slides up your spine to tangle in your hair, tugging just hard enough to make your neck arch, exposing your throat to his mouth. The other grips your hip, holding you still as he rolls his hips again, controlled and devastating.
"She wasn't my soulmate." The words are pressed hot against your throat between open-mouthed kisses that feel more like claims. "Loved her, yes. A long time ago. Thought I'd marry her if I survived the war. But she wasn't mine."
His teeth graze your collarbone, and your whole body shudders, nerve endings singing. The bond between you pulses with each heartbeat, amplifying every sensation until you can't tell if the pleasure is yours or his or some perfect fusion of both.
"Not the way you are." His hand in your hair tightens, forces you to meet his eyes. They're blown dark, barely any blue remaining. "Not even close to the way you are."
"But—"
"Sweetheart." He stops moving entirely, and you make a sound of protest that would mortify you if you could think past the need coiling tight in your belly. "Listen very carefully, because I'm only saying this once."
His hand leaves your throat to frame your face, thumb stroking across your cheekbone with gentleness that contrasts sharply with the possessive grip in your hair.
"She chose someone else. Her actual soulmate. And yeah, it messed me up. Made me think the universe was laughing at me." His hips flex slightly, involuntarily, and you both gasp. "But you know what I realized?"
"What?" The word comes out wrecked, barely audible.
"The universe wasn't wrong. I was." He releases your hair only to grip the back of your neck, holding you steady as he starts to move again, slow and deep and deliberate and exquisite. "I wasn't meant for that time. If she'd been my soulmate, I'd have stayed in the forties. Lived a quiet life. Had the house and the kids and the picket fence."
"That sounds—"
"Like everything I thought I wanted," he agrees, punctuating the words with a particularly deep thrust that has you seeing stars. "Until I woke up here. Until you walked into that briefing room two years ago, looking so goddamn competent and untouchable, and my body knew you were mine before my brain could catch up."
Your nails dig into his shoulders as he picks up the pace, and you feel his pleasure spike through the bond, mixing with yours until you can't separate them.
"I fought belonging here for so long," he continues, voice getting rougher, more breathless. "But you—Christ, you make me want to stay. Make me grateful the ice gave me you instead of her."
"Steve—"
"That’s it, sweetheart. No more names but mine," he commands, and then he's kissing you, deep and claiming and filthy. His tongue slides against yours, and you taste desperation and possession and something that feels dangerously close to devotion. When he pulls back, you're both panting. "And I want to keep hearing it. Preferably screamed."
You nod, words beyond you, and something dark and satisfied flashes across his face.
"Good girl."
The praise shoots straight through you, makes your cunt clench around him. He groans, forehead dropping to your shoulder, and his control finally, blessedly shatters.
He fucks up into you with purpose now, each thrust deliberate and devastating. His hands are everywhere—gripping your hips, sliding up your ribs, palming your breasts with possessive familiarity. Every touch feels magnified, the soul bond amplifying sensation until you're drowning in it. You can feel his pleasure mixing with yours, feeding back on itself in an endless loop that has you both gasping, clutching at each other like you might dissolve without the anchor of skin on skin.
"This is what I think about," he confesses against your throat, words punctuated by the snap of his hips. "Not the past. Not her. You. Always you. How you feel around me, how you taste, the sounds you make when you're close."
Your nails rake down his back hard enough to leave marks, and he hisses, the pain-pleasure bleeding through the bond making you both groan.
"The serum," he pants, rhythm getting erratic. "Fuck, the goddamn serum makes everything more intense. Every touch, every—I can feel you everywhere. In my blood, in my bones. Under my skin where I couldn't get you out even if I wanted to."
"Don't want you to," you manage, chasing your release, that coil in your belly wound so tight you might shatter.
"Never." It's a vow pressed into your skin with teeth and tongue. "Never letting you go. Mine. My soulmate, my—fuck, I'm close—"
His hand slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit with unerring accuracy, and you're gone. The orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave, pleasure so intense it borders on transcendent. You do scream his name, just like he wanted, and he follows you over, your name on his lips like a prayer, his hands holding you against him like you might evaporate if he loosens his grip.
