The irony of this new breed of self-righteous AI hunters on AO3 is that they're all just copy and pasting peoples fics into AI detectors, which are all operated by AI and therefore THEY are feeding people's work into the algorithm without their consent and in some cases no doubt circumventing the locks people put on to avoid getting scraped...
Don't copy and paste anyone's AO3 work into third party websites, you're not the good guys in this situation?
⸝⸝ SUMMARY ─ ❝ as an outlaw, steve rogers has two rules: keep moving, and don't go back. but for you he's broken the second one more times than he can count. he comes when he can, leaves before dawn, and you don't ask what he gets up to in between. until one night it's not just steve at your door, but his partner, bucky barnes, with your outlaw bleeding through his shirt and bounty hunters four days behind them. ❞ ⧽ 23k
！SMUT, like seriously there is so much smut in this (3 separate scenes lol), dry humping, cock grinding, p in v, fingering, handjob, voyeurism/exhibitionism, masturbation (m), slight pervy!bucky?, oral (m & f receiving), threesome (reader goes to paris!), m/m content, praise kink, hair pulling, soft doms!stucky but lowkey switch!steve!, heavy yearning, three idiots in love, kinda one bed trope?, slow burn, shameless flirt bucky, bisexual!awakening stucky, angst, probably very medically inaccurate wound treatment, probably also historical inaccuracies, frontier/wild west AU, 18+ MDNI
⤷ from mads: this is my contribution to the Captain Americana film festival collab for steve's birthday (happy belated birthday stevie!!). i decided to base my fic off the film "butch cassidy and the sundance kid", because the first time i watched this i was just like... oh this is my stucky cowboy AU fr. plus, i thought steve deserved both you and bucky as his birthday present. half of this was written sleep deprived so sorry for any errors » cowboy edits of steve and bucky made by me with canva, pinterest and a dream please be kind and don't look too closely xx » MASTERLIST
Frontier towns always think they can tell a good man from a bad one.
A good man does honest work with honest hands. A good man comes to church on Sundays. Most importantly, a good man is known - by his name, his family, and his business. In a town like this, familiarity passes easily for virtue. A bad man, then, is the one nobody can place. And the town, never fond of a question, fills it with the worst thing it can imagine.
The law has a simpler system still.
One that decrees who is a man and who is a wanted man. It prints the latter on paper and nails it somewhere decent folk can see. Ink drawings of men with shadowed eyes and a jaw made harsher by the hand that drew it. Beneath that is the list of wrongs they have done, and a number in dollars that someone is willing to pay to see him answer for them.
Fifty dollars for a fool. Five hundred for a danger. Five thousand for a dead man walking.
Women, of course, have their own sorting. Just like bad men, women have a value. Only women are rarely granted the dignity of being weighed by their own choices. Instead, they too are valued by a bad man’s wrongdoings.
What he has done to her. Or what he is rumoured to have done with her. Or what he wanted badly enough to lie about. That is how a town makes its ladies. That is how it makes its whores, too.
There are no other kinds of women. Not in this town, or anywhere else for that matter. A third kind would require people to admit women have lives beyond the reach of men’s hands, and no one is in any hurry to go inviting that sort of trouble.
By all accounts, the town had decided kindly on you. A credit to the schoolhouse and a blessing to the children you teach. They would say that you are a fine young lady, and that any good man would be lucky to have you.
No good man, so far, has come and asked. Perhaps that should worry you more than it did. After all, a woman could only remain a fine young lady for so long before the title began to sour on her. A woman in your position was expected to want a steady hand, a clean name,and a ring bought with honest wages. A good man, by the town’s binary judgement.
Your heart, unfortunately, had never shown much interest in good men.
So that’s why tonight, like every other night, your walk home is made alone. Save for the company of crickets keeping up their endless racket, and the watchful hum of a town that likes to sleep with one eye open.
Your skirts hush against the dry grass as you walk further beyond the last few houses, where the town thins to prairie. There waits your little house at the edge of it all, porch sunk crooked in the middle and windows dark as shut eyes. Except the window over the washstand that’s still open; it never sits quite right in its frame. It swells in the summer heat, shrinks in the winter cold, and no matter the season, refuses to latch unless you lean your weight against it.
You’ve been putting off fixing it for months. A respectable man might have fixed it for you by now, had one ever made himself useful.
By the time you step through your front door, the night has drawn close around the house. Moonlight slips through the narrow gap in the curtains, laying a soft glow across the floorboards. Enough to not bother with a lamp.
The schoolbooks go on the table. You set your hat beside them. Your boots are worked off by the bed, left where they fall. Then your fingers find the buttons of your dress.
The first slips free at your throat, then the second follows. The dress loosens by degrees, surrendering the shape of the schoolteacher the town knows so well, until all that remains is the woman beneath it. You drag in a deeper breath, eyes falling shut for a moment as the pressure eases. There is no sweeter mercy than taking off the day. No greater pleasure than unlacing yourself from what the world expected you to be.
With one hand still at your bodice, you turn towards the washstand.
Your eyes catch on a shadow in the chair by your bed. A shocked gasp leaves your lips before you can stop it, sharp and uselessly small in the dark of your room.
At first, he is only a shape amongst shapes.
But the shadow is too still for a drunk, too quiet for a fool, and too comfortable for any man with honest business in a woman’s bedroom after dark. The chair complains beneath the size of him. One boot is planted flat against the floorboards, the other stretches lazily before him. A hand rests on his thigh, and something metallic in it glints in the moonlight.
It points straight at you.
Your breath stalls somewhere high in your chest, trapped behind the open buttons at your throat as your vision adjusts slowly to the dim light. His coat hangs open over a shirt that used to be white, now marked with trail dust and the stain of something you hope is mud.
The gunman tilts his head, and only then does the dark give up the glinting blue of his eyes - fixed on you with the possessive satisfaction of a man finding what he came for. They drop slowly to where your dress has come loose at your throat, exposing the delicate slope beneath your collarbone, and the first soft swell of your chest. Enough skin to make a decent man look away and a worse one very glad he didn’t.
An appreciative rumble hums low from his lips, before his thumb draws back the hammer of his gun with a pointed click.
“Don’t stop on my account, sweetheart.”
For a moment, you’re frozen. Just standing there with your fingers still curled in the loosened front of your dress, breath held tight beneath your ribs. The room narrows to the man in your chair and the gun pointed steady in his hand. He watches you without speaking, patient as a hunter, until he gives an expectant nod of the head.
Slowly, your fingers move again, buttons slipping free beneath your touch. His eyes fixate on the reveal, tongue dipping out the wet his bottom lip in anticipation.
By any measure the town would use, he is a bad man. By the sheriff’s ledger, or by the schoolmaster’s careful catechism about the sorts of men a young lady ought to avoid, the man in your chair is exactly the kind of ruin women are warned against.
You have never much cared for the schoolmaster’s catechism.
Instead your gaze drags over him in return, less innocent than the gasp you might have given. Over the breadth of his shoulders where his shirt pulls tight beneath his open coat. Over the narrowness of his waist and the careless sprawl of his body in your chair, as though he belongs there. Over the powerful thighs spread wide as he sat, revealing the hard, unmistakable bulge pressing against the front of his trousers. Indecent in its honesty and all the more shameless for the way he makes no attempt to hide it.
He watches you notice it, too. Watches your eyes catch and linger, watches your throat work around the breath you have not quite managed to take.
The last button slips free.
Your dress gives way, sliding from your shoulders and falling in a soft heap around your feet. It leaves you in your chemise, though the thin cotton does such a poor job of covering you that the word feels generous. Moonlight passes through it almost cleanly, turning the fabric pale and sheer over the shape of your body: the curve of your waist, the shadow between your thighs, the soft weight of your breasts barely hidden beneath it.
Your nipples tighten into hard little points against the cloth, visible enough that you know he must see them. The knowledge makes your skin burn hotter than any shame ought to allow.
A deep, pleased groan escapes his chest.
The gun stays steady in his hand, but the other shifts against his thigh, fingers flexing into the worn fabric before his palm slides higher. He presses over himself through his trousers, just enough to ease some of the ache there. Just enough to make no secret of what the sight of you has done to him.
“Good girl,” he drawls, “prettiest damn thing I’ve seen in weeks.”
Your stomach pulls tight at the praise, and your thighs press together beneath the thin fall of your chemise before you can think better of giving him any satisfaction.
But the satisfaction arrives in the slight curve of his mouth before he rises from the chair. God, he’s tall, taller than he looks sitting down. And broader too.
If the dark had made a threat of him, the moonlight makes something worse. It loves him. There’s no other word for the way it lingers on him as he steps closer.
It slips first over the dirty blond hair that has fallen loose beneath the brim of his hat. Then it catches on his face, and there’s no mercy for you in how gently it treats him. Long lashes cast low shadows under his eyes, and whatever blue hasn’t been swallowed by desire or the dark gleams too bright. His mouth is plusher than it ought to be on a man with a gun in his hand. Soft in a way the beard can’t rough out, though it tries.
It decorates his jaw, dragging a little danger back over a face that might have been too pretty without it.
The kind of face you know.
It’s nailed up outside the mercantile for decent folk to study and condemn. Some sheriff’s artist had done his best to make a villain of him in ink, darkening the eyes, sharpening the jaw, flattening the mouth into something easier to fear. Anything, perhaps, to keep a lady from looking too long and noticing what the moonlight gives away in your bedroom.
Better, then, to look beneath his name at the hefty four figure sum printed there. And remember what kind of man earns a price like that.
A careful one, you would think.
A man worth that much should know better than to stand so close. And he should definitely know better than to let his defences drop. Most of all, he should know better than to let desire soften the hand with the gun in it.
You move quickly. A sharp twist, a shift of your weight, and the revolver is in your hand instead of his. Then your palm hits the centre of his chest and you shove your weight against his chest.
He falls a little too easily back onto the bed with a rough laugh, his hat knocked loose and tumbling somewhere behind him. You follow before he can sit up, climbing over him with one knee pressed into the mattress on either side of his hips. The chemise rides high on your thighs as you settle your weight over him, and his hands instantly find a home there.
You the press barrel up under his jaw with enough pressure to make him tilt his head back against the quilt, exposing the long line of his throat. All that arrogant ease goes still beneath you. Then his Adam's apple bobs beneath the rough gold of his beard, and the ridiculous blue of his eyes go wide.
He looks stunned. Worse, even, he looks delighted, as though some wicked part of him had been hoping all along that you would do exactly this.
You lean down until only inches remain between you, close enough to see the way his pupils dilate further, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath.
“You’re late, Rogers.”
He doesn’t reply straightaway. Instead, his eyes move over your face as though the rest of the room has fallen away, as though the weeks and the miles have all narrowed done to this - to you. Sat above him in the moonlight, furious and half-naked and close enough to touch. There’s something in his expression far too soft for the size of him, too tender for the outlaw laid out beneath you with a revolver pressed to his throat.
Something that looks almost like disbelief, as if he had spent the whole ride dreaming of you and even still, you looked sweeter than his dreams. Like he can’t quite believe the world has been kind enough to put you in front of him again, and now that he’s here, he means to drink down every inch of you before it can change its mind.
Then the tension eases out of him all at once.
His body goes loose beneath yours, the last of the game slipping from his shoulders as his hands slide higher up your thighs. They wrap around your ass, warm and possessive. The corner of his mouth curves, slow and devastatingly boyish beneath the ruggedness of his beard. Entirely too pleased for a man currently pinned beneath his own gun.
“Missed me?” he drawls, already sure of the answer
You press the gun harder into the soft skin beneath his jaw in answer. His fingers tighten on your thighs, as his hips shift beneath yours. It’s only a small, helpless grind, but it’s enough for you to feel the hard line of his cock twitch against the heat between your legs. The satisfaction of feeling his need for you is almost enough to make you forget you’re angry.
Almost.
“You were supposed to be here three days ago,” you remind him, intending to be stern, but not convinced you achieved it.
“Train was delayed,” Steve replies, his blue eyes bright with the kind of trouble men get hanged for.
Your eyes narrow. He has the decency to look a little sheepish.
“Fine,” he concedes. “Train was delayed ‘cause I robbed it.”
His thumbs trace slow circles over your hipbones, familiar and possessive, like he has any right to soothe you after being the source of your concern. “You worried about me, sweetheart?”
You scoff, “I was debating whether, if the bounty hunters didn’t put a bullet in you, I ought to do it myself.”
It would’ve sounded better if your voice hadn’t come out breathier than you intended. If his body were not so solid and warm beneath you, his thighs hard muscle under your spread legs, his hands moving against your skin as though he had been starving for the feel of it.
“Gun’s not loaded,” His voice goes quieter there, the teasing easing at the edges. “Never is. You think I’d point a loaded gun at you?”
You hate him a little for that. For the empty gun. For the fact that some stubborn, tender part of him had crossed God knows how many miles with a bounty on his head and still remembered to make his filthy little performance safe.
You hate him more for making you care enough to count the days. For making the nights stretch mean when he doesn’t come when he’s meant to. For making you understand, with an anger that burns too hot to be good, what sort of woman waits on a bad man.
“Don’t mean I’m not angry with you,” you whisper, though there’s no bite in your voice.
His gaze drops to your mouth.
“Yeah?” His hands slide back along your thighs, slow enough to make your stomach tighten, high enough to make the thin cotton of your chemise feel like no barrier at all. “Want to show me how angry?”
Your throat tightens. The revolver drops from your hand onto the quilt beside his head. Steve’s eyes lift to yours, and there he is beneath the outlaw. Tired, alive, and yours for the few hours he has no right to give you.
You kiss him hard, pouring all that fear and anger and need into his mouth.
Steve takes it with a groan, his head dropping back against the quilt again. One hand leaves your thigh to catch the back of your neck and drag you closer. This isn't a careful reunion. He bites your lip and the sound you make against his mouth ruins whatever patience he had left.
His tongue pushes possessively into your mouth, licking into you until your fingers twist in the front of his shirt just to have something to hold. When you rock down against him, grinding the damp heat of your pussy over the hard line of his cock through too much fabric, his answering sound catches high and helpless in his throat.
“I ought to punish you for makin’ me wait,” you breathe against his mouth, though the threat loses some of its dignity when your hips roll down again and your own breath breaks at the friction.
Steve’s hand tightens on your neck, keeping you close enough that his lips brush yours when he answers. “You ought to.”
Your hands shove at his coat, dragging it off his shoulders with more force than grace. Steve only helps enough to get free, too busy chasing your mouth again, greedy and open, his tongue sweeping against yours like he’s trying to taste every desperate sound he’s pulled from you. You tug at the buttons of his shirt next, fingers clumsy on the open collar before patience fails you entirely and you pull hard enough to strain the buttons.
You need skin. Need the warmth of him under your palms and the pulse of him beneath your mouth.
“I ought to send you back out the window you came in.”
His grin returns at that, mischief bright in his eyes despite the way his cock twitches under you. “You ought to get that fixed,” he rumbles, one hand sliding possessive over your waist. “Who knows what kind of bad men could get in?”
You punish him for the clever little comment with another roll of your hips. Steve’s fingers clamp around your waist and the sound he makes is almost a whine, mouth falling open against yours.
His chest rises hard beneath your hands, broad and golden in the moonlight, warm muscle shifting under your palms with every rough breath he takes. Scars litter his skin - some you know the stories of and some he has never given you. You touch them anyway, touch him anyway, needing the proof of him beneath your palms. Then your hips grind down again, and his stomach flexes, abs pulling tight as he lets out a rough groan.
“I ought to make you beg,” you whisper, mouth dragging down over his jaw, his beard rough against your lips as you kiss the place where his heartbeat pounds beneath his skin.
“Yes, ma’am,” Steve breathes, hands holding you tight over the thick, straining shape of him. “You ought to.”
Your chemise has ridden high over your thighs, and every drag of your body over his makes the ache in you sharper.
“Start with sorry,” you instruct.
Steve’s breath catches when you slow the roll of your hips, turning the grind into something almost cruel. His hands flex at your waist, big enough to move you if he wanted, strong enough that he could flip you easily. But instead he lies there beneath you, shirt open and cock hard under your weight, letting you make him wait. Letting you have this dizzying power over him and looking up at you like he would let you ruin him if you asked sweetly enough.
His throat works beneath your mouth.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he murmurs.
