I know we may not know him too well but how about Dream Come True- Steve and 29 from the kiss prompts 😏
Hummingbird
Word Count: ~1300
A/N: This takes place a couple of years before Dream Come True. Ask is based on this post.
Warnings: Drugging of a character
Part 2
Series Masterlist
Steve had his best fake smile plastered on. He was hosting a party, he had to appear approachable and friendly, even if he didn’t feel like it. The conversations could be so boring and draining. His one reprieve for the night was that he was hosting the party at an art gallery. The last night of the display of one of his favorite artists. Every chance he got he was appreciating the art.
At least until he saw you. Steve knew everyone at the party, they’d been vetted by his team, but he didn’t know you. There was no recognition, no faint memory of ever seeing you before and Steve’s memory was better than most. Your dress was just shy of the quality he’d expect from his guests, indicating you weren’t in the higher echelons of the city’s social circles. You were definitely a party crasher who shouldn’t be here.
He should call security, have them discreetly take you away, but as he watches you he realizes that, unlike other party crashers, you’re not here for the people. You never take a glass of the expensive champagne offered to guests. You barely talk to anyone and excuse yourself from conversation quickly. You’re looking at the art. You’re flitting from piece to piece like a hummingbird and smiling at each one. You might be a party crasher, but you’ve clearly got good taste and good manners. He decides he’ll let you stay but keep an eye on you.
Pretty soon he realizes he can’t stop watching you. Your genuine joy with each new piece of art you look at is endearing. Especially as he keeps having to deal with fake smiles and false promises. It also makes your frown stand out even more.
You walked over to a man who appeared to be taking away a woman who’d drunk too much. While you hadn’t had any of the champagne, you couldn’t imagine it would get someone so drunk they could barely move. You approach, ignoring the glares the man gave you, and ask, “what happened?”
“It’s nothing,” the man replies. “She just had a little too much to drink. I’m just getting her home.”
“She doesn’t look drunk,” you retort. “She looks like she needs to go to a hospital.”
“She’s just a lightweight is all,” he sneers. “I’ll take good care of her. Now get lost.”
“Let me take a look at her, please. I really think she needs a doctor.”
“No,” he barks. “She just needs to get home and get some rest.”
“Walker,” a deep, stern voice behind you started. “Do you need some help?”
“Rogers,” Walker stammers. “Seriously, I just need to get the lady home. That’s all.”
“Walker, if I get security over here and search your pockets, are they going to find some pills?”
Walker stammers a bit before dropping the girl and trying to run for it. He only makes a couple steps before Rogers has him slammed against a wall, signaling security to come in. You’re already picking up the young woman from the floor, checking her pupils for dilation, getting her into a more comfortable position.
Rogers is talking to a few people as security quietly takes Walker out of the gallery, “Sam, go get Strange or Badr. She probably needs a doctor. Bucky, go get Danvers and Rambeau to come help their daughter.” They head in separate directions and he turns to see you checking the girl. He bends down and turns her face towards him, “Monica, we’re getting your mothers. You’re going to be okay.” She seems to relax at that.
Before long a few people come over and you step back so they can take care of the girl. You figure you should leave before your status as party crasher gets found out but Rogers gently grabs your arm, making you stay in place as he gets the situation sorted. You try to squirm out of his grip a few times before he pulls you to him and whispers, “settle down, Hummingbird. You’re not in trouble but we need to talk.” You’re unsure where the nickname came from but you take comfort in his words and stop trying to escape.
They’re getting Monica to an ambulance but a tall blonde woman turns to Rogers, fury in her eyes. He points to the door where security took Walker and she storms in that direction.
Once you’re alone you try, one more time, to pull away, “I guess you should get back to your party, Sir.” The look he gives you makes you freeze.
“I’m not generally one for repeating myself, Hummingbird,” he begins. “But I understand you might be out of your depth tonight. You are not in trouble but we still need to have a chat.”
“Yes, Sir,” you lower your head.
He chuckles and lifts your chin, “call me Steve.”
“Yes, St…Steve.”
He smiles at you before turning and leading you to a separate wing of the gallery that had been closed off for the party. You know you should pay attention to him, but your eyes keep looking at the beautiful art around you. When you finally do turn back to Steve his smile has grown.
“So, what brings you to my party?”
“I…I just wanted to look at the art.”
“Why not look during normal gallery hours?”
“Work,” you confess. “I got so swamped I didn’t have time to come see the show. Jack Russell is such an amazing artist and I was desperate for a chance to see his art in person. I put on my nicest dress and slipped in with a small group. I’m very sorry.” You hang your head in apology, waiting for some kind of punishment or consequence for your actions. He said you weren’t in trouble but there had to be some kind of repercussion.
“I believe you,” he states. “I was watching you almost all night.” You lift your eyes at his words, confusion written all over your face. “You weren’t invited, it’s true, but you weren’t drinking any champagne. You didn’t annoy any guests. You were just flitting from piece to piece, actually enjoying the show. I figured as long as you weren’t causing trouble, I’d let you be. And I’m very glad for that.”
“I wasn’t planning on staying long,” you sighed. “Didn’t want to get caught so I moved quickly between the pieces.”
“Flitting like a hummingbird,” he chuckled. “But in coming here, breaking into my party, you saved a young woman. In doing so you also saved my party and, quite frankly, my reputation. I can’t be known as someone whose parties are unsafe or cater to creeps like Walker turned out to be. As such, I would like to reward you.”
“Um..wh..what?”
Steve’s bright blue eyes seemed to shine with your response. “And I think I know the perfect reward. I’m friends with the curator here. I’ll give you her information and any time there’s a show you really want to see, but can’t get to, call her and she’ll make sure you get in at a time that’s convenient for you.”
“What?!” Your eyes grow wide at his words, “that’s far too generous, Sir! I can’t accept that!”
“It’s ‘Steve’ little Hummingbird,” he lowers his face to your level, his voice lowering with it, “and you will accept the reward. I’ll also make sure you get invited to every party I host at this place. Watching your genuine enjoyment was the highlight of the party tonight. I’d love to see more of it.”
“Are…are you sure about this, Steve?”
Eyes never leaving yours, he gently grabs your hand and kisses it, “I promise, I want nothing more than for you to accept.”
Many thanks @yenzys-lucky-charm for the ask! It really helped push the scales towards making a full mob/mafia AU. 😆
A/N: Written for Sexy September Scribbles. September 30: "don’t you dare close those legs"
A/N2: Reader is female, smaller than Ari. No other physical descriptors used.
Warnings: Dom/Sub dynamic. Please let me know if I missed any!
Main Story
Ari had made sure to schedule time to visit The Lucky Lady while he was in town. He'd felt obliged to stay away while Lloyd was a frequent visitor, but now that Hansen was staying home more often with his girl, Ari took advantage.
And, gods, you were just the stress relief he's been needing. It's been a while since he's gotten his hands on an entertaining brat. Sassy, quick witted, but also putty in his hands with a proper spanking. Your final "mistake" was sticking your tongue out at him when you refused to sit still. He decided that, since you needed to squirm, he'd make you do so with a vibrator to your clit.
That was almost an hour ago. Now you're a sobbing, wriggling mess, begging for mercy. Ari has you pinned with a hand around your throat so you can't get away from him. Your body is flailing, overstimulated. The moments when Ari removes the vibrator are timed, almost perfectly, to let your body relax just enough that it hits harder when he returns it to your clit, making you scream.
Watching Ari put on a condom you huff and, with what little resistance you have left, you start bringing your legs together.
"Don't you dare close those legs," he growls.
"Or else what?" you spit at him.
Ari gently caresses your cheek, confusing you. He moves his hand down to grip your chin, almost lovingly.
"Or else I get creative with your punishments."
Your eyes widen and you spread your legs wider, making him chuckle.
Could you write something smutty about the reader being such a brat and not listening to Bucky so he says something along the lines of ”Get your tits out, I want to jerk off”
The apartment door slammed shut behind Bucky with enough force to rattle the framed photos on the wall. He’d been gone for three days on a recon mission that turned into a shitshow, and all he wanted was a hot shower and his girl. Instead, he found you sprawled on the couch in one of his old henleys and nothing else, legs kicked up, scrolling your phone like you hadn’t been ignoring his texts all afternoon.
“Missed you too, doll,” he said, voice low and edged with exhaustion.
You glanced up, lips curving into that mischievous smirk he both loved and wanted to wipe off your face. “Took you long enough. I was starting to think you liked playing soldier more than playing with me.”
Bucky dropped his duffel, shrugging off his jacket. “I told you I’d be home by eight. It’s nine-thirty. You could’ve at least answered one message.”
You shrugged, stretching so the hem of his shirt rode up your thighs. “Maybe I was busy. Or maybe I just like making you work for it.”
There it was. That bratty tone. The one that always tested how long his patience would last. He crossed the room in three strides, looming over the couch. His metal fingers flexed at his sides. “You’ve been pushing it all week, sweetheart. Ignoring me. Teasing me with pictures you know I can’t open in the field. Now you’re gonna act like I’m the one who’s late?”
You sat up slowly, eyes sparkling with challenge. “What are you gonna do about it, Buck? Spank me? Tie me up? You always say that and then fold when I bat my lashes.”
He stared down at you, jaw tight. The serum made him strong, but nothing tested his control like you in full brat mode. “Keep running that mouth and you’ll find out.”
Instead of backing down, you leaned forward, letting the neckline of the henley dip low enough to show the soft swell of your breasts. “Promises, promises.”
Bucky’s hand shot out, catching your chin. Not hard, but firm enough to tilt your face up. “Bedroom. Now.”
You giggled and slipped past him, hips swaying with deliberate insolence. He followed, already half-hard from the sight of you. By the time he closed the bedroom door, you were perched on the edge of the bed, knees together, looking far too innocent for someone who’d spent the last hour driving him insane.
“Strip,” he ordered.
You tilted your head. “Make me.”
He stepped closer, towering over you. “Don’t test me tonight, doll. I’m not in the mood for games.”
But you were. You tugged the hem of the shirt up just enough to flash your panties, then let it fall again. “Too bad. I am.”
Bucky exhaled sharply through his nose. He reached down and yanked the henley over your head in one swift motion, leaving you bare from the waist up. Your nipples tightened instantly in the cool air. You made a show of crossing your arms over your chest anyway, pouting up at him.
“Brat,” he muttered. His flesh hand cupped your jaw again while the metal one trailed down your sternum, stopping just above where you were covering yourself. “You love pushing me until I snap, don’t you?”
“Maybe I just like what happens when you do.”
He studied you for a long moment, something dark and hungry flickering in his blue eyes. Then he straightened up, unbuckling his belt with deliberate slowness. “Get your tits out. I want to jerk off.”
The words hung in the air, blunt and filthy. Your eyes widened, a flush creeping up your neck, but you didn’t move right away. The brat in you wanted to push one more time.
Bucky arched a brow. “Now, sweetheart. Or I’ll do it myself and you can watch without touching.”
That got you. You uncrossed your arms slowly, letting your breasts spill free. They were perfect—soft, full, nipples already pebbled and begging for attention. You cupped them lightly, pushing them together just to taunt him.
“Better?” you asked sweetly.
“On your knees.”
You slid off the bed, sinking down in front of him. Bucky freed his cock, already thick and heavy, the tip glistening. He wrapped his metal hand around the base and gave himself one slow stroke while his flesh hand tangled in your hair.
“Look at you,” he growled. “Acting like you run the show until I tell you exactly what I want. Keep those pretty tits right there.”
He pumped his fist over his length, eyes locked on your chest. The wet sound of skin on skin filled the room. You shifted on your knees, thighs pressing together, heat pooling between them. Watching him like this, using you as his personal visual, made you ache.
“Touch them,” he commanded. “Play with your tits while I get off.”
You obeyed this time, rolling the sensitive buds between your fingers, pinching just hard enough to make yourself gasp. Bucky’s grip in your hair tightened.
“Fuck, that’s it. Look so good like this. My bratty little girl on her knees, tits out, letting me jerk off all over them if I want.”
His strokes grew faster, rougher. Pre-cum beaded at the tip and he smeared it down his shaft. You leaned forward instinctively, tongue darting out, but he tugged you back by the hair.
“Not yet. You don’t get to taste until you’ve learned to listen.”
You whined, but kept playing with your breasts, squeezing them together, arching your back to present them better. The power shift was intoxicating. One minute you were defying him, the next you were dripping and desperate just from his words and the sight of his hand working that gorgeous cock.
Bucky’s breathing grew ragged. “You gonna behave now? Or do I need to edge myself while you sit there aching?”
“I’ll behave,” you breathed, voice husky. “Please, Buck…”
He smirked, the first real one since he walked in. “Good girl. Finally.”
He let go of your hair and stepped closer, rubbing the slick head of his cock against one nipple, then the other. The sensation made you moan. Then he was stroking again, faster, using your tits as his target.
“Come on them,” you whispered, looking up at him with wide, needy eyes. “I want it.”
That did it. Bucky groaned deep in his chest, muscles tensing as he came hard. Thick ropes of cum painted your breasts, dripping down the curves, catching on your nipples. He milked every drop, breathing hard.
For a moment, the only sound was your mingled breathing. Then he hauled you up, kissing you fiercely, not caring about the mess between you. His hands roamed down your body, shoving your panties aside to find you soaked.
“Bed,” he rasped against your mouth. “We’re not done. You’ve got a lot of making up to do.”
You laughed breathlessly as he tossed you onto the mattress. “Yes, Sergeant.”
He climbed over you, metal arm bracing beside your head while his flesh hand spread your thighs. “Keep calling me that and I might let you come more than once tonight.”
What followed was a blur of heat and surrender. Bucky ate you out like a man starved, tongue and fingers working you until you were shaking, then flipped you over and fucked you deep and slow from behind. Every thrust pushed your cum-smeared tits into the sheets. He pulled your hair, smacked your ass when you tried to rush him, and whispered filthy praise in your ear.
“You love being my brat, don’t you? Love making me take control.”
“Yes—fuck—yes, Bucky!”
He came again inside you this time, holding you tight as you clenched around him. Afterward, he cleaned you up gently with a warm cloth, pulling you against his chest.
“Next time you wanna brat out,” he murmured, kissing your temple, “just say so. I’ll remind you who’s in charge quicker.”
You smiled sleepily, tracing the scars where metal met skin. “Where’s the fun in that?”
He chuckled, the sound vibrating through you. “God help me, I love you, doll.”
⭐︎ warnings: smut, rough sex, reader talks him through it, bucky doesn't dirty talk, he snarls instead, size difference, dumbification (bucky talks like a caveman? idk), talks about consent, period typical misogyny, creampie, praise, breeding kink, spitting in mouth, mating press, overstimulation, bucky loves eye contact
⭐︎ word count: 6k
⭐︎ a/n: what started out as a 'hahahehe' food for thought turned into a smutty porn without plot fic. ty to @epiphanyrogers for giving me the motivation to write this by feeding me with her own gladiator steve !! reader literally teaches what consent is to bucky, but ultimately the sex is consensual. either way, please tread carefully.
synopsis:
Bucky becomes the reigning champion and naturally, he seeks a prize—a pretty maiden to bed. You fall victim to his rough hands—to a brute who doesn't even know the meaning of the word "no." Yet to your surprise, despite being a man who takes whatever he wants, he is willing to let you teach him what consent really means.
← previous fic | main masterlist
The Colosseum is a home for bloodbaths.
There is a symphony of cheers and screams that rings throughout the entire dome. Swords clash against swords, sweat and blood dance together, dirt kicks into the air, and alcohol and spit shoot out of patrons’ mouths.
It is meaningless—all of it just a cruel form of entertainment for the emperor and his family.
You are thankful that you hadn’t been born a male to be pushed into these silly games, but instead, you are a woman—and that might be worse. But for now, despite all the screaming happening outdoors, you find solitude and a somewhat sense of peace near the barracks, sweeping debris and scrubbing the blood and grime off the floors from the defeated champions who walked away, already on the verge of death.
“Look at them,” you breathe. You pause your sweeping, wiping a strand of sweaty hair out of your face as your eyes peer through the wide holes of the wooden gates. “Animals. The whole lot of them.”
Livia does not need to look up to know what them you are referring to. There is only one kind of ruthless animal in the world—and that is men.
“Do not stare,” she warns you quietly. “If they catch you looking, they’ll punish you.”
“Please,” you scoff. “Their heads are too far up their own egos to notice us.”
“Big egos, yes.” Livia’s golden eyes glance over her shoulder from where she kneels on the floor, scrubbing grime. “And bodies. They are also quite handsome.”
Your eyes snap to her in revulsion. “Handsome? How can you say such a thing!” You glance back at the two men battling in the center of the dome. “Look at them. They are monsters.”
In the center is a man that you recognize—Bucky Barnes, the reigning champion for years. The White Wolf, is what the Emperor likes to call him. He is fighting another man, not much bigger than him, and certainly a man you do not recognize, meaning a man who will soon be falling to his doom beneath Bucky’s swords.
You have to admit, however, the man was giving The White Wolf a run for his money.
Finally, the man kneels before Bucky in defeat. Bucky raises his sword and delivers the final blow that sends the man to his grave.
Cheers erupt inside the dome. People jump out of their seats to shout and stomp. More debris and dust fall from above, landing on your and Livia’s faces—making you both cough.
The gates of the dome rattle as the herald’s voice shouts over the roaring crowd.
“Victory belongs to the undefeated! Behold your champion—The White Wolf!”
Thousands of voices chant his name as the dome thumps in a cadence that shakes the stone foundations around you. Through the wooden slats of the gate, you watch Bucky raise his blood-slicked sword to the sky. Unlike the other victors, he doesn’t smile. He never smiles.
Livia wipes the dust off her brow. “Another one to his name. He truly is unstoppable.”
You pull your gaze away. “He is a butcher,” you mutter.
Livia pushes herself off the floor with a light groan. She lifts the empty wooden basin to her chest. “I am going to refill this,” she says. “We’re going to need a lot of water to wash the victor up. I will be back.”
The wooden gate in front of you begins to groan as it slowly lifts. You grip your broom tight, moving to the side to make space for the blood-soaked victor to return back inside.
When Bucky steps in, the cool shade of the barracks is pure bliss against his hot body. Behind him steps the herald, adjusting his fine robes and wiping a pristine handkerchief over his sweaty brow, while the champion in front of him bleeds everywhere.
Bucky drops onto a wooden bench, and it creaks beneath his large body. His chest heaves as he catches his breath. With eyes still fueled by the adrenaline of battle, he watches as you approach him with a damp cloth and drop to your knees, wiping the splattered blood from his shins and boots.
“A magnificent display, White Wolf,” the herald boasts, pacing the floor and waving a hand dismissively in your direction as if you were just another piece of furniture. “The Emperor was thoroughly pleased. The coin will be transferred to your keeper, of course, but the Emperor insists on a personal reward for his favorite fighter tonight. A token of appreciation. Wine? A feast? Or perhaps a woman from the upper courts?”
Bucky does not answer the herald.
You try to keep your eyes down, working on scrubbing the crimson off his leather armor, but you can feel his cold stare watching your every movement, tracing the line of your shoulders and the curve of your vulnerable and exposed neck.
“We have the finest women prepared,” the herald continues, oblivious. “You have earned the right to take whatever, or whomever, you please.”
A massive and calloused hand suddenly shoots out. His fingers lock around your fragile wrist, making you wince and drop the rag.
“This one.”
You meet the champion’s eyes, and the spirit behind them terrifies you.
Bucky looks at you, not the way he stares at his opponents, but with something far more lethal. He looks at you as if you are roasted meat served on a silver platter by the Emperor himself. It sends shivers down your spine, and you avert your gaze.
The herald stands confused beside him.
“Her?” the herald sputters, looking down at you in disbelief. “White Wolf, she is a mere servant. A floor scrubber. The Emperor offered you a lady of the court. Someone fit for a powerful champion, such as yourself!”
The way the herald utters the word lady sounds like an insult to you—as if insinuating you’re not woman enough for a man like Barnes.
Bucky’s grip on your wrist tightens again as he gives your arm a rough shake, forcing your attention back to him with a gasp.
“Want her,” Bucky grunts, his tone leaving no room for argument.
The herald blinks, his eyes flickering down to you where you kneel before the champion. He clears his throat uncomfortably. “You must be mistaken, champion. She is nothing but a dirty servant—”
Bucky’s leather gloves creak as he tightens his hand on the hilt of his sword, and the herald falls silent, taking that slight movement from the gladiator as a threat to shut up.
“Fine, fine,” the herald mutters with a defeated sigh. “If that is what pleases you, then she is at your disposal.”
Your eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. You hadn’t expected the herald to give you up so easily. You had hoped he would insist Bucky find a better woman—someone of higher value, and nowhere near your station.
“Wait, sir—you can’t possibly—!”
“I will let the Emperor know of your decision.” The herald turns on his heel, continuing to talk as if you aren’t even present. “He will be very amused. Though… it does make my job easier, finding another prize… I shall consider this a win for the both of us!”
The herald scratches his beard and shrugs as he continues to walk away. You feel like your life is already flashing before your eyes. There are horror stories of men like Bucky—men who just take and take without remorse. You are no exception. You don’t even want to imagine the kind of things he would do to a woman like you once the herald leaves you two alone. Ignoring Bucky entirely, you try to pry your weak arm away from the fighter’s grip and get to your feet.
“Sir, wait! Don’t leave me here with him!”
But Bucky’s grip remains tight. He hauls you against his broad, bare chest as he stands up. You collide into him with a yelp as he pins you still.
“Mine now,” he rumbles deeply.
You try to pull back, your heels digging into the grime stained floor, but it’s like trying to move a stone pillar. “Let me go! I have to finish cleaning, I have to—”
Without a word, he crouches before you and wraps both strong arms over your legs, hauling you like nothing and propping you over his shoulder like a prize he rightfully deserves.
“Come,” Bucky barks without a single opportunity for defiance. “Take you home.”
Your voice is dry from all the shouting and begging for him to release you. Your fists are weak from pounding his back in an attempt to make him let you go. Now, as you sit at the edge of his worn bed in his small home—which feels like it’s being held up by nothing but sticks and tapestry—you realize all of it was futile.
Tears streak your dirty cheeks as you wipe at them pathetically. You couldn’t even say goodbye to your dear friend, Livia. She must be worrying herself sick about you.
Bucky stands large and imposing in the center of the already tiny home. He wastes no time as he strips himself of his clothes, eyes locked onto your trembling frame. This man in front of you has no sense of shame as he leaves himself completely bare, his cock already hard and springing to his muscular lower belly.
You glance up, your breath catching in your throat at his size.
He is huge, his tip already gorging into an angry red while pre-cum dribbles out from the slit. Your eyes follow the veins that decorate his shaft up until you reach the base of his cock, where dark curls sit unruly and trail thinner up to his belly button.
“Good,” he grunts in approval. “Look at me. Only me.”
Bucky’s strong legs stalk forward to meet you at the edge of the bed. All you can do is stare at him with wide eyes. The campfire flickering behind him casts a warm light, highlighting his muscles and the sharpness of his features.
As he gets closer, you scramble backward. His knees dip and creak the bed as he crawls after you. To him, this is a game of cat and mouse—and he doesn’t mind one bit. You’re terrified, but he sees this as foreplay. The two of you continue this until your back hits the stone wall, leaving you nowhere else to run.
“Please,” you whimper. “Don’t do this.”
Then, without warning, his hand shoots out to grab the neckline of your dress. With a simple tug, his mere strength tears right through it.
“No!” you shriek, your hands coming up to cover your breasts before he even catches a glimpse. “Stop!”
Bucky furrows his brows. Your cries and actions only confuse him. His hands grab your arms, trying to pry them away from your chest. He is so much stronger than you; he could easily break you if he wanted to.
“No! Stop! I’m not ready!” you cry again, shaking your head as you gather all your strength to fight back. “I said, I’m not ready—!”
With your hand acting on a mind of its own, it reaches out and delivers a hard slap across the gladiator’s face.
Bucky’s head whips to the side, his dark, matted hair covering the features of his face—you can’t make out his expression at all.
Your eyes go wide, and your hand weakly retreats back to your chest. If you hadn’t thought Bucky was going to kill you before, you are certain he is going to skip the sexual act and kill you right now instead.
But, being as stubborn as you are, you hold onto the shovel that digs your very grave.
“I told you to stop,” your voice is shaky, but you try to find your footing. “I said no. Countless times. I did not give you my consent. Don’t you know what that word means?”
This is foolish, you think to yourself. Talking to a gladiator like Bucky is like talking to a brick wall. Your words will just go in one ear and out the other.
Bucky slowly turns his head back to you, his gaze locking onto yours with eyes so sharp you could swallow the blade. This is it. You’re certain this is where you die.
He makes an expression—not a pained one, but confused. His jaw is tight where your hand just struck him. He doesn’t move to strike back like you think he will, and he doesn’t wrap his hands around your throat to kill you.
He tilts his head, his face scrunched now in a way that makes him look almost like a kicked puppy.
“No?” he repeats, treating it like a question.
The syllable sounds clunky, foreign, and deeply awkward rolling off his tongue.
He looks down at your hands, still clamped tightly over your torn dress, and then back up to your glassy eyes.
“Consent?” he tries the next word, his brows furrowing from how unusual it sounds.
You nod, holding your breath. “Yes. Consent. I did not give it to you.”
Bucky blinks as the cogs work—or try to—in his head.
The reigning champion of the Colosseum, the brute of a man who knows exactly how to sever someone’s limb or take a prize by force, looks completely lost. For his entire life, the rules were simple: fight, win, take. No one had ever told him ‘no.’ No one had ever given him a choice, and he had never given anyone else one either.
“Consent,” he tastes the word again, as if trying to see if he likes it or not. Then, he shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
Now, you are just as confused as he is.
You stare at the gladiator who kneels before you on the bed. He is probably the most feared man in the empire, yet he sits there naked and baffled by such a basic concept.
“You don’t know?” you whisper. “You don’t know what the word consent means?”
Bucky shakes his head, his broad shoulders slumping a fraction. He looks down at his own massive hands, then back at you, looking almost defeated and unsure of what to do from here.
You let out a trembling breath, slowly adjusting your grip on your torn dress to keep yourself covered as you try to find the words to explain it to a man raised only for slaughter.
“It means... permission,” you explain softly. “It means that my body belongs to me, just like yours belongs to you. To take a woman to bed, she has to want it too. She has to say yes.” You gesture weakly between the two of you. “If I say no, or if I say stop, you have to stop. Otherwise, you are just hurting me. You are just forcing me.”
Bucky listens intently, his dark eyes watching your lips as you speak.
“Don’t want to hurt you,” he answers, his voice rough and strained.
That catches you by surprise. You didn’t expect that kind of softness out of him. Then, he meets your eyes again and continues. “Not yet, at least.”
You pull the torn dress tighter against your chest with a slight frown, and Bucky notices. He shifts awkwardly on the back of his heels—his cock still hard but his mind just as confused.
“How do I get you to want it?” He rests his hand on your bare ankle, tugging you gently. “Like how I want you?”
You swallow hard as you stare at his large hand wrapped around your ankle. He could grab you and break you—mold you and bend you so easily to his will—but he doesn’t.
“You have to… court me,” you try to explain. “You have to make me feel safe, and you have to make me want it.”
Bucky tilts his head. Everything you have just said—even the word safe—feels alien to him.
Your teeth worry your bottom lip as you continue. “It means you don’t just take what you want. You touch softly. You talk to me, and you kiss me.” You point a trembling finger to your mouth, then to his. “With your lips. To show me that you care about how I feel, not just what you want.”
“Touch softly,” Bucky repeats, drilling the instruction into his mind.
You shudder as his hand, once wrapped around your ankle, turns into a gentle caress with his fingertips.
Up and down, his calloused fingertips trace your foot up to your bare calf. He leans over your body, forcing you to lie down beneath him as he hikes up the hem of your skirt. He flattens his palm so it rests heavy against your bare thigh.
“Kiss,” he murmurs, his blue eyes tracing the curve of your lip. “Make you safe.”
He lowers his head, his dark, unruly hair brushing against your cheeks as he brings his face inches from yours.
He hesitates for a second, his nostrils flaring like an animal as he breathes you in. Then, with an awkward, slow movement that he isn’t at all used to, Bucky presses his lips to yours.
The kiss is clumsy and far too hard at first, but as much as he wants to, he doesn’t force his way inside. He doesn’t push his tongue into your mouth, demanding dominance. He keeps his mouth pressed against yours, his lips slightly parted, mimicking the action as best as his instincts allow. It is gentle, surprisingly soft, and very wet—he might’ve even been drooling, aching to kiss you.
He pulls away just a fraction and searches your face for any sign of fear.
“Like this?” he murmurs, his breath hot against your mouth. “Safe?”
Your heart flutters wildly in your chest, except this time it has nothing to do with fear. You stare up at the man before you with wide eyes and wet lips. Bucky studies your face, trying to make out if what he did was right or wrong.
“Y—yes,” you breathe out. “That was good.”
Satisfied with your answer, he leans back down and kisses you again. One hand rises up—slowly, to avoid startling you—and cups your cheek gently. His thumb grazes over the curve of your cheek while his lips explore yours.
A soft, needy sound leaves your lips before you can stop it, and Bucky answers with a deep groan. While one hand cradles your cheek, his other hand slowly rises beneath your dress to grip your smooth hip.