You collapse against his chest, both of you panting, sweat-slick and trembling. The bond hums between you, satisfied and warm, and for the first time in months, you feel whole.
"So," you say once you can form words again, unable to help yourself, "just to be clear—"
He flips you suddenly, pressing your back into the couch cushions, and the predatory look in his eyes makes your breath catch. He's still hard, still inside you, and when he rolls his hips experimentally, you both groan.
"You want clarity?" His voice is dark, promising. He hitches your leg higher around his waist, slides deeper, and your head falls back. "Let me be very, very clear."
He pulls almost all the way out, then slides back in with devastating slowness, making you feel every inch.
"You are the only person I think about," he says, setting a rhythm that's slow and deep and intentional. "The only person I want. The only person who's ever made me grateful to be exactly where I am, when I am."
His hand slides up your thigh, grips behind your knee to open you wider, and the new angle has you gasping, clutching at his shoulders.
"The past is the past," he continues, voice steady despite the way his control is visibly fraying, tendons standing out in his neck. "And I plan to spend my future making up for lost time. Starting now."
"Steve—"
"That's it," he praises when you say his name, and rewards you with a particularly deep thrust that has your back arching off the couch. "Just like that. Let me show you exactly how not hung up on the past I am."
And he does.
Thoroughly.
By the time he's finally satisfied you understand, you've forgotten not just her name, but your own. The only thing that exists is him, the bond between you singing with contentment, and the absolute certainty that the universe knew exactly what it was doing.
Even if it took Steve Rogers seven decades to appreciate the gift.
𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 — smut, squirting, foreplay, f receiving, never wrote something this short lol
𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆 — testing a theory, if you enjoyed it, please reblog! I blame my ovulation for this, but take full responsibility if you enjoyed it, lol
Pleasure, pleasure was the only thing you could feel. Bucky lapped on your cunt like a starved man, his hands gripping your thighs.
Your hands were threaded into his brown locks, holding onto them for support. He pushed in as deep as possible, concentrating on curling his tongue against your sensitive spot, which had your eyes roll into the back of your head.
“You taste amazing, doll,” he mumbled into your drenched cunt, face glistening with your juice. Bucky pressed his thumb on your bundle of nerves, drawing tight circles.
Wanting to buck your hips up against him but being quickly shut down by the hungry man between your legs, “you stay right here,” he ordered.
A tight knot formed in your body, one you couldn’t quite place as it wasn’t the usual orgasm feeling. No, it felt stranger but still like a feeling that needed relief and just as the thought of relief crossed your mind your juice spilled out against Bucky’s face.
You didn’t react, you didn’t know what had just happened, your mouth was wide open and everything that came from your mouth was a loud moan. The feeling of finally letting go overtaking you.
Bucky looked at you with pure adoration, “fuck,” he groaned, continuing working on your cunt. It was pure heaven for him, you tasted divine to him and he could never get enough.
"Making such a mess for me doll," he said with a smirk. Your moans had turned into cries and tears streamed down your cheeks. Everything was too much, Bucky didn't stop his movements.
If anything you squirting spurred him on, “Jamie, fuck," you nearly screamed when you felt the feeling again.
Your mind was too hazy to know what you did, you only knew how good it felt. The burning sensation made you tighten your walls around Bucky’s tongue. Said man knew exactly what was about to happen again.
Pulling away from your cunt he replaced his tongue with his fingers. Instead his mouth latched onto your thigh, sucking on your skin.
Your whole body twitched, back arching, hands gripping the sheets. God, you couldn't string one thought. Bucky saw it on your face, the way your eyes scrunched together, lips parting to release each cry.
He could swear it was the most beautiful sight he ever saw, but he needed you to squirt again. Needed to taste you once more.
Without hesitation he bit into your thigh, with his sharp teeth. No bite was to come from them, but oh, how you loved the pain they brought you, practically thriving in it.
"Jamie, please, I-," you were never able finish that sentence as your second orgasm washed over you. "Look at you," Bucky whispered as he watched your juice spraying from your cunt. He pushed his mouth back on your cunt, making sure to catch every last drop.