You lift your head just enough to look at him, raising an expectant brow. His thumbs stroke once over your hips, softernow.
Steve’s eyes flick over your face, softening at whatever he finds there. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
Satisfied with his obedience, you lean down to kiss him again in reward. But Steve catches the breath between your mouths, his lips brushing yours when he adds, quieter, “I’m sorry I have to leave again at dawn.”
You still completely. Steve’s eyes find yours beneath his mussed hair, and there is and ache there so open it makes your chest hurt. Too honest for a man who’s worth more dead than most men will ever be alive. You can’t bare it for long. Your mouth finds his again, harder this time, before the feeling can name itself. That foolish hope of keeping a man who only ever comes to you with one foot already out the door.
“Then don’t waste my night, cowboy,” you breathe against his lips, rolling your hips down until his cock jerks beneath you. “You’ve got a lot to make up for.”
Steve answers with his hands. A sudden greed of them at your waist, then sliding further up beneath your chemise. His thumbs brush the underside of your breasts with just enough pressure to make you gasp into his mouth. Then he’s tugging the fabric higher, impatient now, and you lift your arms before he has to ask.
He drags the cotton over your head, tossing it aside with the rest of your clothes until the night air has you bare above him.
His gaze rakes over you with such naked want that your stomach clenches. Over the tight peaks of your nipples, and lower still till to where you are spread over him in nothing but your drawers and stockings, already damp enough that the fabric clings between your thighs.
Steve’s hands tighten at your hips, his thumbs dragging once over the bare skin above your drawers.
“You missed me somethin’ awful, didn’t you?” he teases, the corner of his mouth twitching, though his voice comes out rougher than the smile deserves.
You should scold him for that. You mean to, truly. But then his mouth closes over your breast, and the words break apart in your throat.
His beard scrapes over your skin as he sucks your nipple between his lips, tongue dragging over the tight peak before his teeth catch, sharp enough to make you dry out. Your hands fly to his hair, and you tug - meaner than you intend - but Steve groans against your tit, delighted.
“Love it when you’re mean,” he pants against your skin, mouth moving to the other breast, leaving the first wet with his spit in the moonlight.
His head tips beneath your grip, golden hair sliding through your fingers. He lets you guide him, all that size and strength beautiful under your hands. Because for all his sins, Steve is clever enough to know there’s power in obedience when it comes to the right woman.
His hands shove your drawers down over your hips, hurried and clumsy for the first time all night. They catch at your knees before you kick them away, leaving you naked above him, trembling with the kind of want no decent woman was ever supposed to admit by name.
Your fingers go to his trousers, but the buttons take too long. You curse them for it, and Steve gives a breathless little laugh that dies the second your hand slips inside and wraps around him. His cock springs free, slapping heavy against your thigh, already leaking at the tip. Precum smears against your skin as he twitches there, hard enough to make your mouth go dry.
It’s like you forget just how big he is until he’s in your hand again, fat and veined and heavy enough to make you wonder if he’ll still fit. But your cunt clenches desperately around nothing like it already knows the answer.
You sink your teeth into your lower lip and drag yourself over him, sliding the wet heat of your pussy along the length of his cock. He groans at the first slick pass, at the way your folds part around him, coating him in creamy white wetness until every rock of your hips makes an obscene, sticky sound between you.
The fat head catches against your clit with each pass, enough to make your hips stutter and your head tip back with a needy little whine. But Steve’s arms clamp over your hips, muscles flexing as he keeps you humping his cock. His precum mixes with the mess dripping from your needy hole, smearing over his shaft and down onto the golden muscle of his stomach under you.
“Fuck, ‘atta girl,” he rasps, head falling back against the quilt. “Get my cock nice and wet. Make yourself feel good, use me.”
So you grind down harder, slicking his cock with the mess he’s made of you, feeling his abs flex beneath your hands every time his tip nudges your tight entrance.
“Steve,” you whine, nails digging into this skin hard enough to leave marks. “I want it. I want your cock in me.”
“Yeah?” he breathes, and the little edge of a grin he tries for doesn’t last. Not when you reach between you, wrap your hand around the thick, wet length of him. “Then take it, ma’am. It’s yours.”
You push up on your knees, thighs trembling on either side of him, the thick muscle of Steve’s biceps bunching as he holds you steady. His cock pulses with anticipation in your grip, veins standing out beneath your palm as you line him up with your entrance.
You’re both wet enough that it should be easy, your cream smeared down his shaft, his precum sticky on your fingers. But the first push of the mushroom tip stretches you open with a burn so sweet and full it feels like being split in half. Your mouth falls open the same moment his does, both of you moaning at the sensation after weeks without each other.
Your pussy flutters around him, tight and greedy, sucking him in with little needy clenches that make his hands dig harder into your hips.
“Missed this,” he groans, every muscle in him straining with the effort not to thrust up and take more than you give. “Missed your tight cunt so bad I damn near wore out my own fist thinkin’ about it.”
The filthy praise goes straight to your cunt, sending a fresh wave of arousal dripping around him as you sink lower. Your head tips back, his name spilling from your lips in broken little sounds as you take him inch by inch.
Steve’s eyes fix on where you’re joined, watching the slow, wet slide of himself disappearing inside you. His jaw clenches beneath his beard, every muscle in him pulled taut like the sight of your tight pussy struggling around him might make him spill inside you before you’ve even taken all of him.
When your hips finally meet his, the fat tip of his cock kisses your cervix and it empties your head clean of any coherent though. You feel him twitch inside you as your walls give a wet squeeze around him, your cunt clinging tight like it needs a second to believe it’s taken all of him.
“Fuck, Steve,” you whine, nails dragging over his chest. “You’re so big.”
You slowly try and find a rhythm, rolling your hips down until the tip of his cock hits deep enough to make your whole body jolt. The first few strokes are messy, your thighs trembling as you lift and sink. But Steve’s palms stay firm at your hips, helping you find the rhythm, holding you steady while you fuck yourself down onto him.
“But you’re takin’ it, sweet girl,” he groans, helping you down harder, pulling you into each stroke until your tits bounce and the room fills with the slick slap of your body meeting his. “Takin’ my cock so pretty. Always do.”
The bed complains beneath you, wood knocking softly against the wall, but it’s nothing compared to the wet, shameless sound of your pussy taking him over and over.
“Steve—” Your voice breaks into a cry when he hits that deep spot again, “Need—fuck—”
Your pace turns desperate, hips rolling and lifting, chasing the thick slide of him inside you. Every time you sink down, your cunt grips him tighter, cream slicking the base of his cock in a white ring that smears against his skin and drips lower, making a filthy mess of his heavy balls.
Steve’s eye’s darken at the sight. “Pretty cunt’s makin’ such a mess on my cock, can feel her squeezin’ me. Feel you gettin’ close.”
You nod, pathetic and needy. “I need you,” you gasp, “Steve, please, I’m—”
His hand leaves your hip and slips between you, thumb finding your swollen clit. Your rhythm breaks, hips jerking as a needy moan catches in your throat. You try to keep riding him, but it turns sloppy fast, more grinding than bouncing now, your body chasing his hand while his cock stays buried deep inside you.
“That’s what you needed, sweetheart?” Steve rasps, watching you fall apart above him. “Then let me feel that tight pussy come on my cock.”
The pressure snaps tight in your belly, sharp enough to steal the air from you. One more stroke of his thumb, one more dirty grind down on his cock, and your orgasm crashes through you.
Your cunt strangles his cock, pulsing around him in tight, wet flutters. “Fuck,” he grunts out, hands grabbing for hips as his restraint finally snaps. “Fuck, ma’am, can’t—”
One second you’re on top of him, shaking through it, and the next his strength is under you and around you, flipping you onto your back like you weigh nothing at all. Steve settles between your thighs with a groan as he drives back into your soaked cunt in one deep thrust that punches the breath from your lungs.
“Steve!” You sob his name, oversensitive and helpless under him, but your legs hook around his waist anyway. Steve fucks into you harder, deeper, mouth catching yours in a messy kiss.
“There you go,” he grits out, one hand braced beside your head, the other gripping your thigh high against his hip. “‘Atta girl. Fuck, you feel too good, this cunt’s tryin’ to keep me.”
You can’t answer, not properly. Not with him pounding into you like this, all that leashed strength finally let loose, his cock dragging over your oversensitive walls while your legs shake around him. All you can do is cling to him and babble his name, too ruined to do anything but take it.
His thrusts turn rougher as his cock throbs inside you. At the last second, Steve pulls out with a broken groan, his hand wrapping around his slick cock as he spills hot over your stomach. Hot white ropes spill across your skin while his hips jerk into his fist, eyes fixed on the mess he’s making of you like it’s the prettiest thing he’s seen in weeks.
Steve’s strokes slow, his fist still wrapped around himself as the last of his release spills over your belly. His eyes drag from the mess on your skin to your face, and his expression softens instantly.
“Good girl,” he rumbles, thumb smearing through the mess he’s made before he seems to remember himself. His mouth finds yours once, beards scratching softly over your skin as you make a tired little sound against his mouth. “Took me so good, sweets. So fuckin’ good for me.”
His lips move over your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your mouth, murmuring praise between each kiss, until the words sink under your skin. Then he forces himself away with a rough breath, tugging his shirt the rest of the way off before shoving his trousers down his hips. His boots hit the floor with a dull thud, followed by the rest of his clothes.
Naked, he crosses to the washstand with all that golden muscle and road-worn swagger, shoulders broad in the moonlight, hair mussed from your hands. He comes back with a damp cloth and cleans you himself.
One big hand rests tenderly at your hip while the other wipes his come from your stomach. His gaze flicks up to yours once when you shiver, mouth curving beneath his beard, but he doesn’t tease. He only drags the cloth lower, gentle between your thighs, cleaning the sticky mess from your skin.
“So perfect,” he whispers, pressing a kiss just beneath your ribs when he’s done. “My best girl.”
Tossing the cloth aside, he climbs into bed beside you, greedy for your warmth. His arm hooks around you waist instantly, dragging you back against him like even the few inches between your bodies are more than he can spare. His chest presses warm against your back, his thigh slides between yours, and his mouth finds your shoulder before you’ve even settled.
For a while, neither of you says anything.
Steve keeps kissing you anyway, and his hand rests heavy over your stomach, fingers spread wide like he means to keep you against him forever. But his thumb moves gently. Back and forth. Back and forth. A quiet apology against your skin. You’re half asleep by the time your voice finds him again.
“Missed you Stevie,” you mumble, so low he might have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for every breath. “Was worried.”
Steve goes still behind you for a moment, then his thumb starts moving again, slow over the bare skin of your stomach like he can soothe the ache he put there. “I know,” he murmurs into your hair. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Didn’t mean to leave you countin’ days.”
“What really happened?”
Steve exhales slowly behind you, mouth pressing to your shoulder before he answers, like he can feel the tightness gathering there already. “Train job got messy. Payroll car was heavier than we heard, and the guard had more friends than sense. Had to ride south after, lose a posse near the creekbed.” His hand tightens when your brow pinches in worry, though your eyes stay closed. “No, honey. Not like that. They got a shot off, but it only grazed me.”
Your eyes crack open. “Only?”
“I’m here, ain’t I?” he breathes, trying for that crooked little arrogance and not quite managing it. “Takes more than that to put me down.”
You make a sleepy, displeased sound and press back harder into him, grumbling something unkind into the pillow
Steve huffs a quiet laugh and presses his smile to your shoulder. “Mean little thing,” he whispers, but his arm tightens around you, and his lips linger. “I’m alright. Truly. Just took longer than I wanted.”
After that, the room settles around you. His hand stays where it is, warm and broad over your middle, and his breathing slows behind you.You’re almost asleep when the thought slips out of you, small and wounded.
“Don’t wake me when you leave.”
His chest stops moving against your back.
“I mean it,” you add, fingers finding his where they rest over your stomach. “I can’t watch you choose the door.”
That one hurts him. You feel his arm curl tighter around your waist like some selfish part of him wants to promise he won’t go at all. For a second, you think he might argue. But Steve Rogers has never been cruel enough to promise something so foolish.
“Alright,” he whispers, voice rough. “I’ll leave quiet.”
You nod once, already drifting, but your fingers tighten around his. Steve turns his hand beneath yours and holds on. “But I’m here now,” he murmurs, mouth brushing your skin. “Sleep, honey. I’ve got you.”
Morning doesn’t wake you kindly.
One moment you’re warm enough to feel the man behind you, and the next your hand is sliding across the mattress, reaching for a body that is no longer there. Still, you lie with your hand pressed to the place where Steve had been, as if there might still be enough of him left in the sheets to count for something.
The scrape of his beard still burns faintly along your shoulder. Your thighs ache when you shift. Proof everywhere, and still no man beside you.
The day doesn’t care. It waits for no woman, least of all one foolish enough to miss a man with four figures under his name. So you get up.There is no use in grieving a man who is not dead, and no sense in missing a man who warned you he would go.
You go about your morning routine and pull on your dress, fastening every button back into place until the schoolteacher returns piece by piece. Nothing to suggest what an outlaw had done to her in the dark. By the time your books are gathered, your hands have almost stopped shaking.
You check the stove before you leave. The door latch. The chair by the bed, sitting innocent in the morning light, as if it hadn’t held an outlaw the night before. Last, out of habit more than thought, you cross to the window over the washstand.
Your hand is already braced to force it closed when you freeze. The window is shut.
Not forced down, not wedged in crooked, not sitting stubborn in its swollen frame. Shut. Properly shut. The latch sits clean in its catch, holding firm beneath the careful press of your fingers.
It’s silly, really, to stand there with your throat gone tight over a fixed window. But it’s what almost does you in. Your bad man, making sure no worse men can get in.
Weeks pass with no word from your outlaw.
You tell yourself that’s likely for the best. Good news rarely travels fast where men like Steve Rogers are concerned; bad news, however, travels like wildfire. Still, each morning you find yourself scanning the newspaper columns with a sour twist in your stomach, looking for his name with morbid compulsion and praying not to find it. It’s the same grim, self-torturous routine every day, waiting for the one where some column out west reports Steve Rogers and the Winter Kid dead, captured, or hanged.
By night, the worry is worse. It follows you into bed and slips into your dreams, filling up the space Steve left empty. You sleep poorly when sleep comes at all, one ear tuned toward the road like a fool, listening for hoofbeats you’ve no good reason to expect, yet hope for all the same.
But it isn’t hoofbeats that pull you from slumber tonight.
It’s the violent thud of a fist hammering on your front door, hard enough to shake the frame and send you bolting upright with your heat already halfway up your throat.
“Hello?!” a man shouts through the door, breathless and frantic. “Miss! For God’s sake, tell me you’re in there!”
He swears under his breath, his voice comes again, but lower this time. “Goddammit, Rogers, if you gave me the wrong damn house—”
His fist hits the door again, harder now, rattling the latch in its frame.
“Open up! Please, open the door!” he yells. “Name’s Barnes—Bucky Barnes—I’ve got Rogers with me, and he’s shot real bad!”
Steve. Shot badly.
The words make your blood run cold, but fear is not enough to make you foolish. Graveyards are full of women who opened up because they believed bad men with good stories.
“Miss!” Barnes shouts, followed by a strained grunt and the scrape of boots dragging over your porch boards. “Please! I ain’t got time to stand here proper, he’s slippin’!”
Steve had spoken of a Bucky Barnes before, of course he had - Buck, usually, said with the kind of rough fondness he tried to hide and never quite managed - but knowing a name isn’t the same as knowing a voice through the door in the middle of the night.
You move for the shotgun. A lady might have felt shame keeping such a thing so close to her bed. A woman who lives alone knows better.
You cock it loud enough for the sound to carry through the door.
The knocking stops. When you speak, your voice is steadier than the rest of you feels. “If you’re lyin’, Mr. Barnes, you ought to know I’ve got a shotgun pointed at this door.”
“Lady, you can shoot me after if you’re still of a mind to,” he shouts back. “Right now I need you to open the damn door before Rogers bleeds out on your porch!”
Before you can answer, a low groan drags from the other side of the door, followed by Bucky swearing under his breath. Then you recognise Steve’s voice, frailer than you’ve ever heard it, trying to make your name out of what little strength he has left. It makes the shotgun feel useless in your hands.