You find yourself unexpectedly leaning into the kiss, matching him until his tongue pokes past your lips and swirls around yours. The two of you breathe heavily, moaning softly against each other as Bucky positions himself between your legs. His cock grows even harder, poking against your warm inner thigh.
He can’t take it anymore. Each moan that leaves your lips sounds like yes, yes, yes to his ears. His desperate hands find the waistband of your panties, threatening to tear them.
You suddenly pull away from the kiss with a gasp, catching your breath. Your hand presses against his bare chest, stopping him.
“No,” you pant as you stare up at him. “Stop. Not yet. You have to be patient.”
At the word stop, Bucky freezes. A snarl rips from the back of his throat, and his face twists in frustration. His jaw clenches so hard, his muscles twitch. You wince back into the pillows in fear, thinking you are in over your head and have pushed him too far.
You brace yourself, closing your eyes tightly.
“I’m trying,” he growls, the words tearing past his teeth. “What do I have to do? Tell me.”
You open your eyes and see him hovering over you. His large body acts as a blanket of warmth while one strong arm props him up, the muscles straining under his own weight and restraint.
“You have to touch me,” you explain gently, pulling his hand away from your underwear and bringing it up to your chest. “Like this.”
Bucky’s eyes follow your movement. Your smaller hand rests over his as you guide him to squeeze your breasts. His breathing grows heavier as his fingers tug and start to play with your budded nipple, relishing the way you moan and arch your back into his touch.
“Like that,” you moan softly. “Good—good boy.”
He groans loudly at your praise. His dark, unruly hair brushes your skin before his mouth closes over your budded nipple. He begins to lick and suck hungrily, his tongue swirling around the sensitive peak while his teeth graze the edge.
“Mm…” Your eyes flutter shut at the pleasure, your head tossing back against the pillow while he makes love to your tits.
Encouraged by your sounds, he grinds his thick hard cock firmly against the smooth skin of your bare thigh, seeking any kind of friction to relieve the ache between his legs.
One hand leaves your breast to grip your hip, digging his fingers into your skin to hold you still while he ruts against you like an animal. He whimpers against your chest, drunk on your scent and the high of your soft moans.
“Please,” he begs, his stubble tickling your bare chest. “Say yes. Let me have you. Now.”
The way he pleads sends a warm rush through your lower belly, a feeling that leaves you craving him just as badly. The man who is used to taking whatever he wants without remorse is reduced to being entirely at your mercy between your legs. A sensation settles inside you that you never thought you would harbor.
Control.
Just one word—one breathless little “yes”—would send Bucky over the edge. His pleasure and his craving are both held in your hands.
“Okay,” you say, giving him a small nod, satisfied with how well he has done. “You can have me.”
A growl rips from his chest. Driven by instinct, his large hands grip the waistband of your panties once more, his knuckles pulling taut as he prepares to shred the flimsy fabric to pieces.
“No,” you interject quickly, slapping his hands away. “Don’t rip them! That’s rude!”
He scowls as he draws his hand back, a whine of frustration catching in his throat like a disappointed hound. It’s clear he is unhappy about facing another rule when he is so close to the edge, yet he listens.
“Pull them down slowly,” you instruct.
Using every ounce of restraint in his veins, he resists the urge to tear the cloth. He hooks his thick fingers into the sides and slowly pulls the fabric down past your hips and thighs until you are completely bare beneath him.
“There you go,” you sigh softly, pleased with his gentle movements. “Good boy.”
Bucky’s eyes drop to the slick heat waiting for him. He hovers over your body, his heavy breathing filling the space between you as he positions the thick head of his cock right at your entrance. He rubs himself up and down against you, soaking his length in your arousal and sucking in a breath at the heat of your touch.
He is too big—impossibly so—and you aren’t sure if he will fit.
“Need to fuck you,” he grits through clenched teeth. “Hard.”
Holding himself at the base, he works at your entrance. His tip slowly slides in, stretching the opening and pushing deep enough to make you arch your back off the bed with a painful hiss.
He pauses at the sound.
“No,” you whimper, blinking tears away as you peer down at him. “If you’re going to have sex with me, you have to be gentle.”
His face twists into a strained expression, but he reluctantly abides.
One hand steadies your hip while the other holds his heavy cock, sliding into your warm, tight walls. Your body is so tight, not used to accommodating such a size, but he relents and continues pushing in.
You cry out, eyes squeezing shut as your arms rest on his shoulders for support.
“Look at me,” Bucky commands in a rough, deep voice. When you don’t listen, he tilts his head down so he is in your line of sight and tries again. “I said look at me.”
You finally do, and his eyes search yours intently. The ring of blue demands that you look at him, and him only.
“Keep them open,” he instructs. “Look at me. It will feel better.”
So, you do.
You both stare into each other’s eyes while he slides himself even deeper. As his cock stretches you wide, his brows furrow and his face twists into a snarl, baring his teeth at the tightness of your body until he finally sheathes himself fully inside with a groan.
“Gentle,” he rasps brokenly. “Gentle. Gotta be gentle.” He repeats the words as if he’s trying to remind himself.
Your legs shake around him, your body trying to get used to his size.
He hasn’t moved yet, but you already feel impossibly full. Your walls embrace him, and you feel your body slowly opening up to let him in. As his cock settles deep inside you, pleasure slowly overwhelms your senses.
For Bucky, it feels like pure torture. Your body is snug and warm—like a wet, tight fist wrapped around his cock, so much better than what he’s used to with his own calloused hands.
“Need to move,” he curses. “Need to fuck. Say yes.”
His voice comes out rough and crude, but he refuses to move without your consent.
“Hold on,” you whimper, still adjusting to his size. You shift your hips slightly, trying to get comfortable, but the movement only makes him groan in pleasure.
“Fine,” he grunts, squeezing your hip.
After what feels like forever, you finally nod your head.
“Okay,” you whisper. “I’m ready.”
And just like that, you open the pearly white gates to heaven for him.
With a hungry growl, he draws his hips back until only half of him remains, and then he slides himself back in. Your lips part in a gasp as he fills you again—his cock sinking even deeper, kissing your cervix.
“Tight,” Bucky clicks his tongue, growing frustrated. “Too tight.”
He pulls out halfway before slamming into you again, and again, and again. Each thrust grows harder and more unrelenting, forcing your body to yield to his cock.
“A—ah! It’s… s’too much—”
“Want me to stop?” he groans out painfully and reluctantly, like he doesn’t want you to answer with a ‘yes’.
“No,” you manage to breathe out. “Don’t stop.”
Moans and gasps spill from your lips every time he fills you. His girth splits you open with every savage thrust, his strong thighs forcing your legs wider for him.
His eyes never tear away from yours. Every time you try to squeeze your eyes shut from the force of his thrusts, he grabs your chin roughly and shakes you, forcing you to look back at him.
“Eyes. On. Me,” he hisses angrily.
Squeezing your cheeks to force your lips apart, he drags his thumb down your lower lip to pry them wider. He leans down, his hot breath tickling your skin while his damp strands of dark hair dance over your face.
He spits into your mouth, the traces of it dripping from his lips down to his chin, slicking your open mouth. It’s wild and savage, unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. Without giving you the opportunity to pull away, his lips cover yours as he forces his saliva to swallow down your throat.
His tongue dances around yours again while he fucks you deeply, each move threatening to break both you and the bed.
Your eyes roll back so far in your skull while your legs dangle helplessly around his hips. Every thrust feels like a punishment for making him wait. Your nerves are crying out for release—and eventually, you give in. Your cunt spasms violently around Bucky’s length as bliss overwhelms every single sense.
“Oh my god,” you cry. “I’m gonna cum—!”
Your cries fill the small house as your back arches off the damp bed. Bucky insists on making eye contact with you, holding your jaw and forcing you to look at him while he fucks you through your climax.
You clench him tightly, your pussy pulsing in loving beats and squeezing him for every last drop.
“Fuck. Yes. Good, feels so good,” he rasps angrily, his thrusts becoming harder and more desperate.
His balls slap vulgarly against your wet pussy, traces of your slick clinging to him every time he bottoms out. His balls churn with pent-up seed, aching to fill you deep. Your cries grow louder, your hips shifting around to accommodate the overstimulation—but it’s no use.
Bucky’s close, so close. While his eyes bore into yours, his pupils dilate with desire. He just needs to get deeper, to fuck you at an impossible angle to pump you full…
“Wait,” you dig your nails deep into his back, making him gasp in pain. “Slow down—it’s too much…”
He snarls angrily, his hips slowing down just a fraction, but not entirely.
The sound that leaves your lips is a cocktail of pain and bliss. It’s a sultry sound that encourages him to continue, to take what he wants, but the words leaving your mouth say otherwise.
“No,” you shake your head. “Stop, please. It’s too much for me. You’re going to break me—”
His hands release your cheeks roughly as his head drops to press his sweaty forehead against yours. Another animalistic sound tears through him as he forces his hips to come to a stop. His cock stills inside you—pulsing for any form of friction. Just a few more thrusts, and he’ll cum. He’ll cum hard. But he stops, because you asked him to.
“Need to cum,” he pants against your face, taking in the way your eyes have gone teary. “So close.”
“I know,” you say with a soft sigh, your eyes fluttering shut for just a moment. “I know. I just… just need a minute.”
You let your fingers trail up and down his back, and he shudders at the feeling.
The two of you lie there, tangled in each other’s limbs while you catch your breath. Bucky waits impatiently—his heart beating so fast in his chest as he uses every ounce of restraint in his blood to refrain from fucking you right through the bed.
Your pussy is already swollen and puffy from his size, and the longer he remains stuffed inside you, the tighter your body squeezes around him.
With his forehead pressed against yours, he shifts his knees and hips slightly to get comfortable, but even those tiny, forced movements are agonizing. Breathy moans and grunts escape both your lips, shared in the tight space between you. It’s sex without the vulgar movements, and it feels far too intimate for a ruthless man like Bucky.
Finally, you grant him permission.
Staring into his eyes, you give him a small nod to let him continue. And the moment you do, the last thread holding Bucky’s control snaps.
He grabs your legs and shoves them high over your shoulders, splitting you wide and pinning you down into a deep mating press. “Need to go deeper. Hold still.”
You had just gotten used to his size, and the sudden change in position makes your eyes fly open. Your mouth falls open in a gasp as he draws his hips back before bottoming out completely inside you.
His heavy, sweaty body crushes down on yours as he begins to fuck you hard and fast. Every draw of his hips fills you impossibly deep, your stretched cunt molding helplessly around his thick length. He works his hips in a wild, frantic rhythm, chasing his release at full speed before you can say another word to stop him.
“Mine,” he rasps through gritted teeth, his chest heaving as his sweat drips onto your skin. “Say it. Tell me you’re mine—”
The force of his hips slamming against yours knocks the breath right out of you, your moans coming out as breathless gasps while he pounds into you. His eyes bore into yours, waiting for you to finally give in.
“Tell me you’re mine. Say it.”
You blink through tears of bliss. “I—I’m yours—” you manage to stammer out.
His face twists in pleasure, baring his teeth as he pins your legs against your chest while the tip of his cock works deep against your cervix. “Good. A perfect sleeve for my cock. Look at me while I cum inside you.”
The sight of your face scrunched in pleasure and vulnerability sends a wave of heat coursing from his lower gut to the very tips of his toes. His cock pulses and throbs inside, slicking your walls with his pre-cum—a warning before giving you the real thing.
“Pump my cum,” his large palm settles over your lower belly. “All in here.”
The thought of you walking around the house barefoot and round with his children—growing up to be champions just like their father—makes his head spin and his balls grow heavy.
“Close. So close,” he curses and groans over and over, speaking more than he ever has. “Hold still. Take it all for me, wife.”
Bucky buries himself as deep as his length will go, pinning you down as his entire body locks tight. His cock pulses, pumping wave after thick wave of his hot seed deep inside your womb.
His head drops into the crook of your neck, his large, sweaty chest heaving against yours as he rides out his pleasure.
He releases your legs for a moment until both your rapid hearts finally slow to a steady beat. Slowly, agonizingly so, he draws his thick length back, pulling out of your slick, overstimulated cunt with a wet suction sound.
You let out a soft, breathless gasp at the sudden empty feeling. A ring of creamy white circles the base of his cock, and his seed dribbles between your folds—physical proof of what he just did to you.
Without a word, he grips both your ankles with one large hand, pinning your thighs together and pressing your legs straight up into the air to hold them suspended above you.
You blink at him—dazed, exhausted, and thoroughly used. His cock rests half-limp between his strong legs, so he clearly isn’t going for another round.
“What are you doing…?” you whisper softly, confused.
He holds your legs firmly in place as his dark eyes scan your bare, trembling body.
“Make sure it takes,” he grunts out, his voice rough from satisfaction. He uses his free hand to trace a warm, possessive line down to your lower belly, pressing down gently right over your womb. “Keep your belly round with my sons.”
You stare up at him in disbelief while your legs are held helplessly aloft by his massive hand. You’re too exhausted to argue, your brain still foggy from your orgasm. Still, you manage an incredulous laugh.
Does he seriously think propping your legs up like a pair of stilts is going to magically guarantee a pregnancy?
He looks so proud of himself that you don’t even have the heart to argue. He squeezes your ankles slightly, letting out a satisfied hum from his chest once he’s convinced his little trick did the job. The smile on his face is almost boyish in a way that does not belong to a rough man like him.
“Good wife,” he praises you. “Birth me healthy champions.”
You let out a soft sigh, fluttering your eyelids shut as fatigue finally crawls its way into your bones.
As you drift into slumber, you make a mental note to teach this brute a lesson on how gravity works. And right after that, you’ll teach him what aftercare is—especially if he plans on keeping you forever and making you his wife.
if you've made it this far, as always thank you so much for taking the time to read my work. interactions are always appreciated, I love reading every bit of them!
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summary: it was unrequited love at first sight when you met bucky barnes. having a crush on him—your roommate—is hard enough, but hearing him fuck through your shared wall? that almost kills you.
warnings: 18+ MDNI, modern au, lots of plot, fluff, angst, sloooow burn, anxious!reader, kinda insecure!reader, reader works at a bar, cap’s quartet roommates (romanogers !!), swearing, drinking, weed mentions, idiots in love they just don't know it, oblivious!reader (i love her your honour), yearningggg, jealousy, reader crashes tf outttt, miscommunication, one (1) argument, love confessions, pet names (sweetheart, angel, doll, pretty girl), detailed explicit smut, slight dom!bucky, dirty talk, teasingggg, grinding, munch!bucky, oral (f!receiving), fingering, dacryphilia, pussy pronouns, small inspection kink, praise kink, unprotected pnv (don’t do this, friends), missionary, mating press, multiple orgasms, brief sub space, mention of f & m masturbation, happy ending, no use of y/n, reader wears a dress, no physical descriptions of reader, reader's pov, kinda dramatic, briefly proofread, this is not your typical roommate!bucky fic !!
word count: 20.6k (apparently i have this condition where i can't write a short fic)
authors note: i am actually the leader of the 'having debilitating crushes on your roommate' club so... thank you to my gorgeous, stunning, one of a kind beta reader @phoenix-in-writing 🫶 yes, i did use some off campus characters as reader's coworkers - there's no subplot with them, they just suited the vibe 😎 likes, reblogs, and comments are very much appreciated (and feed my validation kink)
you are responsible for your own media consumption. don’t like? don’t read
song inspo: crushcrushcrush - paramore & boyfriend - best coast
divider credits: line dividers by @/omi-resources, heart divider by @/strangergraphics
masterlist
Nothing compares to a quiet evening alone
Just the one, two, I was just counting on
That never happens, I guess I'm dreaming again
Let's be more than, more than this
You knew from the moment you stepped into the Brooklyn brownstone that you were royally fucked.
Ruffled, sleep mussed, dark brown hair. Slightly squinted, soft, deep blue eyes. A white sleep shirt that loosely clung to the hard ridges of a muscled body. Grey sweatpants that hung dangerously low and showed the shape of him if you stared longer than was appropriate.
And, god, the low, husky voice that you could feel rumble through your body from metres away. The slender, strong, veiny hands that didn't hesitate to grab the box slipping from yours. The pink lips that stretched into an easy smile, pearly white teeth dazzling and rendering you speechless for a minute.
The heat that crawled up your back was instant—your body reacting to your new roommate before you even knew his name.
Attractive men existed, you knew that. The bar you worked at had handfuls of them come in every night, some that even flashed you a flirty smile with interest in their eyes. But you didn't live with any of them—you didn't see them when they were half-awake, their rough edges softened by sleep and early morning light.
He introduced himself as James Barnes, but he requested you call him Bucky—"only my ma calls me James"—, and mentioned he worked as a physiotherapist at the VA.
He was quick to put the box in your new room, running out to the curb to grab the rest of your belongings from the rental van. You stood near the entrance, frozen in shock. Words failed you, your brain failed you—the only thing you could think about was the shift of his back muscles beneath his shirt as he hauled boxes through the door. It was an intoxicating sight, one you didn't even know would affect you.
You quickly came to learn that the problem was Bucky—everything he did had an intoxicating effect on you.
The smile he flashed you as he handed you your morning coffee, the wink he tossed your way when he took your side in your weekly movie night debate with Sam, his laughs that you could hear through your shared wall when he gamed with his friends.
His laughter was one of the most intoxicating things about him. There were the low, deep huffs when he was tired. The louder, harsher ones when he was caught by surprise. Then your favourite—the long, slightly breathless giggles that crinkled the corner of his eyes and had his nose scrunching. Every time you were blessed with them, you could only think about how cute he looked. It made him even more attractive, and you even more infatuated.
When your friend and roommate said that she was going to move into her partner's apartment once your lease was up, the first thing you felt was dread. You didn't know anyone who was looking for a room, nor did you know anyone who was looking for a roommate. The last thing you wanted was to move in with a stranger—having already lived with complete strangers in the past you could not say it was a pleasant experience. Your friend—an absolute angel—was quick to tell you that a coworker at her law firm was looking for a roommate, and she assured you that Nat would not break into your room and steal your jewellery like your first ever roommate did.
While you weren't exactly ecstatic to move in with four best friends, Nat had quickly won you over when you met for coffee. You sat down feeling like a complete contrast to her—sporting an old sweatshirt over your sweaty work uniform while she was in a creaseless emerald pantsuit. But she made you feel completely at ease—offering up embarrassing college stories about her and the guys, asking you about yourself and actually seeming interested, talking about the brownstone with so much adoration in her voice you couldn't help but love it already.
You felt awkward living with the close knit friends at first—shuffling on your feet as the four of them lounged on the couches, pulling at the loose threads on your sweater as you sat and listened to them bicker.
Fortunately, it didn't take long for you to find your place in the group. Sam played a big part—his teasing and infectious personality making you feel at home within a week. He didn't let you retreat into yourself; he pestered you with a mix of random and personal questions—"what extinct animal do you most identify with" followed by "what was your first heartbreak"—, teased you about your cooking (to which he always stole a mouthful), and was just warm—and yeah, slightly chaotic.
Nat and Steve quickly became one of your favourite couples. They weren't heavy on the PDA—unless red wine was involved—and they balanced each other out perfectly. She was loud, he was quiet. After a few too many on a night out she was ready to start a fight with any asshole who dared to look her way, and he was there to gently steer her away by the shoulders and remind her it wasn't worth ruining her fresh manicure.
Despite having some opposite traits, they were both incredibly kind and comforting people—truly living up to their titles of being the household's mom and dad. Nat was there for you after your gruelling shifts, holding either a glass of wine or mug of hot chocolate. Steve was the one knocking on your door with a bowl of soup and bag of medicine when you had the flu.
And then there was Bucky. He was just as kind, a good middle between Sam's chaotic nature and Steve's quiet one, and he made you feel seen.
Uncomfortably so.
He was the one next to you during social gatherings, gently nudging his shoulder against yours in a silent check in. He was the one suggesting fresh air when your breathing picked up incrementally. He was the one staring at you like he was captivated, sitting forward as you rambled about your niche interests.
Bucky noticed you, paid attention to you, like no one else had in your life.
He remembered what mugs you liked, making sure to use one of them when he made you both coffee—he remembered that too, the way you liked your coffee made. He bought you more body wash when you complained about running out but not having time to go to the shop before your shift. He sat next to you as you rewatched your comfort shows for the fifth time, asking questions like he was genuinely interested—a welcome contrast to Sam's mocking comments.
Each day he was in your life, looking at you like you were worth knowing, was just another day you fell deeper.
And then there were the moments. There weren't many, only a handful, but they were burned into your memory.
The first was when you came back after brunch with old friends, wearing a white sundress that made you feel pretty.
Bucky was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter while eating an apple. You smiled in greeting as you walked in, grabbing a glass to fill with water. You sneaked a side glance at him like you always do when he's in the same room as you, catching his eyes already on you—drifting from the bottom of your dress up to your chest. You watched his adam's apple bob in his throat as he swallowed.
"That's a nice dress, sweetheart."
Goosebumps erupted across your skin at his low drawl, a warmth spreading in your core from the pet name. He had never called you that before.
He pushed off the counter and walked out of the kitchen, acting like those five words hadn't changed your whole day—your whole life.
Where once you thought the dress was pretty, you now saw it as a lifeline—tethering you to the hope that Bucky might just like you back. You found reasons to wear it more often; making an effort to hang out in the common spaces when you came back home wearing it, delaying changing into your comfortable clothes because Bucky wasn't home yet and you wanted him to see it. To see you.
The second moment was when the five of you were at a birthday party for one of Sam's army buddies.
Nat and Steve had left after only being there for half an hour—Nat giggling to you on their way out, telling you and the boys to hold off on coming back home for a couple of hours. Sam was in the lounge with a large crowd hanging on to his every word as he retold his war hero stories— to which Bucky was quick to throw you a look, raising his hands to mimic being strangled, making you laugh and receive dagger eyes from Sam.
The two of you made your way outside towards the game of beer pong being set up. Bucky was quick to accept their offer to join in and that's how you found yourself standing opposite him, a sticky fold out table between you—the ping pong ball in your hand shaking, your breath catching as his lips tilted into a smirk. His eyes were as dark as the sky, the moonlight making them twinkle with their own constellations—staring straight into yours with a silent challenge, daring you to miss your next shot. His tongue sweeping over his bottom lip stole your attention and your hand faltered, the ball almost dropping out of your grip.
"You got this, sweetheart."
Time slowed down as the ball left your hand, your eyes watching it sail through the crisp night air while Bucky watched you. It dropped to the table with a pathetic, dull tock—inches away from any of the red solo cups. Bucky's smile grew even more lopsided, his eyes gleaming with mirth.
"Better luck next time, angel."
What the fuck was with him calling you these stupid, heart stuttering, knee trembling pet names?
Your beer pong partner was quick to brush off your missed shot, chuckling at your flustered expression and offering to help you with your stance. The game continued with you almost missing every shot, your partner guiding you with hands on your hips in the hopes of you sinking a cup. His arms wrapped around your waist when you made your first successful shot, but it wasn't his attention that had your mind clouding—you couldn't even say it was the alcohol flowing through your veins. No, it was the look of pride on Bucky's face that had you freezing, everything else around you fading away until all that remained was shining midnight eyes and curved pink lips.
God, how you wished the arms around your waist were his.
The guys you were playing with retreated inside after the game ended, with your partner telling you to find him before you left, throwing you an easy smile over his shoulder.
Bucky and you lingered in the fresh air, slowly walking towards the backdoor, your bare arm brushing against his denim jacket with every step. Music and laughter trickled out of the open windows, the noise softening in the cool breeze before it reached you. Despite the calm, you felt your body vibrate with a persistent buzz—Bucky's close proximity and the beer you downed making it hard to find the line between your feelings and reality.
"You do realise he was flirting with you, right?" Bucky's voice broke the silence. You turned your head to find him already gazing at you—soft eyes a contradiction to his clenched jaw.
You scoffed, looking at him like he'd grown another head. "What, no he wasn't."
"Uh yeah, he definitely was. The 'let me fix your stance' play is the oldest trick in the book and has a pretty decent success rate." He chuckled softly, shaking his head with an uptick of a smile. "Not with you, though." He paused, giving you a teasing wink. "I'll keep that in mind."
The wink had your body flushing with heat, the words I'll keep that in mind burrowing into your lovesick heart and amplifying the buzzing. Your words stumbled on their way out."Th-there's no way he was flirting with me—he's way out of my league."
Bucky stopped in his tracks, turning to face you fully with a deep crease between his eyebrows. The gentle breeze swept a strand of hair over his face, your hand twitching with the need to brush it behind his ear.
His voice dropped low, the teasing tone subduing. "What are you on about? Tell me you know that's not true, doll."
You crossed your arms over your chest, feeling exposed and vulnerable under the intimacy of the dark sky. You shivered, not just from the cooling wind caressing your bare arms. You gave a small shrug in response.
Bucky started to take his jacket off, exposing the black t-shirt that hugged his biceps a little too tight for your sanity. "While I don't believe in the whole people being in different leagues thing, I can confidently say you are so far out of his league you're on a whole nother planet."
"…Are you saying I'm an alien?"
"If the shoe fits," Bucky responded, a fraction of his seriousness easing into a cheeky smile. He draped his jacket over your shoulders, his thumbs brushing the sides of your neck as he fixed the collar—another shiver running down your spine from his faint touch. The warm, rich scent of his cologne and him wrapped around you and dragged you under—the scent that you now associated with home.
Bucky's eyes met yours, the starlit blue swirling with something you couldn't quite decipher. His hands moved from the collar of his jacket to the hem, fingers toying with the rough fabric. "No, what I'm trying to say is that you're—" he licked his lips, trying to find the right words. "Any guy would be lucky to have you, but I don't think anyone is deserving of you."
Your brain short-circuited, the haze of rose coloured glasses starting to fall over your eyes—threatening to distort the Bucky in front of you with the one you stayed up late daydreaming about.
You found a smaller version of your voice. "I…I'm not that special, Buck."
He tugged on the hem, the force pulling the jacket tighter around your shoulders. "No? Then why are you the only person—other than Steve—that I let call me Buck?"
You stared at him, unblinking. You didn't realise other people didn't call him Buck—the nickname just slipped from your lips so naturally after the first month of living with him.
"One of these days, I'm going to make you see yourself how I do."
He leaned in, brushing the faintest of kisses on your forehead—the mere ghost of his lips burning your skin, eliciting a cascade of sparks to run down your body. He stepped back, stuffing his hands in his pockets and tilted his head towards the door.
"Let's get back inside before Sam tells everyone about the time he had to save you from a raccoon."
"He had very sinister looking eyes!" You cried indignantly. "And I was really stoned—remind me to never have one of Nat's brownies ever again."
The third moment happened during your bar's weekly quiz night.
The four of them were in their usual booth for the night—the one Sam demanded you reserve for them ever since you mentioned your work had a quiz night on Tuesdays. Nat and Steve were sitting on one side, each nursing a pint of craft beer, with Sam and Bucky sitting opposite them—the latter half hanging out of the booth with his hand raised in a beckoning gesture, shooting you one of those irresistible half smiles that made the butterflies in your stomach flutter.
You rolled your eyes at him, knowing exactly what he wanted—but you couldn't stay away from that smile, even if it was starting to get you in trouble at work.
You walked over to them, pocketing your pen and notepad before stopping next to Bucky, your eyebrows raised and arms folded.
"What do you want now?"
"Can I please place an order for the answer to question five?" Bucky held the quiz sheet up to you, pointing at the blank space next to number five like it was a menu. "Oh, and question eight." His smile evolved into a endearing grin, your heart aching traitorously at the sight.
"No."
The smile dropped a fraction, not expecting you to say no to his charm. "C'mon, you're the one here who knows niche pop culture the best—even Sam is stumped. I know you know the answers."
You nodded, looking at the sheet in his hand before his puppy dog eyes made you crumble. "You're right, I do. I'm not giving them to you, though."
"I thought I was your favourite." His voice dropped like he was genuinely upset, but his twitching cheeks gave away the smile he was suppressing. Sam scoffed next to him, Nat and Steve exchanged a knowing look. You ignored them.
Bucky put the sheet on the table, patting it softly like he was about to make a deal. "How 'bout this—I'll make you dinner for a week." He carefully watched your face, trying to find a crack in your resistance. "Two weeks."
You sighed, dropping your arms to your sides. "Bucky, the prize is only a fifty dollar bar tab."
Bucky shook his head. "It's not about the prize, it's about the glory of winning four weeks in a row." He squinted his eyes, tilting his head in the way you knew meant he was thinking—probably something stupid, too. "Wait—is there another prize for that?"
You scoffed, tempted to hit him with your notepad. "Yeah, you get put on the no entry list."
Nat and Steve snickered at Bucky's clearly offended face, and you bit your lip to hold back your smile—he looked too cute, it was tugging at your heart strings.
"Besides," you continued, "you only won them because you cheated."
He raised his hands in mock defence. "Hey, not my fault the pretty waitress was more than willing."
Sam choked on his beer, spluttering a mouthful onto the table. Your eyebrows skyrocketed, heat rushing to your cheeks and ears at his choice of words.
Bucky's cheeks lit up red and he ran a hand through his hair. "No—wait, I didn't—that wasn't what I meant." He nervously chuckled. "What I meant was that you're more than willing to help—help us…" He trailed off, turning and shooting Steve a look.
Some of the tension left your shoulders, along with some of the hope you always carried that Bucky liked you more than a friend. You cleared your throat, your heart rate struggling to slow down after 'pretty waitress'.
"Maybe I've grown a conscience." You looked slightly to your left, your eyes flicking to your manager standing at the end of the bar, narrowing her eyes at you.