"Yes, yes, make a mess of my face doll," you couldn't even hear him, your ears felt numb, your body filled with exhaustion, "just like that," he mused, his cock now rock hard from the sight of you.
"I need to make you squirt every time now, cariño," he told you proudly.
You mumbled something that no one could understood, too fucked out by him. However he didn't care, no he hosted you up on his lap. Your sensitive cunt hitting his cock, "god, Jamie." A low chuckle rumbled from his chest, "there is no god doll, only me and I'm gonna have you squirting till the sun rises."
hi, friends! i’m opening up requests for angstober! please keep in mind that (for my sanity) i will be keeping these between 300-500 words.
in another attempt to preserve my sanity, i’ll only be posting every other day of October.
and I’ve already filled in a some spaces with previous requests and prompts i would like to write (some of these still need characters) but there are 6 completely open spaces!
characters i write for: bucky barnes, yelena belova, joaquin torres, bob reynolds, john walker, peter parker, clark kent, maybe more — just ask!
Oct. 1: “I didn’t do it. Please, you have to believe me.” - Bucky Barnes (requested by @emmathefanficgal)
Oct. 3: “I think about it a lot… what our first date would look like.” - Pietro Maximoff (kind of requested by anon)
Oct. 5: “That wasn’t your burden. That was ours. You didn’t have to carry it alone." - Bucky Barnes (requested by @witchygagirl)
Oct. 7: Showing up to your place to perform a wellness check when you haven't responded to their texts/calls in days. - Clark Kent
Oct. 9: “I know what exes are, and I know that you two aren’t them.” - Bucky Barnes (requested by @emmathefanficgal)
Oct. 11: Patching up their busted knuckles in the bathroom sink after a fight they started to protect you. Again. - request a character!
Oct. 13: "I didn't know where else to go, I'm sorry for bothering you." - Bob Reynolds
Oct. 15: “You don't have to do everything on your own, you know? I'm here to help." - request a character!
Oct. 17: “Can you wait until I fall asleep before leaving?" "I'm not leaving you alone when you're like this." - John Walker
Oct. 19: Rushing to your place, when you call them crying inconsolably. - Joaquin Torres
okay, i might've gone a bit overboard with the amount of stuff i pulled from my archives, but i figured it's never a bad thing to share your favorite works and authors. so here we go!
fluff - ❀ | angst - 🌦 | smut - 𖦹
⋆⭒˚.⋆ bucky barnes
untitled/headcanons | @angclone | ❀
to love and lie | @orellazalonia | ❀🌦
In 1940s Brooklyn, you're a devoted housewife blissfully unaware that your charming husband, Bucky Barnes, is secretly the head of HYDRA. As small cracks begin to show and your curiosity grows, Bucky works to gently steer you away from the truth while your friends Steve and Peggy, who know everything, say nothing.
red is the color of want | @danysdaughter | 🌦𖦹
in a crumbling safehouse far from the fights you both escaped, you—a former black widow—unravel the man beneath the metal as the winter soldier comes undone in your arms. but when a page of trigger words drags bucky back into the shadows of who he used to be, the only thing more dangerous than his programming… is how much he needs you.
i think i love you | @danysdaughter | ❀🌦𖦹
You agreed to keep it casual—just sex, no feelings. But when loving Bucky in silence begins to break you, walking away is the only thing you can do… even if it destroys you both.
cradles and chaos | @buckysleftbicep | ❀
you wanted to surprise bucky with the news—you’re pregnant. the only problem? everyone else on the team found out first. cue the chaos.
bambi | @barnesonly | ❀
yours and bucky’s toddler daughter visits avengers tower for the first time and immediately becomes everyone’s favorite. alexei is obsessed. yelena is chaotic aunt. bob is shy. bucky comes back from a mission and goes full soft dad mode. chaos and fluff ensue!!
elevator, baby! | @aquaticmercy | ❀🌦𖦹
The team thinks Bucky has a crush on the tower’s interior designer. They don’t know that they’re already married.