You flip the latch up before you can think better of it, though you keep one hand on the shotgun as you pull the door open - barrel tipped down but ready.
Bucky Barnes is braced on your porch, with Steve Rogers sagging against him.
His jaw is clenched from the strain of the weight, one shoulder shoved beneath Steve’s arm, with his own locked tight around Steve’s waist. Steve’s boots scrape uselessly over the boards when Bucky shifts him higher. It is clear, terribly clear, that Steve is only standing because Bucky has decided he will.
He’s bent nearly double, folded into the wound, hanging off Bucky with no strength of his own. His head dips heavy towards his chest, and he might almost look drunk if his skin were not so pale beneath the dirt, or if every breath didn’t seem to pull through him with effort.
One hand rests low on his abdomen, fingers spread over a blooming red patch that has soaked through his shirt and keeps smearing beneath his palm. But the hand is slack. His arm trembles with the effort of keeping it over the wound, slipping through the blood rather than stopping it. Every breath drags through him shallow and uneven as though his body has begun bargaining over what it can afford.
“Steve!”
The shotgun clatters to the floor in an instant, forgotten in your panic. You reach for him instantly, palms cupping his face because you need to see his eyes. Need some proof behind the boneless sag of him. His skin is damp beneath your hands and it’s too cold for a man sweating so badly. When you lift his head, it comes slowly, with too much weight in it, his neck offering almost no help at all.
He looks worse than any newspaper ever managed to make him.
His mouth hangs open around each thin pull of breath, lips dry and parted beneath the rough gold of his beard. Dirt clings to the sweat along his hairline. There is a smear of blood near his lip, and his jaw has gone loose under your hands, all that stubborn Rogers grit worn down to something frighteningly human.
His eyes slide over you without settling, and that scares you more than the blood.
“Steve,” you repeat, thumb brushing his cheek. “Look at me. Please, look at me.”
Recognition gathers slowly, blue eyes dragging themselves back from somewhere far away. Then the worry comes with it, because even like this, Steve Rogers is sorry. His brows draw together as if he has been carrying one thought all the way to your porch and means to set it down before his body gives out beneath him.
“Told Buck not to wake you,” he slurs, stopping after it to drag in another shallow breath. “Told him you needed sleep.”
Bucky grunts a disbelieving laugh next to you.
“Alright, Romeo, that’s real touching,” he snaps, shifting Steve’s weight higher with a grunt, “but you’re bleeding on the lady’s porch. Miss, I need him flat, I need light, and I need clean cloths. Now.”
The kitchen table is where Bucky wants him. There’s no time to argue about the indecency of it, or the blood, or how Bucky’s supposed to get him up there without injuring Steve further.
Bucky pulls Steve through the door with one brutal shift of his weight, dragging him over the threshold whilst Steve’s boots scrape and stumble over your floor. The wound pulls with the movement, wrenching a raw, bitten-off sound deep from his chest.
“Clear it,” Bucky orders, jerking his chin toward the oak table.
And you move only because your body takes over. A book hits the floor. Then the bowl you left out after supper, shattering somewhere near your feet. You don’t hear it over the rush of blood in your ears.
Bucky gets one hand under Steve’s arm and the other braced hard at his back. “Alright, Stevie,” he mutters, more to himself than to Steve. “Up we go.”
The lift tears a brutal cry out of Steve.
You’ve never heard that sound from him before. Pain has pulled groans from him, curses too, all stubbornly swallowed before anyone could make much of them. But Steve’s too far gone to care about that now.
“I know,” Bucky says at once, voice gone tight as he arranges Steve onto the table. “I know, I know. M’sorry, Stevie. I’m sorry.”
Steve is too far under to hear him properly. His head rolls against the wood, lashes fluttering, mouth open around another broken sound when Bucky drags his legs up after him. The table creaks beneath his weight. Blood smears across the pale grain in a dark, ugly sweep. Then Bucky plants one hand low on Steve’s abdomen and presses down hard.
Steve’s whole body jerks.
“Shit,” Bucky grunts out, leaning his weight into it when Steve tries to curl away from the pressure. “I know, pal. Ain’t got a choice.”
You just stand there, frozen.
That’s the shame in it. You stand there with your hands curled uselessly at your sides and your bare feet near broken crockery, staring at your outlaw bleeding out across your kitchen table. There is some part of you, in the back of your head, that understands the urgency of the scene, begging you to move. But the rest of you is somewhere else entirely, watching from a distance as the biggest, most capable man you have ever known lies pale as linen and fights for the next breath.
“Lady,” Bucky snaps. “I need you with me.”
But you don’t answer, eyes fixed on the slow rile and fall of Steve’s chest. The terrible wait between each shallow pull of air and the next. The horrible stillness after every breath, when your heart seems to stop with his and only starts again when his chest moves.
Bucky’s bloody hand slams against the table. “Miss!”
Your eyes jerk to him, though the rest of you stays frozen in place. He looks furious - terrified too, but masked beneath the practical need to keep moving. His jaw is set, his breathing hard, one hand still pressed down over Steve’s wound while the other points at you like he can drag sense back into you by force.
“You can stare at him dead or you can help me keep him livin’,” he says. “Pick quick.”
The words snap you back to reality. Your throat tightens, and you take a steadying breath, “What do you need?”
You scramble through your own house, trying to remember everything Bucky lists as fast as he names it.
Lamps first, hands shaking hard enough that the chimney glass knocks against the metal. Then cloths from the press. The clean sheet from your bed, yanked free with one sharp pull and bundled under your arm. Thread from the sewing box. Needle. Whiskey from the cupboard that you only keep in for Steve. You put water on the stove and nearly drop the pot before you get it settled.
Behind you, Bucky cuts Steve’s shirt open. The sound of Steve groaning under the movement turns your stomach, but Bucky only mutters a low apology and keeps working, dragging ruined cloth away from ruined skin before reaching for the whiskey and one of the clean rags you brought him. He wipes around the wound with brisk, careful pressure, until the blood smears thinner and the shape of the damage begins to show.
You wish at once that he hadn’t.
It looks smaller than it should for all the red it has made, one ugly hole low on Steve’s abdomen, close to his hip, and swollen angry at the edges. Blood keeps welling steadily no matter how quickly Bucky clears it. Steve’s stomach jumps beneath every touch, muscle pulling tight before giving out again.
“Bullet’s still in,” Bucky confirms, mouth grim. “Ain’t deep. That’s the good news. Bad news is you’re takin’ it out and sewin’ him up.”
“No!” You’re shaking your head before the word has even finished leaving your mouth. “You crazy, mister? I can’t do that!”
Steve makes a rough sound, half breath, half pain, and Bucky glances down long enough for something scared to flash over his face.
“Well, little lady, unless you reckon you can hold down two hundred pounds of half-delirious cowboy when he starts thrashin’ while I go fishin’ through his guts, then yes, you can.” Bucky’s hand clamps harder over Steve’s middle when Steve shifts with a broken sound, his shoulders lifting from the table before the strength goes out of him again. “Because if he comes off this table, he’ll tear himself up worse than he already is, and I can’t hold him and dig the bullet out at the same time.”
Your mouth opens, but nothing follows.
The lamp catches the sweat on Steve’s throat and the red glistening on Bucky’s hands. Too much of it. Too much on the table, too much soaked into Steve’s shirt, too much slipping between Bucky’s fingers no matter how hard he presses.
You nod once, firm, forcing the fear down into something more useful. Some of the harshness leaves Bucky’s face, not enough to soften him completely, but enough for you to see the man Steve must have trusted with all the worst parts of himself.
“Good girl, I’ll talk you through it,” Bucky says, already reaching for the whiskey. “Steady hands is all I need from you”
So you give him steady hands. Or try to.
You wash them until the water in the basin clouds pink from blood. Bucky talks all the while, voice firm enough to keep you moving from one instruction to the next. He pours a splash of whiskey over the wound and Steve flinches from the table with a staggered cry, only for Bucky to catch him hard across the chest and shove him back down.
“I know, I’m sorry, pal,” Bucky murmurs, hands firm at Steve’s shoulders. “But you gotta try and stay still Stevie, please.”
The softness in his voice does nothing to gentle his grip. If anything, that’s what makes it worse: the way he bends close to Steve’s ear and coaxes him like a wounded horse whilst holding him down with enough strength to bruise. He gets the belt from his own waist and folds the leather between Steve’s teeth, fingers careful at his jaw.
“Bite down,” he instructs. “Before you break your damn teeth trying not to make noise.”
Steve’s lashes flutter, eyes too glassy to find either of you properly, but his teeth close around the leather. Bucky’s hand lingers one second at the side of Steve’s face before he reaches into his coat and pulls out a small roll of oilcloth, the kind of thing only carried by men on the wrong side of the law with no doctor waiting.
Inside is a short knife, and a pair of narrow steel forceps. He snatches those up first and presses them into your palm.
You take a steadying breath. It doesn’t help much
The first touch of metal to torn flesh makes Steve cry out around the belt, the sound muffled and awful. His hand slams against the table hard enough to rattle the bowl, but Bucky catches his wrist and pins it down without looking away from the wound. He murmurs something too low for you to catch.
Apology, prayer, curse; with men like them, there may not be much difference.
Under Bucky’s instruction, you search for the bullet, stopping every time Steve’s body bucks beneath Bucky’s hold. It feels endless, a handful of seconds stretched cruel by the sound of Steve’s breathing and the red shining over your fingers. Then the forceps catch on something hard, something that does not belong inside a man, and Bucky’s voice cuts through the room at once.
“That’s it. Easy now. Pull straight.”
The bullet comes free slick with blood and drops into the bowl with a dull little clink. For all the damage it has done, it looks far too small.
Bucky lets out a breath, but he doesn’t let go of Steve. “Good,” he praises, rough. “That’s real good, darlin’. Now stitch him.”
Threading the needle takes three tries and a muttered curse before the thread finally slips through. Cloth never prepared you for this - it stays put under your hands. Flesh has a give to it that turns your stomach, but you swallow it down and focus on the path of the needle, in one side and out the other, the thread slowly drawing the wound closed.
Bucky watches the first one go through, then the second, and whatever he sees must satisfy him enough to turn more of his attention back to Steve.
“Doin’ good, Stevie,” he murmurs. “Stay with me. There you go. Tough bastard like you don’t get to die in a schoolteacher’s kitchen.”
Steve makes a sound around the belt, weak now, worn down by pain and blood loss until even agony seems to cost too much effort. Then the needle catches wrong, just enough to make his body twitch beneath Bucky’s grip.
“Fuck—I’m sorry Steve,” you whisper before you can stop yourself, pulling the stitch through with a shaking hand. “I’m nearly done, promise.”
Bucky glances at you, then back down at him. “Hear that, Rogers? Lady’s apologisin’ to you while saving your sorry hide. You better live long enough to thank her proper.”
By the time you tie off the final stitch, your back aches, your hands are cramped, and your nightdress is ruined past saving. Bucky binds the wound tight with strips torn from your clean sheet, wrapping them firm while you hold Steve’s hand and try not to notice how loosely his fingers curl around yours now.
When Bucky finally steps away, the room seems to take its first full breath since two outlaws crashed into your evening. He wipes his hands on the edge of the sheet, eyes tracking over Steve, watching for any fresh red spilling through the bandage. He nods once to himself when none does.
“Alright,” Bucky says at last. “Now we keep him warm, and thank God he’s a stubborn son of a bitch.”
With the worst of the work done, the night settles into a long, sleepless vigil.
Steve is covered with every blanket you own, and neither of you can tear your eyes away from him long enough to do much beyond tend to him. His body has finally given itself over the exhaustion, sleeping so deeply you watch for his breaths to make sure he’s still alive. You clean what you can from him with a wet cloth - the dirt on his cheek, the sweat from his brow, the blood on his hands.
Bucky stays in the chair by Steve’s head.
He looks half-dead himself, shoulders bowed beneath exhaustion, eyes shadowed, jaw slackening each time sleep nearly takes him before he drags himself back from it. Every time Steve’s breathing changes, Bucky’s head lifts. Every time Steve shifts, Bucky’s hand is already there, soothing him back to stillness. Small, tender brushes of his hand through damp blond strands. He does it without thinking, with the ease of habit, and you get the feeling you’re seeing something usually kept from view.
It’s a strange thing to witness from a man with his name on a wanted poster. It’s a strange thing to witness from a man at all, really.
‘The Winter Kid’ the papers call him - always printed near Steve’s name like one shadow following another. He’s younger than the posters make him look, or maybe just more human. Handsome too, though that thought feels poorly timed and unwelcome. But true all the same.
Maybe he can feel you looking, because his eyes lift to yours a moment later. They’re unfairly blue against the tan of his skin and the dark fall of his hair,and for one strange second you feel caught in them the way you do in Steve’s.
“What?” he asks, tilting his head.
You shrug, a little embarrassed, but you hold his gaze. “You don’t look much like your picture.”
“Yeah, well.” The corner of his mouth twitches, and for the first time you feel that charm Steve warned you about, battered but not dead. “They charge extra for likeness.”
A small laugh slips out of you before you can stop it. Bucky hears it, and the corner of his mouth seems to twitch a fraction further up, pleased with himself. The air between you seems a little lighter after that, still ruled by Steve’s breathing, but less like two strangers keeping watch over a dying man and more like two people bound, against all better judgement, to the same stubborn fool.
“I expected you shorter,” you admit, causing Bucky to raise a brow. “You know, from the name.”
Bucky groans like this is a wound all its own, head tipping back against the chair for half a second. “Christ. Not you too.”
“Well, it does give a certain impression,” you add, just to goad.
“It gives me a headache is what it gives me.” He drags a tired hand down his face, though the shape of a smile keeps threatening at his mouth. “You know how hard it is to be taken serious by women when half of ’em start grinnin’ soon as they hear Kid?”
“From what Steve tells me,” you say, glancing down at the man asleep between you, “you seem to manage just fine.”
His expression shifts slightly at that. Surprise first, then something warmer he tries to hide by leaning back in his chair and letting the charm crawl into the corner of his mouth. Worse now you know to look for it.
“Oh yeah?” he drawls, voice smoother than it should be after all his shouting. “And what exactly has Rogers told you about how I treat a lady, darlin’?”
You reach for the damp cloth beside you and wring it out over the basin, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking flustered. “Careful, Mr. Barnes. I’ve still a mind to pick my shotgun back up.”
Bucky seems more pleased by your threat than scared, but lifts his hands in surrender all the same, “Of course, Miss. I’ll behave.”
After that, the conversation drifts into exchanging stories about Steve. It feels odd to speak of him like this whilst he lies pale beneath your blankets, yet necessary too, as if each foolish little detail sets another small weight on the side of the scale that says living.
Eventually, though, you can’t avoid the question anymore.
“What happened?”
Bucky’s smile disappears instantly, replaced by a grimace. “Rumlow.”
Just the name is enough to fill the room with dread.
Brock Rumlow has a reputation that travels ahead of him. Bounty hunter, most folk call him. Brutal killer, if folk were feeling honest. But a good man by the town’s measure because he kills with the sheriff’s blessing.
“He caught our trail two days west,” he explains. “We thought we’d shaken him after the river crossin’. But Steve said the tracks were too clean, and of course he just had to be right.”
His mouth twists, though there’s no humour in it now.
“Rumlow had men waitin’ by the ridge. More than we counted on. First shot took my horse out from under me, and Steve came back for me like the damned fool he is.” Bucky’s hand goes to Steve’s hair again before he seems to notice it, fingers combing once through the damp strands before he pulls away. “I told him to ride. He didn’t.”
Of course he didn’t.
That is what hurts most, perhaps. Not the recklessness - you made your peace with that, or tried to. No, it’s the unfortunate fact that no part of you can imagine him doing anything else because you know by now that Steve has never had much sense when someone he cares for is in danger. He might be a wanted man, but he’s good down to the marrow.
“He drew their fire long enough for me to get my rifle,” Bucky continues. “I managed to drop one man, maybe two. Then Rumlow put a bullet in him from the rocks. Steve stayed in the saddle after, somehow. Long enough to swear at me for fussin’.”
“That sounds like him,” you say quietly, reaching for Steve’s hand beneath the blankets. His fingers are cool when you fold them into yours and loose in a way that makes your throat tighten.