Bucky chuckled softly, his confidence back even with his cheeks still glowing. He crossed his arms on the table, leaning towards you. "Are we gettin' you in trouble, sweetheart?"
"There's no we in this, Barnes. It's all you." Nat interjected, pointing a perfectly manicured finger at him. He gave her a dismissive wave, his eyes still looking at you expectantly.
"She said if you win one more time then she's going to put me on the bar for quiz nights—something about testing a theory…" You admitted quietly. You watched his blue eyes soften, his previous amusement dissipating.
"Well, we can't have that happening." He said, serious. "I would stop coming to quiz night."
"Yeah, right." Sam muttered into his beer.
"You'd be on the no entry list anyways, Buck." You said to Bucky, your tone lilting jokingly.
He tilted his head, the right side of his mouth twitching, his eyes looking like a sky full of secrets.
"You wouldn't do that to me, doll. You like me too much."
Your stomach dropped at his low voice, his words piercing right into the chamber of your heart he had unknowingly etched his name on. A breath got stuck in your throat, your usual witty banter getting lost in the sea of thoughts that only screamed his name.
Like an angel pulling you from a seizing riptide, your managers voice called out your name—saving you from saying something stupid, something that exposed how you had gone past the boundary of like six months ago, stepping into a dangerous territory that could tear you apart.
"Duty calls," you laughed out breathlessly, pointing a thumb over your shoulder. You turned on your heels and walked away like you were on fire.
Sam's low mutter made its way to you through the hum of soft pop music and chatter. "Get a room already, for fuck's sake."
Your shoe scuffed on the hardwood floor, your feet almost tripping over each other. You caught your balance—narrowly avoiding falling and making a fool of yourself in front of the guy you're hopelessly in love with.
You reached your manager waiting at the end of the bar, overcome with the desire to kiss her in gratitude.
"I need you to cover the bar while Dean has a smoke. He'll be ten minutes, tops."
You nodded your okay, used to covering the bar for your coworkers breaks. "Unless a pretty girl walks past, then he'll be at least thirty."
Your manager hummed in agreement. "Remind me to dock his pay for pulling that shit on Saturday. Boy gets enough tips from his flirting to make up for it."
You exchanged a small laugh, walking around her to go behind the bar. She touched your forearm as you passed, stopping you with a gentle touch.
"Word of advice?" She started, voice a little quieter. "Don't screw the crew."
You stared at her with furrowed brows, confused. "What? I would never sleep with Dean, that's just—ew, who knows how many untreated diseases he has." You visibly shuddered your disgust at the idea of hooking up with your coworker who was always chasing tail.
She nodded her head in the direction you came from. "They're your roommates, right?" You nodded slowly. "Hon, you look at him like you can't decide whether you want to run in the opposite direction or get on your knees."
Heat rose beneath your skin, your body freezing in mortification. You gaped at her, your mouth opening and closing until you pushed out a forced laugh.
"What—you're—that's ridiculous. You should get your eyes checked because that's, like," you laughed nervously, panic starting to burn through your rib cage, "he's like…a brother to me?" You phrased it like a question, your voice rising uncharacteristically high at the end.
She gave you a deadpan look, not buying a lick of your bullshit. Your shoulders dropped in defeat, your teeth starting to tear at your inner cheek.
"Is it…am I really that obvious?"
She sighed, her hand on your arm giving a reassuring squeeze. "I've worked with you long enough to know when someone is making you uncomfortable, when you're seconds away from exploding at a condescending customer, or when you want to jump over the bar and climb a guy like a tree." She paused for a second, pursuing her lips in thought. "Funnily enough, they all looked like him."
She let go of your arm, nodding towards the bar. "Now, stop thinking about fucking your roommate and get to work. I'm pretty sure table seven just ordered six espresso martini's." She gave your ass a friendly swat, pushing you behind the bar and making you throw your head back with a startled laugh.
You grabbed the docket from the POS printer, seeing an order for five espresso martini's and one spicy mango margarita. You walked down to the cocktail section, hands moving on autopilot as you prepared the margarita first.
Your eyes flicked up out of habit, your attention drawing towards the booth your roommates had practically scratched their names into—finding a pair of piercing blue eyes already gazing at you. The tequila bottle in your hand shook.
Don't screw the crew.
The last moment occurred during a typical movie night, where yours and Sam's raised voices warranted a domestic disturbance call from your neighbours.
"Oh my god, we are not watching Top Gun for the third time this month!" You exclaimed exasperatedly, throwing your head back against the couch with a groan.
Sam scoffed from his spot sprawled on his stupidly large beanbag—the one you're fairly certain is a dog bed for a Great Dane. "Oh, like your suggestions are any better? You made us sit through a fucking Twilight marathon a couple weeks ago! That's precious time I'll never get back."
You glared at him. "That's bullshit, Wilson—I didn't make you do anything. You chose to sit in that exact same spot and watch all five movies." A mocking smile twitched your lips. "And, if I remember correctly, you were the one asking me to pause the movie while you went to get more snacks."
Sam shook his head adamantly. "No, what's bullshit is your taste in movies—I only sat through it so you wouldn't feel bad!"
Nat and Steve were cuddled up on the couch perpendicular to you, their eyes darting back and forth between you and Sam like they were watching a tennis match. Bucky was sitting on the other end of the couch you were on, legs spread wide with a soda in one hand—his eyes shooting daggers at Sam.
You let out a harsh laugh. "Oh, really? So you crying when you thought Carlisle was dead was just you not wanting me to feel bad?"
"Yes!" Sam yelled, throwing his hands up in the air. Then he paused, processing what you just said. "Wait, no—there was no crying! I just acted sad for your benefit."
You opened your mouth to refute his statement when a deep, husky voice rumbled out from next to you.
"Sam," Bucky started, tone low and final, "stop lying, I saw you wiping your eyes." He continued glaring at Sam, his shoulders more tense than they were a minute ago. "Apologise to her so we can move on."
Sam looked at him like he had lost his mind. "Apologise? What the fuck do I have to apologise for?"
Bucky nodded towards you, darkened blue eyes still narrowed at Sam menacingly. "You said her taste in movies was bullshit. Apologise."
You were suddenly speechless—not sure how your usual movie night bickering with Sam led to Bucky being so…commanding. Protective.
You looked over to the other couch, catching Nat's eye—her mouth overtaken by a knowing smile. Your eyes darted to Steve next to her, his cheeks tinted pink and eyes squinted as he looked at his best friend—a sly smile partially hidden by the can he brought to his lips.
Sam shook his head with a disbelieving laugh, grabbing the TV remote off the coffee table.
Bucky reached out a long leg, giving Sam's beanbag a firm kick. "Now."
"Jesus," Sam dragged out, "chill out, man." He turned to you with a sigh, brown eyes glinting as he gave you his best puppy dog expression. "I am truly sorry for calling your movie taste bullshit. I will gladly sit through ten Twilight marathons if that's what you want."
He turned to Bucky with a smug grin. "There, I apologised to your girl. You happy now?"
A breath hitched in your throat, your brain freezing and going offline.
Your girl.
Said so easily, so naturally. Like it was a fact and not a mocking taunt.
Goosebumps prickled across your skin, a pleased shiver running through you at the thought of being Bucky's girl.
Bucky glared at Sam, the apples of his cheeks dusting pink. "Very." He said before leaning forward and snatching the remote out of Sam's hand. He turned to you, cheeks still flushed but eyes considerably softer. "What do you want to watch, doll?"
"…Shrek 2."
Groans erupted from three of your roommates, the fourth keeping his eyes on you while he shook his head with a fond laugh—the one that showed his pearlescent teeth and crinkled his eyes. The one that was your damnation, sentencing you to a life of yearning and false hope.
"It's the soundtrack, right?"
You nodded eagerly, a bright smile making your cheeks ache. "I knew you would get me, Buck."
You faintly heard a fake gagging sound come from the nuisance being swallowed by a beanbag, but you couldn't care less. Not when Bucky was looking at you like you were an astronomical phenomenon.
Condensation beaded glasses stained the wooden tabletop, chewed paper straws slowly disintegrating in melted ice. A half eaten bowl of fries grew stale in the middle of the table—your manager's attempt to get some food in her staff while they abused the (prepaid) leftover function alcohol, yourself included. The disco ball was still spinning, sending a thousand shards of light dancing throughout the empty bar, while an ABBA track murmured softly beneath laughter and gossip.
"I'm telling you," Dean said, spreading his arms over the back of the booth, "the ladies can't get enough of me."
The booth packed full of your coworkers vibrated with long groans, someone to your left loudly booing and your manager threatening to throw her gin and tonic in his face. You shoved his arm off the seat behind you, earning yourself a pinch to your cheek as his arm retreated.
"I'm serious!" Dean continued, pulling his phone out of his jean's pocket. "One of them even left a review about me last week—hold up, I'll get it." He squinted against the glowing light from his screen, bringing up the bar's google page to show everyone.
"Here it is—last Saturday: bartender was cute, would drink here again. Five stars." He leaned back in the booth with a smug smile, barely reacting when your manager ripped his phone out of his hand.
"Did you see who left the review, dingus?" She asked him, her mocking smirk overpowering his. "I don't know about you, but I don't know any ladies who go by the name James." She waved the phone in his face before going back to reading the review.
Dean recovered quickly, holding his hands up with a shrug. "I'm not opposed to having male admirers—they're some of my biggest tips."
You snorted a laugh. "Oh, I bet they are."
The table dissolved into laughter around you, the liquor and line cook's joint lowering everyone's inhibitions.
Your manager looked up from the phone at you, her eyes lighting up. "Weren't you also working on the bar last Saturday?"
You took a sip of your drink, lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug. "I think so? Was that the night we had two bachelorette parties come in?"
"Yeah, we ran out of cold brew because of them." Dean said. "I set a new record for how many numbers I could get in one night."
You rolled your eyes, choosing to ignore him like everyone else at the table. "Yeah, I was definitely on the bar—my arms are still aching from shaking espresso martini's all night."
Your manager leaned forward, her glassy eyes glinting at you teasingly. "I think this review is about you," she said in a sing-song tone.
You couldn't help but feel a little giddy at someone leaving you a review calling you cute, even if they were most likely stumbling drunk.
Allie—your fellow waitress who was sitting on the other side of Dean—grabbed the phone and read the review herself, scrolling on the screen with her eyes growing wider until a delighted gasp left her.
She looked at you with a beaming smile. "This James guy has been leaving reviews about you for months."
"What?"
She nodded eagerly, a small squeal leaving her. "This is so good, nothing this exciting ever happens here!" She was almost bouncing in her seat as she looked back at the phone, her excitement shaking the booth. "Okay, this one is from Valentines Day: waitress's frown is cute, I still should've bought her flowers." She fell back against the booth seat, clutching the phone to her chest with a dreamy sigh.
Your heart stuttered, the tipsy fog in your head clouding further. "That's—it doesn't say my name…" you trailed off with a nervous laugh. "It could be about any of the waitresses."
Your manager snorted. "We called you sourpuss the whole shift, you wouldn't stop frowning."
Before you could start your rant about how Valentine's Day is just another highly commercialised holiday and people shouldn't need a specific day of the year to celebrate love, Allie started reading out another review.
"This one is from four months ago: come to this bar if you want to see a real-life angel."
Dean groaned, "that's so fucking cheesy." He turned to look at you, "I hope you're not falling for this shit."
"We don't even know if it's about me!"
"I think it's cute," the new waitress piped in from the other end of the booth. "You've got a secret admirer."
"More like a stalker." One of the line cooks mumbled.
"Oh," Allie gasped, "this man has it bad. These are borderline love confessions." She reached past Dean, handing you his phone with the review page still open.
You hesitantly grabbed the phone from her, your heart beating rapidly in your chest. There's no way some guy was leaving these reviews about you…right? That just seems insane, like something out of a romcom. Or something that will end with a restraining order and you moving states away.
The phone faintly trembled in your unsteady hands, your eyes narrowing against the screen's bright glare.
James B.
★★★★★ a month ago
Wars were started over smiles less beautiful than hers.
Oh.
That's maybe the most romantic thing anyone has ever said about you.
You don't know if it's about you.
You exhaled shakily, shrugging nonchalantly as you handed the phone back to Dean. "He could be talking about any of the waitresses." You repeated your earlier statement. And then for good measure—"It's hardly a compliment—wars are started over literally anything."
Allie looked at you with wide eyes, bringing her hands up and shaking them in a strangling motion.
"Do you know anyone called James?" Your manager probed, clearly invested.
"No." You answered, ignoring the dull, tingling sensation at the back of your head. "No one significant."
"Well, even if he does turn out to be a stalker, at least he boosted our ratings."
Over the next few weeks, your coworkers had made it their personal mission to find out the identity of James B. Your manager had the brilliant idea to set up a weekly bar tab giveaway—for people to be in the draw they just needed to put their business card in a jar on the bar. What your customers didn't know was that every Friday after close, Allie and Dean were emptying the jar not to find a lucky winner but to look for any cards with the name James B.
It turned out there were a few more James B.'s than they were expecting, and there were no other parameters to narrow down their search. And much to their chagrin, you didn't recognise any of their names.
"Wait!" Dean exclaimed, holding a finger in the air. "Why don't we just reply to one of his reviews?"
"Oh," Allie said, leaning forward in her chair, "that's actually kind of smart. Maybe we could say we have a thank you gift for our number one fan?"
"Or we could just ask who he is."
Something about that made you uneasy.
After the night you all first discovered the reviews, Allie had drawn up a timeline of them which revealed this James guy had been leaving reviews for a year. And while they never mentioned your name, everyone knew they were about you—but you didn't want to believe that; it felt absolutely insane.
Majority of the reviews were brief and mundane, similar to the first one Dean saw. But a few of them…they read like poetry, like the pages out of someone's journal. They mentioned your smile, how your laugh could cure any ailment, that being in your presence was like witnessing a supernova.
It was beautiful and terrifying.
And every day it was looking more like a stalker than someone you knew—you didn't want to give him attention in fear that it could evolve from something harmless to dangerous.
"Already tried that," your manager sighed next to you. "He didn't reply."
Something in the atmosphere felt off when you shouldered the brownstone's front door open with a heavy sigh. It was well past midnight on a Saturday, and the soft murmuring you would usually hear coming from the lounge—Sam had a habit of passing out in front of the TV on Saturday night's—was nonexistent. You didn't think much of it, your mind single-focused on needing a scolding hot shower to wash away the ten hour bar shift.
Your work uniform was drenched and sticking to you uncomfortably, a crust of sugary cocktails and beer lining your skin. It had been one disaster after another—the beer keg soaking you as you tried to tap it, the cocktail shaker exploding in your hands, the new waitress who failed to call out "behind" and you ended up covered in a customers chili cheese fries.
You welcomed the boiling water, scrubbing your skin until it was red and raw. Visible steam swirled from your body even after you retreated into your room, and only then did some of the tension ease from your shoulders. Your fatigue ran bone deep—it felt like you were dragging your feet through mud as you slowly started your nighttime routine.
A noise cut through the eerily silent night, soft and faint, but an unmistakable echo from the room next to yours. It made you pause, your eyebrows drawing together. Then more noise followed, three breathy high pitched moans that the wall separating your rooms failed to drown out. A hot realisation curdled your stomach, rising through your body until it settled in your chest and throat—a tight, unrelenting fist clenching and making it harder to breathe.
Bucky had company.
Your ears zeroed in on the noises against your wishes. The last thing you wanted was to hear the guy you had a debilitating crush on fuck someone else. And yet, you stood frozen—your towel still wrapped around you, water dripping onto the floor, heart trying to beat out of your chest. Your nervous system had entered fight or flight mode, triggered by the sounds of another woman's pleasure.
Sweat started to line your back, your hands trembling where they were clutching the towel, chest stuttering as your breaths turned sharp and quick.
The moans grew in volume and soft thuds reverberated against the wall—then, a faint low murmuring graced your ears. A deep voice you would recognise anywhere, that you had heard through the wall plenty of times during your one year living there.
You snapped out of your shock, ripping open your work bag to find your headphones. Your phone shook in your hands as you searched for 'calming' playlists, your thumb jabbing violently at the first result. You turned the volume up loud enough to vibrate your eardrums, but the damage was already done.
You paced the length of your room, clenching and unclenching your fists in an effort to calm down—to will your racing heartbeat to slow, to tamp down the spiralling thoughts that made you feel like you were drowning.
You got ready for bed in a blur, trying to stay as quiet as possible with your heart beating wildly in your throat. The exhaustion that had your bones aching after your shift was lingering, but had been overwhelmed by the adrenaline surging through your veins. You laid in your bed, trying to concentrate on your breathing.
Inhale. One, two, three, four.
Hold. One, two—
It didn't sound like she was faking it.
The breath rushed out of you quickly.
You squeezed your eyes shut tight, clenching your fists and trying to focus on the sensation.
Inhale. One, two, three—
Bucky's bed is pressed up against your shared wall.
You grabbed the pillow next to you and pressed it against your face, something between a pained whimper and frustrated groan leaving your throat.
Did he like to talk? Was he whispering dirty things in her ear, telling her how good she felt, how much he wanted her? Did she get to hear him moan and whimper?
The music in your ears had become irritating, overstimulating you even more. But there was no way in hell you were taking your headphones off—your heart was already broken enough.
Did he call her sweetheart, too?
You slept for two hours, maybe three if you were being generous. The exhaustion won out against the anxiety around two am, only for you to jerk awake two hours later when the same noises echoed through the wall. At some point in the night your headphones had slipped off and you were defenceless against the noises your body had already filed as a threat.
Your nervous system reacted as if you were being hunted down by a lion, not overhearing your roommate-slash-crush have sex. It was a horrible way to wake up—your body pumping full of adrenaline and cortisol before you even took a deep breath.
The headphones went back on a second too late—leaving a scratched record of giggles looping through your head that the music couldn't drown out. One giggle that you knew well, that had you beaming with pride whenever you coaxed it out of him.
A silent tear slid down towards your ear, disappearing into your hairline as you stared at the ceiling.
Hours passed before it felt safe for you take the headphones off, and even then anxiety gripped your chest whenever you thought about leaving your room. Everything that had once felt safe, had once felt like your solace, now felt like a prison.
You knew you were being dramatic, knew that your jealousy and hurt was unreasonable. Bucky wasn't yours, he would never be yours—you knew that, you'd always known that. But that's the thing with crushes—they are irrational, uncontrollable beasts that mistake kindness for attraction, that disguise inevitable heartbreak as fluttering butterflies.
Opening your bedroom door slowly, you saw the flash of a towel dart into Bucky's room—two faint sets of giggles sounding behind the closed door, slicing into your aching heart. Heat burst behind your eyes and you willed the tears to stay at bay—at least until the shower could drown out your sobs.
You sat on the floor of the shower, staring at the wall while hot water rained down on you, each drop feeling like a knife piercing your skin. You sat there, unblinking, as your vision blurred—the water washing away your endless tears. You sat there as the shower stream changed from a burning fire to an icy bite, your body shivering but unmoving.
Nat's banging on the door about rising water prices snapped you out of your dissociative daze.
"Bucky! Oh, fuck—don't stop, please—"
"Yeah? You like that?"
"Yes—god, so much!"
"You feel so good, baby."
Thump, thump, thump.
You had taken your headphones off for half a minute while getting changed. All it took was thirty seconds for tears to swell in your eyes and a silent scream to claw at your throat.
It had been four weeks since you first heard them. Four weeks of knowing your crush was fucking someone else less than three metres from your bed. Four weeks of debilitating anxiety and heartache consuming you until there was nothing left to take.
You knew their routine; she came over every Wednesday and Saturday, always after ten pm. Depending on your roster for the week, sometimes you were home when she came over—subjected to hearing Bucky's low baritone greet her at the door, their footsteps padding down the hall past your room, the soft click of his door closing and the giggles that followed.
You fucking hated giggles.
By the end of the second week, you had put in a request to work the closing shift every Wednesday and Saturday. The tightness in your chest and churning in your stomach never faded, but you took some comfort in knowing you would only be in the same house as her for a few hours. You hadn't met her—you didn't even know her name—but you were envious of a faceless woman, a voice you heard in the dark, because she had the one thing you wanted but could never have.
No one brought her up—there were no casual chats between the boys, no probing questions from Nat. Apart from the first time, she was out of the house by six am—narrowly avoiding Sam and Steve leaving for their morning run. You weren't even sure they knew she existed—not until Nat gave you a sympathetic smile over a glass of wine, confirming that they did in fact know without uttering a word.
The usual nights the five of you spent together continued as normal. Or, at least as normal as you could manage. The space between you and Bucky grew—he stopped trying to charm quiz answers out of you, and you hugged the arm of the couch like it was a life preserver during movie night. The soft conversations over morning coffee ceased to exist, the nights of you two reading together in the lounge just a hazy memory.
The distance made your heart yearn for him while his proximity made your nervous system overload. It was a push and pull that sucked the life out of you, exhausting you until you were a shell of who you used to be.
When Sam asked you what your first heartbreak was you instantly thought of Liam Turner from the sixth grade. He was the classic class clown that both charmed and annoyed all the girls in your grade. He sat next to you during History and English, always pestering you for help and trying to make you his partner in crime. You did what any smitten eleven year old girl would do—you handed him a note. It was simple, you didn't even write your name—just "do you like me" with tick boxes for yes and no. You handed it to him before recess and watched with bated breath as he ran to his group of friends, watched as all of them turned to you and fell into hysterics. You crashed into your mom's arms once you got home from school, sobs wracking your body as you felt like you were going to die from the crushing sensation in your chest.
What you felt that day wasn't even a drop in the agony that consumed you when you walked into the lounge for movie night.
"You're late!" Nat yelled, her voice travelling down the hall as you rushed through the front door.
"I know, I know," you yelled back, heading for your room and changing out of your work clothes in record time. You made your way towards the lounge once in comfy clothes. "The health inspector would not stop asking me questions, no matter how many times I told him I'm not the—"
Your feet and words came to a halt once you reached the doorway to the lounge, your heart dropping to the floor and shattering into a million pieces.
Because there she was—sitting in your usual spot with her feet resting on Bucky's lap, one of his hands engulfing her ankles.
She was beautiful. And the complete opposite to you in every way possible. From the texture and colour of her hair to the shape of her body. From the clothing and jewellery she wore to the colour of her eyes.
The two of you weren't even comparable—you were from completely different planets, different universes.
It hit like a sucker punch. You weren't his type, not even close.
You're a fucking fool.
She smiled brightly at you, the white of her teeth glaring. You faintly heard her great you through the ringing in your ears, offering you her name. You managed a meek hi in response, dragging your wide eyes away from her over to the other couch.
Big mistake.
Nat and Steve were already looking at you with pity in their eyes, a silent "are you okay?" written all over their faces. Nat scooted closer to Steve, tilting her head towards the small open spot next to her on the couch. You knew the second you sat next to them that her comforting presence would wrap around you and tear away the last of your fraying composure. So, you did something you had never done before.
"Move it, bird brain." You muttered to Sam, squatting down next to his beanbag and shoving his shoulder to make room for you.
"You ever tried not being bossy?" He grumbled in reply, shuffling to the right so you could collapse down next to him.
Normally you would respond with something just as snarky. But that required mental energy that you did not possess—energy that was being drained with each passing second she sat behind you.
You settled into the beanbag, the rustling of polystyrene beads filling the quiet room. You tried to take calming breaths as subtly as possible, the blood from your broken heart clogging your throat and lungs.
You hummed, keeping your eyes glued to the TV screen as Steve navigated through the streaming app.
Sam stiffened next to you, turning to you with a peculiar look on his face. "What? You got nothing to say to that?"
You sighed. "Every white guy's number one film on letterboxd. Try being less predictable next time, Rogers." You said in a flat monotone.
A deep, breathy chuckle sounded behind you, and it took all of your diminishing willpower to not turn and get a glimpse of the soft smile that haunted your dreams.
You tried your best to focus on the movie, you really did. You tried to focus on the press of Sam's shoulder against yours, something tangible to keep you grounded. But nothing could distract you from the soft murmuring behind you, the sound of her giggles as Bucky provided commentary throughout the movie. It was something that you normally didn't mind, something you indulged in, even. Not tonight. Thirty minutes into the movie, your eye had developed a constant twitch from suppressing the urge to turn around and tell them to shut the fuck up.
At one point Sam's hand had fallen over both of yours, stopping you from picking at your bleeding hangnails. You didn't even notice the sting from the exposed wounds—too preoccupied with gnawing on the inside of your cheeks.
You walked into your shift the next day with another request.
You clocked into your shift on Tuesday afternoon with a sinking pit in your stomach. A feeling that you had become accustomed to over the last couple months, a feeling that had you walking the scenic route home at night, delaying your arrival. It was the feeling that you had started associating with home, along with the ache in your chest.
You loved quiz night—you loved seeing what stupid team names people came up with, loved judging them when they got such an obvious answer wrong. Once upon a time, you had loved seeing Bucky's handsome face sitting in your section, waving you over with an up to no good smile stretching his lips. Now, it all felt like a taunt.
Nothing was out of the ordinary—the opening shift said it had been quiet as usual, there had been a couple bookings from newcomers for quiz night, and the tabby cat that wandered the block came in to say hi.
And then, she walked in. Strolling in behind Nat and Steve, her arm looped through one of Bucky's, flashing you a kind smile as they made their way to their usual booth. In your section.
You wanted to scream. Cry. Jump into the East River.
The bar had become your safe place—which honestly sounded crazy, you hated half of the customers. But your home hadn't felt like your home since she walked through the door. And now she was in the one place that hadn't been tarnished.
She was nice, you knew she was. But she was a constant reminder that your heart belonged to a man who never looked at you twice.
You rushed over to Allie who was standing at the bar waiting for Dean to finish garnishing cocktails.
"I need you to swap sections with me—please." You said in a frantic breath.
She turned to you, her face already telling you her answer. "Hell no! I've got two tables of big tipper's—I am not giving that away."
Dean leaned his elbows on the bar. "I'll swap with you."
Your head whipped to him at a comical speed, your wide eyes meeting his unbothered grin. "…But you hate working the floor."
He nodded towards one of your tables—one of the newcomer bookings, a booth full of girls in their early twenties. A few of them were already looking over at your trio—more specifically, looking at Dean. You turned back in time to see him flash them a wink.
Your chest deflated with a relieved breath. "This is the only time I am ever going to be grateful for you being such a dog."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It wasn't." You and Allie said at the same time, matching deadpan expressions on your faces.
Allie turned to you, squinting suspiciously. "Why do you want to swap?"
You shrugged, looking at her forehead to avoid eye contact. "Just felt like a change."
"You said please—pretty desperately, too. It was kinda hot." Dean piped in.
You glared at him, choosing not to acknowledge his comment. You turned back to Allie looking at you expectantly. "Variety is the spice of life?"
She hummed disbelievingly. "Mhm, sure. We'll talk later."
Working the bar brought you no reprieve; every time you walked to the cocktail station, they were in your direct eyeline. Every time you poured a cosmo, shook a lemon drop, garnished a mojito, you could hear them laughing. You watched how she fit in like the missing puzzle piece, her body slotting perfectly under Bucky's arm—like that's where she belonged. You watched your roommates welcome her in with open arms and crying laughter, the realisation hitting you that she replaced the temporary hole your absence had opened.
Your knees were shaking while you closed up the bar, your hands scrubbing the beer grates with an urgency that was cause for concern.
"Hey, hey, woah that's—" Dean came up next to you, his hands gently clasping your wrists. "That's enough," he said, uncharacteristically gentle, "your hands are bleeding." He brought your hands up, your unfocused eyes seeing spots of red raised on your knuckles.
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh. What's up with you today?"
Dean led you away from the bar, grabbing a first aid kit on your way over to where your manager and Allie were sitting, working through the next week's orders. He pushed you into a chair, stepping back with an awkward pat to your head.
"I'm sensing that this is a girl talk so I'm just gonna finish closing the bar."
The two women turned to you with concern painting their faces. Allie glanced down at your hands and opened the first aid kit, pulling out supplies to treat the cuts. Neither of them spoke while she tended to your hands, watching your face closely.
"These aren't too bad, just scrapes." She said softly, packing the kit back up and sitting it out of the way. She clasped your hands lightly, her thumbs rubbing soothing circles on the back of your hands. "What's going on, sweetie?"
You looked up from where you had been staring at the table, seeing her eyes and your manager's shining with worry. A silent tear slipped from your eye, leaving a damp path in it's wake.
"Whose kneecaps are we busting?" Your manager demanded.
That broke you.
Your shoulders started shaking, your throat closing in on itself in the form of a sob. Your heart escaped from your chest cavity, rising up like bile. Your vision was completely blurred, hot tears taking your eyes hostage. You caved in on yourself, wrapping your arms around your body as your frame trembled like a leaf.
You couldn't even feel embarrassed about bawling like a baby in front of your coworkers, the pain you had been sheltering for months overruling any other emotion. Allie wrapped her arms around you, pulling you into her warmth and making you cry harder. Your manager placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, her thumb rubbing calming patterns as they both whispered words of comfort to you.
You gasped for breath, trying to get some air past the ball in your throat. "I-It's so—" your words broke with a hiccup, "it's so fucking stupid." You rushed out. "We were never—ugh!" You wiped at your cheeks furiously, willing the tears to stop. You gulped down a deep breath, trying to focus on the comforting touches and not the agony vibrating every cell in your body.