jackass | @aquaticmercy | ❀
Everyone is horrified that Bucky is flirting with a married woman, but then they realise there's a reason why.
untitled | @opheliabbarnes | 𖦹
headcanons | @themareverine | ❀
aftershock | @cheekybarnes | ❀
A drive far from the Tower leads to a moment that feels like the first step toward the life you and Bucky have both fought for.
untitled | @heldbybarnes | ❀𖦹
they’re like abt to do it but then the reader’s like “actually i’m not in the mood” and bucky complies and he’s a gentleman abt it and they should do whatever she’s comfortable with and the reader did not expect him to actually be like that and the thought that he’s willing to put the reader’s comfort despite his raging hard on got her so turned on that she’s like “actually no, that was so hot let’s do it”
⋆⭒˚.⋆ logan howlett
let me go | @sniktbaby | 🌦𖦹
you are in love with logan, and will do anything to make him feel better as he grieves the death of jean grey.
i miss you, i'm sorry | @kvntonq | 🌦
Logan finds himself haunted by the memory of the one person he walked away from—but never stopped loving.
untitled/headcanons | @rosenclaws | ❀𖦹
sundresses | @lostinlovingrevery | 𖦹
pretty girl | @lolainrainbowz | 𖦹
between these walls | @bpmiranda | 🌦𖦹
baking for trilogy logan | @sacredsorceress | ❀
sanctuary | @pandapetals | 🌦
Logan and Wade are sent by Stryker to find a journalist who has been digging around trying to expose Team X. Logan isn't prepared when he meets an intriguing neighbor causing him to question himself and the mission.
untitled | @logans-whore | ❀
I can't stop thinking of Logan. With a reader who has no/very little experience with dating
untitled | @robo-writing | ❀𖦹
The only two ways to write worst!logan in a relationship is violent beastial feral man or whining attention starved guard dog, there is no in between.
the suit(s) stay on | @eupheme | ❀𖦹
It’s torture, how good they look. How your eyes can’t help but wander at the holiday fundraiser - admiring the tight cling of their suits. Unable to help the itch in your fingers - all too eager to reach out and touch.
(or - you can’t wait to get your boyfriends home.)
over each other | @selfcarecap | ❀🌦𖦹
Logan and you are just friends – you have a boyfriend, after all. But sometimes when you and your boyfriend are arguing, Logan listens and jerks off to it. He knows you two will break up soon, and he’s just finding ways to patiently pass the time until you can be his. Until one night, you’ve fought your final argument with your boyfriend and are in need of some comfort that Logan is more than happy to provide.
snapshot | @shellshocklove | 𖦹
short on money for rent, your joke about starting an only fans account, to earn some extra cash, goes over logan's head. but when an accident with charles puts your life in danger, logan takes you up on your offer.
Summary: Natasha Romanoff and Bucky Barnes are your instructors—living legends, feared by all, cold as steel... until they start staring too much at you. Between silent glances, stolen kisses, and bodies on fire, you realize you weren't just recruited for combat.
You were chosen.
And now, you're trapped between two predators who don't want to share control—but maybe, just maybe, they share you.
Warnings: Explicit and mature content (18+), explicit and crude sexual language, a threesome (MFF) scene, voyeurism, dirty talk, physical training scenes that escalate into sexual activity, careful use of brute force and explicit threesomes, multiple orgasms, prominent female pleasure, tribadism (friction), oral sex (F/F acceptance), and intense penetration.
Word count: 3K
The base building has no visible windows. Just concrete, steel, and doors that close with a heavy thud, as if to say: there's no going back in here.
You take a deep breath. Your new uniform still feels too tight on your shoulders and uncomfortable on your hips. Maybe it's nerves. Or the fact that you know exactly who will be training you.
Romanoff and Barnes. Two names any agent recognizes—and fears.
You grip the clipboard with your data. You take another step. The corridor is silent, but you feel eyes. Someone is watching you.
"Newbie," a firm voice says behind you. You turn immediately.
She's leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Black jumpsuit clinging to her body, her red hair tied in a low ponytail. Natasha Romanoff doesn't smile—she examines you. Like someone who sees flaws before finding potential.