“Yeah.” Bucky huffs through his nose. “Stubborn bastard made it near six miles telling me it was only a graze. Then he went white as flour and damn near pitched off the horse.”
Your hand tightens around Steve’s before you can stop it. Bucky’s eyes catch it - for all his exhaustion, there is very little the man seems to miss.
“Kept off the road after that, muddied the trial in the creek too.” Bucky says. “Lost ’em for tonight, I reckon.”
“For tonight?”
His eyes lift to yours, and they give you the answer before his mouth does. “Rumlow’s still breathin’, ain’t he?”
That answers enough.
Bucky leans forward and peels the edge of the blanket back just far enough to check the bandage. With gentle fingers, he presses near your stitches, watching for fresh blood, and you find yourself holding your breath until he lets the blanket fall back into place.
“Stitches are holding,” he confirms. “You did good, darlin’, real good.”
Then his gaze drops to Steve, hand resting on his shoulder.
“Course,” he adds, murmuring almost to himself. “Rogers always did know how to pick good people.”
That makes you look back up at him, at the two of them together. And for a second you see it all playing out: Steve riding back into gunfire, Bucky dragging him through the dark, the two of them printed side by side on every wanted paper like the world has always known they come together.
“Yeah,” you reply softly, holding his gaze. “He does.”
The corner of Bucky’s mouth lifts without any of the charm from before. This smile is smaller, more honest. Grateful in a way neither of you can bear to acknowledge.
The next couple of days pass in pieces for Steve.
Pain consumes most of it, sharp enough to drag him sleep sometimes. But he always wakes to company and the cool drag of a cloth over his face when fever leaves him damp and restless. Sometimes the hand at his brow is yours. Sometimes it’s Bucky’s calloused palms, not a soft but no less careful for it.
When he shifts too quickly, one of you is always there to press him back down. Your voice comes sweet near his ear, telling him to to rest and stop being difficult. Bucky has less patience about it, muttering, “Quit bein’ a jackass, Rogers,”but the softness in his voice gives him away.
By the second day, he starts catching more of the world around him. Mostly, he catches the two of you speaking over him like he’s some troublesome piece of work you have mutually agreed to keep alive. He hears you show Bucky how to change the sheets without jostling him, and Bucky grumbling that you’re a bossy little thing. Your quiet snicker follows, easy enough by then to tell Steve you’ve already learnt not to be scared of Bucky’s bark. And it settles him enough to fall back into another slumber.
Yet, when Steve wakes properly, the house is quiet. His mind goes straight trouble - you and Bucky hurt, or worse, taken.Then he sees the fresh cloth waiting on the washstand, the cup of water set near the bed, the plate of food left within reach. Someone has even pulled the blanket back from the edge of his bandage so it won’t catch when he moves.
Still, his gaze flicks back to the empty chair, a little more wounded at being left alone than he’d admit.
But then he hears voices drift in from the window. Yours first, bright enough to pull his eyes open properly. Bucky answers beneath it, rougher and far too pleased with himself, and Steve rolls his eyes fondly at the ceiling. He knows Bucky in that mood, and exactly the kind of trouble he thinks he’s charming his way out of.
The sound of you both laughing together is too sweet to resist, and it pulls at Steve before he can think better of it. So he presses one hand to his side, grits his teeth and pushes himself upright with a low grunt.
By the time he makes it to the doorway, he’s sweating through his shirt, and lightheaded enough that he has to lean against the frame for support. But when his vision focuses on the two of you, the pain pulsing from his side seems to subside.
Bucky’s leaning against the fence with his sleeves rolled to his elbows - an unabashed display of his toned forearms if Steve’s ever seen one - hat tipped back and a loose board braced beneath his boot. He must have been fixing it before he got distracted. Or before you distracted him. Either way, he’s smiling at you like he knows just how handsome he is, which, Steve thinks fondly, he does.
“You call that fixed?” you ask, eyeing the board.
“It’s standin’, ain’t it?”
“It was standin’ before.”
“Well, now it’s standin’ better.”
Your mouth opens in disbelief, and Bucky’s grin widens like he has been waiting all morning to earn that exact look from you. He shifts the hammer in his hand, letting it hang loose at his side. “You this particular with all the men who do chores for you?”
“Only the ones who do half a job and then stand there lookin’ pleased with themselves.” You jibe, mouth curving before you can help it. “Steve never gives me cause to complain.”
Bucky presses a hand to his chest, wounded clean through. “Darlin’, I am beginnin’ to think you don’t appreciate the quality of my help.”
Steve watches your face as you say it, the way your smile tugs despite your best efforts to keep stern. You’re standing closer than you need to. Close enough to swat his arm when he mutters something about schoolteachers being as scary as he remembers. Bucky catches your wrist before your hand drops, letting his thumb skim once across the inside of it before he lets it go.
Too friendly, some part of Steve thinks. He should mind that. He knows himself well enough to expect the old ugly twist, the hard little claim in his chest that has no manners and less patience. His girl. His Buck.
“You remember I have a shotgun, right? Any more excuses from you and I’ll get it back out and see if it motivates you proper,” you warn, though there is too much warmth in it to do much harm.
Bucky looks far too pleased by that. “How could I forget?” He dips his head, absolutely unrepentant. “Pretty thing like you pointin’ a gun at me ain’t a picture a man forgets easy.”
He really should mind that.
Only the longer he watches, the more it just seems… right. That’s the simple answer. The more complicated one is that there’s a want in him he hasn’t allowed himself to acknowledge until now.
Then Bucky says something softer, and whatever it is makes your expression change. The teasing slips. You step forward and wrap your arms around him, gentle at first, then tighter when Bucky folds around you in return. His hand spreads over your back, yours presses between his shoulders, and he rests his chin on your head.
Something in Steve’s stomach twists hot, and it’s not the bullet wound.
Oh.
Well.
That explains a few things.
When you pull back, your fingers drag lightly down Bucky’s sleeve before falling away. And then your eyes catch Steve in the doorway.
The smile drops straight off your face.
“Steve!” you chide. “Good lord, you shouldn’t be standin’ up yet!”
Bucky turns fast, all charm gone in an instant. “You stupid son of a—”
“Why aren’t you in bed?” you demand, already crossing the yard towards him. “You’re meant to be resting. You’ll tear the stitches, you’ll—”
“What’re you doin’?” Steve asks.
His voice is rough from sleep and disuse, but it cuts through your panic all the same. You stop a few feet short of him, caught between scolding him like one of your schoolchildren and reaching for him. Bucky has followed you, but that damn mouth of his curves back into his signature smirk.
“Stealin’ your woman?” he replies.
Steve huffs a laugh at that, breath catching a little in his chest from the pull of it. He shakes his head, looking between the two of you with something warm and wry beneath the exhaustion.
“Take her,” he shrugs, turning back towards the house, pretending with little success that every step doesn’t pull at his side.
You both go quiet behind him. Steve pauses at the doorway just long enough to glance back, tired eyes moving between the two of you.
“What?” he says, mouth twitching as he makes his slow way back to bed. “Take her.”
Bucky watches him go, grin crooked and eyes a little too soft. “Well, you’re a romantic bastard, I’ll give you that.”
You climb into bed that night tentatively, careful to keep your distance from Steve so you can’t accidentally hurt him.
He watches you fuss with tired amusement, flat on his back beneath the blankets. He’s been patient all day because he’s had no choice in the matter, but now, with you so close, what little patience he has left wears thin.
His arm reaches for you beneath the quilt. “C’mere.”
“But you need to be careful—”
He tugs you closer before you can finish, stubborn as always, and though the movement pulls a faint wince from him, it also draws a low, pleased rumble from his chest when you end up pressed along his side.
“Steve,” you hiss, braced on one elbow, already trying to take some of your weight off him. “You’re going’ to hurt yourself.”
“Worth it,” he murmurs.
You open your mouth to argue, but his lips find your shoulder first. He kisses over your skin lazily, as if he has all the time in the world and no bounty hunter breathing down the road. Then moves to side of your throat, where his beard scrapes softly enough to make your breath catch. Any protest thins in your mouth and dies there, useless, and the ease with which you melt for him makes Steve smile against your skin.
“Missed you,” he hums, pleased with himself.
The words catch somewhere tender, and before you can stop it, the fear you’ve been holding back for days slips free. “I thought you were going’ to die.”
Steve’s mouth stills against your skin. For a moment, he says nothing, then his jaw sets with all the stubborn bravado of a man determined to make the thing smaller than it was. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
You stare at him, eyes burning, and Steve’s bravado doesn’t survive it. His expression softens before he pulls you closer despite the faint wince it costs him, burying his face against your neck.
“No,” he murmurs, voice rough now. “Make a big deal out of it.”
Your fingers tighten in his shirt. Steve kisses your temple and lets you hold him as hard as you need to, though you can feel the care he takes with every breath.
“You’re a fool,” you grumble against his chest.
“I know,” he agrees easily.
“And stubborn.”
“I know that too,” he adds, the hint of a smile returning to his voice.
You lift your head enough to glare at him through the last sting behind your eyes. “Don’t sound so smug.”
“Can’t help it.” His hand slides from your waist, broad palm warm through the thin cotton of your nightdress. “You get awful sweet when you forget to be cross with me, ma’am.”
You should scold him. You mean to. Instead your head tips, giving him more room, and Steve’s breath warms where your pulse has already started tripping under his mouth. Then his fingers drift lower, gathering your nightdress up slowly so his hand can hand slip between your thighs, and what comes out of you isn’t an answer at all. It’s too soft, too needy, your hips shifting before your pride can stop them.
Steve only hums, like that tells him everything he needs to know.
“Poor thing,” he murmurs. “You’re soaked already.”
You make a small sound of protest, breath catching as your hips shift against his palm. “You should be resting.”
“I am resting,” he counters. “You’re the one making all that noise.”
Heat rushes straight through you. “Steve.”
He grins, because he knows what that tone means. His fingers drag through your pussy, spreading the slick of you over your skin until you can’t hold back the needy little moan that escapes. “Buck been winding you up all day, huh? Flashing those pretty eyes at you, running that mouth, standing too close every chance he got.”
You bite your lip hard, but Steve knows your body too well by now. The little tremor that goes through you when he presses two fingers to your entrance, and the way your knees loosen when he rubs his thumb over your clit.
“Mm. Saw the way you looked at him.” His thumb presses a little firmer, drawing another helpless sound from you as his voice drops rougher by your ear. “Saw the way he looked at you too. Like he was wondering how sweet you’d sound if somebody got a hand under your skirt.”
You turn your face into his shoulder, scandalised and burning, but the heat pooling low in you stomach tells a different story. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Seems I just did.”
His fingers push into you then, thick enough to make you clutch at his shirt, his name leaving you in a soft, broken sound. Steve goes still for a breath, jaw tightening as your pussy clenches around him, warm and slick and greedy enough to make him curse the wound in his side for keeping his cock out of you.
“Atta girl,” he murmurs, voice rough at your ear. “Open up for me, sweetheart.”
Your thighs part around his hand, your body taking him with a helpless little roll of your hips. His cock twitches heavy against your leg, and the moan that slips out of you is louder than you mean it to be, needy enough to make heat rush to your face.
“That’s my girl,” Steve coos. “Been so good taking care of me, haven’t you? Let me take care of you now.”
“Wait—fuck—Stevie, he’ll hear us.” you protest weakly, eyes flicking toward the door, where Bucky is sleeping on the couch on the other side.
Steve’s fingers slow, but they don’t stop. If anything, his touch turns crueller, pumping in and out of your pussy with an unhurried drag as his thumb circles your clit.
“Good,” he says at last.
Your eyes widen.
Steve curls his fingers inside you, pressing just right, and your whole body jerks against him. “Let him.”
Your pussy tightens around him before you can pretend to be scandalised. Steve feels it and smiles, filthy and pleased, as another moan slips out of you. You try to swallow it down, but his thumb keeps stroking your clit and his fingers keep fucking you open, slow enough to make every wet sound feel obscene in the quiet room.
“S’okay, honey,” he encourages, kissing beneath your ear. “I don’t mind. You make those pretty noises for me and let Buck hear what he’s missin’ out on.”
“Steve,” you whimper into his neck, overwhelmed by the heat of it, by the way he says Buck’s name with no jealousy at all. Like it turns him on too. Like he knows exactly what he is doing to you.
His mouth brushes your jaw. “Poor bastard probably spent all afternoon thinkin’ about what you’d sound like if he got his hands on you,” he rumbles, fingers driving deeper until your breath catches sharp. “Now he’s out there listenin’ to me do it.”
Your fingers curl in the front of his shirt, hips moving against his hand now, chasing more. Steve makes a rough sound like the sight of you fucking yourself on his fingers might kill him faster than any bounty hunter ever could.
Then your hand slides lower before you can think better of it, finding the hard line of his cock through his drawers. He curses under his breath, hips twitching once into your palm before pain catches at him and makes his jaw clench.
You pull back instantly. “Steve—”
“Don’t.” His hand tightens on your thigh, stubborn even now, even with sweat at his temple and breath caught in his chest. “I’m fine, pretty girl, promise. Just need your hand on my cock. Need my girl to make it better.”
Your answering moan is too wanton to stifle, and out on the couch, Bucky hears it.
He’s been awake for a while, one arm thrown over his eyes, every sore port of him arguing with the hard springs beneath the couch cushion. At first, he told himself he was just listening for Steve - that’s reasonable enough. A man has a right to keep an ear out for his best friend when said friend has nearly bled dry on a kitchen table. And if said friend is in bed with his pretty little woman, well, that’s hardly his fault, is it?
He knows should roll over and try to sleep. Or do literally anything other than listen to the needy catch in your breath when Steve’s fingers must find something good. Heat pulls through him before he can talk sense into himself. It’s been crawling under his skin all day. And now Steve’s voice is torturing him in the dark, coaxing the prettiest noises out of you like he means for Bucky to hear everyone.
His hand slides down over the hard ache in his trousers before he can pretend better of himself. His hips jerk into his palm at the first firm press.
Bucky shuts his eyes as his lips part around a groan of relief.
He should feel worse about it, probably. A gentleman might. Then again, he’s never made much of a claim to being one, and there’s nothing gentlemanly about Steve is talking to you through the door. Low and rough, sweet in all the wrong places, telling you how good you are for him whilst you make those soft ruined sounds that go straight to Bucky’s cock.
His fingers work the buttons of his trousers open, and he’s so wound up that the first touch to his throbbing length makes his hips jerk up. He’s already hard enough to hurt, thick and hot in his grip, precum slicking the head as he strokes once from base to tip. He has to force himself slower so he doesn’t spill too fast, listening to the shift of the bed in the next room and the wet sound of Steve’s fingers fucking you.
“Don’t hide from me,” Steve rumbles, voice carrying just enough. “Want him to hear how pretty you get when you come”
The needy moan you cry out in response, makes Bucky’s hand tighten and his eyes squeeze shut. He can picture it all wall for a man who hasn’t a right to see any of it. Your thighs spread under Steve’s hand, nightdress pushed up, tucking your face into Steve’s neck as you try and fail to keep quit. Steve, wounded and recovering, still generous enough to make sure Bucky knows what he’s missing.
“Stevie,” you gasp, and Bucky’s cock jerks in his fist.
He drags his thumb over the swollen head with enough pressure to make his stomach pull tight. The couch springs creak beneath him when his hips jump into his hand, and he freezes momentarily, listening. But neither of you stop. If anything, Steve laughs, low and filthy, like he heard the sound and knows eaxctly what it means.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” Steve groans. “Bet Buck’s got his hand around his cock right now, listenin’ to you. Bet he can’t help himself.”
Bucky presses his forearm over his mouth, a helpless grin pulling at him even as pleasure burns through his gut. Bastard. Mean, beautiful bastard. He strokes himself harder, giving up on pacing himself, fist slick and tight around his cock as your moans slip through the thin bedroom door and wrap around every filthy picture Steve puts in his head.
“Wish he could see you right now,” Steve goads, and Bucky nearly spills right there. “So wet for me. Sweet little pussy takin’ my fingers so good. He’d lose his fuckin’ mind.”
His hips buck desperately into his first, breath coming harsh through his nose as Steve keeps talking like he knows every dirty place Bucky’s mind has gone and means to walk you through all of them. Your moans pitcher higher, thinner, more desperate.
“Please Stevie—so close,” you whine, and Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything more beautiful.