"We were never anything. God, I'm sobbing over a guy that—he was only being nice, and I made it into something it wasn't." You garbled out, the brine of tears lining your lips.
You opened up to them, telling them about how deeply you fell for Bucky in between sobs. How you felt like a goddamn fool, your lovesick heart reading into things and mistaking your strictly platonic relationship as something else entirely. You told them how you hate going home most nights, finding it harder to breathe the closer you got to the brownstone. You admitted to them that it's not just jealousy over him with another girl, it's something deeper—the fear that you've been replaced, that he doesn't need you anymore.
"…my sleep is fucked, I'm on high alert every second I'm home—I don't feel safe in my own home. Which—I know, it sounds so fucking dramatic. But it's like she's seeped into every crack, changing the foundations I built over a year ago. Now she's turning up here—on fucking quiz night, my night—and I just can't escape." You finished with a deep breath, feeling drained from your emotional monologue.
Allie, who had kept her arms wrapped around you throughout your rambling, lifted her head and looked at you with a mix of understanding and sympathy. "That's why you wanted to swap sections, because she was here." You nodded meekly.
She sighed and sat back in her chair. "Give me a couple days to clear out my spare room. You need it more than I need a second closet."
Before you could start sobbing over her offer a muscular arm reached in front of you, depositing a vodka cranberry onto the table.
Dean's voice rumbled behind you. "If it makes you feel any better, I've wanted to sleep with you since my first shift."
"Dean," both women next to you hissed. You turned to look at him, catching that easy-going smile of his and you started laughing—the first genuine one in weeks.
Thursday 6:18pm
Nat: Hey, you working late tonight? The boys are getting restless, Sam is threatening to watch Top Gun if you're not home in 10…
You: shit i forgot to tell you i'm working thursday nights now! sam can watch whatever mediocre garbage he wants :-)
Nat: We can change movie night to another night! Maybe Sunday? Whatever works for you x
You: don't worry about it, thursdays work for everyone else!
Nat: Is everything ok? I feel like I hardly see you anymore :(
You: aw i'm sorry natty :-( just been picking more shifts up at work - boss has me training the newbies! promise we'll have a wine night soon xx
"I'm moving out."
It was the Sunday after that fateful quiz night, the sun beating down on your four roommates as they laid out in the backyard. Sam was going on about some barbeque he had been invited to—telling the other three that if they behaved he would let them join him. Nat's head was resting on Steve's chest, half asleep while he massaged her scalp. Bucky was lying with a hand behind his head, shirtless, and reading his well-loved copy of The Fellowship of the Ring.
Allie had sent you a photo of her spare room an hour before, a bottle of Tito's sitting on the floor the only thing in the empty room. You couldn't put off telling your roommates any longer, knowing that once you moved out you would start feeling like a human again. You stood in the doorway, arms tight across your body—fearing for their reactions.
Sam stopped talking abruptly, Nat jolted awake and sat up from Steve's chest, Bucky slowly lowered his book to his chest. Nat was the first to speak.
"What?" She asked softly.
You started to shuffle your feet, looking around the backyard—at the fairy lights that flickered like dying stars, the small veggie patch Steve cared for like it was his child—avoiding eye contact with them. "You remember Allie from the bar? We've gotten really close these past few months and she was looking for a roommate—kinda felt like a no-brainer, y'know?"
You finally looked at them, your heart beat rattling your jaw. Sam looked speechless, his face frozen in confusion. Nat was looking at you with that assessing gaze, her eyes squinting like she knew something else was going on. Steve nodded his head solemnly, his features pulled into a frown that looked out of place on him. Bucky had abandoned his book completely, sitting upright with his pretty lips downturned, his sunglasses hiding whatever emotions swam in his cerulean depths.
"I can sort out getting the room filled—can probably pay double rent if necessary—"
"I'll handle it." Bucky cut you off, his tone gruff and curt.
You wrung your hands together, hating being under the spotlight of your roommate's attention. "Are you sure? It's a bit late notice so it might be hard to—"
That same curtness cut you off again,"I said I'll handle it, didn't I?"
He probably wanted his girlfriend to move in.
Your three other roommates momentarily directed their bewildered stares to him, just as surprised as you at his bluntness. Just like Steve frowning, this was out of character for him. You could feel his eyes glaring holes into you through his sunglasses.
Nat shook her head at his attitude, turning her attention back to you. "I didn't know you wanted to move out."
Okay, time for the lies—just like you practiced in the mirror.
"It's not about wanting to move out," you started softly, "it's just something that naturally unfolded. Her landlord upped her rent last month and she can't afford it on her own anymore." Steve and Sam nodded along, while Nat was looking at you with that unwavering stare. You didn't even want to glance at Bucky. "She jokingly asked me over drinks a couple weeks ago if I was looking and after thinking on it, I think it's the best choice for me. It's closer to work, cheaper than what I currently pay and, as I said, we've become really good friends."
Nat continued squinting her eyes at you, watching as you fidgeted with your fingers—your tell that you would rather be anywhere else.
"Okay," she acquiesced. "When are you moving? We'll throw a little goodbye party."
"Great idea," Sam mumbled.
"Sometime in the next week." Everyone's eyebrows shot up at that. "And that's not necessary—I'd prefer it if you didn't do anything; it's not like I'm leaving the city, I'll only be a few blocks away."
Steve recovered from the brief shock at how soon you were leaving them. "Let us know what day and time, we'll help you move your stuff."
"I appreciate the help, really I do, but my coworkers have already offered—we have Dean to do all the heavy lifting."
That made Bucky stir, standing up with a scoff and arms folded across his chest. "Did you think about us at all? Sounds like you can't wait to get away from here."
You froze, the ice running through your veins equal to the frost in his tone. "That's not—I didn't want to bother you—"
"How can you think you bother us after all this time?" He asked, the frost melting into water—revealing something that trembled close to desperation.
"Bucky," Nat warned.
"I just don't understand," He snapped, shaking his head and walking towards where you were stuck in the doorway. He paused in front of you, his sun slicked chest making your heart gallop. You kept your eyes on his chin—locking on the clef still visible through heavy stubble, resisting the desire to glance at his naked chest, or worse, look into his eyes. "Mind letting me through?" He muttered lowly, his frame now blocking you from the sun. You ducked your head, pressing your back to the doorframe to give him space.
"Buck—"
"Not now, Steve." He bit out, your body absorbing the heat radiating from him as he brushed past you. You stood still, head tilted to the floor until you heard his door slam closed.
"Well, that was…" Steve started, his uneasy chuckle filling the heavy atmosphere.
The shock of his attitude left you dazed. You expected some blow back from Nat—she could read you like her favourite book, knowing the emotions you held within yourself better than you did. You expected—hoped, really—that they might be a little down about your departure, but Bucky acting like this wasn't even in your realm of possibility.
"What was that about?" You muttered to yourself.
Sam stood up with a huff, grabbing a beer from the cooler near the table. "Fucking idiots, the pair of you."
You timed the move for the following Wednesday, not wanting to risk another night of hearing what you had labelled your own personal torture. You had been working nights since Sunday, avoiding any interactions with your roommates. The vibe in the brownstone felt off, the air tasting stale even when you were the only one home. Nat had been texting you for updates, apologising for Bucky's strange behaviour, and assuring you your friendship with her wouldn't slip away after you were gone. Sam continued to send you memes—he had an affinity for the gradient instagram reels—and Steve saved you the best strawberries from his garden, hiding them in the fridge for you.
Bucky was radio silent.
Tuesday 5:36pm
Nat: Just spoke to Allie - apparently you're not working quiz night anymore?? What's going on?
You: we thought the new waitress should work it for a bit! good experience :-)
Nat: You should come join us then! We would be unstoppable with you on our team xx
You: maybe another time? don't want the other teams to think you have an unfair advantage lol
Nat: Fuck what they think. We miss you! Movie night was not the same without you last week :(
A month passed before you saw Bucky again.
You had been texting Nat on and off, feeling an awful reluctance to seeing her. It had nothing to do with Nat and everything to do with you continuing to avoid the problem—your feelings. Because you still thought about him, religiously so. You hated yourself for it—hated your brain conjuring up scenarios of him and her, replaying the happiness that glowed on his face the couple of times you saw them together.
Your sleep had improved, at least. There was no anxiety constricting your chest when you walked home, no fear for what you might hear through the walls. Allie encouraged you to cry it out on the bathroom floor, over tubs of ice cream on the couch. While it was horrible to address and to actually feel the heartbreak instead of intellectualising it, you had to admit you did feel lighter. It was a weight off your chest for someone else to know your secret, to let you speak about the pain and not forcing you to move on.
Your manager was quick to approve your request to work the day shifts—asking if you wanted to get your managers license, to be her dependable day shift manager. You were elated to have something else to focus on, and the pay rise wasn't bad either. Working the days also meant you weren't there in case your old roommate's called in for a drink on their way home from work.
But you knew your luck was going to run out some day soon.
It was on a quintessential late summer evening—the kind where the sun was low enough to shine through the tree canopy, casting the ground in a scene of dancing light and shadows. Gravel crunched beneath your shoes as you ambled through Prospect Park, listening to the harmony of kids laughter, dogs barking, and a busker playing guitar. Walking through the park lengthened your journey home by twenty minutes, but on a day like this it was hard to resist.
You heard him before you saw him, too lost in appreciating the world around you to notice him strolling towards you on his trek home. He called out your name softly, hesitantly. And you would recognise that husky baritone even if you were locked in a soundproof pool drowning underwater.
Your gaze ripped away from watching a pair of swans glide along the shimmering lake, your heart jumping into your throat as you saw Bucky a few metres in front of you. He was wearing his gym clothes, the black compression top clinging to his chest with light patches of sweat. His hair was tied back in a small bun, a few strands stuck to his dewy forehead and your fingers twitched to brush them back. Soft sapphire eyes roamed the valleys of your face, his shoulders dropping with an almost relieved sigh.
You hated how your body heated under his watchful gaze in an instant—hated that he still had control over you and he didn't even know it.
"Hey," he said quietly, a small smile tugging his lips. He hesitated for a moment, doubt flickering across his face before he shook his head and stepped closer, lifting an arm and placing his hand between your shoulder blades to pull you into his embrace.
A startled gasp escaped you at the contact, blood pulsing in your ears as his warmth enveloped you. His other arm wrapped around your waist, his hand resting on the small of your back to pull you in closer. Your traitorous body relaxed in his hold, the heady scent of sandalwood, spice, and his sweat clouding your mind.
Fuck him for always smelling so irresistible.
"Hi." You murmured, muffled by his shirt. You kept your arms at your sides, knowing that if you felt his body beneath your hands you would backtrack all the progress you had made over the past month. You could already feel yourself slipping—comparing being in his arms again to lying in front of the fireplace while rain pelted the windows and thunder clapped outside. The feeling of being warm and safe despite a raging storm.
He rested his chin on your head, his chest expanding underneath your cheek as he inhaled deeply. The hand between your shoulders flexed, pushing you further into him. His chest rumbled below you and you felt his words more than heard them. "Missed you."
You stepped back quickly, stumbling out of his embrace. His brows pinched together and his lips turned down with a frown. He took a small step back and cleared his throat, a muscle flexing in his jaw as he stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"I—uh—how, how have you been?"
You folded your arms across you chest, focusing on the light freckle on his neck. "I've been okay."
"That's good, great. I—we've missed you." His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard and his voice dropped lower, softer . "Place isn't the same without you."
You had to leave before you did something foolish—before you dropped to your knees and pleaded for an ounce of his affection.
You cleared your throat, trying to rid the sudden emotion clogging it. "How have you been? How's the new roommate?"
Bucky's eyes flicked away from you, a hand leaving his pocket to rub the back of his neck. "Fine—they're fine." Splotches of red coloured his cheeks. "They don't compare to you, though."
What the fuck did that mean?
"Um—okay, well, that's good? I should—"
"Listen," Bucky interrupted you before you could flee from the increasingly awkward encounter. He stepped closer, his eyes locked on the gravel lining the earth. "I—I want to apologise for my behaviour, when you told us you were leaving." He looked up at you, remorse and distress bleeding from him so viscerally you could almost grab it. "I was in shock, I think—it doesn't really matter, I'm not trying to excuse it. I just wanted you to know that I really am sorry and you didn't deserve that." He closed the distance between you more, hands raising towards you before they dropped to his sides. "I—um, I would hate for that to be the reason you haven't come 'round—if you felt uncomfortable because of me."
It was resting on the tip of your tongue, the truth. It was begging to spill out, to tell Bucky that you were uncomfortable because of him but not for the reason he believed. You could handle a little attitude—what you couldn't handle was hearing the guy you're in love with treat another woman the way you had fantasised about since the day you met him.
Grateful for the fact you had been getting enough sleep to keep a grasp on your filter, you accepted his olive branch instead of starting a confessional. "Thank you, Bucky." You looked into his eyes, trying to express your sincereness. "I appreciate it, really."
Hope flared bright across his face. "So, wanna join us next Thursday? Your pick—I'll tell Sam to keep his comments to himself."
Guilt curdled your gut. "Thank you for the offer, but I can't make it, sorry. I already have plans."
If sitting in front of the TV watching New Girl and doomscrolling on your phone constituted as plans.
And just like that, the flame was extinguished. "Oh."
You interrupted before he could say more. "It was good seeing you, Bucky, but I have to get going." You stepped around him to continue home, giving him a small wave goodbye before focusing forward—walking brisker than the tranquil evening called for, your shoulders too tense for the serene landscape.
"Bye," he murmured, the sound drifting towards you with the light breeze.
You kept your head straight forward the rest of the walk home.
You expected the text from Nat the next day, knowing that Bucky would've told your former roommates that he ran into you. She demanded you meet for brunch at your earliest convenience, and given that it was Saturday and you had no plans you couldn't deny her any longer.
You were sitting on the couch putting on your shoes when Allie burst through the front door, her hands full of bags from the morning market and mouth stuffed with cake from the pâtisserie around the corner.
"Oh my god," you heard her mumble around frosting and sponge. "Guess what I just found out."
"Apparently not what decent manners are. Swallow before you talk."
A mop of floppy blonde hair appeared in your doorway. "That's what he said."
You rolled your eyes as Dean sauntered in with a wolfish grin, closing the door behind him. "What the hell are you doing here?" You shot wide eyes at Allie, wordlessly demanding an explanation.
She took your advice and swallowed before speaking again. "I ran into him at the market—he has an update on James B!"
A mix of anticipation and dread made your morning coffee stir. "I thought he stopped leaving reviews?"
Dean collapsed next to you, eyeing the dress you were wearing with approval. "You dress up for me, angel?"
You shoved his shoulder. "Not in a million years. What's the update, dumbass?"
He pulled his phone out with a sigh. "He left a review last night—don't look at me like that, I set up notifications for this very reason." He tapped on his phone before handing it to you, the screen displaying the latest review.
James B.
★★★★★ 13 hours ago
Quiz night isn't the same without her. Nothing is.
Your heart rate picked up, sweat gathering at the back of your knees.
What the fuck?
"But last night wasn't quiz night?" Was the only thing your dumbfounded mind could vocalise.
"I mean, yeah, but you're missing the point!" Allie interjected, standing behind the couch and leaning her head down to read the review. "Now we know he's a quiz night regular! That narrows the search pool down so much."
"Ooo, what if it's one of the old dockmen?" Dean giddily queried.
"They do normally sit in your section—or, well, what used to be your section." Allie supplied, wandering back to your kitchen to put away whatever trendy new chutney she bought from the market.
Your eyes followed her, catching sight of the clock hanging on the wall. "Shit—I'm going to be late." You jumped off the couch, frantically grabbing your phone and shoulder bag. "We can theorise more later, Nat is going to murder me for being late."
"Bye, honey!" Dean yelled as you ran out the door—stopping for a second to throw him the middle finger.
Nat was sitting at a table towards the back of the cafe, her crimson hair a stark contrast to the soft pastel interior. The atmosphere was buzzing and lively—every table occupied, with laughter and heavenly aromas wafting out the open door. It was the go to brunch spot for Brooklyn natives, it's covered outdoor courtyard an enticing location on a warm summer's morning—you were surprised Nat even managed to score a table.
Her face lit up once she saw you, standing to welcome you with a hug. "One more minute and I would've thought you were ghosting me."
You hugged her just as tight, the smell of her perfume relaxing your shoulders and making your heart clench—you shouldn't have gone this long without seeing her. "God, I know, I'm sorry. Allie came home with gossip before I could make my escape."
You both pulled away and sat down, reading the menu like you hadn't looked at it online on your walk over.
"Gossip? Anything interesting?" Nat asked, wiggling her eyebrows.
You let out a deep sigh. "It's a long story. One that's better told over a bottle of wine."
"Okay, now I am beyond intrigued—you better not leave me hanging for another month." She shot you a small glare, the smile on her face lessening it's sharpness.
The waitress came over and took your orders before the two of you fell into easy conversation. She updated you on what trouble the boys—Sam—had gotten into, and you told her about the time you and Allie were locked out in your pyjamas and tried to scale the fire escape. Neither of you broached the subject of why you moved out, but it was lingering in the air—in the soft way Nat said Bucky's name. Throughout the hour you spent chatting you noticed she didn't mention their new roommate once, and the curiosity was making you restless.
"So, how's the new roommate, really? Bucky didn't say much about them."
An out of place nervous hesitation tightened Nat's face, her eyes darting between yours as she bit her lip. After a tense few seconds her shoulders dropped with a sigh.
"Honey, there is no new roommate."
You reared back, your eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "What? But Bucky said yesterday—he said they were fine."
"Of course he did," she muttered under her breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. She looked at you with a huff. "The room is empty. Bucky…he's been paying for it."
"What?" You nearly exclaimed, your body temperature rising.
"Look, I don't know why he didn't tell you the truth—I honestly don't know what goes on in his mind, he has made some terrible choices the last few months." She placed a gentle hand on top of yours, her tone softening. "Choices that had you leaving us."
"I don't understand." You muttered quietly.
"I probably shouldn't be the one to tell you this, but—Steve and him were drinking after work last week and he admitted he's paying for the room—saving it in case you want to come back."
Shock rendered you speechless—frustration climbing up from your gut, opening the partially healed scars seared into your heart. Confusion, irritation, and heartache swirled together until they formed one emotion—anger.
Your hands balled into fists, your clenched teeth making your jaw ache. "I'm sorry, what?" You bit out.
You barely noticed the smirk twitching her lips, red starting to blur your vision. "Sam and Steve are out fishing today—he's home alone if you want to go bite his head off."
You didn't need to be told twice, the red-hot fury bringing you to your feet quickly. You grabbed your stuff with urgency, your hands already starting to shake.
"Brunch is my shout—go knock some sense into him."
It took you less than ten minutes to reach the brownstone, outrage powering your legs with a speed you didn't know you were capable of. The fresh air did nothing to calm you down—you were too consumed by the memories from the past year, the heartache you endured, your utter confusion at Nat's revelation.
Your fist pounded on the wooden door, not stopping until it swung open to reveal a puzzled Bucky.
His eyes widened at the sight of you, pink lips stretching into a knee trembling smile. Your dress caught his attention, his smile freezing as blue eyes trailed down and back up your body.
He cleared his throat before speaking. "What are you doin' here, doll?"
"Don't fucking call me that," you seethed, pushing him out of your way to storm inside. You barged down the familiar path to your old room, ignoring Bucky as he called out your name behind you.
You opened the door to find the room exactly how you left it—empty. You whipped around to see Bucky standing a few feet behind you, looking down at the ground with a hand rubbing his neck and a fire overtaking his cheeks.
"Why the fuck are you paying for an empty room? No, better yet, why did you lie to me about it?" You loudly demanded, just shy of shouting.
He stumbled over his words, looking up to see you with your eyebrows raised, arms folded across your chest, hip jutted out—the perfect picture of barely contained rage.
"Well, I—you see, it's—" he dragged a hand through his hair, blowing out a breath. "It's complicated?"
"Yeah, no shit. You were so pissy about me moving—it makes no sense! Just tell me the truth for once, Bucky!" Your voice raised higher, your hands flying around as the confusion and aggravation took hold of you.
Bucky's own frustration started to seep through, the volume of his voice a notch below yours. "I was upset because you were leaving—and you didn't seem to care about us, just running straight to Dean for help!"
He was upset? He had no fucking right to be upset.
Hot, frustrated tears flooded your eyes without your permission. "I left because of you, Bucky! No one else, just you." You stepped toward him, pushing a finger into his ridiculously sturdy chest. "And I didn't run to Dean! He offered to help after he watched me have a fucking breakdown over you."
His glistening eyes stared into yours, his eyebrows drawn upwards in distress. "…What?"
A crack had fractured the dam keeping you contained, your pent up thoughts and feelings crashing through and destroying the concrete barrier.
"Every fucking day I came home feeling like my world—my heart—was being torn apart—" your voice cracked and you turned around, starting to pace the length of your old room. "And I know, I fucking know, it's not your fault—that my delusional mind and hopeless romantic heart are to blame for reading into things that weren't there, for creating a fantasy of you—of us."
You wiped away your flowing tears, sniffling as you tried to catch your breath. "But now, you expect me to, what—feel bad for leaving? I was barely human." You let out a wet, humourless laugh.
"What are you talking about?!" He demanded desperately, his face shining with frustration and something akin to hope.
"I'm talking about the goddamn walls, Bucky! I don't know if you know but they're pretty fucking thin! And every Wednesday and Saturday night I heard you and her—I heard the guy I was obsessed with fucking somebody else and it killed me."
"I only started seeing her to get you out of my head!" Both his hands found their way to his hair, tugging the dark strands in frustration. "And maybe I wanted to make you jealous—which I know is a terrible—"
You closed the distance between you in two quick strides, reaching out to shove his chest. "Jealous? You wanted to make me jealous?!" You seethed out, your fists hitting his chest as your vision blurred. "Are you blind?! Everyone could see how infatuated I was with you." Your hits lost their strength, your cheeks growing even more wet.
"Hey," Bucky whispered softly, his hands gently encircling your wrists and his thumbs rubbing tender patterns on your radial pulse. "Breathe for me."
"No," you stubbornly whispered back, despite your panting breaths slowing to match his. You drew in staggering breaths, finally noticing how hard your heart was beating—your body shaking with every thump. Your fists unfurled, your palms resting flat on his broad chest—the fast pounding of his heart a near match to yours.
He let go of your wrists, his hands cupping your face delicately. He wiped your tears away with such care it made your heart ache. Your vision cleared enough to focus on his face, seeing his eyes shining with their own tears.
"I think we're both a bit blind, sweetheart. Everyone can see how smitten I am with you." He rested his forehead against yours, the space around you two growing charged in the aftermath of your anger. "Sam gives me shit about it every day." His breathy laugh ghosted your lips, leaving tingles in it's wake. His voice dropped low, "I'm so fucking in love with you I was leaving reviews about you like some—like a hopeless sap, hoping you would realise it was me."
His confession of love flew over your head, incredulity controlling your mind. "That was you?!" You gasped, pushing his chest lightly. "I thought I had a stalker, you idiot."
The memory of the night you and Allie read all the reviews ran through your head, remembering the disturbingly romantic details written; remembering the reviews you secretly reread like a guilty pleasure, going to sleep with a giddy smile and fluttering butterflies because someone was noticing you.
"That's all you took from that?" He shook his head minutely, one of his hands brushing down your back to cradle your waist. "I'm trying to tell you I'm in love with you here."
You stepped out of his embrace, your mind still picking through all the small details. "But—the first review was, like—" you started to pace again, your hands resting atop your head. "It was well over a year ago!" Your voice raised again, recalling how horrible you felt only a month ago—the heartbreak you could've avoided. "Why did you never say anything?!"
"Because I was scared!" His voice raised to meet yours. "I didn't want to ruin things and lose you forever!"
"Yeah, well look at how that turned out!" You gestured wildly to the empty room.
"Why are we shouting again?" Bucky walked towards you, reaching for your hands. You were both breathing heavily, the sound of your pants echoing in the emptiness as your chests heaved up and down.
"Because I'm mad at you." You finally met his eyes, the blue bleeding with regret and sorrow. Your voice dropped lower, timidness starting to creep in. "You…you broke my heart, Buck."
He gripped your hands tighter, raising one to rest on his chest—right above his heart. "I am going to spend every day until I die trying to make it up to you." His remorse polluted the air around you, tears welling in your eyes once again—this time from the pain clouding his. "If you'll let me."
"That's a bit dramatic," you mumbled, sniffling lightly. "Until you're fifty is fine."
He laughed, wet and husky. He let go of your hands to cup your face again, smoothing his thumbs along your cheekbones. Your breath hitched at the touch, the pain in your system being diluted by the drug that is Bucky.
He leaned in closer, his eyes darting between yours and your lips. "I'm gonna kiss you now, okay?"
You managed a small nod before his lips were on yours—desperate and aching, stealing the breath from your lungs. One of his hands shifted to the back of your neck, tilting your head to kiss you deeper. Your hands found his chest again, fisting his shirt and causing a groan to sound in the back of his throat. He took control of the kiss with no complaint from you—happily letting him suck your bottom lip before nipping it, opening for him when his tongue grazed your lips.
The first touch of his tongue against yours had fire scorching down your body, the intensity of his kisses settling in your gut and awakening the need you've had for him for over a year.
The annoying human need for air had you pulling away from his lips, gasping as you tried to catch your breath. His stubble scratched your skin as he trailed kisses along your jaw, tilting your head to reach the sensitive spot below your ear. He gave it a soft experimental kiss, his tongue darting out and drawing a small whine from you.
His chest rumbled beneath your hands. "You talk about the walls being thin—trust me, I know." He stepped forward, his fingers dancing down your sides to grasp your hips, backing you into the wall. "I know you like to beg, what pretty sounds you make when you're about to come." He trailed his nose back along your jaw and down the other side of your neck, nestling into the crook and sniffing deeply with a small moan.
"Wh-what? I haven't—I never brought anyone home." You stuttered out, head starting to feel heavy from the lust fogging it.
"No, but you still have needs, don't you?" He let out a small chuckle, trailing feather-light kisses along your collarbone. "You thought you were alone, thought it didn't matter how loud you let yourself be." He pulled back, bringing a hand up to brush his fingers along your cheek, making their way down your neck. Onyx eyes met yours—a shiver racing down your spine at the barely contained hunger in them. "I came home with a migraine and you were so wrapped up in pleasure you didn't even hear me—but I heard you. And shit, doll, the noises you made cured my migraine faster than any pain meds ever have." He dropped his forehead to yours, his breath fanning your lips. "I had to fuck my fist three times that night. I replayed every little whimper, moan, every gasp of please until it drove me insane."
A gasp escaped you at his admission, heat rolling through your body—a mix of embarrassment and hunger swirling in your core.
"And then, like it was the universe's sole purpose to bring me to my knees, you walked in the next day wearing this dress." His fingers drifted to the neckline of your dress, toying with it as your breasts moved rapidly beneath. "Looking like a fucking angel sent here to torture me. Like sin wrapped in white lace. I had to leave before I dropped to my knees and begged for a taste—to let me worship you."
Your heart was trying to beat out of your chest, the throbbing in your core escalating with every word he murmured into your lips.
"You kept on wearing it, and I had to pretend like I wasn't replaying those sounds every time I saw you—like my dick wasn't rock hard at just a glimpse of this fucking dress." The hand on your neckline travelled down to the line of lace below your breasts—his thumb stroking along it making your breath stutter and nipples harden. "I had to do something, I felt like I was going insane. I started seeing her to get you out of my head—didn't fucking work now, did it?"
The mention of her cut through the Bucky induced haze, and you hesitated—needing clarification before you could let him consume you.
"Are you still seeing her?" You whispered.
"Fuck no, we were strictly casual. I broke it off the day you left."
Your head reared back an inch, hitting the wall lightly. "You know that doesn't make me feel better, right? That you only wanted to sleep with her because I was in the next room."
Both his hands gripped your waist, squeezing gently. "Okay, that—that wasn't what I was trying to get at." He lifted his head to stare into your eyes. "What I meant was that you leaving really showed how much of an idiot I'd been, wasting my time with her when you were right next door."
"Why didn't you reach out, then?"
He shrugged, his eyes darting away nervously. "I didn't think I had a right to. I wasn't exactly proud of how I acted the last time we spoke."
You saw Bucky almost every day for over a year—you knew he didn't get outwardly nervous often, and you knew when he was being vulnerable and honest. The Bucky in front of you wasn't lying—you could tell he was genuinely worried he'd messed everything up.
You relented with a sigh, lacing your hands around his neck. "I think it's time you start making it up to me."
"Gladly," he said before pulling you into him and kissing you deeply. He pressed his hips against yours, pushing you harder into the wall. You gasped at the feeling of his bulge against your stomach, your core trembling and aching in anticipation.
The pace of the kiss picked up, Bucky's tongue licking into your mouth with a deep moan. His grip on your hips tightened and he spun you around, walking you backwards towards his room without removing his mouth from yours.
He kicked the door shut behind him, leading you towards his bed with his hands drifting down to squeeze your ass. You broke away with a moan, your lips swollen and chin tender from his stubble.
"Sit down for me, sweetheart." Bucky rasped out. You quickly obliged—your need for him making you ready to do anything he said.
He kneeled on the floor in front of you, slowly taking your shoes off. His hands trailed up your bare legs, stopping when they reached the hem of your dress.
He pressed a soft kiss to your knee. "You gonna let me make you feel good?" He mumbled into your skin.