"Standing up is better than that." She approaches slowly, her eyes roving over you. "Spine straight. Chin up."
You obey. You don't argue. But the shiver that runs down your spine has nothing to do with fear.
"Hmm. It's going to be hard work." Natasha turns around and starts walking. "Come with me."
You follow her through the hallways to a large, empty room—mirrored walls, a mat in the center, impact pads on the columns. The combat room.
And then, you see the second instructor.
Bucky Barnes. Hair tied in a low bun, a gray t-shirt clinging to his broad chest, training gloves. He doesn't look at you. He measures you. With his eyes, with his jaw set, with the uncomfortable silence of someone who doesn't usually smile—or perhaps of someone who prefers not to be read so easily.
"She?" he asks, glancing sideways at Natasha.
"She," she confirms.
"She'll break." He walks toward you. His clear eyes dig into you like hooks. "But she'll learn. Broken or not."
You swallow hard. You don't know if it's a threat or a promise.
The first two hours are torture.
Impossible stretches, endless running, focus training with blunt weapons and direct thrusts against you. Natasha is cruelly meticulous. She corrects your posture with sharp touches to your waist, neck, and thighs.
Bucky is impatient. When you hesitate, he advances. When you miss, he throws you to the ground. Literally. But never without purpose.
"Again," he growls, offering his metal hand to lift you for the fifth time. "If you fall, get up. If you get up, get it right."
You rest your hands on your knees, trying to catch your breath.
"Is this normal?" you ask, panting.
"Only until it's not," Natasha replies. "And it will be."
At the end of the day, you're covered in sweat, bruises, and wounded pride.
They remain impeccable.
But there's something in their eyes that changes. A different glow. An interest. As if you've passed the invisible test no one mentioned. As he leaves the mat, Bucky walks beside him.
"You don't give up easily. That's good."
"I didn't come here to give up." His voice is firm.
He smiles at the corner of his mouth for the first time.
"We'll see.
You feel it. It's not just training. It's not just discipline.
It's a game."
You've lost count of how many times you've fallen to the mat today.
Natasha seems to feed off your imbalance. Every mistake is corrected with a firm tug, a brusque touch. She moves as if her body were made of silk and a razor blade at the same time. She takes you down with a simple headlock, holding your wrist firmly, her face inches from yours.
She doesn't pull away. She stays there, her weight on yours, her hips wedged between your legs. Her red strands fall loose, sliding across your skin, sending shivers down your spine. Her voice is a sharp whisper:
"If this were a real mission, you'd be dead." Her voice is low, sharp. But her eyes say something else. A gleam. A hint of interest.
You want to respond, but you're speechless, unable to tear your gaze away from hers—so intense, so deep, it seems she reads every fear you hide. Despite the silence, charged with something beyond training.
She doesn't get up immediately. She stands there, her body on top of yours, her hips pressed against yours, her hair escaping her ponytail and brushing your cheek.
She finally stands, but lets her hand rest for a moment on your waist before leaving. You feel the touch like a promise.
You hold your breath.
"Get up," she says finally, releasing your arm. "And don't expose your left side."
You obey. And you swear she offered lightly as she turned her back.
Bucky assists from the side of the room, arms crossed, shoulders tense, jaw set. The way he crosses his arms and presses his lips together reveals it's not just training. He feels something too much. When Natasha leaves the center of the mat, he steps in. He walks toward you slowly, as if hunting.
"Your guard is up," he says.
"I heard that before today."
"Then hear it again." He snaps his fingers and advances.
When he finally advances, he wastes no time. The metal hand grips your wrists, and you turn quickly, pinning him to the mat with his knee between your legs, firm, dominating.
The weight of his body against yours traps you, suffocating, but doesn't hurt. His scent—sweat, hot metal, something raw—invades your nose. Your heart races, but it's a strange mix of fear and desire that makes you want to stay away.
He whispers in your ear, his voice husky and low:
"Are you selling?" His mouth too close to your ear. "You tense when I touch you."