“I’ve got you, sweet girl,” Steve coos. “Come for me. Let him hear.”
The sound you make as you fall apart under Steve’s hand is obscene. You pleasure spills out into the dark as Steve praises you in that honey-deep register like he’s got his fingers buried in the best thing he’s ever touched. Bucky strokes himself harder, cock slick in his fist, teeth digging into his wrist to keep his own noise down.
Then Steve groans low around a curse, and God, Bucky knows that sound. Learnt on cold nights under open sky when bedrolls were laid a polite distance apart and neither of them ever spoke of what they heard in the dark.
But hearing it now, with you, is enough to finish off what your moans started.
His hand works faster, rougher, chasing it until he spills over his own knuckles. He strokes himself through it, hips jerking up into his fist, hot cum slicking his fingers while the last of Steve’s filthy praise drifts through the door.
Head falling back against the couch, he throws his free hand over his eyes again as if that might make a decent man of him after the fact. But the other is still loose around his sensitive, softening cock. From the bedroom, Steve mutters something too low for him too catch, but you laugh in response, breathless.
Bucky smiles up at the ceiling, completely and utterly fucked. Both of you tucked under his skin, deep as a wound and twice as troublesome.
“Romantic bastard,” he scoffs into the dark.
You wake reaching for Steve, hands sliding over the sheets in search of the warmth that’s usually gone by the time daylight finds you. For one awful, familiar second, your heat braces for emptiness, and then your fingers meet his chest. Still there.
The joy it brings is so small and foolish it almost hurts. Steve’s still beside you, warm beneath your palm, alive beneath your hand, his breath moving slow and steady. You don’t mean to smile as hard as you do for something that won’t last, but you feel it happen anyway.
Steve’s eyes crack open, tired blue finding you through the grey morning light. His mouth curves faintly.
“Mornin’,” he rasps.
He lifts a hand with more effort than he lets show and brushes his knuckles along your cheek before drawing you close enough to kiss your forehead. It is gentle. Domestic, almost, in a way that feels absurd given the blood dried somewhere in your kitchen and the wanted posters nailed up in town.
But then Steve starts trying to get up. He looks pale enough that you threaten him twice before he gets both feet on the floor.
“You are pale enough to haunt this house, Steve Rogers. Sit still.”
His brows lift, innocent as sin. “Jus’ thinkin’ about breakfast is all, ma’am, swear.”
He takes your continued scolding with a faint curve to his mouth, one hand shielding the wound slightly, as you get up to help him dress. He even lets you fuss over him, and you breathe a sigh of relief when you see no red blooming on his bandages.
By the time you get him into the kitchen, his jaw his set hard enough to make you narrow your eyes. Steve takes your silent warning and lowers himself into the chair before bringing your hand to his mouth and kissing the inside of it. Just a brief, warm brush of his lips, eyes lifting to yours in quiet apology for every minute he’s made your heart suffer these last few days.
The door opens before you can say anything soft enough to embarrass you both. Bucky steps inside with a sack under one arm; he’s been gone since first light, having ridden into town for coffee, cartridges, and whatever else two outlaws and one increasingly compromised schoolteacher might need. You’re expecting some crooked remark as he kicks the door shut behind him. Maybe something about Steve looking less like a corpse, or you running the kitchen like a jailhouse.
Instead, his face is grim.
Steve clocks it immediately, and his shoulders straighten. Pain forgotten under the old readiness that lives dormant in him until needed. “What?”
Bucky sets the sack on the table. “You feel well enough to ride?”
Steve frowns. “If I have to.”
“Good.” Bucky’s eyes flick over you, brows tightening, then back to Steve. “Rumlow’s in town, asking questions at the mercantile. Offered coin for anyone who knew anythin’ about Steve Rogers and The Winter Kid.”
Steve face flattens, jaw setting into that hardened mask he uses to cover whatever else he’s feeling. Nodding once, he pushes up from the chair.
“Steve—” you start at once.
He bends and kisses you before you can finish, once hand gentle at the side of your face. It tastes too close to a goodbye kiss for your heart to bare, and the panic rises in your throat.
“We’ll draw him off, honey,” he murmurs, clearly misinterpreting your worry. “He won’t know you had anything to do with us.”
Then he turns to Bucky. “Get the horses ready. We’ll cut south - maybe this time we stop talking about Mexico and actually head there.”
Mexico?
You look from Steve to Bucky, at the silent communication already passing between them, and the speed with which they become men leaving. Men packing their lives into saddlebags. Men deciding what they can carry and what must be left, including, apparently, you.
“Take me with you.”
Both of them immediately stop.
Steve turns firs,t protest already written across his face. “Sweetheart, you can’t seriously —”
Bucky interrupts, sharper. “Absolutely not.”
“I wasn’t askin’,” you counter firmly, mustering up the same voice you use in the schoolhouse when a child thinks they might try their luck.
Steve’s brows pull together. “You don’t know what you’re suggestin’.”
“I do.”
“You don’t.” Bucky cuts in, which only makes you angrier. “This life ain’t—”
“Ain’t what?” you return. “For a lady?”
That closes his mouth. For once, Bucky Barnes has no clever answer ready, and Steve looks no better. The two of them stand there, each searching for the combination of words least likely to upset you further and finding none fast enough.
“After last night, I think any claim I had to bein’ a lady has been thoroughly mishandled.”
A flush climbs through the rough gold of Steve’s beard at once, and he drops his eyes to the table as if the wood grain has become a matter of deep interest. Bucky looks toward the window with equal dignity, which is to say very little, given what he had so clearly heard through your bedroom door. But you feel a little wild with it now. Freed by the strange relief of having already stepped over the edge in your own mind.
“I’m a schoolteacher in a town that’s been dyin’ for years,” you continue. “Folk still smile at me like I’m still respectable, but every year I stay unmarried, they look a little closer for the rot. And every night I come back to this house alone, and wait to hear news of Steve’s death.”
Steve’s face falls, and he looks at you with such earnest guilt that you have to look away or you’ll lose the nerve to finish. Your eyes sting badly enough that you have to blink hard and focus on staring at the floorboards.
“I’m no fool,” you say. “I know what I’m sayin’. Long days. Cold nights. Men with guns behind us. I know it won’t be some grand adventure out of a penny paper.” You lift your head again. “But I want a life I choose. I want more than waitin’ in this house for grief to come find me. And I want to be with you.”
Bucky looks at Steve then, and Steve returns it. They do that thing again where a whole conversation seems to pass without either of them opening their mouth, and you can already tell this is a feature of them that will get on your nerves. Still, you stand there and wait. You can see them weighing the right choice. You can also see, with a painful twist of hope, that neither of them likes the thought of leaving you behind.
Steve exhales through his nose. “You’d have to listen.”
“To both of us,” Bucky adds. “When it counts. If Steve says run, you run. If I say stay put, you don’t move a muscle.”
“You’ll ride until you ache,” Steve says, eyes searching your face for the first sign of regret. “Sleep under open sky. Eat beans out of a tin when there’s nothing else. Go without a proper bed more often than you’ll have one.”
Bucky leans his hip against the table, arms folding, his expression hard despite the tired edge of him. “And you’ll keep that shotgun close. Learn a pistol too, whether you like it or not. Pretty face won’t do much good if Rumlow catches up.”
“I’ll do it,” you agree, looking at Steve first, then Bucky, making yourself hold both their gazes long enough for them to see there’s fear in you, plenty of it. Just none useful enough to change your mind. “I’ll do it all, I promise.”
They seem satisfied enough to move again, almost. Steve’s hand twitches toward the supplies, Bucky’s eyes flick to the door. But you stop them before the moment can run away from you.
“The only thing I won’t do,” you continue, quieter, “is watch either of you die. I’ll skip that scene, if you don’t mind.”
Steve’s hand closes around yours before you can busy yourself with anything else, or turn away and pretend the words weren’t all too honest.
“Once we go,” his eyes hold steady on yours, “we go.”
There’s warning in it, but there’s promise too. You squeeze his hand in confirmation.
“Then let’s go.”
You leave before the town has finished waking, with no grand farewell to your little house. Just five minutes to pack the essentials, and everything else left behind for the town to make stories about two bad men and the lady they corrupted.
For the first couple weeks, you ride with Bucky. At first, Steve enjoys watching the two of you grow closer. But a few days pass without your arms around his waist and the man starts acting abandoned. Nothing dramatic, of course. Steve Rogers is far too dignified for that. He only gets quieter, pouts into his coffee, and looks at you from under those ridiculous lashes with his pretty blue eyes, utterly wounded.
But there’s only so much sympathy you can give him when every jolt of his horse leaves his face tight and grey - having you pressed against his side would pull at the wound no matter how carefully you held him, so you sit behind Bucky instead. Your arms wrap around his middle, sometimes resting your cheek between his shoulder blades when the road stretches long.
He’s always warm - despite the nickname - and complains when your cold hands slip under his coat in the mornings, but never makes you move them.
It’s on one such morning that the question slips out before it’s even fully formed in your head. Absent in its curiosity.
“Bucky?”
He turns his head back slightly, catching your face in the corner of his eye. “Hmm?”
Your chin is hooked over his shoulder, the brim of his hat shading your eyes from the sun. Steve is riding a bit ahead, far enough to pretend he’s not listening and close enough you know he is.
“Do you ever wonder, if I’d met you first, that we’d be the ones the get involved?”
Bucky makes a thoughtful sound, as though this is a matter requiring serious study. “But we are involved, sugar.”
You lift your head. “Are we?”
“You’re ridin’ my horse with me.” His hand covers yours where it rests against his stomach, thumb brushing once over your knuckles. “In some countries, that’s the same as being married.”
Steve glances back over his shoulder. “Name one.”
“Plenty, Stevie,” Bucky shoots back without missing a beat. “Just ‘cause you ain’t a romantic don’t mean it ain’t true.”
“That mean you don’t know any?”
“Means I’m a man of mystery, Rogers. Let me have that.”
You laugh into Bucky’s shoulder, and Steve turns forward again, shaking his head. Even from behind, you can see the curve at the corner of his mouth.
That becomes one of the biggest pleasures of the road, the two of them bickering like an old married couple with loaded guns and a shared talent for pretending they are the sensible one. Steve corrects Bucky’s directions. Bucky mocks Steve’s caution. Steve tells him caution is the reason he’s still alive, and Bucky retorts, “Barely,” with a pointed look at the bandage under his shirt.
You learn to sit between it and smile into the back of Bucky’s coat, warm with the strange comfort of being folded into something that clearly existed long before you and somehow has made room for you anyway.
The weeks begin to fold into one another after that, measured less by days than by how far Steve can ride before pain makes him stubbornly quiet. He never says when it’s too much - of course he doesn’t. But you both learn the signs, so that when that happens, you or Bucky find an excuse to stop. Steve accepts each excuse with the grateful dignity of a man who knows precisely what you’re doing and lacks the strength to protest.
Some nights you find a town small enough to risk, and the three of you take one room under a false name while Steve lies stiff on the bed and Bucky sleeps in the chair with a gun across his lap. Other nights, there is only open country and the fire between you, Bucky’s coat under your head, Steve’s hand tucked around your waist, pleased now he can finally pull you close.
You learn quickly; you have to.
How to ride until your thighs ache and keep your complaints mostly to yourself. How to drink bad coffee without making a face. How to keep your hair pinned under a hat when passing through towns where a woman travelling with two men draws more attention than a pair of wanted faces.
Bucky teaches you to shoot a pistol at a row of bottles outside an abandoned line shack, and Steve stands behind you, correcting your grip until Bucky accuses him of distracting you.
Rumlow stays behind you like bad weather you can’t outride, always somewhere on the edge of the horizon. Some days there’s no sign of him at all. Other days Bucky comes back from a supply run with his jaw tight, or Steve sees something in the dirt that makes both men go quiet. Neither of them likes fear on your face, so you learn how to hide that, too.
By the time Steve’s stitches come out, the three of you have already become a kind of routine.
Steve reads the land ahead. Bucky watches what follows. You keep track of the food, the clean cloth, and all the small human things the two of them would forget in favour of keeping moving. You sleep between them when the nights turn cold, Bucky pressed at your back and Steve careful against your front, one arm laid over your waist like even in sleep he means to keep you safe. Nobody ever says much about it in the morning.
But the trouble with Mexico is that it keeps costing money. By the third month, the coins in Bucky’s purse have started to sound lonely, and Steve has taken to rationing his own portions to make sure you have enough. You always protest that he needs it more, but it falls on deaf ears.
“We need money,” Bucky says one evening, poking at the fire with a stick.
Steve doesn’t look up from the map. “I know.”
“We need quite a bit of money.”
“I know.”
You look between them. “Why do I get the feelin’ neither of you is about to suggest honest work?”
Bucky grins. Steve sighs.
A plan is soon in place, and you quickly realise you aren’t just being given soft work. They aren’t just tucking you safely away and asking you to wait pretty by the horses. No, you’re the distraction. Steve watches your face intently whilst they explain your part, searching for fear, and Bucky watches your hands to see if they shake. They do, a little. You tell him they shake less when people stop staring at them.
“Mean little thing when you’re nervous,” Bucky murmurs.
“You’d know better than to test me, then,” you snap back, much to his delight.
And that’s how you find yourself in your best dress two mornings later, walking into a town that has never heard your name and smiling sweetly at the bank clerk while Steve and Bucky do what Steve Rogers and The Winter Kid apparently do very well.
Soon, there’s a saddle under your hips, stolen money in Steve’s saddle bag and Bucky laughing as the town bell starts clanging behind you. Steve rides quietly beside you, one hand low on his reins, hat pulled low against the flare. He looks more pensive than you’d expect for a man who just planned and executed a successful robbery.
“You know,” he considers, tilting his head. “When I was a kid, I always figured on bein’ a hero when I grew up.”
“Too late now,” Bucky shoots back instantly.
Steve turns in the saddle, mouth pulled into an exaggerated pout that almost looks genuinely hurt by the insinuation. “You didn’t have to say that—What’d you have to say that for?”
“Because we just robbed a bank and you’re gettin’ wistful about virtue. Felt like someone ought to keep you on track.”
You laugh before you can stop yourself, and Steve looks betrayed for all of half a second before his own mouth gives him away.
“I could still be heroic,” he argues.
“Of course, Stevie,” you soothe, reaching over to squeeze his arm. “And if heroism ever starts includin’ bank robbery, you’ll be the first man I nominate.”
Steve shakes his head, but there’s warmth in it. There’s warmth amongst all three of you now. The money will carry you further south. Rumlow, for the moment, is behind you. And for one bright stretch of road, with the sun high and the horses steady beneath you, the three of you ride easy.
When you reach the next town just before dark, it’s mercifully large enough to have a hotel, though only just. The main building fronts the street, while a handful of squat lodging cabins stand behind it beside the stable yard, each containing little more than a bed, a washstand and a door that locks.
You’ve already separated from Bucky two streets over - two men and a woman trying to book one cabin would draw eyes. A man and his wife, tired from the road and keen to be left alone, draw far fewer.
Bucky will return after dark with supplies and come through the open window like any decent outlaw.
By now, the routine is well worn. Steve keeps his hat low and asks for a room for himself and his wife. Your stomach gives a foolish little turn at the word, which is unhelpful given the circumstances, so you tuck yourself closer into his side and play your part.
The clerk turns the ledger around. “Name?”
Steve takes the pen and writes one of the names agreed between the three of you, this time settling on Mr. and Mrs. Drysdale.
The clerks eyes move over Steve as he writes, a little too closely for your liking. Steve’s hat shadows most of his face, though there is only so much a brim can do against a jaw like his. Then the clerk’s gaze drops to you, lingering on the plain dress, the tired hem, the cheap ring on your finger where your hand rests neatly against Steve’s sleeve.
“Long road?” he asks.
“Long enough,” you answer before Steve can, sweet and harmless. “My husband’s been poor company since noon.”
The clerk’s mouth twitches. “That so?”
“I get hungry,” Steve says.
“He gets sulky,” you correct.
The clerk looks amused now, his suspicion giving way to the easier pleasure of watching a married couple prod at each other. He reaches for a key from the row behind him.
“Cabin four,” he says. “Out and to the right.”
Steve takes the key with a polite nod, your hand still tucked around his arm, and the two of you make your way to the cabin to wait for Bucky and whatever trouble he tends to bring back with him.