You nodded rapidly, your hands clenching his sheets in desperation.
He clicked his tongue. "I need words, angel."
"Yes, Bucky—please. Please touch me," you gasped out, the sight of him on his knees robbing your intelligence.
His mouth tilted into a smirk, his eyes gleaming. "There you go with that begging again."
He clasped your knees, spreading your legs open. His breath tickled the sensitive skin on your inner thighs, goosebumps erupting and surging up to your core. He pressed light kisses along one thigh, stopping when he got to your dress and switching to the other.
You could feel slick leaking out of your cunt, your clit pulsing from the lack of attention.
"Buck, stop teasing, please." You whined softly, lifting a hand to push the hair away from his eyes. He nuzzled into your hand, turning to press a kiss into your palm. Your hand vibrated as he hummed low.
He grasped the hem of your dress, lifting it slowly up to your hips. "Lean back f'me."
You leaned back on your elbows, your body trembling with need as his hands scorched paths up your thighs.
He let out a low groan once your dress was up past your hips—revealing your soaked panties to him. His eyes locked onto them, his pupils dilating until only a sliver of blue remained.
"All this from a little kissing?" He brushed a thumb along the wet patch, grazing your clit. Your head fell back with a loud gasp, your hips twitching towards his touch.
"Sensitive," he mumbled. His hand moved, tracing the edge of your panties—you were sure he could feel the heartbeat pulsing in your core. "How long has it been?"
You lifted your head up, looking into his dark eyes—the desire in them reflecting your own. "Since before I—"
You cut yourself off with a soft moan, your body jerking as Bucky pressed his thumb to your clit through your underwear—circling it with a steady pressure.
"What was that?" He asked smugly.
Your chest heaved as you tried to wade through the sensations buzzing through you. "Since before I moved in," you rushed out quickly, another moan escaping you at the feeling of his touch directly on your pussy—his hand slipping underneath the wet fabric.
"Fuck," he breathed out through clenched teeth. He grabbed the waistband of your panties and pulled them down your legs quickly. He groaned out looking at your exposed cunt, and you tried to close your legs on instinct.
He gripped your thighs to stop them from closing. "None of that," he growled out lowly. "Let me look at her."
His hands trailed up your thighs until they reached your bare hips, yanking you closer to the edge of the bed. You fell onto your back softly, your breath shaking from the impact.
He pulled your lips apart and moaned loudly. "She's fucking dripping, sweetheart."
You clenched at his words, his teasing leaving you aching and squirming. He chuckled and pressed a soft kiss millimetres away from where you needed him most. He breathed you in deeply making your hips buck up with a needy whine.
"Bucky, please."
He dragged a single finger from entrance to clit, pulling it back with a string of your arousal connecting the two of you. You sighed at the small touch, opening your eyes to see Bucky suck the tip of his finger.
He groaned at your taste, hands grabbing the back of your thighs to push your legs back and spread you wider.
"Gonna make her feel so good, pretty girl." He slurred out, his lips trailing a path of fire up to your core. "Be a good girl and make those noises for me again."
He dove in, licking the same path as his finger. His groan vibrated through you and your hands flew to his hair, gripping the strands as you gasped.
"Taste so fucking good," he mumbled before latching onto your clit. He sucked gently, circling the nub with his tongue. You rewarded him with a tug to his hair and a shaky moan.
He picked up the pace, moaning as he went from tasting you to devouring. He thrusted his tongue into you, lapping up everything he could. The room filled with the lewd sounds of your slick and his saliva coating your pussy—with your unabashed moans and gasps bouncing off the walls.
He pulled away from you, his chin and beard glistening. "That's it, pretty. Being such a good girl." You whined at the praise, using your hold on his hair to push his face back into you.
Your hips rocked against his face, the flame in your core growing fast. He moved an arm to your hips, holding them down to keep you still. He sucked your clit harshly, your back arching at the pleasure he was unleashing on you. You gasped out his name as your orgasm built rapidly.
"Fuck, Bucky—right there! Please, I'm gonna—" you cut off with a loud moan, your body jolting from him lightly biting your clit. Stars started to dot your vision as he continued to feast on you like a starved man—like you were his first sip of water after wandering the desert.
The knot in your core clenched tight before it unravelled, Bucky's groans vibrating through you pushing you over the edge. You came with a cry, your hands yanking his hair hard. A blissful fire spread throughout you, making your toes curl and head float.
Bucky drank up your release, prolonging your high until you were shaking and trying to push his head away. He relented, moving back to kiss and nip your inner thighs. Your heavy panting filled the room, your pussy twitching as you came down.
You propped yourself up on weak elbows, your droopy eyes meeting his glazed, pussy drunk ones.
"You're so fucking beautiful," he whispered reverently. He moved back in closer, his breath fanning your cunt making you clench around nothing. "Another one."
He slowly licked at your hole, leaving your overstimulated clit throbbing painfully. Your arms gave out, a whimper crawling up your throat. You brought a hand up to your chest, squeezing a breast over your dress—trying to relieve the ache in them.
"Fuck, look at you," Bucky cooed, pulling away from you to stand up. "As much as I love this dress, I think you'll look even more beautiful without it."
You nodded, sitting up slightly so he could pull it over your head. Your eyes were level with his crotch, seeing the large bulge tenting his pants—your mouth salivating already. Once your dress was off you reached a hand out, palming his hard dick over his pants. You gasped at the heavy feel of him, your walls clenching at the thought of him stretching you open.
His head rolled back with a moan, a hand catching your wrist to stop your movements. "Not right now." You let out a displeased whine and his mouth twitched with a smirk. "Later, promise. Lay back down so I can worship you."
He grasped the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head, leaving you to gape at his insane torso. You had seen it before but you always adverted your eyes quickly, scared of getting caught staring. Now, you could stare and touch all you wanted.
You leaned up to run a hand over his bare chest, his body scorching beneath your skin. You trailed a finger down the hard ridges lining his body, a thrill running through you as his muscles rippled and breath stuttered. Your mouth found his pecks, lathering them in wet kisses while your hand teased the waistband of his pants. He grasped your chin, jerking your head up to look at him. His jaw was tense and eyebrows furrowed, a slight darkness shadowing his face.
He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on your lips. "What did I just say, sweetheart?" He mumbled, his tone laced with warning.
Before you could reply, his hands grasped your waist and pushed you up the bed until your head met his pillow. He crawled on top of you, kissing your neck.
"Thought you were gonna be a good girl." He mumbled, biting the spot below your ear and making you gasp. He pulled on one of your bra straps, letting it snap back onto your skin. You gasped louder at the small stinging sensation, the slight pain dousing your core in gasoline.
"Please, I am—I will be. M'sorry." You whimpered out, tilting your head back as he continued his assault on your neck.
He hummed in response, sucking on your pulse point before trailing lower—his stubble scraping the top of your breasts. He reached a hand behind your back, unclasping your bra with ease before pulling the straps down your arms slowly.
Your nipples hardened more once exposed to the cool air, begging for Bucky's attention. He lavished your breasts in kisses, covering every inch of skin with his spit. One of your hands clutched onto his bicep while the other wound into his hair again. He continued to avoid your nipples and you squirmed underneath him, trying to move his head to where you wanted him.
He relented, licking a nipple before sucking it into his mouth. You moaned from the relief and the zaps of pleasure racing down your torso. He pinched your abandoned nipple, rolling it between his thumb and finger as he bit down on the other one. You arched off the bed with a loud whine, the pain and pleasure morphing into one. He switched nipples, dolling out the same sweet torture with moans lodged in his throat.
Once both your nipples were raw and aching he kissed down your abdomen, hands clutching your hips as his mouth worshipped your stomach. You giggled at his beard tickling your sensitive skin and he lifted his head, his blown out eyes meeting yours with a soft—almost unbelieving—smile.
"You're breathtaking," he whispered. "And you're all mine, yeah?"
"Yes, Buck. Only yours."
He hummed in approval, pressing a light kiss to your hip. "Good. 'Cause I'm yours, angel. I'm sorry it took so long for me to say."
He moved back down to where you were dripping onto his sheets, your body wound tight from your first orgasm and his teasing. He licked into you without hesitation, drawing out loud noises from you as he sucked your sensitive clit.
"You're so wet—wanna live between these thighs, doll."
A hand left your hip to poke at your entrance, one finger sliding in easily before your walls squeezed at the intrusion. He pumped it in and out slowly until you were begging for more. A second slipped in, both of them curling upwards and grazing the spot that had you arching off the bed with a sound you'd never made before.
He lifted his head up, praising you for how good you were being—telling you how pretty you sounded. His mouth descended on your clit again and his fingers picked up their pace.
Your head rolled around on his pillow, the dual stimulation to your pussy making a heat rush through you like you'd never experienced with anyone else. You could feel how he was paying attention to you, altering his movements to gauge what sounds he could pull out of you—getting to know what you liked.
The ball tightened faster than the first time, your body edging on being overstimulated. Both your hands were fisting the sheets, your hips grinding against Bucky's face and fucking his fingers—the obscene squelch of your pussy soaking his hand mixing with your moans and gasps.
"Let me come—please. Been s'good for you, Buck—"
You know you didn't need his permission to come, but begging and submitting to him felt so good. Your own words pulled the coil in your core tighter—his resounding moan shaking through you telling you how much they affected him too.
A third finger joined in and you clenched down hard, the stretch almost throwing you off the cliff. They curled into your spot over and over, his other hand moving to push down on your lower stomach—causing something between a moan and squeal to leave you.
"Course you can come for me, sweetheart. I want nothing more than this sweet pussy drenching me."
With one last curl of his fingers and suck to your clit, your body started to shake, the ball bursting and sending waves crashing through you. Your eyes rolled back and your ears started ringing, deaf to the borderline animalistic noises you were letting out. You clamped down on his fingers hard, your juices gushing out and coating his hand—dripping and staining his sheets.
Your head was up in the clouds, cotton filling the space your brain used to be. You briefly registered his mouth leaving your overstimulated and raw nub, his fingers still moving slowly as you floated through your high. Small, gentle kisses across your cheeks, nose, and eyelids had you giggling breathlessly. Your body felt heavy, your eyelids struggling to open.
"You doin' okay?" Bucky whispered into your temple, peppering more light kisses to your forehead. You hummed softly.
"Need'a minute," you slurred out.
His fingers slowed and then left you, a whine slipping past your lips at the emptiness. You felt a hand rubbing soothing circles onto your scalp, your body turning towards his warmth. You slowly opened your eyes to find him staring at you, electric blue lazily roaming around your face.
"Hi," you whispered, lifting a heavy hand to push hair behind his ear. He grabbed your hand and covered it in soft kisses, his eyes never leaving yours.
"Hi. How you feeling?"
You leaned in, nuzzling your nose against his. "Good—really good," you muttered before kissing him softly. Your hand weaved into his hair, pulling him in as your kiss grew more passionate.
One of his hands cradled your jaw and the other spanned the small of your back, pushing you into his bulge. You bit his lip teasingly, revelling in his body shuddering and drinking down the moan he let free.
You grinded your hips against his—gasping and whimpering at the rough fabric of his pants dragging against your oversensitive pussy. He responded in kind, rutting his bulge into you with a groan.
"Want you inside of me," you mumbled into his lips, throwing a leg over his to roll your hips harder.
"Fuck—okay," he breathed out. He pulled away to reach for his bedside drawer but your hand on his chest stopped him.
"Are you clean?"
His eyes widened and he nodded dumbly. "I got tested the other week—wait, I'll show you." He reached for his phone but you stopped him with a giggle.
"I believe you. I'm clean—obviously. And on birth control."
His eyes almost bulged out of their sockets, pupils dilating until they physically couldn't anymore.
"Are you sure?" He gripped your face in his hands, eyes darting between yours. "I only used condoms with her so I understand—"
That fact pleased you absurdly, your hand trailing down his chest to his groin—squeezing his heavy bulge. "I'm sure. Wanna feel you, all of you."
He pulled you into a searing kiss, rolling you onto your back and hovering over you. Your mouth moved against his eagerly, both your hands on his waistband to unbotton and unzip his pants. You reached a hand into his boxers, a gasp leaping out as you wrapped your hand around him—his cock throbbing and big. You briefly worried about the limp you'll have later.
He panted above you, his eyes closing as you stroked him slowly. You could feel his boxers damp with pre-cum, beads of it dripping from his tip. You brushed your thumb over it and he moaned gutturally, eyes opening as you pulled your hand out. You kept eye contact with him as you brought your thumb up to your lips, licking his pre-cum before sucking it into your mouth with a satisfied moan.
He pulled your thumb out, tracing his own along your lip before you sucked on it—twirling your tongue around it.
"You're gonna be the fucking death of me, angel." He groaned out.
He pushed away to pull his pants and boxers off, throwing them behind him carelessly. Your eyes zeroed in on his cock standing proud—your mouth somehow simultaneously drying up and drooling at the sight. He was the biggest you'd ever seen—long and thick, the tip flushed red with his need. Your knees fell apart on instinct, the fire building up just looking at him.
"Wanna take a picture?" He teased.
"Another time," you whispered, surging up to grab his shoulders and pull him back on top of you.
He chuckled into your mouth before it dissolved into a moan, your hips bucking up and smearing his cock with your slick.
He grabbed your hips, pulling them up slightly as he settled between your legs. You both broke off from the kiss with matching gasps, the feel of him sliding along your slit making you both dizzy. His tip bumped into your clit with each glide, whimpers echoing from your chest as you twitched from the stimulation.
"You're so fucking pretty," he mumbled, dropping his head to kiss and nip along your neck.
"Please," you whined, your hips rocking without thought.
He pulled back and looked down between you, groaning at his dick already glistening with you. He wrapped a hand around himself, tapping his head against your clit a few times. You squealed, starting to feel dizzy with desire. He shushed you gently, dragging a thumb along your cheekbone before positioning himself at your entrance.
His eyes met yours as he pushed in slowly, the intensity in them making you choke up. It had never felt like this before—never felt so passionate, adoring. It made everything feel elevated—your nerve endings singing with pleasure wherever he touched you.
You clenched down on him instinctively, your walls stretching around just the tip. Your chest heaved as you tried to relax—you weren't in pain, it just felt so fucking good.
"Be a good girl and let me in," he whispered, leaning forward to kiss you.
Your legs opened wider for him, your core relaxing to let him push in further. Moans and gasps filled the air around you as he thrust slowly, sinking until he reached the hilt.
The breath knocked out of you, the feeling of him filling you completely making your head rush. He moved slowly at first, small thrusts to get you accommodated before pulling back until just the tip was inside. He sank home with deep moans, his cock pushing against your spot with every thrust.
You wrapped your legs around his waist making him reach deeper inside you. He picked up his pace, his hips meeting yours with soft slaps.
"You feel so good—oh, fuck!" He exclaimed as you clenched down on him.
"Harder, please." You moaned out, scratching your nails down his chest.
"Yeah? My pretty girl—my little angel—likes it rough?"
You nodded deliriously, the tension in your core sizzling with every thrust.
He sat up, bringing your hips with him. He held them up and delivered harsh thrusts—each one expelling a gasp out of you. Your legs tightened around him, his strength pushing you up the bed.
The headboard knocked against the wall, adding to the symphony of moans, whimpers, skin slapping that was already deafening the room. Each sound had you soaring higher, each thrust kissing your cervix sending a shock through you.
Bucky removed your legs from his waist, clutching your thighs to push them towards your chest. Your wide eyes met his with a gasp, the change in position igniting a roaring fire everywhere. He dropped forward slowly, pushing into you so far you swear you could feel him in your throat.
He groaned into your ear. "This is—god, you're made for me."
His thrusts resumed their previous pace, your mouth falling open in a silent scream. Sweat beaded along his hairline from the exertion, his hair sticking to his temples—and he looked so beautiful, your eyes started to well with tears.
Everything rushed through you in an overwhelming burst—the heartache you suffered, the months of yearning and uncertainty, how much you loved him. How much he loved you.
Tears fell from your eyes as the sensations built higher and you grasped his face, pulling his forehead to yours. Your gentle kiss to his lips was a stark contrast to his cock drilling into you.
"I love you," you whispered, your words breaking on a sob of pleasure.
His hips stuttered, his eyes squeezing tightly. "You can't say that again or I'll blow my load." You laughed at his clear struggle to hold back, making him groan as you squeezed him tighter.
He continued his thrusts, wiping a thumb under your eye to catch your tears. "This is the only time I'm gonna make you cry from now on, yeah? Only gonna make you sob cause I'm fucking you so good."
You nodded, letting out little "uh-huh"'s as you climbed higher and higher.
"Play with your clit, sweetheart." Bucky rasped out.
Your hand snuck between your bodies to press circles around your clit—your back arching with a whine. Tears continued to track down your temples, wetting the pillow below you.
"Fill me up, please," you managed to get out between whimpers and sobs. Bucky's grip on your thighs tightened, surely leaving marks for you to admire over the next few days.
"Come with me," Bucky moaned, pressing a scorching kiss to your lips as his thrusts grew sloppy. You tensed below him, your body locking up before pure ecstasy barrelled through you. You came with a scream of his name, clenching down on his cock to keep him trapped. Your vision faded to white, your body trembling and pulsing.
Bucky groaned out your name as his orgasm rushed through him, his cock throbbing and pulsing inside you as he filled you completely with cum.
He collapsed on top of you, his sweaty chest heaving against yours. He slowly lowered your legs then wrapped his arms around your waist, nuzzling into your neck.
You laid there for a few minutes, the both of you gradually coming back down to earth. He pulled out of you slowly, the both of you groaning at the feeling. A mix of your releases dripped out of you, coating your ass and staining the sheets.
"Stay right here," Bucky said before giving you a chaste kiss, pulling his boxers on to run to the bathroom. He came back with a wet towel, sitting on the bed next to you to clean you up with gentle, reverent touches.
He climbed behind you, pulling you into his strong chest—a satisfied rumble vibrating your back. He kissed the back of your head, trailing towards your ear and giving your lobe a gentle bite.
"I love you too."
"When can we move your stuff back in?"
Bucky and you were still lying on his bed, basking in the warmth of each other as the afternoon sun trickled through his half closed curtains.
You turned in his arms, slinging a leg over his and booping his nose. "I think we should go on a couple dates before I move in with you."
His nose and eyes scrunched with that laugh you first fell in love with. "Oh, is that right?"
"Living together before you've even bought me flowers? Sounds a bit rash to me."
"I'll buy you a whole flower shop," he mumbled, his fingers tracing patterns on your bare hip. "Well, maybe not right away—I am paying for two rooms, y'know. Would be nice to be able to buy groceries next month."
You laughed softly, poking his bare chest. "Yeah, and whose fault is that again?"
He grumbled something unintelligible, hiding his face in your neck to lavish you in more kisses.
Wars were started over smiles less beautiful than hers.
The reminder of his reviews about you flourished in your mind, prompting you to pull his head away from your neck.
"So, you're James B? This whole time?"
His face bloomed red, a huff leaving him before he nervously licked his lips. "Yeah…"
"Why? Why start leaving them in the first place, why didn't you tell me?"
He shrugged slightly, lifting a hand to trace the lines of your face. "We were at the bar drinking, and some guy nearby pointed to you and said ratings must be higher with you working there. And—I don't know, I guess I was drunk enough to agree and then…it just happened?"
You furrowed your brows at him. "Why not just write in a journal?"
"Trust me, I was already doing that." He laughed softly, his eyes glowing. "I guess, in a weird way, I was telling you how I felt without actually telling you. Stupid, I know."
Warmth started to spread from your chest. "It took us ages to even notice the reviews—we only realised they were there because Dean assumed one was about him."
Bucky tensed under your hands. "Fucking Dean," he muttered.
"…Are you jealous?"
The blush on his cheeks grew, his eyes avoiding yours. "He was always staring at you, and you laughed with him like—like you did with me. I thought there was something goin' on."
Is it bad that him being jealous is turning you on?
"You have nothing to worry about, Dean is a gross womaniser who I only see as an annoying brother." You pushed at Bucky's chest, making him lie on his back as you straddled his hips. You pressed kisses along his chest, your hips slowly rocking against his. "He did tell me he wanted to sleep with me, though."
Bucky's hands grasped your hips harder, his face turning stormy. "I don't wanna hear you talkin' about another guy when you're on top of me, doll." He muttered low.
You leaned in to kiss him, your hips moving faster and drawing gasps out of the both of you—his dick already half hard under you. "You're so hot when you're jealous."
The sound of the front door opening had you both freezing—your former roommate's laughter drifting down the hall.
"Get dressed, lovebirds!" Sam's voice rang out. "We've got fish to fry!"
a/n: thank you to this pic on pinterest that inspired half the plot (i couldn't get the ho to fit into a moodboard 😔) yes, team, reader should’ve made bucky grovel HOWEVER high emotion tension filled make up sex is hot 🫦 bro is buying her flowers and taking her on dates every day for the rest of their lives 😌
Warnings: Mild Violence. Period expected misogyny.
Summary: A knight from another century crashes -literally- into a florist’s life and turns her world upside down.
Word Count: 4.1k
Previous Chapter - Masterlist
Bucky had survived a winter march with half the army dead of frostbite before they reached shelter. Had survived captivity, and the things that came after captivity.
He was fairly certain he could survive a modern bath.
"This way," she said, leading him down a short hall he hadn't noticed before, past two closed doors -one in front of the other- to another door at the very end.
He followed a half-step behind, close enough to catch her scent again, that same soap-and-flower warmth, and made himself stop noticing it. That particular exercise was becoming a full-time occupation, it seemed.
"Tell me something," he said, before he could think better of it. "The kitchen. That water, arriving without a hand to draw it." He kept his voice even, no longer troubling himself to hide his curiosity. "Does the bath work by the same principle?"
She glanced back at him, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
"You catch on fast."
"I am not an imbecile," he said again, for the second time that day. "Merely unfamiliar with how things work here."
"I know that." Something in her tone had softened since the kitchen episode. "Pipes. A boiler somewhere in the building does the heating. You turn the handle, water shows up already knowing what temperature you want it. Fancy, right?"
The room she led him into was smaller than the kitchen, tiled floor and walls both, pale and seamless in a way that made him think of the inside of an eggshell.
A white porcelain basin sat against one wall, not unlike the one in the kitchen but smaller, mounted at waist height with the same two-handled fixture. Beside it, something else entirely.
A low, white, seated thing. Porcelain, like the basin. A bowl set into a pedestal, water sitting still and clear at the bottom of it, and above the water, on the wall behind, a small metal lever.
He knew a garderobe when he saw one, a plank with a hole cut through it, seated over a shaft dropping into a pit somewhere below. He simply couldn't reconcile that knowledge with something built to sit inside a lady's own home rather than tucked into a stone alcove.
"A garderobe?" he said, testing the word against what he was looking at.
"If that means what I think it means… yeah, sure. Close enough." She crossed to it, unbothered by the topic, and pressed the small lever down.
Water rushed loudly with violence in the bowl that swallowed the still water whole and refilled the basin clean and clear a moment later, the sound tapering off into a soft hiss and then nothing at all.
He stared at it.
"The water… where does it go?"
"Pipes again. Out to the sewer line under the street." She shrugged, hands already moving toward the towels, like the miracle she'd just performed wasn't worth a second look.
"No pit," he said. "No need to empty it. No smell."
"None. I’m sure you’ll get used to it fast. Give it a day, and you'll forget people ever lived any other way."
He looked at the thing with something bordering on genuine reverence, and thought, distantly, that whoever had built this century had made something very close to a small miracle and simply hadn't noticed.
"C'mon," she said. "The good part's over here."
The tub sat at the far end of the room, white and deep, longer than most he'd bathed in, with a single faucet mounted at one end and three handles above it, identical in principle to the ones he'd already seen. Above all of it, a metal bar was suspended between two walls, and from it, a curtain of some pale, slick fabric, drawn back against the wall.
He studied the faucet.
"Same deal as the kitchen," she said, following his gaze. "Turn the handles, water comes out. Hot's on the left, cold's on the right, and don't ask me why, because I didn't design the plumbing."
He nodded slowly, filing it beside everything else he'd learned today. Simple enough. He could manage that much on his own.
"And that." He gestured at the metal ring overhead, the pale curtain hanging still, waiting for some purpose he hadn't yet worked out. "What is its function?"
"That's for the shower. Watch." She reached past him and turned one of the handles.
Water erupted from directly above the tub, not from the faucet at all, but from a wide metal disc fixed to the underside of that hanging ring, a sudden violent hiss of spray striking down into the bathtub below it, loud and fast and entirely without warning.
He was against the wall before he'd decided to move, one hand thrown up, the other reaching for a blade that wasn't there, hadn't been there in hours. He stood well clear of the tub, untouched; every part of him had gone tense and ready to fight.
He stared at the water driving down into the bathtub, chest heaving, and felt something in his face go hot that had nothing to do with the steam now rising off the spray.
She shut it off fast, both hands up, already talking. "Okay- sorry, sorry. Should've warned you first, I forgot that's not a normal thing to walk into."
"No." His voice came out rough, lower than he meant it to, and he didn't look at her directly. "You could not have known to warn me. I would not have thought to ask."
Then, unwillingly, the corner of his mouth lifted.
"A rain," he said, "that a man commands from a wall."
"That's the general idea, yeah. Very fancy. I promise it won't try to kill you."
She then crossed to a narrow cabinet built into the wall and pulled out a folded towel, thick and white, along with a smaller one, and set them both on the edge of the tub.
"Towels. Big one's for after, little one's for scrubbing." She reached to a shelf above the basin, plucking down a bottle and a bar wrapped in shiny paper. "This is soap. This is shampoo, for your hair, not the rest of you, no matter how good it smells. Work it in, rinse it out, don't overthink it."
He turned the bar over once in his hand, testing its weight, the uniform white of it, no grit or tallow-yellow to it anywhere.
"This is fine soap," he said. It wasn't quite a question.
"It's forty cents at the drugstore. Nothing fancy, I promise; they just make everything smooth now."
He had no notion what a cent was worth, but something in how easily she'd said it told him enough.
"Everyone bathes like this, then. Not only the wealthy."
"Pretty much everyone. Rich people just get bigger tubs."
She set both items beside the towels, and for a moment neither of them moved, the small room feeling smaller than it had a minute ago, the two of them standing over a bathtub with nothing left to explain.
She was close enough that he became abruptly aware of how filthy he must look, all the dried blood, dirt, the accumulated grime of a day that had started on a tournament ground and ended in a century that hadn't existed yet, all of it pressed close to skin that smelled of nothing but soap and something clean and feminine.
His eyes dropped, without his permission, to the bare skin above the neckline of her blouse.
He thought, with a clarity he immediately resented, of how his own hands would look against skin like that. Rough. Scarred across the knuckles, calloused from sword grip.
He wondered, briefly and with considerable self-loathing, how her hands would feel instead, all soapy against his chest, or rubbing the muscle in his shoulders that hadn't unknotted itself once since he'd woken on her stockroom floor…
He dragged his eyes back up before she could catch where they'd been, jaw clenching, furious at himself.
"Thank you for the soap," he managed.
Then, because his mouth had apparently decided to finish the thoughts his mind had been having without consulting him first:
"I know how to bathe myself."
He heard the words leave his lips and winced internally.
Why in God's name had he said that?
Her brows drew together, confusion plain on her face. "...Okay?"
Heat crawled up the back of his neck before he could stop it, fast and traitorous, and landed in his face a moment later, worse for knowing she could see it now.
"I meant only," he said, and heard how stiff it came out, "that you needn't trouble yourself further. On my account. I am capable."
"I wasn't going to offer scrubbing your back, Mr- Bucky." A beat. "Unless that's a service you're expecting. In which case, I have some very bad news about this century."
Christ.
The heat in his face redoubled, and he was abruptly, furiously aware of it: of being a knight who had stared down drawn steel without so much as a change in his breathing, currently losing a battle against his own blood rising to his cheeks over a bath.
"I am aware," he said, with as much dignity as a man could summon while visibly turning the color of a ripe plum. "I only meant to say-"
"You've said it. Three times now, actually, I've been counting." There was something at the corner of her mouth now, almost a smile. "I'll be right outside. Yell if the shower jumps you again."
She was already moving toward the door, and he let himself watch her go, then caught himself doing it and, with great determination, looked instead at the tiled wall.
The latch clicked a moment later.
He stood alone in the strange white room, his own reflection scowling back at him from the mirror -bruised, filthy, and blushing like a virgin bride over nothing at all- and decided, with grim finality, that he would not be examining that particular lapse in judgment any further that day.
He was, mostly, lying to himself about that already.
----
He looked at the tub a long moment, tempted. It would have been simple enough, in theory: fill it, sink into hot water until the ache in his ribs dissolved into something more bearable.
But he knew how filthy he was, layers of sweat and tournament dust and dried blood, and a full tub would foul itself before he'd even reached his second arm. He'd need two, perhaps three changes of water to come out decent, and he had no real certainty about how generous the water supply was.
The rain, then.
The metal disc overhead came alive with the same sudden violence as before, but this time he was braced for it and did not flinch back.
He undressed slowly, each piece of clothing its own separate exercise in pain, until there was nothing left but skin and the accumulated wreckage of the day. Then he stepped over the lip of the tub, drew the curtain closed behind him with a rattle of metal rings, and let the water find him.
He groaned before he could stop himself.
It came up from somewhere low in his chest, unbidden, entirely without his permission. He had spent the day being struck, thrown, nearly killed by a horseless carriage, and marched up three flights of stairs on cracked ribs, finally allowed to stand still and simply feel something that didn't hurt.