"I'm alert."
"No." He presses harder. His hip brushes against yours. His breath warms your neck. "You're curious."
The blood rushes too fast through your veins.
He pulls away slowly. He stands, extending his metal hand to you, his gaze fixed.
You hesitate. But take it. He pulls you hard enough to make you collide with his chest. Your bodies press together for half a second. Long enough to feel the heat. And the volume.
"Focus, newbie," he says, his voice grave. "Or we'll have to repeat this training until you learn to protect yourself."
He's not just talking about strikes. And you know that.
Later, you trained alone, trying to replicate the moves Natasha taught you. The room is now almost empty, only the muffled breath of your exhaustion filling the air.
Natasha appears silent, like a shadow. She watches you try to replicate the movements, her expression implacable, but with a different glint in her eyes.
"You need to release your hips," she says.
You stop. Look over your shoulder.
"Release?"
"Here." She comes closer. Places her hands on your waist, adjusting your posture from behind. Her hip touches yours. "Trust your body."
"That's not in the manual."
"Good thing."
She looks at you in the mirror. And for a second, her eyes slide to your mouth. Just for a second.
But it's enough to erase something you're still trying to ignore.
You leave the room with your heart racing and your thighs throbbing from the tension of training—or something else.
And there's Bucky, leaning against the hallway wall, drinking water straight from the bottle. His neck is sweaty. A shirt clinging to his broad chest.
He doesn't say anything. Just watch.
You walk past him. Pretend you don't see.
But you feel it. Both of them. Always watching. Always waiting.
Like two predictions we plan to wait... until you're ready.
And you begin to understand that it won't be easy to escape what Natasha and Bucky want to do to you.
You feel the air thickening as Natasha approaches the mat. Her body so close to yours that you could swear you feel the heat radiating from her, a mixture of defiance and desire. Natasha stands inches away from you, her green eyes fixed on yours, a silent invitation that puts your entire body on alert.
She doesn't say anything—she doesn't need to. The tension between you speaks for itself.
Suddenly, her hands are on your waist, firm, holding you in place. Her gaze deepens, exploring and intense. Her face is close, slow, almost like a cruel game of patience.
Her scent invades your nostrils—a mix of sweat, fresh perfume, and an almost wild promise.
Then, suddenly, she pulls you close, her hands on your waist. Her lips touch yours in a kiss that explodes like a spark lit on gasoline. Her mouth is hot, moist, demanding, her tongue exploring every inch of yours with voracity and care at the same time.
You surrender, feeling your heart race, your head spinning. Her hands slide down your body, pulling you closer, guiding your hips against hers. Your body vibrates at her touch, thirsty, desperate for more.
You respond with the same intensity, tasting her, the warm scent that drives you wild, the touch of her hands roaming your body, squeezing, pulling.
But before you can completely lose yourself, Bucky appears at the side, his gaze dark, almost fierce. He doesn't hide the jealousy burning inside, the possessiveness that wants to dominate you as much as Natasha does.
Before you can react, he grabs your wrists and pins them behind your back, his knee firmly between your legs, preventing any movement of escape. His body is warm, strong, and you feel the pressure of his erect penis pressing against your sex, making your body write with desire.
His breath is hot on your neck, and he whispers in that husky voice associated with possessiveness and desire that makes your skin crawl:
"Don't forget I'm here too."
You softly moan, unable to hide the motivation building inside you. Natasha, far from pulling away, smiles mischievously, sliding her hands to your back, squeezing your skin as she watches the scene with eyes full of fire and challenge.
Natasha doesn't back down, on the contrary—the provocation between them is palpable, a silent duel that only fuels the fire within you.
Their hands begin to explore your body, a symphony of touches that drives you wild. Bucky holds your waist firmly, pulling you closer to him, while Natasha massages your breasts, squeezing and teasing your nipples until they become hard and sensitive.
Your body burns with fire as their mouths begin to trail down your neck, Natasha's tongue nibbling and licking as Bucky leaves a trail of hot kisses down the curve of your shoulders.