But exhaustion claims you before said trouble arrives. You barely manage to loosen your dress before crawling beneath the covers, telling Steve you only mean to close your eyes whilst he checks the room. The bed feels strangely wide after so many nights spent wedged between two warm bodies beneath the open sky. Even when there had only been Steve beside you, his arm always fond your waist before sleep did.
Tonight, the empty space at your back bothers you more than it ought to, and you drift off feeling faintly abandoned by both outlaws.
Until finally you stir to the mattress dipping behind you and warmth settling along your back. It’s broad and familiar enough that your half-asleep mind doesn’t ask questions. Instead, you arch back into him, pleased to have your outlaw close, fitting your ass against his hips.
Impatiently, and a little pointedly, you reach back for the arm that has failed to wrap itself around you. You drag it over your waist and hold is hand beneath yours.
“Took you long enough,” you mumble into the pillow, a little pout tucked into the words. After all those weeks of Steve looking wounded whenever you rode with Bucky, he might at least have the decency to act pleased now that he can pull you close whenever.
His body goes stiff, and you take the teasing for what it is, grinding back again. Slower this time, rolling your ass over the shape beneath his trousers until his cock begins to harden against you. A strained breath warms the back of your neck. Then another, rougher, when you press closer and keep moving, sleepy need gathering fast between your thighs.
Still, his hand remains where you put it.
Your brows pinch. Steve has never needed this much encouragement where you;re concerned. Usually, one soft sound from you is enough to have him pushing up your skirts and getting greedy with whatever he finds beneath them.
“Stevie,” you whine, catching his wrist again. “Quit makin’ me ask.”
You guide his hand down over your stomach and between your thighs, pressing his palm against the heat gathered beneath your drawers. His fingers flex once. The groan that leaves him is low and delicious beside your ear, and you answer it with a needy little roll of your hips, trying to coax his hand into giving you what you want.
“That’s it, honey.” You hear Steve drawl, but his voice doesn’t come from behind you. “Keep grindin’ that pretty ass over Buck’s cock, he’s been waitin’ weeks to feel how sweet you are.”
Your eyes snap open.
Steve is sat in the chair near the window, one ankle hooked over the other, watching the two of you through the low lamplight. His hat rests on the table beside him, hair pushed back from his face, and the hard shape beneath his trousers leaves little doubt as to how much he’s been enjoying the view.
Behind you, Bucky has gone completely still. His hand remains trapped between your thighs where you placed it, fingers flexing once against the damp cloth of your drawers before stopping again.
Steve catches the hesitation on your face.
“Easy, pretty girl,” he coos, voice dropping softer. “You’re alright. Ain’t nobody cross with you.”
His gaze stays warm and steady on yours, settling some of the panic before it can take hold. Bucky makes no attempt to claim what you offered him in your sleep, leaving the choice entirely with you now that you’re awake, and the restraint loosens something in your chest.
You sink back against him again, and a quiet, needy “Steve” slips from your mouth.
“Well, quit teasin’ him then, sweetheart. You dragged Buck’s hand down to that needy pussy yourself.” His eyes stay on yours, smile turning wicked. “You want him to touch you, don’t you?”
You nod, “Yes, Stevie, please.”
Approval rumbles from Steve across the room at the same moment Bucky groans against your shoulder. His hand finally moves, slipping beneath the damp cloth between your thighs and dragging two rough fingers through the slick gathered there.
“Christ,” Bucky breathes, the word warm against your neck. “You’re soaked through darlin’.”
Your hips chase his hand before you can help it, opening wider as his fingers circle your clit. He parts you slowly, gathering the mess of you over his fingertips before circling your clit. And God, does he learn quickly. Taking each broken breath and twitch of your thighs as instruction, until your body is rolling against him with shameless impatience.
“That feel good?” he murmurs. “Been wondering how sweet you’d get for me.”
You whine and press back against him, already impatient, already desperate for more than the teasing drag of his fingers. Bucky laughs softly into your neck, pleased by how quickly you come apart for him.
“Yeah, I can feel that.” One finger presses into your pussy, drawing a thin moan from you as he works it deeper. “Taking me so easy. Such a good girl for us.”
Bucky pushes a second finger into your pussy, and the stretch of them pulls a broken moan from you. His hand is rougher than Steve’s, the calluses catching at tender places as he works you open, but he watches every reaction with the same focused attention he gives everything. One curl of his fingers makes your thighs tremble, and he does it again immediately.
Steve watches from the chair with one hand resting over the hard shape in his trousers, his eyes fixed on the way you grind down over Bucky’s knuckles.
“That it?” he asks against your skin. “Right there, sugar?”
“Yes—God, Buck—”
Bucky curses when your walls tighten around him. “She’s so damn sweet, Stevie.”
Steve’s mouth curves.
“If you think she’s sweet around your fingers,” he says, voice low enough to make your stomach clench, “wait till you get a taste of her.”
The thought pulls a desperate sound from you. Bucky answers with a groan of his own, his fingers curling inside you as his gaze drops hungrily between your thighs from over your shoulder. Your hand is already reaching back, fingers tangling in his dark hair as you twist toward him and tug with very little patience left.
Bucky goes willingly, laughing once under his breath as he lets you pull him down the bed, tugging down your drawers as he goes.
“That eager, darlin’?”
“Yes,” you gasp, spreading your thighs wider to accommodate those broad shoulders. “Please.”
Steve leans back in the chair, hand now palming over his cock as he watches.
“Go on, Buck,” he drawls. “Show her that mouth’s good for something besides bein’ a clever jackass.”
The first slow drag of Bucky’s tongue through you tears a cry from your throat. His hands close around your hips at once, holding you open while he tastes you again, deeper this time, mouth working with none of the caution his fingers had shown. He licks through every slick fold, groaning against your pussy.
Then his tongue circles your clit, and your hips jerk sharply into his face.
“There,” Steve rumbles, hand pressing harder over his thick length, still trapped beneath too much fabric. “She likes it right there. Don’t rush her, Buck. Keep your tongue flat and make her grind on it.”
Bucky follows the instruction immediately. He spreads his mouth over you, tongue broad and slow beneath your clit while his grip shifts lower, fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath your thighs to pull you closer. Your back arches, breath breaking into a helpless whine as you begin to move against him, too desperate to stay still and too overwhelmed to find any rhythm beyond chasing whatever his mouth gives you.
“That’s it,” Bucky praises against you. “Good girl. Use me.”
His words vibrate through your pussy and leave you clenching around nothing. He feels it, answers with another hungry groan, then slips two fingers back inside you while his mouth returns to your clit.
The room seems to tilt.
“Buck—Steve—God—”
Their names tangle together as Bucky curls his fingers into the place that makes your thighs shake. Steve keeps talking from across the room, telling Bucky when to press harder, when to keep his mouth where it is, every quiet command proving how well he knows your body and how willingly Bucky is learning it.
Pleasure builds so quickly that instinct has you trying to squirm away from it. Your hips twist even as they buck toward him, hands scrambling over the sheets while Bucky holds you firmly in place and refuses to let the distance grow.
“Easy, darlin’,” he soothes, breathless against you. “I’ve got you. Let me have it.”
But you can’t. You need more. Need both of them.
Your hand reaches blindly toward Steve even though he’s still too far away, fingers stretching uselessly through the space between you as his name leaves you in a broken plea. “Stevie.”
He’s out of the chair before the word has finished. Steve comes to the bedside and catches your reaching hand, pressing it against his chest as he bends over you.
“I’m here, pretty girl,” he coos. “You close?”
You nod frantically, one hand clutching his shirt and dragging him lower because words have abandoned you. Steve lets himself be pulled into the kiss, mouth covering yours just as Bucky’s tongue flicks hard over your clit again.
You moan against Steve’s lips as his hand slides into Bucky’s hair.
“Closer, Buck,” Steve pants into your mouth, pushing him more firmly between your thighs. “She’s trying to run from it. Don’t let her.”
Bucky groans and buries his face deeper, lips and tongue turning greedy while Steve kisses you through every broken sound. The hand in Bucky’s hair holds him just where you need him, and Steve’s other palm cups your jaw, keeping your mouth against his as your body begins to lose all control.
“That’s my best girl,” Steve praises between kisses. “Lettin’ me share this sweet pussy with Buck. Look how greedy you’ve got him.”
Your fingers knot in Steve’s shirt as your hips rise hard against Bucky’s face, chasing the relentless pressure of his tongue. Bucky holds you there and eats you through it, groaning when your thighs close around his head and the first desperate pulse of your orgasm rolls over his mouth.
You come with Steve’s name breaking against his lips and Bucky’s muffled beneath it, your whole body shuddering as slick spills over Bucky’s tongue and chin. Steve kisses every cry from you while Bucky greedily laps at everything you give him, refusing to stop until you are trembling and breathless between them.
Only then does Steve ease his hold in Bucky’s hair.
Bucky lifts his head slowly, mouth shining and eyes dark with satisfaction, looking every bit as wrecked as you feel. He’s knelt between your thighs, one hand warm against your hip, whilst Steve is still leant over you. It leaves them close enough that Steve’s gaze has nowhere else to fall but Bucky’s mouth.
“Fuck Stevie,” he breathes, wiping his thumb beneath his lip only to suck the taste from it. “Can’t believe you kept her to yourself for so long. Greedy bastard.”
But Steve’s gaze is too focused on Bucky’s swollen lips, glistening with your arousal, for his brain to think of a response. His tongue flicks out absently, sweeping over his lower lip as though he can already taste you there. The hunger in his face is so plain that your hand rises almost instinctively, fingers curling around his jaw and drawing him toward Bucky.
Their mouths meet hard enough to pull a startled sound from Bucky, and for one suspended second neither man moves. Steve’s hand stays curled around his jaw. Bucky’s fingers bunch in the front of Steve’s shirt. The rough scrape of stubble and the unfamiliar shape of another man’s mouth seem to catch them both off guard.
But then Bucky pulls him closer.
Steve takes hold of the back of his neck and kisses him properly, tongue pushing into Bucky’s mouth with a low groan, greedy for every trace of you left on his tongue. Bucky answers with all the hunger he had just spent between your thighs, opening for him as though this is something they have been circling for years without ever daring to name.
The sight of them together sends fresh heat curling low in your stomach.
Steve’s tongue pushes deeper into Bucky’s mouth, licking over his lips and teeth as though Bucky has become another place from which Steve can take his fill. Bucky groans, one hand sliding around the back of Steve’s neck while the other tightens possessively on your thigh. Every reckless rescue, every night spent back to back beneath the open sky, every time one of them chose the other without hesitation finally makes sense for what it has always been.
Your slick still glistens on Bucky’s chin. Steve’s mouth smears through it as the kiss deepens, and neither of them seems to care where one taste ends and the other begins. Years of rough affection and stranger devotion turn filthy in front of you, Steve holding Bucky by the jaw while Bucky bites lightly at his lower lip before drawing him back in, as if now they have finally started, neither of them knows how to stop.
Then Bucky’s hand drops between them. His palm settles over Steve’s straining cock, and Steve groans into the kiss. Bucky rubs him slowly through the fabric, swallowing each low moan Steve gives him while Steve keeps one hand firm at the back of his neck. They look made for this, rough hands and parted mouths, years of devotion finding a new language right in front of you, and the thought leaves you aching all over again.
Your thighs shift restlessly beneath them. One hand slips between your legs, fingers finding your swollen clit while you watch Bucky palm Steve’s cock through his trousers. A moan escapes before you can smother it.
Their kiss breaks, both men looking down at you, though their foreheads remain pressed together. Bucky’s mouth is red and wet, Steve’s no better, and neither of them moves for a moment as they watch your fingers circle desperately between your thighs.
“Well, look at her,” Bucky murmurs, his hand still cupped around Steve. “Got herself all worked up watching us.”
You whine softly, pressing harder against your clit.
Steve’s eyes darken. “Poor pretty thing.”
Bucky gives Steve’s cock another slow squeeze, making his jaw tighten. “Reckon we ought to find that mouth something to do besides whine.”
He shifts farther onto the bed and settles on his knees near the headboard, giving you room to turn beneath him. You move eagerly onto your hands and knees, facing Steve with Bucky still kneeling behind you, close enough that his thighs frame yours and his chest brushes your back when he leans over.
Bucky reaches around you before you can, fingers working open Steve’s trousers slowly at first, then surer when Steve does nothing to stop him. His hand closes around Steve’s cock as it spills free, heavy against his palm, the skin flushed deep at the head and drawn tight over the thick ridge beneath it. The vein you know so well runs dark along the underside, disappearing into Bucky’s fist when he gives one cautious stroke.
Steve’s head tips back on a broken groan.
The sound seems to delight Bucky, eyes dropping to watch his hand move again, slower this time, thumb dragging over the wet slit before sliding back down the length of him. Steve’s broad chest rises sharply beneath his shirt, every muscle in his shoulders pulled tight with the effort of holding still while Bucky learns how easily he can make him come apart.
Something needy catches inside you at the sight. You’ve heard that sound beneath your own hands too many times to let Bucky keep it all to himself.
You lean forward and press your lips to the swollen head, kissing it once before your tongue slips out to taste the slick Bucky has spread there. Steve’s breath breaks again, rougher now, and you follow the thick vein beneath his cock with a slow drag of your tongue, smiling when his hips twitch toward your mouth.
You kiss the tip again, softer this time, letting your lips linger around the crown. Steve’s hand braced against the headboard curls hard enough that the wood gives a quiet complaint beneath his grip.
Behind you, Bucky makes a low sound of disapproval.
“Now that ain’t kind,” he murmurs, gathering your hair away from your face with one hand. “Stevie’s been real good, lettin’ me have my fill of you, and here you are making him suffer for it.”
Steve tries to laugh, but it comes out rough and unsteady when you trace the underside of his cock with the tip of your tongue, following that thick vein until his hips jerk helplessly toward you again. Bucky’s fingers tighten in your hair.
“Think you oughta thank him proper.”
The push is slow but firm, guiding you down Steve’s length before you can tease him again. Your lips stretch around him as inch after inch slides over your tongue, Bucky holding your hair clear while he eases you forward until the swollen tip presses into your throat. You gag softly around him, eyes watering as your hands catch at Steve’s thighs, and the sound Steve makes is loud enough to fill the room.
His forehead drops against Bucky’s.
“Fuck,” he groans straight into Bucky’s mouth, breath breaking between them while your throat works helplessly around his cock. “Sweet girl, always so damn good to me.”
The praise goes straight through you. You moan around him, and Steve curses as the vibration rolls over his cock.
Bucky’s grip settles more firmly in your hair, guiding you back until Steve’s cock slips from your throat and then forward again in one slow, measured stroke. He controls the pace with an ease that makes your stomach tighten, keeping you steady while your lips drag over every inch of Steve. Each pass pulls another sound from Steve, his restraint coming apart piece by piece as the two of you work together to ruin him.
Bucky watches it happen with open satisfaction. His fingers tighten whenever Steve’s hips twitch, holding you in place long enough to make him feel the wet heat of your mouth before easing you back again. When your throat tightens around him and pulls another helpless groan from his chest, Bucky closes the distance and kisses him, swallowing every broken breath you pull from Steve as you bob on his cock.
Then Steve seems to decide he’s had enough of Bucky being the only one left with any composure. His hand drops between you, fumbling once at Bucky’s trousers before dragging them open. Bucky’s breath breaks into the kiss when Steve wraps a fist around his cock, giving him an experimental stroke.
“Stevie,” Bucky groans against his lips.
Steve’s mouth curves against his. He pumps him again, firmer this time, and the sound Bucky makes rolls straight through you. It leaves you suddenly, painfully aware of the hard weight of him behind you, of how close his cock is to the slick heat between your thighs while his hand remains tangled in your hair.
Your knees edge farther apart without thought.
The movement opens you beneath him, your hips rocking back in a needy little invitation even as your mouth continues working over Steve. Bucky feels it immediately. His free hand slides down your spine and cups your ass, spreading you wider as his thumb traces through the slick already coating your inner thighs.
“Goddamn, sugar, look at you,” he breathes , looking down at the wet heat waiting behind you. “Spread wide and drippin’ all over yourself for my cock.”
Steve follows his gaze.