The water ran over his shoulders, down the ladder of his spine, hot enough to loosen muscle he hadn't realized he'd been holding rigid since the tournament grounds. He tipped his head back into it and let it beat against his face, his throat, and for one long, indecent moment thought of absolutely nothing at all.
It was, without exaggeration, the finest thing that had happened to him since he'd woken on her stockroom floor. Since way before that, if he was honest with himself.
He stood there longer than was strictly necessary before he reached for the soap.
It lathered easily, some pale film building between his palms with none of the gritty resistance of the soap he knew, and he worked it over his chest, his shoulders, the plane of his stomach where a fresh bruise was already purpling beneath older, yellowing ones.
Then he reached his left arm, and his hands slowed down.
He didn't need to look at it. He knew the raised, rope-like ridges running along it, pale against the rest of him even after a summer of tournaments spent half-armored under the sun.
But the water was sliding over it now, catching the lamplight in a way that made the old scarring stand out starker than usual, and some part of him looked anyway.
Traced one particular line with his thumb, the one that ran deepest, the one that still pulled tight when he reached a certain angle.
He'd spent two years in a cell. Give or take. He'd ceased the counting somewhere in the second winter, when the days had stopped meaning anything beyond dark and less dark, and had never quite bothered to pick the count back up once he was free of it.
He remembered the field, at least. Remembered that much clearly enough: the mud, the horse going down beneath him, a blade finding the meat of his upper arm somewhere in the chaos of falling. Remembered darkness swallowing the noise of it whole.
What came after, he remembered in pieces. A stone floor. A stone wall. The arm, swollen and wrong, heat radiating off it that had nothing to do with any fire in the room, because there had been no fire in the room. Ever.
There had been a rot-smell he associated with fever more than memory, and somewhere in there -hazy, unreliable, a thing he'd never been certain enough of to say aloud- the impression of a friar's hands.
Cool fingers against a forehead too hot to bear its own weight. A voice praying in Latin, or perhaps just muttering, he'd never been sure which. He didn't know if the man had been real, or a fever's mercy, some kindness his mind had invented because the alternative was believing no one had come at all.
He didn't know how he hadn't died of it. He genuinely didn't. The arm had swollen fat and tight as a wineskin, the skin splitting in places from the pressure of it, and by every rule he understood about the body, that should have been the end of him.
It wasn't.
He'd kept the arm. Kept his life, such as it was, for another eighteen months of the same stone wall, the same shackles.
The arm wasn't the worst of it. He thought that plainly, without drama.
Two years chained to a wall, and guards with too much idle time and inventive enough minds about how a man might be made to suffer without being killed outright, had seen to the rest, before whatever ransom or exchange had finally been arranged came through and put him back on a horse heading home.
He didn't examine that further. Never did. There was a door in his mind he'd built precisely for that particular room, and he'd learned long ago that opening it accomplished nothing beyond making the following days considerably harder to get through.
The water had gone from scalding to merely warm while he stood there. He noticed, distantly, and reached to adjust the handle before it could turn cold entirely.
Enough.
He finished with the soap, quick and thorough now, some old discipline reasserting itself over the part of him that wanted to keep standing there a while longer, arm bared to the water, letting himself remember things better left where he'd put them.
He thought of her, briefly, on the other side of the door. Of the stockroom that morning, and the dozen easier choices she could have made instead of the one she'd made. He didn't know yet what to do with that thought, so he set it down beside the door in his mind and finished rinsing.
----
She'd put the pot on for two and couldn't remember the last time she'd done that.Even with her friend Marion occupying the spare room, they ate mostly separately since their shifts were very different. She ate alone most days, the radio doing the talking.
It occurred to her, grating the last of the cheese into the pot, that she hadn't cooked for a man since her father passed.
Now, she was cooking for one who wasn't family, which was a different thing entirely, and she knew exactly what the neighbors would call it if they ever got wind of a strange man living in a single woman's apartment.
Oh well, they had their own dirty laundry to take care of, mind them.
She decided on mac and cheese. Something hot, something that would actually fill him, and God knew, after the morning he'd had, he needed more than another sandwich.
She had a box of the noodles in the cupboard and just enough cheese left in the icebox to make it worth the trouble. She was grating the last of it into the pot when she heard the bathroom door open down the hall, then his footsteps.
She didn't turn around right away.
"Almost ready," she said, still facing the stove. "Figured you could use something hot after the morning you-"
She turned around, and the rest of the sentence simply left her brain.
He'd managed the trousers. Managed the shirt too, mostly, buttons in the right holes, tucked in at the waist, and the belt in place. But the collar… instead of folding down the way collars did, he'd left it standing straight up around his throat, the points reaching almost to his ears, like something out of an old painting.
Filthy and bruised and half out of his mind that morning, he'd been undeniably good-looking in the inconvenient way of men in magazine ads.
Clean, in actual clothes -even worn wrong- he was something closer to a problem.
"Okay, hang on," she said, already crossing the kitchen, reaching up before he could react, reaching for the stiff edge of the collar. "You've got- here, let me just-"
He went rigid under her hands.
Utterly still, his eyes fixed somewhere over her shoulder like the wall behind her had suddenly become very interesting.
Her fingers were still on his collar. She was, she realized with something close to horror, standing close enough to feel the warmth still coming off his skin from the shower, close enough that this was… well. Too intimate.
This was invading his space, and she'd done it without even asking.
She dropped her hands and took half a step back.
"Sorry- is that- am I in your space?"
"No," he said, too fast.
He still wasn't looking at her.
"You sure? Because you went kind of statue on me."
"I said no." His voice had gone a little rough. He cleared his throat, gaze fixed somewhere near the icebox now. "Thank you."
She looked at him a moment longer than she probably should have, at the careful way he was very deliberately not meeting her eyes. His collar was still wrong, but she let it pass.
"Sit down," she said instead, turning back to the stove. "This should be ready in a few minutes."
He lowered himself into the chair, watching her stir the pot with open, unguarded curiosity. The same look he'd given the icebox, the same look he'd given the shower.
"What is it," he asked, "that you're making?"
"Pasta with a cheese sauce. Kids love it. Grown men who've had the day you've had love it even more, trust me, I've fed a few."
He said nothing to that, but she caught him leaning very slightly toward the stove when she wasn't looking.
She plated it a few minutes later and set the bowl in front of him -thick, golden, still steaming- and watched him study it the way he'd studied the sandwich that morning, turning the spoon over once in his hand before committing to it.
The first bite did something to his face that she was going to be thinking about for longer than was strictly wise.
His eyes actually closed.
"This," he said, very seriously, "is a very fine plate."
She pulled out the second chair and sat down across from him with her own bowl, because there was no version of this where she stood at the counter and watched a grown man have a religious experience over macaroni without joining in.
He didn't seem to notice her sitting, not at first, too occupied with the bowl in front of him, and she let herself watch him for a moment without the excuse of doing anything else.
The bruise along his cheekbone had darkened further since the morning, blooming into a deep, ugly purple that made her wince faintly on his behalf. The cut above his brow had scabbed over clean, at least, no longer weeping at the edges the way it had in the stockroom.
Clean, fed, dressed in clothes that fit reasonably well even if he'd worn the collar wrong, he looked, she thought, almost ordinary. Almost like a man she might have passed on Camden Street without a second glance. She wondered if that was easier or harder than the alternative -a man who was clearly, unmistakably not of this world-.
He ate like someone reacquainting himself with the basic mechanics of pleasure. He had manners, clearly, real ones. Every bite got his full attention.
She found herself, against her better judgment, charmed by it.
Stop that, she told herself, and looked down at her own bowl instead.
"It's really that good?" she asked, mostly to have something to say.
He looked up, spoon still in hand, and there was something almost sheepish in his expression, like he'd been caught at something.
"I have had feasts," he said slowly, "with roasted boar and spiced wine."
He looked back down at the bowl.
"I would trade some of them for this."
She huffed a short laugh, surprised into it. "It's a two-dollar box of noodles."
"Then this century has done something extraordinary with two dollars, whatever that means."
"I'll pass the compliment along to Kraft."
He didn't ask who Kraft was. She got the sense he'd decided to stop asking about every single thing, and was simply letting some of it wash over him instead.
She let the quiet settle after that, comfortable enough now that neither of them seemed to feel the need to fill it, and watched him eat while her mind, unhelpfully, went back to work on the question she hadn't managed to put down since the stockroom.
Who are you, really?
She thought again of the war. Of the men at St. Benedict's with the hollow stare, the ones who flinched at car horns and wouldn't talk about where they'd been.
Maybe that was still it. Maybe somewhere under all of this -the ring, the knight, the six hundred years- there was a man who'd simply broken somewhere overseas, badly enough that his mind had gone looking for somewhere safer to live and built an entire kingdom to hide in.
People did stranger things than that, she was fairly sure, when the alternative was staying inside their own memories.
Give it a few days, she thought, watching him scrape the last of the sauce from the bottom of the bowl reverently. Maybe it wears off. Maybe he wakes up tomorrow, or the day after, and he's just... someone.
A man with a hometown and a mother somewhere worried sick, and all of this comes back to him as something to be embarrassed about, and I get to hear the real story.
She waited for that thought to feel like relief, the way it should have.
It didn't, not quite, and for now she let herself off the hook for figuring out why. There'd be time for that too.
"Would you like more?" she asked, nodding at his empty bowl.
He looked at it as though the question had genuinely never occurred to him as a possibility.
"...I would not be imposing?" he mumbled.
"It's a pot of macaroni, not the crown jewels. Yes. It's permitted. Eat until you're full, nobody's judging you for being hungry."
He relaxed at that, and pushed the bowl toward her without further argument.
She got up to refill it, and told herself, refilling her own thoughts right alongside the bowl, that there was time. A few days, at least, before she had to figure out what came next.
Hoe’kay, I’ve had a thot 👀 Cedar Trees AU drabble + make it a/b/o 😏
This really just stems from this horny visual that won’t leave my whore mind: Steve scenting Reader’s throat for the very first time 😵💫🤌🏻🫡🫠
Oh! Siri!
If this man....
GOOD LORD
okay
So let's play with this.
If the Cedar Trees AU were an omegaverse...
So King Steven Rogers, strong and dutiful alpha... let's say he's come to his kingdom in kind of an Arthurian way, being chosen by destiny/winning the throne. He's beloved by his people. He spent ten or twelve years on the throne because he was devoted to serving his people, making peace for his kingdom, learning his duties, becoming the king he would want to serve if he weren't wearing the crown. He didn't turn the heads of anyone as a somewhat scrawny adolescent of unremarkable upbringing. Once the crown was thrust on his head, everyone was watching. He was always smart, and he stayed grounded. He also grew into his very remarkable adult alpha male body. (because duh)
Given all of this, he didn't let himself get distracted by the attention. He worked hard not to let himself get taken advantage of by anyone in or out of the kingdom while he was learning how to be king, either. He told everyone marriage was a long way off. Many people tried to argue that he needed to acquire his queen and establish his position with an heir for stability. He said there was nothing the existence of a child could do if there wasn't a stable kingdom for them be born into, and true stability would be achieved by him doing the work expected of him as a king.
Bucky, his number one, his right hand, is the one who assured him (and kept pushing him) that it was finally time to look to marriage - that at this point in his reign, there aren't any excuses of duty that he can make anymore. They discussed - because he trusts Bucky with everything and to keep his head right - that it needed to be a logical political alliance to strengthen two kingdoms, a smart woman who could even possibly be an asset in court and fostering royal relations. And she'd need to be an omega, but Steve both knew AND didn't mind in the slightest that he wouldn't end up with the much romanticized idea of a true mate. It was uncommon enough for someone without a crown, but laughable for a king.
But as alpha and omega dynamics do rely on primal chemistry at least to a point, after initial negotiations had been deemed suitable, there was a day planned for Steve and his delegation to meet you, your parents, and the rest of your advisors/delegation. This took place at a neutral location - another palace with friendly relations to both of you. Things began with a royal lunch, hosted by the king and queen of the land you were both visiting. A chance to break bread and everyone just share a meal and warm up the familiarity.
And then a royal walk around the gardens for the potential marital parties and a chaperone each. Does this sound formal? Yes. Because it was. It was you and Steve with Bucky and someone from your family following ten feet behind, and it took place outdoors because this kind of walk before final negotiations is solely for two partners to test whether or not there's hormonal compatibility, informal scenting, and if it's not going well, the parties are spared having that confined to a room, and anyone can make some excuse of a loose shoe, too much heat, being exhausted, etc, to shorten the walk.
But the walk with you is pleasant from beginning to end. The conversation is nothing deep, and neither of you went in for overly engaging, but it was the kind of conversation that he occasionally experienced with visiting dignitaries who didn't have business with him. Easy, natural.
It's only when he realizes that the two of you are almost back to the palace and he hasn't actually gotten the read on scent compatibility that he worries a little. He has to do something. Pleasant conversation was not the point of this walk.
So just as you re-enter the foyer and are about to part, he takes your hand to politely bestow a kiss over the back of it, it should allow him to scent your wrist appropriately but not overtly.
Only when he does catch your scent, he discovers that it was something floral that he though had been the garden, something so enticing that he holds his breath in that moment, and his hand holds yours a little more tightly, and a second or two longer than expected.
He looks up to your face again, and your lips are pressed together with just a hint of timidity behind the soft curving smile. You are trained - as he has been - to keep an open face, but one that doesn't tell everything. But he can see in your eyes just a hint of a spark.
This will work.
He wants to turn your hand over and truly scent the inside of your wrist, press a kiss to that spot of tender flesh and feel your pulse beneath his lips, that's how much your scent compels him.
But of course he won't do that.
The two of you part, and when Bucky asks if it's a favorable assessment for the final arrangements for the marriage to go forth that afternoon, Steve nods and affirms it.
He sorts his thoughts logically - it's just a very fortunate compatibility. The coupling will be compatible.
He has no idea the two of your are meant for growing together and sincerely enriching each others lives - that you are his true mate.
He still won't even believe it over the honeymoon.
It will be that period after when he realizes he's in love with you, and even being in love, it will still take more time - a few heat cycles and ruts together, and just being together for him to ultimately realize it. And then when he looks back, it will be as plain as day.
↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest
I do not do tag lists, but FOLLOW @buckets-and-stories and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS to be updated any time I publish a new work!
Characters/Pairings: King!Steve Rogers x Queen!Reader
Word Count: 7.2k
Summary: You were raised to be a queen, the wife of a king, and with that to weather the storm in duty should he ever be called away to war. But it had always seemed a distant thing, certainly not a horror and hardship that would harrow within the first year of your marriage, and all of that preparation came before you fell in love with your husband and king. Yet you face your duty with diligence each day.
Content/Warnings: royal au, early pregnancy, smut (unprotected vaginal intercourse), discussion of war
Author Note: At long LONG last, I'm here to continue their story after Steve was called away to face the threat of Hydra in the north. It only took seventeen months to update after that cliffhanger... sorry.
Previous Part | Full Collection
“Your Majesty,” Coulson starts, “If I may…”
“Coulson,” you acknowledge, tone belying your hesitance. You know exactly which matters the King’s private secretary wants to broach with you now that the business of the day has been covered, and you do not with to address then, but you nod, granting permission for him to proceed.
“It is nothing unexpected, but there are rumors brewing. The people are ever eager for news of their sovereigns, and the palace is not a monastery. I have managed, thus far, to dampen speculation and keep any possible news of your condition from being made public before you wish it. But,” he gives brief pause, “we are approaching the time when discretion will fail.”
You meet Coulson’s eyes, a clear blue only a few shades lighter than Steve’s, though where Steve’s gaze is all earnestness and passion, Coulson’s is distilled into a kind of conscientious precision. You sigh. “You are right,” you say. “It is only a matter of days or weeks, perhaps a month if providence is good to us, before gossip and speculation align with circumstantial clues and a growing belly that can no longer be ignored for what it is. And though I do not wish to keep it a secret from the people, I did not want to make such a pronouncement without the king.”
It’s not just the ceremonial appropriateness of it, it’s that your heart aches to see Steve’s face when the news is given to his people, at how they would rejoice.
After a few moments, Coulson’s voice, gentle but firm, closes the moment of contemplative silence. “We are in uncertain times, Your Majesty. There are few things more potent than hope when the shadow of war is on us. The kingdom would rally behind this good news. If I may be so bold, the sooner the people are allowed to celebrate, the brighter the light we can hold against the darkness of our present shadows.”
Your hand drops to your stomach, fingers brushing over the barely-there bump coming along as you ponder his words, feeling the press of their truth. Still, you are still reticent.
“Thank you, Coulson. I will consider it with all due diligence and urgency.” You try on a smile for him, and he recognizes it for the closing of the matter for now that it is.
“The other matter I hoped to discuss with Your Majesty is the celebration of Summer Solstice, there are many matters pending final decisions, and some we cannot hold off on much longer.”
“I am aware.” Your own voice comes out tired and more vulnerable than you would like, but Coulson does not exploit this.
The Summer Solstice was a cornerstone of the kingdom’s calendar, something the people reveled in and clung to fiercely, even as their rulers, affairs, and fortunes changed over the generations, matched only in sentiment and fervor by the Winter Solstice.
“Did His Majesty leave instructions?” you ask, though you can imagine the answer. There would have been no time and no priority given for Steve to leave notes about Summer Solstice festivities while he was marching out the door to face an emerging Hydra threat. It would have been that last thing from his mind.
Coulson’s response only confirms your further thoughts that any elements made tradition by him would already be assumed into the planning already underway.
“I reviewed His Majesty’s previous preferences and communicated these directly with the staff. Everything that can be done according to House Rogers’ customs is being done.” Coulson doesn’t hesitate to add, “His Majesty trusts your judgment implicitly, and in all matters of statecraft, especially those that touch the people most directly, he would welcome a queen’s hand in the details.”
There’s a warmth that moves through you. For all the weight of the crown, the court life, even the threat of war pressing at the border, there are moments like this—small points of light, where trust is not only spoken, but practiced. It is one thing to have the wishes of the king on record and followed because it’s the duty of Coulson and others to serve, but it is another to feel the undercurrent of genuine belief, trust, and devotion, something that extends beyond obligation to loyalty.
You say, “I am not ready as yet to venture into decisions about the Solstice, but I appreciate your candor and your counsel, Coulson. I rely on it, and I will take it on advisement to revisit these matters soon. Now what of Hydra?”
His face draws somber. “Still no news since the messenger arrived three nights ago.”
The last secure message communicated that Hydra’s forces appeared to be holding outside the border, Steve’s troops still holding them at bay and countering any offense with the assistance of some allies, but they were not easily countered, and perhaps far from conquered.
“I would wager,” Coulson says carefully, “that His Majesty has not risked further dispatches in order to prevent interception. The Hydrans have spies everywhere in the north. They may even have sympathizers among the townships along the border.”
“Keep me apprised. Let me know directly if any word arrives, day or night.” You stand, which has become an incrementally more laborious affair in recent days. Coulson moves to steady you, but you wave him off with a gentle shake of your head.
“Of course, Your Majesty. I am at your service,” he says, voice softening.
"Thank you, Coulson. Are there any other matters that require my attention?”
“No, Your Majesty. But know that if you should wish to speak further on these things, or anything else, never hesitate to call on me.” He hesitates himself—just for an instant—then bows and turns and takes his leave.
You are grateful for him, for the rare certainty that he does not merely see you as a vessel for a future king, nor some accessory to the crown, but a living, breathing, valuable half of the crown.
After a moment, you arch your back, wincing at the mounting stiffness. Your fingers span over the your lower belly. “Now what words are you keeping so carefully to yourself over there in the corner, Duchess?” you ask, turning to Natalia.
The Duchess had been silent throughout the exchange, withdrawing to the fringes of the room so as to be present, available, but not to encroach. She always carries herself with the hyper-vigilance of a cat, but now she drops her hands from where they’d been folded against her gown. “Only that women know when the tide is about to turn,” she says, stepping forward. “I commend you for holding back the announcement until you are ready, that you wish for our king to return before you make it, but I also caution you against this perpetual stasis of waiting in uncertainty.”
You frown and sigh.
“I do think you can still delay one matter if you will indulge another. Engage in the preparations for the Summer Solstice, build up the festivities and celebrations that can be a worthwhile focal point for the people. There is a bit of old wisdom, Your Majesty—plan for joy and you bend the future towards it. If you pour yourself into what comes next, your heart will have at least one safe harbor in this storm, and you may very well be able to extend that to your people.”
You recognize that Natalia’s advice is no mere platitude. The Solstice is less than ten days away. The entire kingdom will arrange its hours and appetites and ambitions around the coming festival, and you, as their queen, could harness it like a prism: channel hopes, quell the worst of the anxieties, and—perhaps most selfishly—give yourself a purpose beyond waiting for word from the distant king and the uncertain border.
Natalia’s eyes remain intent on your face, as if searching every muscle for the precise flavor of your reluctance, and when you do not answer right away, she asks gently, “What is it, truly? I feel you are holding something else behind your careful words.”
You pause, searching for the how to convey your thoughts, then admit, “The Summer Solstice is not only beloved because it is the peoples’ tradition, but because it was my introduction to this kingdom, to these people. You know as you were assigned to by my escort, though I suspect it was as a trusted spy,” you jest, but know it is undoubtedly also true—if Natalia had doubted your character or potential for the kingdom, the Duchess would not have held back her assessment from the king. There is a hint of a smirk in the soft smile on Natalia’s face, and you shake your head, but continue. “The talks for betrothal had taken place, but kept private and not fully agreed upon until the king and I met.” Other visiting royal dignitaries had been present, the normal extension of invitations to foreign friends and allies a useful guise so as not to rouse suspicions for your attendance.
“But I remember last year,” you continued, “how every street, every home, every remote village in Brooklyn was awash in lanterns, in ribbons and banners, in music, in flowers, in an anticipation so thick it crackled in the air. Steve said his kingdom was made of people, not palaces, and I saw it in every element of those festivities. It was my first time seeing what I myself might become part of, but I was only focused on experiencing, evaluating. My every moment was colored by the formalities of courtship, the politics, the scrutiny.” You smile ruefully. “I assumed I would have Steve to share the preparations and customs with me the following year, to guide me. Instead—”
“Instead, you are alone, and expected to be at the center of it.” Natalia finishes for you, but not unsympathetically. She steps to your side, voice low.
“No one expects you to give the people a show, Majesty. They expect you to be a beacon. If you are afraid, they will know. If you are excited, they will follow. If you are grieving—even for a husband who is not dead, only away—they will rally to support you. Let yourself want the joy of it. All the rest will fall into place.”
You swallow past the knot in your throat. Selfish as it maybe, you let spill the other confession you have not allowed yourself to say aloud till now.
“I ache to see him. I am surrounded by purpose, by duty, by constant reminders that this crown is not for myself alone. I can do all that’s required—I will, and will do it well—but I do not know if I can hold on for so long without news. Or if…if he does not return.”
It comes out in more of a whisper than a proclamation, and your hands clench in the fabric of your gown.
Natalia’s presence, always so composed and self-contained, suddenly softens. She touches your elbow, and the lines of her face crease in a rare show of empathy. “You may not realize it, but your courage is what will keep the kingdom steady,” she says. “It is not wrong to long for your husband. It is not even so wrong to show that longing.” She adds, more gently, “You do not have to shoulder every ache alone, especially not now.”
You nod, once, and squeeze Natalia’s hand where it grasps your arm. She holds steady for a few seconds, then steps back, and with that, the connection is reset—she is again the Duchess, your shadow and your shield.
You take a deep breath and square your shoulders. “Tell Coulson to set a meeting with the festival stewards for tomorrow.”
Over the next week you throw yourself into many elements of the Summer Solstice preparations.
You delegate, arbitrate, and—when the festival stewards look at you with unmasked hope—promise more than a little magic. Your days become a whir of meetings, decisions made in earnest, and hours spent reviewing every facet of the plans, from the musicians and revelers for the great public parade, to the composition of the Midnight Feast, to the allocation of food and shelter for those who would travel from afar. In the past, this would have been ceremonial and light. Now, with troops fighting in the north, full-blown war breathing down the neck of the kingdom, you embrace how much it is a matter of holding the fabric of the kingdom’s hope taut and bright.
It’s soothing, almost addictive, to lose yourself in work. The days pass quickly, and the routine is a balm to your restless bones. You spend hours in the library with the castle’s archivist, combing through the records of past solstices, learning the nuances of old custom and new expectation.
The loneliness is its own living thing, gnawing at you in the hours between midnight and dawn, clawing up memories of his hands and his voice and the constant, solid comfort he gave without even thinking about it. At night, you lie awake, sometimes for hours, listening to the shivering hush of the palace. It is never truly silent, but Steve’s absence stretches through it, amplifying every hollow gap, leaving a ghostly ache in the walls and in your chest. You dream of Steve, sometimes in his full armor, sometimes laughing shirtless by the river, sometimes with his head bent against your shoulder so softly it feels like a memory from another life.
When you rise in the mornings, your hands reach for the spot beside you, searching for the heat of his body. Sometimes there is a phantom pressure: his palm coming to rest on the small of your back, his lips pressed to your hair, his steady breath against your neck.
The night before the Solstice, you fall into bed feeling the good kind of exhausted, and you dream again of Steve. This time he is kneeling at your bedside after a campaign, his hair damp and wild, his tunic stained dark with sweat and the velvets bedraggled from travel. He kneels not as a king but as a supplicant, and his large, warm hand brushes softly over your cheek, thumb tracing the bone as if to memorize the shape. You lean into the comfort of his touch and the longing it stirs, the ache so powerful you feel it in your throat, as if you will choke on it.
You inhale deeply, expecting the scent of him—soap, ink and parchment, the faintest hint of old cedarwood. Instead, the smell is pungent with sweat and horses and old leather, overpowering the lavender sachet tucked in your pillowcase.
For half a second you are convinced this is only the dream’s cruelest trick, the longing so deep it has conjured even the reek of what he would smell like after hours on horseback and days without a bath. But the scent intensifies, crowding the air.
It is not a dream.
The shock hits you with a physical violence, and you bolt upright and launch yourself into him, clear out of the coverlet and straight into his arms. Steve is on his knees, kneeling at the side of your bed with the battered, travel-worn look of a man who has not slept for days and crossed hundreds of miles to get here. There is sweat and old blood and something earthen on him, and you bury your face in the crook of his neck, both of you shaking. He holds you against his chest, arms caging you, rigid as iron, and you sense immediately that if he could, he would rip open his own ribs and place you, the baby, the whole world inside for safekeeping.
You feel the bowstring tension in his body, the trembling weariness shuddering through his hands, the fever-heat of his skin. His lips find your temple, your cheek, your jaw—hungrily, as if he’ll never get enough.
Then he says your name.
It comes out rough-edged and low, and the sound burrows into the marrow of your bones, releases every caged heartbeat you have kept on reserve.
You clutch him even closer, pressed together so tightly it aches. His breath rasps against your ear and you are shaking, but then you realize it’s him—he is shaking—and the riot of trembling in his arms makes you feel for the first time since he left not just loved, not just wanted, but necessary.
At length, you draw back, just enough for your hands to find his face. The light from the moon outside casts a blue glow on the edges of his jaw, and in his eyes—oh, your heart—you read a rawness so stark it’s practically palpable. The blue of his eyes is bloodshot, rimmed raw with fatigue and the kind of pain he would refuse to let anyone else see. In that moment he is not a king at all, only a man desperate for home, desperate for you.
He searches your features as if he must check that every line, every lash, every bone is unbroken and real; as if he will believe in nothing else until he is sure.
Then his lips are on yours, nothing gentle, just need—crushed, frantic, fervent.
You don’t realize you’re crying until you taste the salt on your tongue, don’t realize your hands are in his hair until you feel the sticky matting of it, dark with sweat and travel. You want to ask if he’s alright, if he’s wounded, but your lips can’t form words, only gasp in what little air you can snatch between his kisses.
He surges off his knees and hauls you up with him, mouth never leaving yours, lifting you onto the bed as if you weigh less than the air itself. You feel the urgency in him, no ceremony, no preamble, just hands and breath and heat. His fingers tangle with the ties of your nightdress, and when they will not yield fast enough, he tears at the fabric, yanking it away. You cannot help but laugh, but it is a wet, wild sound, strangled with both relief and want, and even as you reach for him—buttons, buckles, leather protection, the salt-stiffened linen of his shirt—you are aware that your hands are shaking too.
When the last of the clothing is gone, you are left with naught but the night air and weeks and weeks of longing between you. Your hands, mindless, frantic, slip up his arms, his shoulders, over the ridges of his back, cataloguing every knot of muscle and scar, taking inventory against the old, searching for if there’s anything new, but you’re too frantic to process any of it in the dark.
The mattress yields beneath you as Steve presses you down into it, pinning you to the moment and erasing every other ache except for this one. The hunger. The need. The wild, animal want that banishes any remnant of decorum, anything but your true, unadulterated connection. The scraping of his beard against your neck burns, but you welcome it, tilt your head to bare more of your throat, and he marks a trail—jaw, pulse point, clavicle—devouring every inch.
You taste salt on his shoulder and on your own lips. The taste of him is different tonight, blunter, earthier, and it makes you shiver. He thrusts into you, burying himself to the hilt, and the cry that rips from your throat is a release. You wrap your legs around his hips, welcoming him home.