"Friday, off the mat's security cameras and lock the doors, no one can come in here," Bucky says, his voice breathless and authoritative. That sends shivers through my body. Are we going?
They both begin to undress you urgently, as if they're angry at your clothes.
Without warning, Bucky lifts you enough to position his hard, throbbing member against your wet entrance. His pressure is firm, an almost imperative invitation that makes your body open automatically, yearning to be filled.
As he enters, the wet sound of his body slamming into yours echoes in the empty room. His thrusts are firm, fast, brutal, filling you with a delicious mixture of pain and pleasure.
Bucky's thrusts are hard, fast, and each time he enters you, the wet sound of your body colliding echoes through the room. You grip the mat, trying to find support, while the sensation of being filled by him so forcefully is so intense it takes your breath away.
Bucky increases his pace, thrusting his cock deeper, marking you as if he wants to possess you completely. His husky voice growls your name amidst your moans, while his hands grip your waist tightly to maintain absolute control.
You feel the pleasure building, intense, ravenous, until it explodes into an orgasm so strong you lose yourself in it. Your body contracts around the cock filling you, your legs trembling and your mind entering a whirlwind of sensations.
They don't stop. They don't let you escape.
Natasha moves up to kiss Bucky, their tongues dueling in a wild kiss, full of possession and desire. You watch, exhausted, but wanting more, knowing you're at the center of it all—the one and only owner of that fire.
As soon as Bucky pulls out of you, Natasha wastes no time in kneeling before you, spreading your legs, and plunging her mouth between them with insatiable hunger. Her tongue is agile and cruel, licking and sucking your clit with a pressure that makes you shiver.
Her fingers move in and out of you at a frantic pace, moving you in a way that throws you off balance. You arch, loud moans escaping uncontrollably, the pleasure building, uncontrollable. Natasha sucks you harder, her fingers moving quickly, the heat of her mouth almost unbearable.
You arch, crying out loud, your body trembling with your second orgasm, which explodes in intense waves. She doesn't slow down—on the contrary, she seems determined to take you further, to dominate you, to destroy and rebuild you with pleasure.
Natasha climbs in, planting one last intense kiss on your lips, while they both help you dress. Without wasting any more time, Bucky lifts you into his arms with strength and care. They don't even let you breathe properly before carrying you to their bedroom, a space full of shadows and promises. There, the door closes behind you, and the world shrinks to the three bodies nestled together, lusting after each other without restraint.
Natasha takes command with a firm, seductive voice:
"Now it's our turn to show you how much we want you."
You barely have time to respond before they pull you onto the bed and position you just the way they want.
Bucky lies sideways on the bed with his legs dangling to the floor and holds your body firmly, aligning his cock so you straddle him, feeling the heat and weight of it against your skin.
As you ride Bucky's steady rhythm, Natasha switches places, straddling his face, grinding her pussy eagerly into his face.
You moan loudly, your entire body burning, sensations exploding through you as they take turns caressing, kissing, and biting. Sweat trickles down your skin, their scent invading your nostrils, the sound of their moans filling the room. When you finally lose yourselves in ecstasy, it's an explosion of endless pleasure.
You're still panting in Bucky's lap, your body trembling from the previous orgasm. But Natasha isn't satisfied. Her eyes roam over you with hunger and determination, and she moves closer to the side of the bed, licking her lips as if already tasting you.
"I want you all to myself now," she says, her voice low, firm, and completely stained with desire. "I want to feel your skin against mine. I want to come with you."
She pulls you by the hand, and you obey without thinking. Natasha lies on her side, naked, her body strong and feminine at the same time, the sheen of sweat trickling between her breasts, her red hair clinging to her skin.
You lie facing her, feeling the heat of your bodies approaching, and when her thighs touch yours, an electric shock runs through your belly. Natasha grips your leg and positions herself better, until you're both intertwined, your pussies pressed together, your clits rubbing in a direct, wet, desperate friction.
"That's it... now move with me." Her voice cracks with lust, and her eyes close for a second, absorbing the sensation.
You begin to move lightly, then harder, more rhythmically. The sound of your skin colliding is indecent. Juices run between you, making everything even hotter and slicker, and each friction makes your clit throb.