His fist slows around Bucky’s cock, drawing the swollen head through the mess between your thighs. You whimper around Steve as Bucky’s cock slides over your clit and nudges against your entrance.
Bucky presses forward slowly, teasing you with every inch of his cock. He isn’t as thick as Steve, but he is longer, the stretch different enough to wrench a muffled cry from you around the cock already filling your mouth. Your pussy opens greedily for him, slick walls fluttering as he sinks deeper until the head of him kisses your cervix and leaves you shuddering between them.
“Fuck me, Steve,” Bucky groans, driving in until his hips meet your ass. “You been fillin’ this pussy every chance you get and she’s still tight enough to choke my cock.”
Steve’s cock pulses over your tongue at the words. You barely have enough strength left to hold yourself upright, arms trembling beneath you while Bucky draws back and fills you again, each long stroke knocking the breath from your lungs. Steve’s hips begin to move with him, pushing into your mouth as Bucky fucks into your pussy, and soon there is no rhythm left for you to keep, only the one they make between them.
You let them have you.
Steve’s hands settle on either side of your face, keeping you steady as his cock slips wetly over your tongue. Saliva gathers at the corners of your mouth and spills down your chin. Every thrust from behind rocks you farther onto Steve, leaving you whining and gagging softly around him while Bucky’s cock reaches so deep your legs threaten to give beneath you.
“Look at her, Buck,” Steve rumbles, watching your lips stretch around him. “Can’t decide which cock she wants more, so she’s takin’ both like the greedy little thing she is.”
Bucky groans and drives in deeper, his hips pressing flush to your ass, causing your mouth to jolt forward around Steve. “She loves it, Stevie. Can feel her squeezin’ me every time you push down her throat.”
Your walls clench hard around Bucky at the filth in their words, milking his cock as another broken moan vibrates around Steve’s.
“Think she likes hearing us talk about her.”
Steve’s gaze drops to you again, dark with affection and something far less gentle.
“Course she does,” he murmurs, thumb brushing through the spit shining on your chin. “Our filthy girl likes knowing she’s got both her outlaws pleased.”
Bucky’s thrusts begin to turn rougher behind you, each one driving you further onto Steve’s cock whilst Steve keeps one hand cradled against your jaw, thumb catching the drool that slips from the corner of your mouth. They feel your orgasm building, your pussy gripping Bucky and your moans breaking around Steve, and they chase it without mercy.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” Steve groans, eyes fixed on yours. “Come for us. Let Buck feel what that greedy pussy does when she gets everything she wants.”
Bucky’s hand tightens in your hair as his hips snap into you again. “Go on, sugar. Come all over my cock while you choke on his. Show us how good we make you feel.”
It’s the words that push you over. Pleasure tears through you so hard your arms nearly buckle beneath it. You come with both of them filling you, Steve thick over your tongue and Bucky buried deep enough to empty every though from your head. It’s both too much and exactly what you need - the two of them wrapped around you, with the truth of what they are to each other finally laid out between you.
Your walls clamp down around Bucky in frantic, pulsing waves. “That’s it darlin’,” Bucky growls as your pussy milks him, hips stuttering against your ass. “Keep choking me like that and I’m gonna paint this pretty back with my come.”
He pulls out just in time. His fist closes around his cock, stroking fast as the first hot spill lands across your lower back, followed by another thick stripe over your ass. Bucky groans your name as he empties himself over you, watching his seed streak your skin while your body still trembles beneath him.
Steve stares at the mess his best friend has made of you, and his cock jerks at the sight of you marked by Bucky’s cum. It’s enough to break him, spilling down your throat with a broken groan, hand tightening against your jaw as pulse after pulse fills your mouth. You swallow greedily around him, taking every drop while Bucky’s palm smooths over your hip.
“Such a sweet little thing,” Bucky murmurs behind you, still breathless. “Think your girl likes being shared, Steve.”
Steve’s thumb strokes tenderly over your cheek as you swallow the last of him, eyes glassy and looking up at him with such devoted affection it pulls his heart.
“Our girl.”
The next morning, you stir to Steve trying to leave the bed without disturbing you. He almost manages it. But the mattress shifts beneath his weight, and the warmth pressed against your front begins to disappear before you make a soft, petulant sound and reach for him beneath the covers. Steve catches your searching hand, pressing a kiss to your knuckles before leaning down to brush another against your forehead.
“Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”
You answer by tightening your fingers around his wrist, unwilling to surrender the place you have spent the night tucked between your two outlaws. Steve’s mouth softens, but Bucky solves the problem without properly waking. He makes a rough, sleepy noise behind you and pulls you firmly into his chest, one arm cinching around your waist until your back is fitted to him and there is no room left to complain about being abandoned.
“There,” Bucky mumbles into your hair. “Quit fussin’.”
You melt into him happily enough, eyes drifting shut again while Steve dresses nearby. Buck’s body is warm and heavy behind yours, his breath slow against your neck, and for a few precious moments the room feels safe enough to forget where you are.
But then Steve’s curse cuts through the quiet.
“Buck.”
Bucky doesn’t move immediately. “Mm?”
“Get up.”
The tension in Steve’s voice does what the words alone can’t. Bucky’s arm disappears from around your waist as he pushes upright, sleep falling away from him in an instant. You sit up with the blanket clutched to your chest and find Steve beside the window, peering through the narrow gap he has made in the curtain. His gun belt is already fastened. One revolver rests in his hand while he checks the chamber of the other.
“What is it?” Bucky asks, reaching for his trousers.
Steve lets the curtain fall back into place. “We’ve got company.”
Bucky crosses the room barefoot, keeping himself close to the wall as he looks out. His expression hardens. “How many?”
“Too many.”
Your heart begins to pound. You drag the sheet around yourself and slip from the bed, though Steve catches sight of you moving and immediately shakes his head.
“Stay back from the window.”
“What’s happening?”
Neither answers quickly enough.
You look from one man to the other, watching the quick efficiency with which they arm themselves. Bucky pulls on his shirt without bothering to button it before buckling his holster. Steve gathers the ammunition from the table and divides it between them, his movements calm in a way that frightens you more than panic would have.
“Steve,” you push, and when Steve glances back at you, the desperation on your face is enough to make him stop pretending.
“Street’s surrounded,” he finally admits. “Sheriff’s got men covering the front, both ends of the alley and the stable yard. More on the roofs across from us.”
The words make you freeze. “How did they find us?”
Steve looks toward the door, jaw working once. “Maybe the clerk didn’t buy our performance after all.”
Bucky looks through the curtain again, studying the street below. “Back window?”
“Two men in the alley, three more watching the yard. We’d need to draw them round the front first.”
They continue to move through possibilities quickly, cutting each one down almost as soon as it’s spoken. There are too many men. That’s the truth beneath every low exchange, though neither of them says it aloud. Bucky begins loading his rifle. Steve watches him for a moment, then glances toward you. The look passing between them is brief, but you understand it anyway.
“No.”
Steve’s face closes. “Sweetheart—”
“No.”
Bucky sets the rifle down. “Sugar, listen.”
“I know that look.” Your voice shakes despite every effort to steady it. “You’re working out how to get me clear.”
Steve crosses to you, hands finding your cheeks and tilting your face to his. “Buck and I will draw them towards the front, and once they’re focused on us, you slip through the yard and take the first horse you can reach.”
Your eyes burn as you look between them. “And what chance does it give you?”
Neither man answers.
Months ago, when they let you ride away with them, you told them there was only one part of their life you wouldn’t share. You would endure the cold, the hunger, the long days in the saddle and every bullet sent chasing after them, but you wouldn’t stand by and watch either man die. Now they mean to hold you to it.
Bucky comes to stand beside you, one hand settling at the back of your neck. His thumb moves once over your skin, the touch unbearably gentle from a man preparing to walk into gunfire.
“You take the horse south,” he says. “Don’t stop in the next town. Just keep goin’ ‘till you can’t.”
You search their faces for another answer and find none. They’re terrified - you know them well enough now to see it. But they’re simply more frightened for you than they are for themselves. So you nod.
Steve’s hands linger against your cheeks for another second before he releases you, and Bucky’s thumb brushes the back of your neck once more before both men turn away, returning to plan as they let you dress.
Your fingers feel clumsy fastening your stays, though you force them through each familiar movement, pulling on yesterday’s dress and tying your hair back with shaking hands. Bucky crouches beside the bed and spreads their remaining cartridges across the floorboards, counting beneath his breath until a thought makes him pause with one round still caught between his fingers.
“Wait a minute - you didn’t see Rumlow out there, did you?”
Steve glances over from the rifle. “Rumlow? No. Why?”
“Thank God for that.” Bucky exhales and drops the cartridge onto the pile. “For a minute there, I thought we were in trouble.”
Steve’s expression flattens while a startled laugh escapes you despite everything, and the crooked grin Bucky sends your way suggests that was precisely what he’d been aiming for.
Steve returns to checking the rifle with a quiet shake of his head. “Idiot.”
Bucky’s smirk lingers only a moment before the boys begin getting ready in earnest.
Steve fastens the last of the ammunition at his belt and checks both revolvers one final time, while Bucky gathers the remaining cartridges into his pockets and slings the rifle over his shoulder. You stand beside the bed with your coat half-buttoned and look between them, both armed now, both trying to pretend as though this is merely another bad plan they will laugh about by nightfall.
It’s Steve who comes to you first. He cups the back of your neck and kisses you hard, all the tenderness in him sharpened by the knowledge that he cannot afford to linger. You clutch at his shirt anyway, trying to hold him there, but he pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against yours.
“Promise me you’ll run,” Steve begs against your lips.
Before you can respond, Bucky adds “And don’t look back.”
You turn toward him, already crying despite the effort you’ve made not to. Bucky’s expression softens. He reaches up and wipes beneath one of your eyes with his thumb before drawing you against him and kissing you with none of his usual teasing left in it.
“You promise us, sugar,” he murmurs against your mouth. “You hear the gunfire, you run.”
Your bottom lip trembles, tears spilling freely, but you manage to keep you voice steady enough to reply “I promise.”
They lead you to the back window and ease it open just enough for you to slip through when the time comes, before heading back to the front door.
“Sheriff’s moved two more men toward the front,” he observes, peering through the narrow gap in the curtains. “Looks like they’re expecting us to make a grand entrance.”
Steve cocks his gun. “Well, I’d hate to disappoint.”
Bucky turns from the window with a faint smile, and just for a minute, the years between them seem to gather there in the quiet. They stand beside the door with their weapons ready, drawing one steadying breath before looking at each other.
“Till the end of the line,” Steve says.
Bucky’s answer comes without hesitation. “Always.”
Then they burst through the front door.
Gunfire erupts immediately, deafening in the close quarters, answered by the heavy crack of Steve’s revolver and the sharper report of Bucky’s rifle as they force the fight toward the front of the hotel. Every instinct in you screams to turn, to look, to run after them instead of away, but you cling to the promise you made and climb through the rear window once the coast is clear.
Then you run. Across the yard, past the stable wall and toward the first horse you can reach, every step carrying you farther from the two men you love. The law may have their names and faced printed on posters, may call them thieves and bad men, but you know better now.
Wanted men they may be, but they’re the best men you have ever known.
more mads: sooooo, i am so so sorry for how late i am for posting this. half of this was written in a sleep deprived, frantic haze so apologies if any of it gets confusing at any point, especially the ending. i had a different plan for it at first, but then i want to stay more loyal to the film, and i also needed to just get this fic done considering how late i already was to posting it. so this is what i landed on and i'm worried it hasn't quite worked :/ idk, this could be the sleep deprivation talking but i just started to hate this fic as i got closer to the end. hopefully you guys still enjoyed - if you did, please hit like or, even better, please consider leaving a comment/reblog bc it would genuinely make my whole day. my leo moon means i will literally perish without external validation. i’m tinkerbell coded. love u <33
I was tagged by my darling friend @anon-188!!! Rain how lucky am I that the journey of this past year brought me to you, this space wouldn’t be the same without you and your light.
one whole year in this magical community and I can’t believe how lucky I am to be a small piece of it! I have met some of the kindest people ever here. Happy birthday James Gunn Clark Kent you will always be famous (and hung)
ᯓ★ First fic
Afternoon Delight (a Super Professional Lunchbreak)
You and Clark find a private spot to share your break (spoiler alert: you don’t eat lunch)
ᯓ★ Most recent fic
By a thread
Clark Kent’s self control is a tenuous thing. It’s pulled tight inside of him, edges fraying from stress as years of want push at its seams. Just like the strap of your dress, it’s holding on by a thread.
ᯓ★ Most popular fic
I get wet at the thought of you (being a responsible guy)
Clark Kent, starring as the lamb. He has more than one pillow, calls his mom (but not too much), isn’t afraid to buy you tampons, and thinks about your needs like it’s second nature. You, starring as the lioness. In your opinion, his thoughtfulness is more effective than any other foreplay. Inspiration from Tears by Sabrina Carpenter
ᯓ★ Personal favs
Turn the Volume Up
alternatively: you and Clark find a solution to a never ending string of noise complaints
Gentle when be wants to be
“Do you think about it?” You ask.
"All the time." He answers, because above all else, Clark Kent is a man of honor and men of honor don't lie.
However, despite all that honor, Clark Kent is still just a man.
"Do you?" He asks.
You take another step, ruining his efforts and bringing you even closer than before.
"Every night." You whisper. You lean closer, just enough to let the fabric of your shift brush his uniform.
Save the world (or go to work)
Armed with dimples and a hero complex, Clark Kent has taken it upon himself to drive you insane. He’s always there, on the radio, in the breakroom, and in your mind. Despite your very sound reasoning for not dating him, he refuses to take no for an answer. Will a close call change everything or will your fears get the better of both of you?
Summary: What if the hottest thing Bucky Barnes has ever heard is a language he can’t understand? While everyone else is trying to translate your words, Bucky is far more interested in the way they sound rolling off your tongue. The more time he spends with you, the less he believes he needs to understand you at all. Besides, there are plenty of ways to talk.
PSA (Pink Service Announcement): brining back Bucky Barnes the flirt. he never died because i said so. set around TFATWS. I couldn't find any canoncial evidence of Bucky speaking French but I didn’t look that hard. you don't need to translate anything to understand what's happening, but if you want to please feel free!
Word Count: 6.3k
Warnings: google translate French, gratuitous use of italics. Bucky Barnes goes to the club, cursing, grinding on the dance floor, hot and heavy make out, oral (fem receiving)
DT: the bestest betas a girl could ever ask for, my sweet @artficlly, @heldbybarnes, and addy (I still can’t believe you know French), thank you guys so much for reading I truly would not have made it through this last stretch of writing without you. I owe you all a billion kisses or Jell-O shots, please let me know what you prefer!
also dividers by the extraordinarily talented @barnesonly
Bucky's first mistake was taking his eyes off the target.
Eyes straying from his mark across the room, first exit, second exit, and the large window. His eyes sweep the entire room, mentally checking every off every possible escape route. Calculating every possible entrance where someone could sneak in. Call it an old habit, call it paranoia, call it boredom. Bucky doesn't fucking care, it's just what he does. Working or not.
Whatever it is, it leads to his eyes sweeping right over you.
Bald suit, bald suit, gaudy heiress, bald suit, you, bald suit, billionaire-
You.
That's Bucky's second mistake, letting himself do a double take.
It's less conscious than that though, like catching his reflection in a mirror. His eyes move on their own accord, sliding away from his careful profiling and locking solely onto you.
Draped in silk and sin, poised and perfectly posed. You're perched on a bar stool, entertaining a small group of bald suits with wild hand gestures and well timed grazes of your hand.
He watches one of your manicured fingers reach out and adjust the lapels of one of their jackets. It's the only time Bucky's ever wished he had his father's hairline.
The movement is practiced, too perfect to be anything but well-rehearsed. You move like mercury, gentle and smooth. Like you could kill him if he dared to touch you.
Bucky's third mistake is abandoning his position. It's bad enough he's lost sight of the target, that bald suit went to bathroom three minutes ago. Oblivious, Bucky abandons his spot in the shadows. Losing any vantage point he may have had and walking straight through the heart of the crowd.
He can't be bothered with politeness, shouldering his way between conversations without even sparing them even an apologetic glance. It's only ten strides, maybe twelve before he has you back within view.