Joined once more in the most intimate ways, Steve holds the reclaimed ground, hips, chest, foreheads pressed fully flush together while he’s inside you. You breathe each other in again and again. There’s a need for more, but not yet, for this suspended moment, the need is only this.
When he finally moves, his thrusts are not gentle but they are not rough. You rake your nails down his ribs, feeling him shudder, feeling his breath explode from his chest with every drag of your hands, every flex of your thighs. You want to savor him but you cannot, not when he’s all over you, around you, inside you, every sense drunk on the reality of his presence after so long spent with only the memory of him.
“Gods, I missed you,” he murmurs, voice torn with hunger. He covers your mouth with his, and these kisses are like drawing breath, necessary. His weight on you is everything you need, as he thrusts into you. Each stroke lands somewhere deeper, somewhere more intimate, more needed. It’s frantic, then it’s tender, then it’s frantic again, the pulse of it building inside you, between you.
He grunts, the sound breaking apart as he rocks into you. Your own voice is at once desperate and meek. “Please, please, I need…” but the words die there, replaced by a shuddering moan you cannot swallow back. The violence of it ricochets through Steve. He seizes your hips and you feel him, every inch, thick and hot and trembling.
In your first year of marriage, he has come to know your tells, the signs of your body gathering, all the places and rhythms that unspool you. But it’s a new thing now, a new tension, a new tightness in the walls of your cunt, a hypersensitivity that stuns you nearly to tears, and Steve notes it, the change, the powerful difference of you. His hand spreads over the new curve at your belly—he had not said a word yet, not even looked down, but the way his thumb strokes over it makes it clear: not only has he been thinking of you both, you and the tiny human growing in your womb, he loves the physical sign of it, worships it as a natural extension of all the other ways he has loved you.
You arch up, trying to get closer, though there’s nowhere left to go. It is too much, and not enough, and you are sobbing his name, “Steve, Steve, Steve,” as if it is the only anchor in the world. He thrusts deeper, harder, and you sense in the frantic cadence of his hips the fever pitch of his own desperation for you. The only sound is breath and flesh and the splayed, unbridled honesty of two people who have been sundered too long.
You explode around him, a tidal wave of sensation that rolls through every limb, your toes curling and fingers clawing into the thick muscle at his shoulders. Steve groans into the hollow of your throat, the sound raw, and you feel the shudders wreck his frame as he spills into you, a heat that pulses and pools deep inside. For a heartbeat, your vision blurs white, and you float, lost in the moment, in the pounding of your heart, the rhythm of his hips, the scent of sweat and salt and iron and sex.
When you collapse together, there’s no distinction between your bodies. You’re just a knot of tangled limbs and tangled hearts, breath mingling, sweat mingling, tears and laughter and devotion99eds——-rtf all pressed into the same narrow space. It’s not until you’re gasping for air that you realize you’ve never truly needed anything in your life the way you need this man—his presence, his weight, the simple, grounding comfort of his body anchoring you, his soul sewn into every cell of your being.
For a long time, you lie in the hush that follows, the storm of your hearts ebbing slowly to a sated quiet. His hands drift over your skin, drawing slow, worshipful lines. You feel the way his palm roams down your ribs, spans the rise and fall of your belly, lingers there—an unspoken promise, an offering, a vow renewed and renewed and renewed with every breath. Your own hand follows his, and you let your fingers tangle together, threading over the place where new life is growing.
“Are you alright?” The words are rough, but the way he says them—tender, reverent—makes you want to cry again.
“Better than alright,” you manage, and it’s a wonder you can speak for the surging in your chest. You touch his cheek, tracing the path over the overgrowth of the beard usually so well kept. “Are you alright?” you echo his query.
He swallows, a clenched jaw working under your fingers. “I am,” he says, and you hear the lie of omission in how the words catch. You arch a brow, and he releases a stiff breath. “I am now,” he amends. “It was—” He searches the ceiling as if the right word is up there in the architecture, then settles on you. “Worse than worse than we anticipated. Too many dead, too many close calls.” His voice cracks, and you realize this is a wound you cannot salve, not with all the kisses in the world.
“You’re here. That’s all that matters.” You stroke the line of his jaw with your thumb, careful with the tenderness that wells up. You ask again, softer this time, “Steve. Are you hurt?”
He closes his eyes, as if the question itself is a mercy, some moment of gentleness he’d gone too long without. “Not in any way that will last,” he says, then, after a heavy silence, “but there are wounds and scars endured by my men, horrors I would not have had them face in their lifetime.”
There’s a quiet knock on the door, but it still startles you.
“Yes?” Steve calls out.
“Your Majesty, the bath you requested has been prepared,” you recognize the baritone of his groom.
“Thank you,” Steve responds, and you whimper quietly. He smiles at your pout, and asks, “What is that frown for?”
“You do reek dreadfully, but I don’t want you away from me and leaving for your chambers so immediately.”
He laughs. “It is a good thing I had the foresight to ask the tub in your bath chamber to be prepared, especially as you scant smell any better than me now,” he growls into your neck, before scooping you up from the bed and into his arms.
He carries you effortlessly—despite the travel and the exhaustion, he is still a force, solid and kinetic, the momentum of his desire to be close to you overcoming anything so trivial as fatigue or soreness.
The bath is drawn high and steaming, fragrant with eucalyptus and mint from the castle gardens, the tendrils of vapor curling through the candlelit air. Steve doesn’t put you down even then, instead, he sits you gently on the bench beside the basin, kneeling at your feet to help you shuck what little fabric remains—he mutters apologies for how he’d torn your nightdress, but the glint in his eyes as he peels it away makes clear that he is not sorry at all.
Then he draws you to your feet guides you into the tub. The heat and warmth of the water is its own bliss, and you sigh happily as you sink down, drawing your legs close to your chest so there’s room for your husband to join you. But your eyes rove over his body with the additional light afforded from the candles all around. His big frame is battered and taut, an altar of old and new wounds. The bruises are vivid, purple and ochre blooms against his ribs and limbs, and there’s a long, slick scar bisecting the length of his thigh—a new addition, pink and angry. Your hands go there, trembling, and you gently dare to brush over it. “Did this—?”
“A saber, but only a graze,” he assures you as he folds himself into the hot water before you.
You reach for the soap and, with hands steadier than your heart, begin to wash him. You are methodical, a surgeon’s precision in the way you map every contusion and cut, each new story etched into his skin. He keeps his eyes closed, breath even, but when you press a little too close to a darkening bruise at his ribs, he inhales sharply, and you murmur a quiet apology.
Steve’s head tips back, a breath escaping him as your hands knead over the muscle. “Don’t worry,” he says at last, “looks worse than it ever felt.” He’s lying, but you forgive him for it, and your hands continue up, methodically, as you chase away the grime and bruises with the warmth of your touch.
“Talk to me,” you say, voice as gentle as your hands. “Tell me what happened. All of it, or as much as you can bear.”
He sinks, for a moment, into the steam, and exhales. “We pressed north with two hundred, mostly foot soldiers, some cavaliers. Sam led the advance. Bucky rode the left flank, and I took right.” Steve’s words thicken with the memory, and your hands, moving over the breadth of his shoulder, pause to let him speak. “We gained ground at first, too easily, and that was itself a warning. Hydra never leaves the doors open unless they’ve set a trap on the other side.” His jaw works, silent for a moment, so you urge him with a subtle scruff of the soap up the plane of his chest.
“We lost the scouting party, and nearly the whole west flank. Sam doubled back, drew a third of their force away long enough to let us regroup, but it was—” he pauses, then resumes, “but Sam’s unit had it worst.” The lilt of regret, heavy and bitter, is thick in Steve’s voice. “Hydra cycles their men like ghosts. You think they’re beaten, but they come back. They set up false camps. They sent false surrenders, decoys, even children as messengers.” He rubs his face, the sound rasping over his stubble, and you ache with the urge to fold yourself around him, to protect what’s left unscathed.
You wait, patient, as he rakes a wet hand through his hair, as if the gesture might physically clear the images from his mind. “For a time, the only way we could keep ahead was to match their malice with our own terror. Every morning, I expected to hear Bucky or Sam was gone, or that Hydra had burned another town or hanged another farmer for the example. But after a month, we stopped losing men. We learned Hydra’s rhythms, their favorite tricks and forgeries. We started living in the loopholes, but it was difficult to know if we were making any progress or only playing games. Bucky’s men became shadows in their own right, impossible to pin down, and Sam—” He shakes his head, pride and worry perfectly commingled. “Sam learned to trade wounds for ground, and he never let the enemy see the same move twice.”
You urge Steve to turn his back to you so you could wash his hair, fingers gently kneading his scalp, and he groans warmly. After you rinse the suds from his hair, he leans back against you, sighing through the ache of memory. You gather him closer, folding your knees to bracket his hips beneath the surface. He lets you pull him down to rest between your thighs, his head heavy on your chest, your arms closing around his torso.
“After we learned to survive,” Steve goes on, voice low, “it was a stalemate. Hydra would not break us, but we could not find their center. Every time we tried to press the advantage, they shifted—like smoke through a sieve. I started to worry that their real aim was only to keep us locked there, bleeding months and men into the border, until they could break the kingdom from behind. And the longer it went on, the worse I thought it would get, until—” his expression shifts, and you see a flicker of reluctant gratitude. “Until it didn’t. Until we got help.”
“Help?”
“From the east. The Wakandans. I never even saw them coming, and neither did the Hydrans.” He opens his eyes at last, and you’re startled by how alert they are, how alive. Steve sits up and turns, reaching for a clean cloth next to the tub and taking the soap from your hands before he begins to clean your skin. “King T’Challa and his people had been watching for years, waiting until Hydra showed itself as enough of a threat to risk intervening.”
You feel a cold thrill run through your arms. You’d heard the legends of Wakanda—every child had, the kingdom that never fell, the city disappeared into legend. The scholars called it the dream of a utopia. Most everyone else called it a fable. No one in your lifetime had ever seen a Wakandan, let alone fought side by side with them. Yet, here is Steve, speaking of them not as rumor, but as comrades in arms.
“Bucky made the contact. He snuck away without my knowledge or permission after midnight, escaping through the woods. He went in alone and was gone almost six days. When he returned, it was with the Black Panther T’Challa himself and his advance guard, the Dora Milaje. They didn’t bring an army—didn’t need to—they brought knowledge. Maps, codes, infiltrators. One week with them by our side and we gained back what we’d lost in a month. We crushed their lines, liberated two towns, and forced the Hydrans into retreat before they could torch the wheat fields for the year’s supply.”
You shiver. “Are they gone?” Steve presses a warm, soapy cloth to your back, working methodically, his hands slow and gentle.
“Hydra? Never gone.” Steve’s mouth is a thin, exhausted line. “But for now we’ve at least bought time and freedom for our corner of this realm.”
He dips the cloth, wrings it out, traces the line of your spine. “T’Challa found me alone the night we finally prevailed. Said he had ridden out our way for three days before encountering Bucky, wanted to see if I was worthy of the throne I claimed.”
The line of his hands on your back is steady as a metronome, but you feel the tiniest tremor in his fingers—a tell you’ve come to know, rare as a celestial event in your resolute king. “And you are,” you say resolutely, voice barely more than a hush above the bathwater’s surface, but you know he hears you.
He presses his lips to the nape of your neck, murmuring your name like a prayer and a secret, and then, as if reluctant to break the spell of closeness, simply breathes you in for a long moment. You listen to the slow force of his heartbeat, the steady cadence of his breathing as it stitches the two of you together, crowned and made new by the intimacy of this moment.
“But the Black Panther said what?” you prompt, the words barely audible against the hush of the bathwater.
He smiles—a small, tired thing, but real. “T’Challa agreed with you,” he says, and at last a glimmer of warmth creeps in. “He said he expected a king and found a man with his heart already outside his own body. Said any ruler who needed every man to make it home, every village to survive, and who would not quit even when he ought, was a king Wakanda could respect.”
Now you turn and wrap your arms around his shoulders, faces close. “You earned it from the hour you took it. T’Challa sees what I see, what your people have seen for so many years.” You thumb another drop of water off his cheek, this one less bath and more the gleaming edge of emotion, though he blinks and it’s gone as if it never existed. He touches your jaw, and you realize he is searching for reassurance—your faith in him, not as a king, not as a hero of blood and iron, but as a man.
You let your words be the kiss you press to his mouth, letting him breathe it in, letting it fill whatever void the campaign carved. He kisses back with a fervency that tells you he hasn’t let himself need this softness, not in all the weeks gone. When his lips break from yours, he draws you up from the bath and pulls a towel around you, enfolding you close together until your body is pressed to his, toweling off your chilled arms as the steam clings to your skin and your knees all but buckle from that first step onto the flagstone. Steve’s big hands span your ribs, steadying you, and you realize for the thousandth time that no matter how battered the world leaves this man, he will always, always be careful with you.
You half-collapse onto the nearest cushioned bench, and he kneels in front of you, draping thick terrycloth over your shoulders, running his hands up and down your arms as if he could physically rub the exhaustion out of your bloodstream. You let yourself soak up all his diligent care, letting your forehead rest against his.
After Steve dries himself, he reaches down, and you tut when he tries to carry you again. But you do lean into him as you pad alongside him back into the bed chamber.
He tucks you into bed, drawing the blankets up to your chin, before climbing in beside you. The heat of his body radiates through your bones and into your marrow. The silence between you is companionable, but it is also thick. You feel the press of unspoken things, secrets still caught and locked away in the web of his breathing. There are always losses in war, and these will weigh on Steve the most, some he may still never share, but clearly some still on his mind at present—so you ask, softly, “How many did you bring home?”
His arms tighten once, a reflex, and he hesitates. “Most,” he says, but it is a careful word, and you feel the lack of completeness in it. “We lost fewer than we would have, and returned sooner than we would have if not for the Wakandans. The men did everything asked and more. The kingdom won’t forget what they endured, or what they gave.”
You twist, catching his gaze full-on. “And what are you still weighing whether or not to speak of now?”
He does not answer immediately. The air in the room shifts, a chill rolling in around the edges, and you tense. He turns you toward him, brushes the back of his knuckle down your cheek, but his eyes do not match the gentleness of his touch. They are hollow now, haunted.
“Steve?”
He looks away, jaw clenched. “Bucky didn’t come back with us,” he says.
You gasp, the sound violent in the hush, a thousand terrors flickering through your. Your breath is gone, enormous panic and sadness all at once clawing at your chest. “He’s—” but you can’t finish the word, as if saying it aloud will make it true.
But Steve sees the panic, and his hands close around your shoulders, anchoring you, voice urgent. “He is not dead. I am sorry—I should have said. He lives.” The relief is so sharp you nearly sob, and you clamp your mouth shut, forcing yourself to focus as Steve continues. “It was the last push, near the end. Bucky was at my side, spearheading the charge. He caught a Hydra blade that should have killed me. The bastard nearly took off his arm—nearly all the way to the socket. T’Challa and the Dora Milaje took him back to Wakanda. They said there is hope, real hope, that their science and magic could fix what was ruined.”
Relief floods through you in a tidal wave so strong you sink into the mattress, and Steve holds on to you, anchoring both of you in the moment. You press your face to his shoulder, and he’s tense again, and you realize it’s not from cold, not from want, but from the toll of weeks without rest, without certainty.
You take three deep breaths, in and out, remembering that you are two hearts, and you are here for each other, wanting to soothe his weary soul. You kiss him, soft and slow, and when you pull back, you cup his jaw in your hands so that you can anchor him to you, steady his rarely-wavering heart with the constancy of your own.
“If anyone can survive that,” you say, “it is Bucky, and if anyone can heal him, it must be Wakanda.” You run your thumb over the sharp ridge of Steve’s collarbone. “He will come back to us. I know he will. But you owe him nothing less than your full faith, and your rest, until then.”
Steve’s brow pinches, a flash of pain in the blue of his eyes, but it softens as you stroke your hand down his arm, careful around a constellation of bruises. “We lived through things I will never want you to see,” he says, “but I need you to know this: I thought of you every day. Every day, you kept me coming back through the mire and the blood. No matter how bad it got, I would see your face and—” he pauses, as if pulled back, then exhales. “It was not the idea of the kingdom, or duty. It was just you. Only ever you, and our future.” The last words are accompanied by his hand spanning the swell of your stomach, the life growing there. The words are lead and gold, both a confession and a benediction, and you hold them in your heart like an amulet. The two of you kiss, fervent, treasured.
After a long, close silence, Steve sighs, the last of the tension leaving him with the exhale. Suddenly, you realize he has grown deadweight against you. The steady rise and fall of his chest turns slower, deeper, and in the hush between heartbeats you realize he’s falling asleep, right there in your arms, battle-bruised but finally at peace. You feel the urge to let him drift, to watch him as you often did in those early months, but now it’s different, even more tangible. Now you see every crease, every new scar, every effort he made to haul himself home to you, and you understand that the kingdom you two are building is not made of stone and banners, but of this—of the bodies and the hearts that come together and re-forge themselves in these moments. You are not merely king and queen, but husband and wife. And because you know he would never let you keep watch alone, not even in his sleep, you close your eyes, too, and let yourself drift with him, twin stars fused against the hush of what’s left of the night before dawn.
My heaaaaarrrrrt! I thought of these two often, and I knew the shapes of what I wanted, but it took so long to sort them out, and we can all thank @stargazingfangirl18 for helping me figure out the bits that were sticking for me and my muse.
BUT KING STEVE! I love him with my whole chest! I'm glad I finally got to share him with you again.
↠ Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest
I do not do tag lists, but FOLLOW @buckets-and-stories and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS to be updated any time I publish a new work!
dbf!bucky/steve who gets you a job at his company and turns out he can’t stand when one of the associates thinks it’s okay to flirt with you.
little touches on the small of your back, making sure he makes it clear you need to be in meeting xyz to take notes bc he doesn’t want the associate asking you out without him there to run interference
insists on giving you rides home and your skirts get shorter and shorter (credit to @pinksplace for this line)
one time he’s all ready for a date actually (that your parents set him up with) and when you get out of the car when he drops you off at home there’s a little wet spot on the leather bc he looks so good
A/N: How mob!Bucky and our single mom met. Thanks to @whisperlullaby and @targaryenvampireslayer for letting me babble about this AU. ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!
Bucky met you and Sweet Pea at a science museum and his life changed for the better.
Growing up, Bucky enjoyed going to the museum. Beyond developing critical and analytical thinking, science encourages curiosity and creativity.
In another life, he liked to imagine he taught science and had a family instead of being a mob boss.
It wasn’t fair to think that since his friends were his family, but something was missing that they couldn’t provide him with.
Whether for nostalgic purposes or to clear his head, he found himself back in the familiar museum. He stood and silently observed various exhibits, his eyes darting back and forth as families bustled around him and enjoyed the interactive experiences.
Something tightened in his chest and he didn’t want to ponder on that for long.
A chorus of chatter and excitement drew his attention and he stepped back to make room when he saw a group of kids in matching shirts walk by. Field trips were always something to look forward to and the wonder in their eyes reminded him of simpler times.
“Mama, Mama, look!” A sweet voice called out before something bumped his leg. He glanced down to see a little girl look up at him with wide eyes. “Sorry, Mister.”
Bucky Barnes struck fear into powerful men all over the world. He could only imagine how he looked to this sweet little girl with his large and imposing stature.
People liked to say he had a cold heart, but one look at her and it melted.
“Nothing to be sorry for, Sweet Pea.” He wasn’t sure where the nickname came from as he crouched down to make sure she was okay. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
She quickly shook her head and appeared to relax a bit when he gave her a small smile. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. “No, Mister. I’m okay.”
He nodded, glad to hear that. “You just got excited by everything here, didn’t you? I get it.”
“Uh-huh.” She smiled, making his smile widen. He didn’t smile much these days. “Science is my favorite!”
“It’s my favorite, too,” he said, pointing to one of the rooms. “Did you know in that room you can try to build your own roller coaster?”
She gasped, her eyes lighting up. “I can?!”
He chuckled. Her enthusiasm was infectious. “You sure can. I’ll bet you can build a really good one.”
“Sir, did she bump into you?” You rushed over through the crowd as Bucky’s eyes flickered up, his breath caught in his throat. You weren’t in a matching shirt like the kids, but wore a similar color. “I’m so sorry.”
He couldn’t help but stare at you as he stood upright, everything moving in slow motion. The little girl made his heart melt, but you set it on fire.
“I said sorry, Mama,” your daughter said, a slight pout on her face when you put a protective arm around her and gave him a wary look. He appreciated your protective instinct. “Accidents happen.”
Bucky wasn’t ashamed to admit to himself that his eyes went to your left hand and was happy to not see a wedding ring. Questions went through his mind, ranging from why you weren’t married to what was the full backstory of you and your daughter?
“I know how happy you are to be here, but you also need to be careful and stay close to me,” you said in a gentle, but firm tone. Bucky had a feeling you weren’t referring to bumping into people, but to avoid strangers. “Okay?”
“Okay, Mama,” she replied, hugging your legs.
“It’s fine. Really. I’m pretty sure I walked straight into a wall once because one of the exhibits distracted me,” he teased, unsure of why he wanted to talk to you. He just did.
You smiled after a moment, keeping your arm around your daughter. “I appreciate that. This visit was all she talked about for the last week.”
“I don’t blame her. I hope she has the best time,” he said sincerely.
Your daughter tugged on your shirt. “Show him what I colored!”
Your eyes went to Bucky before you dug into your tote bag. “What do we say?” You asked your daughter.
“Please,” she replied.
Bucky smiled to himself when you took out a coloring sheet with various science and space objects. “Wow! Did you color this?” He asked the little girl. “It’s very good.”
She smiled proudly. “Uh-huh!”
“It’s for a contest. The winner gets a free season pass to the museum,” you explained, carefully tucking it back in your bag.
“I hope I win,” she said, hopefulness in her innocent eyes.
Maybe he could make a donation and get that season pass for her. Hell, he had enough money to buy the museum if he wished.
“Well, I’m not a judge, but you’d win if it was up to me,” Bucky said, taking it as a victory when she smiled again.
You gazed at him before you shook your head. “We should get back to the group.”
“Aww,” she pouted, giving Bucky a small wave. “Bye bye, Mister.”
“Bucky. My name is Bucky,” he said, wishing the wholesome interaction didn’t have to end. He was completely enamored with the two of you. “It was nice meeting you, Sweet Pea.”
“Sweet Pea?” You repeated. He worried he made a mistake in saying that before you smiled. “I call her that sometimes.”
“It’s fitting,” he said, tucking a bit of his hair back. “Any chance I might get your name before you go?”
You hesitated before you told him. You even gave him your daughter’s real name. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.”
Bucky was probably pushing his luck, but he’d regret it if he didn’t try. “Look, I know this is forward, but can I give you my number?” He asked, giving you what he hoped was a charming yet soft stare.
He didn’t take offense to the skepticism in your eyes. “Um…” You glanced over your shoulder to make sure the group was still close by.
“It’s more than okay if you say no,” he said. He didn’t want you to feel pressured in the slightest and he shouldn’t have assumed you were single because you weren’t wearing a ring.
It was also selfish in a way since you and your daughter seemed so bright and his world was dark, but maybe you two were the real reason he went to the museum today.
After a moment and exchanging a look with your daughter, you shrugged and handed him your phone. “Sure, why not?”
His heart soared when he put his number in, wondering how quickly he’d hear from you. “You won’t regret it,” he promised, making sure to give Sweet Pea one more smile, too. “Have fun making the roller coaster. And good luck with the contest.”
“Thanks, Mister Bucky!”
Bucky’s heart melted all over again as she pulled you away. You even glanced back and gave him a tiny smile, which he returned with one of his own.
He didn’t know you yet, but he sensed deep down that your expectations were set low when it came to men. He was going to enjoy raising the bar.
And he was going to enjoy giving you and Sweet Pea the best life possible, if you gave him a chance.
Wait ‘til the gang hears about this…
I don't have a name yet for the AU and still coming up with a nickname for our reader (Dream Girl and Starlight have been suggested!), but I can't wait to share more. Check out Heart and Home here! Love and thanks for reading! ❤️
Summary: Bucky wants a taste before he takes you home.
Word Count: 300
Warnings: DARK AU, dubcon/noncon elements, implied oral sex (f. receiving), implied unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), mention of murder, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).
A/N: Another for day 18 of the Sexy September Scribbles Challenge. Prompt: Make me beg for it. A follow up to Flinch! ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @saradika-graphics. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications as I no longer do taglists. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!
Your hands trembled as you attempted to pack. You blamed it on shock from seeing a hole in your ex-boyfriend’s head and not the aftermath of the pleasure Bucky pulled from your body. At least the mobster was kind enough to use a silencer to minimize the sound and not hurt your ears.
“I can buy you new clothes,” Bucky offered, waltzing over and plucking the garment from your hand. He looked completely put together, like he hadn’t just fucked you like he owned you. Or killed someone. “Why don’t I lay you out on the bed and taste just how sweet your pussy is before we go?”
Heat filled your cheeks. “You’re dripping out of me,” you barely whispered.
“You think it’ll bother me if I taste myself inside you? I want to,” he murmured, brushing his lips against yours. “I’ll clean you up and fill you up all over again.”
“So, I’m really your whore now?” you spat.
You trembled more when he wrapped a hand around your throat, but he didn’t squeeze. “I may fuck you like a whore, but you’re my queen now.”
“Queens have power,” you said. You had none.
He smirked, putting you on the bed before you could protest. “They do. So, use it,” he said, spreading your legs and gliding his hands up your thighs. “Make me beg for it.”
Your eyes widened. “You’d beg?”
“I don’t usually beg, but I will for you… the woman given to me by a coward,” he replied, your eyes filling with tears. “You came so hard on my cock. Do it on my tongue.”
Your walls ached in a good way from him splitting you open, and your body wanted more. “Say please.”
He smiled. “Please.”
Because a king only bows to his queen.
Again, I think you're better off. Check out Sigh! Love and thanks for reading. ❤️
a short series featuring Andy Barber as a soft dark mafia boss who set his sights on you and never plans to let you go
While Andy Barber was well-known in Boston, there are whispers of a darker side, but few know his morals know no bounds. He's successful, he's charming, he's generous, and you're about to find out just how dangerous he can be.
Content Warnings: [check individual parts for their respective warnings]
DUBIOUS CONSENT, extortion, explicit smut (see individual parts for detailed warnings), power plays, manipulation, financial spoiling, forced marriage
COLLECTION:
I'm Your Man [3k]
Morning Radiance [750]
Prepare for Takeoff [1.5k]
Don't Look Too Far [6.4k]
Burned Off the Haze [4.5k]
Cracking Locks [5k]
Dangerous Desires [6.3k]
Only Your Actions Talk [5.9k]
By the End of the Night [6.2k]
ANDY'S POV You Should Know [800]
Currents Sweeping Through [3.8k]
Different Things [3.9k]
Last Vows Before the Altar [7.5k]
ANDY'S POV For Better and For Worse [1.7k]
parts that jump ahead of the timeline and may or may not remain cannon to this AU:
ask: a moment on your honeymoon [350]
Make Her Glow [1k]
EXTRAS:
↠ will Andy let the reader work?
↠ what if Andy were forced into marriage with the reader?
↠ what if sweetheart tried to get rid of her engagement ring?
↠ does Andy have ulterior motives?
↠ did Andy pick you to be the mother of his children/did he watch you before?
Sweet, sweet Aspen. You have been a very bad girl. This soft!dark guy, your boss, caught you doing something wrong—something that could easily get you fired—but he decided maybe, jussst maybe, he should keep your indiscretion, and your resulting punishment, between the two of you. After all, he’s been dreaming about filling you with his cock for ages 😏
(I picked this GIF because it looks like he’s saying, “On your knees.” lolll)
well, dearly beloved sister ho, you know we were thirsting over a particularly ... inspiring gif.
I don't think you anticipated your ask to spawn THIS, but... here we are! THANKS FOR POPPING MY ANDY CHERRY!
Title: I'm Your Man
Characters/Pairings: soft dark!Mafia!Andy Barber x female!reader
Word Count: 3k
Summary: You've spent weeks working to pull off the perfect night for Andy Barber's big charity event. A rush job, but you worked meticulously and diligently over six weeks to coordinate the biggest event of your career to date. You weren't the only one with a plan for the night.
Content Warnings: extortion, explicit smut, DUBIOUS CONSENT, spitting, oral - male receiving, spanking, vaginal intercourse, breeding kink, unprotected sex
Logistical Notes: A NAUGHTY submission @the-slumberparty's Naughty or Nice challenge. Prompts incorporated are in bold.
Additional Notes: I didn't want to write a summary. There's only enough plot here to smut you up. Dividers by @rookthornesartistry and @firefly-graphics.
You sit up straight when you hear the door to Andy’s home office open behind you.
“Thank you for waiting for me,” he says as he strides across the room and takes a seat in the leather executive desk chair.
“Yes, of course, Mr. Barber,” you reply. Every part of your body is tired – tired in a good way from the long day of work – so you were eager to get home, soak in your tiny tub, and crawl into bed for the rest of the weekend, but it hadn’t been an incredible inconvenience when he’d asked if he could speak with you before you left.
“Tonight was exquisite, you did well,” he doles out the praise, and you try to quell the blooming in your chest. In the six weeks working with Andy Barber to plan the charity event you’d just executed for his foundation you had seen that he wasn’t one to casually compliment, hard to impress. You had taken more and more satisfaction out of each meeting, email, or text exchange as you consulted and then presented him with options for the event when he had fewer and fewer notes, knowing you had cracked his taste and gained his approval. He’d been your toughest client to date, but by far one of the most rewarding as he had excellent taste.