"So wet for me," she moans. "So fucking perfect. Come on, cool down. Make me come like this."
You hold each other's thighs, increasing the friction. Natasha's moans are husky, deep, delicious. Her mouth finds yours again in a hot, wet, desperate kiss. Your hips slam together hard, your clit pressed together, rubbing precisely against hers.
Bucky watches from the armchair, completely hard, his hand slowly touching his cock, mesmerized by the scene—you and Natasha, pussy against pussy, dripping, moaning, trembling, fucking hungrily.
Natasha lets out a low cry as she begins to come. Her entire body trembles, her muscles clenching, her legs pressing tightly against you. You come with her, with a husky, uneven moan, pleasure exploding in the pit of your stomach, taking over everything.
Your bodies are pressed together, soft, breathless, sensitive. "Fuck, you're perfect," Natasha whispers, kissing your mouth tenderly now, her breathing still ragged.
Bucky gets up from the armchair, smiling, walking to the bed.
"Now... it's my turn to play with you both."
Sweat still drips between your breasts, Natasha's ragged breathing mingling with yours. Your bodies pressed together, your hips still jerking in involuntary reflexes from the orgasm you'd just shared.
But there was no time for rest.
Bucky was already standing in front of the bed, completely naked, his cock hard and lingering in his hand, looking at you both with a smile of pure, dirty desire on his lips. The way he looked at you was almost reverent... almost.
"You two together... fucking like that." He licked his lips, his metal hand stroking the base of his cock with teasing slowness. "It's the most beautiful fucking sight I've ever seen. But now... it's my turn to play too."
He climbed onto the bed with his heavy body, his heat radiating as he positioned himself behind you. Natasha was already sitting up again, her eyes hungry, her nipples hard, and her gaze fixed on his cock.
You barely had time to breathe before Bucky grabbed your waist and placed you on all fours over Natasha, her face right below yours. The redhead spread her legs with a teasing smile, pushing your hair back with one hand and cupping your chin with the other.
"Want a taste?" she whispered. "Come on, love. Come lick my fucking pussy."
You dove headfirst between her thighs, licking hungrily, still sensitive, still trembling. Natasha moaned loudly, spreading her legs even wider, her hand pulling your hair harder while the other squeezed her own breasts, teasing herself.
Bucky was behind you, kneeling. He leaned over your body, kissing the back of your neck, your sweaty back, until he pressed his head against your wet entrance again.
"Still so tight... after everything we did to you." He chuckled against your skin. "But you love it, don't you? Your pussy begging for my cock again."
And without further warning, he penetrated you.
Deep. Fast. Hard.
You spoke against Natasha's pussy, your tongue losing its rhythm for a second before resuming, guided by the sound of her moans and Bucky's firm thrusts.
He held your hips tightly, the rhythm intense, wild, his body pressed against yours, sweating, breathing deeply, fucking you like the world was ending. The sound of your bodies colliding filled the room, along with Natasha's hoarse moans. She came first—hard, her legs trembling and her voice cracking, her fingers digging into the back of your neck.
But he didn't stop.
Bucky flipped you onto your front easily, without pulling out. Natasha was already moving closer, climbing on top of you, her breasts swaying, her eyes hungry.
"Now let us use you together," she whispered, licking your lips. "Let's fuck you until we can't take it anymore."
Natasha positioned herself behind you, kissing your neck, biting your shoulder, one hand stroking your clit as Bucky continued to thrust deep and hard. Her other hand cupped your nipple, squeezing and rolling it between her fingers.
You came again, trembling, feeling your body being pulled, pushed, invaded. Bucky couldn't take much more. He grunts, his muscles contract, his cock throbs, and he explodes inside you, moaning your name against your neck, breathless, almost desperate.
Natasha holds him, kisses his mouth hard, before kissing you again.
"It's only ours," she growls, her voice low and intense. "Only yours, only mine, only ours."
You can barely respond, all you know is that you want more, so much more, that fire they ignite within you.
— corin ' @mydear-corinthian - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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