“Nearly perfect,” he adds.
Your smile falters ever so slightly, and suddenly your chest floods with a chill. “Nearly perfect? I’m sorry, sir, what didn’t live up to your expectations?”
This was far from your first event, you had built an incredible portfolio over the years, and you knew you were finally ascending to be one of the best event coordinators on the eastern seaboard – you had received an email request from a goddamn Vanderbilt to plan a wedding for them in a year and a half that you were going to respond to and accept in the morning. You weren’t arrogant, but you’d worked damn hard and knew you were good.
“You.”
Your breath catches in your throat. “I – what?”
“Only one misstep tonight.”
Your brain flies back through the evening, reviewing every moment, raking through trying to determine what you could have possibly missed.
“I’m very particular about what belongs to me, and I cannot abide theft.”
Your jaw drops.
“Empty your bag.”
Now your whole body is buzzing with incredulity. You shake your head.
“I know what’s in there.”
You almost didn’t take this job when it landed in your lap. He was the reason you knew you should have said no. There were whispers about his reputation, his real businesses. But you took the initial consultation because the pitch was more money than you’d made over the last three years. Then when you’d met him, he’d been so normal, so nice, maybe a little charming, and up until this moment you had convinced yourself there was no way any of those rumors had been right.
But before you even put your hand in your bag, you knew you were wrong to have thought he wasn't all those awful things.
Not one, not two, but three Rolex watches nestled in the bottom of the main pocket. Watches you'd never seen - wouldn't even have known where to find them.
You scoop them out and drop them on his desk, eyes burning with tears. “Why?”
“Yes, why? I was already giving you a fat paycheck. What a shame when I had just given your name to the Vanderbilts’ social secretary for their son’s wedding a few days ago, I’ll have to reach out and let them know.”
“No,” you breathe.
“I’ll have to discreetly let everyone in my network know it’s better not to invite someone in their home with such light fingers.”
Your breath hitches and your hand flies to your mouth to stifle an almost sob, trying to hold back the onset of tears. “Andy, no, please.”
His smile softens. “There we are,” he coos, “you finally called me Andy like I’ve told you to so many times.”
He leans forward resting his arms on his desk.
“Now, if you go upstairs, be a good girl, put on what I left for you in my room, and wait for me, maybe I can make all of this little misunderstanding go away.”
His steel blue eyes are hard, they demand an answer.
You cock your chin up wishing you could say no, wishing you could even scowl at him, but aside from the heat and hurt in your eyes, you know you can’t do anything more without risking further ruin, so ultimately you let your chin drop and nod, resigned to the impossible power this man wields.
“Now we’re back on track for a perfect night, sweetheart. I’ll be up soon.”
You don’t know how long he makes you wait, using the promise of soon as another show of his power, but long enough that your knees hurt from sitting back on your heels in a submissive, kneeling position with your head lowered, hands folded in your lap, and back to the door as the card in the white box left for you had instructed.
Also in the box had been a set of exquisite black lace and silk balconette bra and cheeky underwear. That they fit you like a glove had been both humiliating and alluring.
Even though Andy was the reason you almost said no to the job, even though he was the humiliating reason you were in this position – extorted into a nearly naked state, no question of what was to come – he was also the reason you took the job.
Dread pooled in your stomach, but along with the dread and humiliation, there were rivulets of shameful desire.
You had taken the job for the money and for how quietly charming he had been. He had never outright flirted with you, but he always left you with the question of whether he was. You worked hard for him because it felt good to win his approval. He praised you and you had preened under his intense blue eyes every time. You had forced yourself to keep everything professional.
All for nothing since you are in the farthest position from professional now.
When you finally hear him enter the room, you sit up straight again.
He tsks and says, “Head down, sweetheart.”
Andy comes around to stand in front of you. You see his perfectly polished shoes, the perfectly tailored trousers. His hand moves to your jaw, tilting your head up to look at him. He runs his thumb over your lips, circling them.
“Open your mouth,” he says.
You do.
He leans closer, then spits in your mouth, and you blink in surprise, a surge of humiliation running through you, but his grip on your jaw is powerful, so you don’t move away.
“Close your mouth but don’t swallow.”
He moves back from you then, and he begins to silently undress. He had already taken off his jacket, but he doesn’t hurry as he unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt, the buttons down his chest, and then shrugs it off his shoulders. He places it nicely on a plush armchair on the side of the room. Next he sits on the edge of the bed and removes his shoes and socks.
The way he doesn’t watch you but does all of this in your line of vision, knowing you have to watch, is another move meant to communicate who is in control of this situation. Still holding his saliva on your tongue is starting to become uncomfortable. Your instinct is to swallow, but you don’t know what disobedience may mean with Andy, so you fight the urge, not wanting to tempt any more of his darkness.
He stands and takes the shoes and socks to a large closet off to the side of the room, and when he returns, he stands directly in front of you again, reclaims your jaw in his hands.
“Show me,” he says.
Your eyes watch his face you open your mouth, showing him the pool of saliva.
“Good fucking girl,” he murmurs. You hate the small bloom in your chest those words immediately invoke again. He spits into your mouth for a second time, then with a caress that is too tender he urges you to close your mouth. “Swallow.”
You do.
Andy unbuckles his belt, unbuttons the top of his fly, then unzips and pushes down the waist of his trousers with his briefs, and reveals his hard cock for you.
He’s big.
You had gotten yourself off to the thought of him a few of times late at night alone in your bed, most recently a few days ago, and you hated that you had since you were now here like this, forced on your knees in front of him.
Your core is pulsing with heat at the sight of him though – bigger than you had fantasized, and bigger than any man you’ve been with previously. You know he’ll fill you in a way that will ruin you for other men. You want and dread it.
“Take me in your mouth, sweetheart,” he commands.
Instead of forcing his cock into your mouth, this is more possessive, having you submit yourself to pleasing him of your own accord. You know every way he’s manipulating you.
“If I have to tell you one more time,” he trails off, leaving the end open for your imagination.
You plant one hand softly on his hip and wrap your other hand around his shaft, leaning forward to take him in your mouth. As you push forward, he groans. He won’t hold back when he’s pleased with you – he never has, he knows it affects you. His hands go to either side of your head. “Eyes on me, sweetheart.”
You do as he says, sucking him, bobbing up and down his length, and for a while he lets you control the speed and the depth, but his hands let you know he can and will control this when he wants to. After the first couple of minutes, he makes this clear when you push back to take a breath and wipe the mix of your spit and his pre-cum dripping out of your mouth and his hands firmly prevent you from moving off him. Instead, he pushes you down slowly – more slowly than you had been pumping – and doesn’t stop until your nose hits his lower abdomen. You try to push against his hips, and he pushes his hips forward with you still anchored on his dick. Your eyes well up.
“So pretty,” he says, “imagined you like this, but you’re more gorgeous than I thought you would be.”
Something in your chest melts. You wish he wouldn’t say things like that. It makes you weaker – weaker for him. He pulls back just an inch or two, then pushes his length into your throat again.
“That’s it, sweetheart, my perfect fucking girl.”
You whimper, and the tears spill over.
His right hand moves away from your face and around behind him. He’s quick, and when you can see his hand again, it’s to discover he’s taken his phone out of his back pocket. He takes photos of you, angling the phone a few different ways. Then he tosses the phone onto the chair where he’d laid his shirt.
Then he resumes his small, concentrated rutting, only easing out just enough to make the thrust back in worth it for him. As he does, he groans, swears, wipes tears from your cheeks, and the moment before it’s too much, he finally pulls you off him.
You fall forward, gasping for deep lungfuls of air, but he’s already putting a hand under your arm and hauling you up.
“Get on the bed,” he instructs, man handling you with surprising ease, doing most of the work your weak and aching legs can’t do to hoist you up onto his Alaskan king bed.
He’s immediately up as well and behind you, the last of his clothing stripped off. His fingers quickly undo the clasp of your bra and pull it off your shoulders and toss it away. He pushes you forward, toppling you down to the mattress. He slaps your ass, and you gasp and jerk. He brings his hand down on your round flesh again, with another sting, but the second one has you moan, and he lets out a satisfied, “Yes,” before giving you a third slap, the hardest, and you moan again, but this one more guttural, and you’d be mortified if you weren’t shocked over the way it translated to pleasure so quickly to your brain.
Then he yanks the lacy underwear roughly down and off your legs, tossing it away as well. He pushes between your legs behind you, splitting your legs open, and his fingers seek your cunt.
He hums in approval, “So wet for me. Ready for me.”
You huff and pant.
He leans over your back, pressing you down into the mattress. “Are you eager for me?”
“Andy,” you whine.
“Say it and I’ll fuck you good, sweetheart.”
You don’t want to. You bury your face in the covers.
He slaps your ass again, and you yelp.
“Admit you want me to fuck you.”
Another slap.
Another.
“Yes,” you finally concede.
“To breed you.”
You gasp, but he’s already hauling you further up the bed, and he drapes himself over your back, arms caging you in on either side of your body. His legs push yours apart as he leans down to press kisses over your shoulder blades, at the base of your neck, along your spine. He uses one hand to guide the thick head of his cock to your leaking entrance. He doesn’t care to stretch you. “Take me in your cunt, sweetheart, it’s mine.”
The only mercy is that he slots himself in slowly.
You press your hands up against the headboard and concentrate on taking deep breaths, on trying to relax your walls completely, because he’s entering you, in you, filling you, unrelenting invasion and it’s pleasure and pain and too much and not enough because every moment of more fullness is exquisite and you can’t even think about holding back the sound he’s pushing out from your diaphragm, up your throat, and out of your mouth, because that’s how it feels as he's filling you.
Once’s he’s fully inside of you, he presses his mouth right next to your ear. “I’m going to fill this pussy with my seed.” He anchors one hand on your hips, then begins pull out, only so he can start thrusting back in. “I want everyone to know who you belong to.”
You’ve never had an orgasm only from vaginal penetration, but the way he fills you as he fucks you, and at this angle, making you almost forget to keep breathing, you wonder if this is how you’ll go, strung out as his cock punishes you with the pleasure, but then his hand works around beneath you and his fingers quickly find your swollen and aching clit. You cry out, and one of your hands reaches back to cling to him, fingers clutching into his hair. He nips at your neck, chuckling darkly.
“My pretty girl, my good girl, taking my cock so well. You close?”
An immediate, “Uh huh,” is all you can manage.
“Then let go,” he commands, pinching your clit harshly.
You see stars, and you cry out for him.
Hearing you scream his name and feeling you clench around him is all he needs, and he pumps his cum into you, saying more dirty, filthy, possessive things, but you don’t know what the words are, because you’re completely lost to coherency.
He sinks his full weight on top of you when he’s completely spent.
Both of you are silent while you come down, heartrates returning to normal.
You wait for him to say whatever he’s going to torment you with next, but he doesn’t speak.
After more long moments, he finally pushes up enough to turn you from your front to your back. He cups your jaw again and strokes his thumb over your cheek. Your breath hitches at the intimate gesture in the aftermath.
“Aw, why are you crying now, sweetheart?”
No, you didn’t want more tears, and not these - the soft tears. You try to look away, but he forces your face back to look at him.
“I would have slept with you if you’d asked, Andy, why did you have to do it like this?”
“Because this is so much more than that, sweetheart. I didn’t want to just sleep with you, and I needed you to know from here on out that you’re mine. I own you. I’m very particular about what belongs to me. I didn’t want you to have any illusion that there’s a choice here.”
He brushes the tears off your cheek.
“I’ll have my men move your things here in the morning, and we’ll elope in a few weeks. I’m closing the deal on a resort in Lake Como, doesn’t that sound perfect? We’ll tie the knot and then spend our honeymoon there – we can stay all summer if you want.”
You hesitate.
“No one else is gonna take care of you like I do. Now I asked you, ‘doesn’t that sound perfect?’”
“Yes, Andy,” you whisper.
“Of course, it does.” He finally kisses you – and it’s dangerously soft. Warm lips engulfing yours, insistent, sucking your bottom lip between his. You whimper, and he licks his tongue into your mouth, lapping you up. He rolls over with you, putting him back on the mattress with you on his chest. He holds you pressed to him with one hand, the other hand securing your head so you can’t escape his kiss until he’s done kissing you.
It isn’t until you think you might pass out from how breathless you are that he finally breaks off the kiss. He shifts his pelvis up against you, his cock hardening again. “And I was serious about you carrying my child. But first you’ll ride my face until I’ve made you cry for a good reason, and then I’ll fill you up with more of my seed. You’re not leaving this bed the rest of the weekend.”
ARE YOU OKAY? AM I? DO WE EVEN CARE IF WE'RE OKAY?
read: -> THE MORNING AFTER
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For @societyfolklore & @soelstress Sexy September Scribbles day 6 - "Can you be good for me?"
Masterlist | Mutually Beneficial | Bucky Barnes
Bucky's vibranium fingers held your wrists down on the bed, the other hand planted next your face. His body hovered over you, barely touching, despite your attempt to lift your hips to meet his.
"Can you be good for me?" He growled, nosing at your jaw in an attempt to stave off his desire to kiss you.
"Hmmm…" You pretended to think deeply, spreading your legs wider. "No."
"No?" He lifted an eyebrow in wry amusement, "you won't behave?"
"Ah, no I don't think I will." You grinned, excited to hear about your punishment, last time he'd spanked you while you wore your sparkly butt plug, the time before that he'd tied your wand to your leg to see how many times you could come in half an hour.
"And you're hoping for some kind of punishment I expect?"
You nodded enthusiastically.
"I see." Bucky's eyes darkened and you heard the tell-tale click of you cuffs as he looped them around the headboard and then secured each one around your wrists.
You squirmed in anticipation.
"So, what's my punishment?"
Bucky sat up at the end of the bed, knees spreadwide, his jeans clinging to his thighs and pulled his black t-shirt up, biting the hem to keep it away from his toned stomach. The metal whirr of his zipper had your eyes trained between his legs as he freed his leaking cock.
"Wait, what're you doing?" You tugged on the cuffs but they were held tight.
"You didn't want to behave, Babydoll, so it's nothing for you to worry about, you just lay there, while I enjoy myself."
He circled the base of his cock and began a slow rhythm.
Missed You | Bucky x Reader | Mutually Beneficial AU | Drabble
You and Bucky have been dying for some alone time and there's a new thing he wants to try.
Warnings: 18+ sexual content, dom!Bucky, dirty talk, pet names & honourifics, daddy kink, oral sex, p in v, creampie, fingering, praise kink, bondage, spreader bar. S for smut and D for Daddy.
Bucky held the flat silver tag between his metal thumb and forefinger, leading you towards your room as he stepped backwards.
"Missed you, Babydoll" he hushed.
"I've been right here, Sarge," you were aiming for even and controlled, but the way he leads you so gently, his dark eyes, you're already under his spell so your words are followed by a breathy gasp.
"No, you weren't, not really. And neither was I." He was right. It'd been such a long week. A mission gone horribly wrong led to an Agent in Bucky's squad getting shot. Not fatally, they were currently milking their wounded soldier status across the compound. But the guilt of it was burning through him. Between his mission, your reports, briefings and a mission of your own you hadn't had any time to be truly together.
"I know, Sarge. But I'm here now, whatever you want from me, I'm here," and you meant it. His need for some semblance of order, of control, to bring joy and not pain, you would always give that to him if he could. You leaned up, nudging your nose with this, planting a light kiss against his lips.
"Do you trust me?" He cooed, so close you could almost taste the sharp coldness of his minty toothpaste.
"Yes, Sarge," you can't help how quiet you become with him, barely a whisper.
"Good. Climb on the bed, Baby. Clothes off." You scramble onto your back, shedding your clothes in a pile on the floor. Eagerly you prop yourself up on your elbows, watching him watch you back, blue eyes blown dark.
He steps forwards slowly and reaches under the bed, pulling out a metal pole.
"I saw this, do you wanna play?" He holds it up in the dim light. Black metal with a soft cuff at either end.
"A spreader bar?" You thought you were wet before but this is nothing. Bucky researching on his own, buying sex toys while he thinks of you gives you such a rush you can barely contain yourself.
"God, yes, please!" You lay back again, legs spread waiting for him. Gently he cuffs one leg then the other, there's a little movement when you wiggle your ankle but you can't move your legs together or apart. Bucky looks down at you hungrily, watching as you test the limits of your bondage.
His hands danced up your legs, featherlight, "you look good like this, Babydoll, all spread out for me." His thumbs ran over you, teasing your drenched folds. Apart, a tentative swipe, and then together again. The ache worse than before, "you look beautiful. All mine. And you'll do as you're told, won't you, because you're a good girl." He tapped lightly with one finger against your clit illiciting a wanton desperate moan.
"I asked you a question, you'll be my good girl, won't you?" He tapped again, harder. You're not sure you've ever fallen so fast into subspace. You struggled for words, your brain fighting for coherent thoughts.
"Answer me, Babydoll, or have I got you wrong. Are you a bad girl after all?" He slapped the inside of your thigh, the damp of your own slick making it sting harder.
"I'll be good, Daddy," it slipped out before you could stop yourself but you're still reeling from his hands on you, too gone to notice.
"What did you call me?" He sat back, his patented stare in full effect, bringing you slowly back into the light.
"I'm sorry, Sarge, what did I say?" Heat suffused your cheeks, burning your skin.
"You called me Daddy." Bucky's voice was a low, rough growl that had your knees bending in.
It's not a word you'd used before with Bucky, once or twice with other partners and certainly in the porn you watch. But you haven't talked about it. This wasn't in your negotiations. Your blood runs cold and that single coherent thought that struggled so hard before floats to the surface 'you've ruined everything'.
"Sorry, Daddy, I mean, I said Daddy, sorry, Daddy, I mean Sarge, Daddy, Sir. Sorry."
Bucky smirked and licked his bottom lip before taking it between his teeth briefly.
"Are you angry, don't be angry, Daddy, Sarge, Sir, sorry. I, I can't think. I - please. Just punish me, I'm sorry. I-" he let's his lip drop, licking over the bite mark again. He knew exactly what that did to you, how it made you feel hot all over.
"You're not in trouble" His hand was gentle as it skimmed your cheek. "Didn't know you'd like that. Didn't know I liked that" His thumb rubbed over your lip, and you took the opportunity to lick the pad, pulling the digit into your mouth. Vibranium doesn't really taste of anything, but the action was soothing, a hint of your own arousal lingering.
"You keep calling me that, Baby, and you can have anything you want. Okay?" He popped his thumb out of your mouth and trailed it around your nipple before giving the nub a little tweak.
You squeaked in surprise, "Yes, Daddy," and he groaned back.
"I think it's been long enough. I need to feel you, Baby, you be good and still for me, okay." He tugged the bar between your legs, pulling you further down the bed before carefully flipping you over, ass in the air and face pressed into the blankets.
"Yes, Daddy," you chanted again and Bucky was glad you couldn't see him, pressing his own face into the curve of your spine to hide his grin.
"Good girl," he pushed in as his praise made you flutter, griping your hips as he set a slow, firm pace, pressing against the soft secret spot inside that makes you see stars. His pace wasn't fast but Bucky was always relentless, no space to think, just him and you and the way he makes you feel.
"Feels good, I missed you so much, I needed this." You moaned out, whining before you could stop the pathetic noise from escaping. You were back to black, nothing but the feel of Bucky inside you, his hands on your body. He roamed further, pressing gently and tweaking at your clit, hard and aching under you. You rutted back trying to get some control to push you over the edge he had you dangling over.
"No, no, Babydoll, be a good girl." He grabbed the bar and slowly pushed it further up the bed, forcing your knees closer to your chest and bending you almost in half, "you can be good for me, right? All I need you to do is stay there," he punctuated his command with a slap to your ass, but you were already nodding your head as hard as you could, your hand under your forehead to keep you upright, "I knew you could be good for Daddy."
That did it, hearing him say it back was too much, electricity coiled up from your toes, a shock of lighting up your spine as you spasm and clutch at him however you can.
"Daddy!" You mewled as you came, your hand reaching back for his, fingers closing around your wrist and holding it down against the bed as he lost control, hips stuttering, bruising against your back. You both fell forward into the mattress as he filled you, deep and hot, painting ever inch of you.
"Jesus, fuck, baby," his nose rubbed against your back, hot kisses running down your spine, keeping you spread out, hands above your head.
The cuffs left your ankles but you stayed prone on the bed anyway, only turning enough to smile back at Bucky, his hair sticking up with sweat. You followed a droplet down his chest, gulping when you noticed he's still half hard.
"Let's take a minute," he kissed each ankle while he helped you turn onto your back, wrapping each leg around his waist and holding you against him as you come down from your high. "Oh baby, don't wanna waste anything," he chided, lifting your hips a little higher, leaning forwards and sliding a hand over you where his cum seeps down your leg. Two fingers swiped through it and meet your lips encouraging you to suck. His other hand palmed his seed back into you, fucking two fingers in and out slowly, gently curling and pulling another surprising orgasm past your lips. Silent and begging you gasp and writhe beneath him, too tired and fucked out to do more than take the pleasure he was giving you.
His kisses were back then, fluttering over your temple and your ear.
"Beautiful, Babydoll, beautiful," is the last thing you heared, floating into sleepy bliss.
Appreciate You | Bucky Barnes x Reader | Mutually Beneficial AU | Drabble
Bucky returns home from a mission and you're desperate to show him how much you appreciate everything he does. But all he wants to do is take care of you.
Warnings: 18+ sexual content, d/s relationship (dom!Bucky & Sub!Reader), thigh riding, handjob, dirty talk. little s for a little bit of smut, F for fluffy.
"Babydoll, let me take care of you, I missed you." Bucky removed your hands off the coffee pot and started moving you to the sofa. "No one fuckin' listens to me like you do, not going another mission without my best agent." He'd rushed straight from the Quinjet, still dressed to the nines in his suit, tie slightly undone and a smallest splash of blood on his cuff.
You chuckled, "I should hope no one listens to you quite like I do," you winked, kissing his cheek and squeezing his forearms.
"That's true," he kissed you back, the taste of him was wonderful and familiar, a balm for the anxiety you'd been feeling, god - you'd missed him so much. "But it is nice to come back to you. Look at you, all cute and snuggly from bed at 4am, just for me. Let me at least get my little Babydoll a coffee." He rubbed his nose against yours, running his hands over your shoulders and down your back, drawing you closer.
You let him guide you to the sofa, but when he tried to get you to sit you shifted, making him fall over you. His dog tag dangled infront of your face mirroring the little silver necklace at your throat with the matching tag, and you shivered at the view. His dishevelled hair and smart suit, the hint of the man underneath now so enticingly close.
"But, Sarge, you've been away and busy, saving the world," and maybe you exaggerated, giving him a little pout, but only because you knew he needed the praise as much as you did, the reassurance that he really was doing something important now. "I wanted to welcome you home, make you feel good." You ran your palm down his chest towards the growing bulge in his formal trousers and squeezed, not noticing his quiet gasp, drowned out by your own moan at the hard feeling of him under your grasp.
You had woken up to see the Quinjet land on the pad in the compound, desperate to welcome your Sergeant back home and had been feeling wet and needy since. In a hurry to meet him you'd thrown on one of his shirts and a pair of shorts, switched the already prepped coffee pot on and run bare foot through the compound to meet him.
You'd thrown yourself into his arms and let him carry you back to your rooms, but now he was being difficult, resisting you attention when all you wanted to do was serve him and make him feel good.
"God, Baby, the things you do to me," his lips, hips, whole body pressing you into the sofa, the smell of his sweat and his cologne surrounding you. He was so impossibly hard already, the length of him grinding against your core.
"Just wanna appreciate you, Sergeant Barnes," you cooed into his ear, kissing at the little spot that made him growl and paw at you. He was cracking a little, letting you grind up against him, " please - sir," you whispered coyly.
"You're very naughty, you know," he groaned in return, low and dark in your ear, "but - fine, I give up. Get me a coffee, Babydoll and then we'll see," he slapped your ass lightly as you stood, his shirt riding up over your hips as you skipped over to the kitchen, much too awake for this early.
You returned with a huge mug of pitch black coffee full of sugar. Bucky used his left hand to take it, the mug itself hot, prewarmed under the tap just how he liked it.
"Where's yours, Babydoll?" He picked his head up from the back of the sofa, watching you slink back slowly, dropping to your knees and running your hands over his thighs.
"I want something else, Sarge," you looked up at him through your lashes, "I think you want it too? Let me take care of you. Drink your coffee, I'll make you feel good and then I'll run you a nice -" you placed a kiss to his clothed thigh, "hot," kiss, "bath," you kissed the inside of his thighs, feeling the rough scratch of his suit and the tight muscle underneath, getting higher and higher until you could mouth over his throbbing cock, held back only by a zipper and straining button.
"Come up here, Babydoll, sit on my knee so I can kiss you," Bucky unzipped his trousers revealing the aching tip of his cock, his hand took yours, sliding through the slick together as you gave him a few tight pumps. He let his head fall back, giving you the space you craved to kiss and bite along the exposed skin, his scruff against your cheek and his heartbeat wild under your lips had you rubbing against it.
"That's it, Baby," he soothed into your ear, one hand on your hip, encouraging you to rub your arousal over his leg, "you make your Sergeant cum like a good girl and then what I want, what I really want, is to take you to our room," he kissed your cheek, humming against your warm skin, "I'm going to take you to our room and watch you fall apart on my cock," his words had you squirming on him, his hands holding you still, one on your hip, the other over yours as he released over your clenched fingers.
Bucky dragged you to the back of the plane, sliding the panel that separated the main sitting area from a small cargo hold at the back.
Sam had shouted that the both of you should behave, there was no worry about that. You'd behave now, the fire behind Bucky's eyes told you you'd behave for a long time after this as well.
"You could have died" he hissed, hauling you up onto the large container box. Even though he was looking up at you now, you still felt small. Stupid. Tears welled in your eyes as he continued to berate you, that you were an agent first, that you were supposed to follow orders because they keep you safe.
He looked up from his tirade to see the tears begin to roll and stepped forward, back into your space.
"Babydoll?" He dropped his voice, quiet now, and wary.
"I'm so sorry" you sobbed, letting the tears over flow and pour down your face "I'm so sorry, I wanna follow orders, I wanna be good, I thought-" you hiccuped "I thought you were in danger, I couldn't-" hiccup "bare it".
Strong hands cupped your face, brushing your tears away, his hands cold from his leather gloves.
"Oh, Babydoll, that's why?"
You nodded, voice failing you. Bucky wrapped you in his arms, pulling you close and burying his own face in your leather clad chest.
"I wanna be good" you whispered "I wanted to be good. I - I love you is all and I"
He looked up, pressing his thumb to your lips, salty and red from your tears.
"I love you too, Baby, I'm sorry. You are good, you are" he ran a hand over your hair.
"Even though I didn't follow your orders?"
"Even though you didn't follow my orders. I can't blame you, I'd have done the same thing" he murmured.
"Will you tell me I'm good again? I feel...bad" you flushed, trying to hide your embarrassed face in his neck.
"Yeah? You need to feel like my good girl again?" The words went straight through you like electricity.
"Yes, yes please, Sarge" you did your best innocent eyes, blinking slowly and biting his thumb, still resting against your mouth.
"Hmmm... okay" he narrowed his eyes but the low grin he was hiding gave him away "Let's get you out of this" he plucked at the leather jacket and polyester combat trousers you were wearing, a few knife cuts against the legs from your earlier tussel.
Bucky backed across the small hold to the thin bench against the wall of the plane as you stripped, patting his knee "c'mon then, Babydoll, c'mere like my good girl, my best girl"
On wobbly legs you walked across the space, you felt dizzy, sick like you'd been poisoned by your own lust. Falling into his lap he spread your legs over his own, knees widening until your body hovered between you.
He pulled you down by your tag, holding you still while he kissed you, biting at your bottom lip and pulling away enough to look you in the eye.
"That's my Babydoll" he slid a leather clad hand across your wet folds, the cold material drawing stark attention to his tight black attire and your complete lack of clothing. The thought made you gush, fresh slick coating the leather as he pushed two fingers in "What a good girl, all wet for me."
He leaned forward making you clutch at his jacket for balance "think you could get wetter"
You moaned a response, you're sure you could, the question was more whether you'd survive it.
His fingers stilled, your hips winding in response, trying to find purchase, friction, something. Bucky chuckled darkly, biting the lobe of your ear until you cried out. His other hand shot up, covering your mouth. Without his support you dug your hands deeper into his clothes, feet barely touching the floor as your legs dangled over his thighs.
"Hush, Baby" you quietly moaned against his mouth, moving your hips again "I know what you need, my desperate girl can't wait any longer, can you" you shook your head, trying to stay quiet "and you want to be a good girl for your Sergeant, right?" You nodded "then you'll fuck yourself" you moaned again, his hand tightening over your lips "quietly! Or not at all. Can you do that?" You nodded. His hand moved away "tell me"
"I can do that, Sarge"
"Do what"
"Fuck myself, Sarge" you were so deeply ashamed of how much you needed this, but God, he was right, you were wetter, your arousal dripping on the floor.
"How?"
"On your fingers, Sarge" his deep chuckle was back.
"Good girl, yes, but I was looking for quietly"
"Yes, yes quietly, Sarge, I'll be quiet, I'll be good, Sarge, promise, so good"
He brought his legs a little closer together, your toes just touching the floor and giving you enough leverage to bounce on his hand.
"Then show me"
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