It's even worse up close, the curve of your chin, the tilt of your smile and the way your tongue peeks out between your lips to grab a wandering drop of champagne off the rim of your glass.
His fourth mistake is looking at your lips.
Pretty, plush, painted with perfect precision. They only serve to tighten your already iron clad grip on him. He doesn't hear a word you say, he already knows your voice will match the rest of you.
It's enchanting, the way they curve around each word. He's never taken much stock of how people look when they talk. A mouth moves and he takes no thrill in the way it shapes sound. Until yours. Until he saw them part to allow a laugh passage. Suddenly he's quite sure there's nothing sexier.
Like Venus has pulled him into her orbit, another moon for her collection.
Bucky doesn't stop until he's close enough to hear the men around you, chuckles, music and the clinking of dishes all falling to distant static.
Bucky's fifth mistake is not realizing that there is no static, at least not in the bubble surrounding you. In fact your circle of jesters has gone quiet, beady eyes staring into him as he obliviously stares at you.
A hand passes back and forth in front of his face, finally freeing him from his reverie.
When Bucky comes to there's laughter again, at his expense.
He doesn't even care, too busy processes that he can actually hear it this time. Ringing out an octave above the rest is your giggle, distinctly feminine. It sounds rehearsed, borderline unnatural, as if you've had to force it up your throat and then pitched it be heard above the rest.
It's fake, obviously so. At least to anyone willing to actually listen.
You're talking then, face turned toward him with a smirk on your lips. Your voice is smooth, velveteen. It pulls him in, as if you're giving him all of your attention with every word.
Bucky leans closer, all of his focus swimming around the sound of your speech.
It hits him all at once.
He's listening, hard. His ear turned toward your face to make sure he doesn't miss a syllable and-
He can't understand a word you say.
What is that? Russian? German? No, he knows those. He only speaks of a little bit of Slovakian, but it doesn't sound like that's it either.
It's melodic, although Bucky can't be sure if that's the language or just you.
You stare at him expectantly when you're done, voice lilting up as if you've asked him a question. Head cocked slightly to the side to match.
Like you've told him something he should have already known. Alpine gives him the same look when she wake him up at three a.m. to let him know her bowl is empty.
You're not a cat though, even if your eye gleam with mischief like one.
Is it French? Maybe you're speaking French?
"I'm sorry I don't-" he fumbles for a moment, heat rushing his cheeks with a vengeance. "I don't speak-"
Your bottom lip juts out in a pout, corners turning down into a soft frown. You say something to the rest of the men, layering it with silk and buttercream.
He catches a few more syllables that time, the fluidity as they string together some collection of words. Whatever they are has the men disappearing, a slow retreat. Like how ink dilutes in water. Gone before he can even pretend to sound out the first half of what you said.
Your shoulders lower for just a moment, visibly relaxing as you take a step closer to Bucky.
"Agent Barnes, oui?" You ask. Your smile is smaller this time, more friendly than enchanting. His name is different on your tongue, thick and accented. It's slower than before, as if you took extra care crafting it properly on your tongue.
His name has never sounded like that before. Like someone was paying attention, cared about getting it right.
He wants to know yours. Badly.
Wants to trace each of your teeth with his tongue, lick each syllable off it and taste your voice.
He feels like a kid in a school gym, sweaty palmed with a flipping stomach.
That kid never used to falter though. Bucky prays he’s still in him somewhere.
Sam’s voice cackles in his ear, his tone something between amusement and frustration.
“I see you’ve met Sirène.”
Bucky’s eyes snap to yours, Sirène?
“I thought we were solo on this one Sam?” Bucky does his best to keep his voice level, offering you a small nod as he speaks.
“Our guy is wanted in several countries Buck, including hers. We went over all of this in the briefing? They sent her over for backup, y’know another set of eyes and someone who could sweet talk his foreign associates.”
The bald suits, presumably.
“Oh.”
“Yeah oh.” Sam’s voice trails on, Bucky hears something about plans and paperwork. Bucky’s also pretty sure there’s a jab about listening ears in there too.
While yeah, he probably should pay more attention during briefings, he’s also pretty sure no file could have adequately prepared him for you.
You’re still in front of him, bottom lip pulled between your teeth as you bite back a laugh.
“Siren?” Bucky repeats, directing the question toward you. Eliciting another giggle.
“See-ren.” Sam corrects in his ear. “It’s French.”
Bucky feels his confidence build ever so slightly, at least he was right about that.
He tries again, taking the same care that you did with his. It's a code name, of course it is. But it's something.
Your grin is enough to turn Sam's voice in his to static.
"Makes sense." Bucky muses, "Pretty sure you could lure any man, anywhere."
Your reply drips like honey, the deepening in your tone unmistakable. "Vous aussi?" You murmur.
Bucky feels his knees start to melt with the way they hit him. Molten and sultry. "I'd fall right in line with them." He continues, unable to directly respond the way he wishes he could.
Thirty languages programmed deep in his psyche and somehow French isn't one of them.
"Quel genre d'espion ne parle pas français?" You tease, or at least he thinks you tease.
"I should'a listened when my Ma told me to take French in school."
"C'est pas grave, je les aime mignons et bêtes." You lean in closer on that one, taking the collar of his shirt between your fingers and smoothing it over.
"I don't know what that means but it turns me-"
"Oooh-kay." Sam sing-songs, cutting Bucky off. "If you two are done with whatever this is, we need to find our target."
Shit. Bucky curses. Of course Sam is right, he really should focus.
He turns to look at you, something apologetic already half off his tongue when you start to lean in.
With a hand on his chest, you toe up and whisper in his ear. Or more accurately, into his ear piece.
"Il Dans le coin le plus à droits, assis fauteuil en cuir." You murmur, close enough for your lips to brush the skin oh his ear lobe. "Nous-I'm observe depuis trois minutes."
You pull back, the hand on his chest snaking up to his neck and curling around the back of it. Just enough for the tips of your fingers to dance along the hair at the base of his head.
"J'ai entendu sa femme dans la salle de bains. Elle disait qu'il ne fait pas confiance à ceux qui viennent seuls à ce genre d'événement." You continue, all but purring as you rake your nails over his skin. You let out a laugh then, one of the fake ones from earlier. This time you keep it low, soft enough that it won't travel further than the two of you. "Heureusement, je suis venu accompagné d'une belle cavalière."
Bucky's mind in swimming, swirling with the ecstacy of your touch and the vibration of your voice. How is a man supposed to even pretend to listen?
"Little help on the translation Sam?" Bucky asks. Doing his best to follow your lead, he slides an arm around your waist, his hand resting heavy over the slope of your hip.
He can feel his pulse in his palm, thrumming hard under the skin with nerves. You don't seem to notice, or perhaps care, not bothering to move an inch as Bucky waits for Sam's response.
"Our guy is across the room at eight o'clock. He likes couples so she's doing her best to sell it." Sam explains, "So maybe loosen up a bit, give her a hand yeah?"
Bucky feels his throat bob as he swallows, his tongue suddenly gone thick. His nod is short, hardly visible and too stiff for the kind of level head this situation calls for.
"Yeah." Bucky exhales, "I can do that."
He forces himself to ignore Sam's chuckled Can you? in his ear.
"Respirer profondement." You whisper, taking the hand Bucky had placed (respectfully) on your hip and moving it around to your back, letting it rest at the base of your spine, just where your ass begins to curve.
One long exhale later, and Bucky finds his nerve.
His hand splays out over your skin, daring to take up the space there. With one quick pull he brings your chest flush to his, nearly throwing your balance as he does so.
You beam, smile widening with approval.
"Nice." Sam chides in his ear, equal parts proud and disgusted.
You squeeze Bucky's shoulder. "Il vient par ici."
"He's headed toward you." Sam translates.
You bring your hand around from the back of Bucky's neck, sliding it down over his collarbone until your palm rests flat on his sternum. "Laissez- parler."
"Let her do the talking." Sam tells him. Through a window a light catches Bucky's eye, a red scope trained in his direction. Sam's careful aim sitting on his shoulders like armor.
"My pleasure." Bucky agrees.
With his hand still on your back, the skin below his ear buzzing from where your lips had brushed, Bucky thinks he means it more than either you are Sam truly understand.
Bucky's began to wonder if S.H.I.E.L.D. asked you to stay on to test him.
Or more specifically, test his sanity.
With the arrest made, a power vacuum big enough to swallow Wilson Fisk opened up. Wannabe kingpins popping up every three blocks with the potential to wreak more havoc than they have any right to.
And with the dissemination of your Target's organization, most of them happen to be French.
They need you, S.H.I.E.L.D. of course. Not Bucky, no Bucky just likes your company.
If he can even call it that.
What do you call it when you spend all day with someone and then also spend all of your free time with them and spend all the time you're not together replaying their words in your head?
Sam calls it a crush, Bucky staunchly disagrees.
What do you call it when you can't understand a word the other person says?
Sam calls it a Love Actually. Bucky doesn't know what the fuck that means.
You laughed when he told you about it though, loud and obnoxious. Hard enough for your head to tilt back and expose the thin skin of your neck. The line where muscle meets collarbone and the kissable swell of your clavicle.
Bucky doesn't look up it, afraid of what he'll find.
Instead he asks you to teach some more French.
Je m'appelle Bucky. My name is Bucky.
Explained to him with a smile as you finally slipped him your own.
Pour qui travaillez-vous? Who do you work for?
Your voice guiding him through the pronunciation as you and Sam prepared him for a few simple phrases he might hear.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? What the fuck are you doing?
Rasped though the static of a com as you watch him through a security cam in a van about two hundred feet away. A huff of frustration and Bucky is sure a matching furrow in your brow.
That one is probably his favorite.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? When you catch him eating from one of those shitty breakfast trucks parked outside.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? When he takes you out for sushi (a nice place Sam recommended, emphasizing its romantic atmosphere despite Bucky's protests), this time gasped in mock horror as he picked up a fork.
He'd stared back confused, already half-offended before he realized what you were talking about.
You waved the chopsticks sitting between your fingers at him, clicking their ends together once as if to punctuate the sentence.
Bucky had fumbled, ripping open the paper that held his pair and holding them uselessly in either hand.
"I'm not exactly sure how to-"
You'd already reached across the table before he could finish, grasping his hand and articulating it with your fingers. You pulled and flexed until satisfied and then slid the chopsticks into place.
"Mieux." You'd said with a satisfied nod
Bucky had to ignore the way he stirred in his boxers under the drip of your praise.
At least he's pretty sure that's what it was.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? Shouted over a loud bass and shitty DJ. Bucky learns that in the heart of Brooklyn, people do still dance. It just looks little different now.
And it hurts his ears.
Stiff as board, he watches you from just a few feet away. A tight dress, strappy heels, the lace of your bra just beginning to tease itself over the neckline-
What the fuck are you doing? He curses to himself, blinking hard as if it could change the way his body is already reacting.
You're dancing, hips swaying in time with the music while your face sits in a scowl. Lips pressed into a line as you stare him down with what he thinks is French for contempt.
"She wants to go to an American Club," Sam had told him. "A bunch of us are gonna go, y'know make a night of it."
Bucky hadn't been easily convinced.
He'd laughed, full chested and slightly terrified. "Hard pass."
Sam knocked his shoulder, hard enough to yank Bucky straight out of his cowardice.
"Don't be an idiot." He'd chided.
"I'm not it's just not my scene." Bucky tried to reason. "You honestly think she'd want me there? What so I can stand there awkwardly all night and pretend to get buzzed?"
Sam's groan bounced off the walls around them, "You're shitting me right?"
Bucky shrugged.
"You've been making fuck-me eyes at each other for the past month." Sam deadpanned.
The denial was second nature, the only thing that made sense. "She doesn't feel that way-"
"Do you speak French?" Sam interrupted.
"No."
"Okay then shut up and listen to someone who does." Sam said.
Bucky's protest died on his tongue.
"Just fucking go tonight okay? I'll play translator and then if you don't believe me after that you really are fucking hopeless."
So Bucky Barnes, despite being just about seventy years too old, went to the club.
He wore those cargoes that make the lady at his Chinese place stare at his thighs. A black t-shirt that is probably a little too small but his other one was dirty and he didn't have time to wash it. Topping it off with a leather jacket and a scoff at himself in the mirror.
"Qu'est-ce que tu fous?" He whispered to himself, already picturing ten different versions of your disgust.
Sam had already been knee deep in conversation with you when Bucky finally got there.
Vowels flying left and right, wild gesticulations that made Bucky fear for the safety of your drinks next to you.
He had to ignore the way his heart jumped when you spotted him. Forced himself to brush off the way you immediately stopped talking to Sam.
"Bucky! Tu es venu!" You crooned in his ear, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as you took a hug. A month later and the way you say his name is still enough to send a shiver up Bucky's spine.
You'd already had a drink, probably two if the looseness of your shoulders is anything to go by.
When you pulled back it was to give him an appeasing look, eyes traveling over him with slow deliberation. When you finally met his eyes again, your finished with a slight cock of your head. Then you nodded, as if he'd answered a question you silently asked.
"Vous êtes à croquer, Sergeant." You finally spoke, ending the sentence with one last hum and a pat on his shoulder.
Then you were gone, pulled away by another agent and into the dance floor, leaving him alone with Sam at the bar.
Minutes passed, long stretches of silence with nothing but the chaos of the music and the crowd around them. The shouts of drunk partiers ordering more drinks, the clamor of girls at the DJ booth.
"You look good enough to eat."
Sam finally broke the silence, taking a long swill of his drink before looking at Bucky for his reaction.
"That's what she said." He explained, nodding in your direction. "She also spent our entire conversation staring at the door waiting for you."
Bucky's pulse stuttered, then began pounding a new rhythm. Something between surprised and utterly terrified.
His face burned, like when you sit too close to a campfire. Bright hot and impossible to ignore. Across the club you glowed with your own light. A flame burning so bright you hurt his eyes, flickering with motions so fluid he has no choice but to keep staring anyway.
You caught his stare, lips setting into a frown as his favorite words rolled off your tongue one more time. "Qu'est-ce que tu fous?"
Finally, Bucky thinks he knows how you want him to answer.
The look, the contempt. It's something else entirely. It's half-lidded and frustrated and utterly sick of waiting. You're not disgusted, you're wanting.
Shit, Bucky realizes, What the fuck have I been doing?
His jacket is shrugged off before he can think better of it, too busy holding eye contact to make sure he actually passed it Sam's direction.
"Hold this." He says, reaching over to steal the last few sips from his friend's drink.
Your frown turns back up, lips quirking with mischief. The same hint of trouble he saw that very first night.
As if you know, you lift on hand, using it to crawl your finger in a slow 'come hither' movement. Then you turned, breaking the spell and leaving Bucky to stare at your back as you fell back into the music.
"Don't think I need to translate that one." Sam cracks, letting out a low whistle as your hips began to sway even harder than before.
"No." Bucky grunts, "You don't."
By the time Bucky makes it to you, he already knows he won't last long.
He comes up from behind, and the smile you throw him over your shoulder nails his coffin.
It's three songs, maybe four.
Three songs of your body pressed so tight to his Bucky's not sure where you end and he begins.
Three songs of the curve of your ass rolling against his cargoes until he's fighting at his zipper.
Three songs of your arm stretched above your head, hand curled around the back of Bucky's neck.
Three songs of your lips brushing over his skin. The seam of his jaw, the hollow of his collar bone, just over the thump of his jugular.
Three songs of Bucky realizing he's been paying too much attention to talk.
You say plenty without ever even opening your mouth.
His hand closes over your hip and your body answers with a sway, your weight leaning back into his chest.
He finds the courage to bring his other hand to your front, splaying it protectively over your stomach. You return it in ten fold, pushing onto your toes and leaning your head onto his shoulder.
He can't hear the noise you make but he feels it vibrate through your chest, a low rumble echoing through every part of you he can feel.
For the first time Bucky's able to hear what you've been trying to tell him. Finally, it's a language he can speak.
Mercifully, he's fluent.
His hands spin you around slow, pulling until you're face to face. The lean down is just as tortuous, bending until you're all but nose to nose.
The noise of the club around you acts like a curtain, drawing closed around your bodies until he forgets anyone is there at all.
Your eyes dance from his own down to his lips, lashes fluttering with the movement and dusting your cheeks. There's glitter on your nose, Bucky's torn between wanting to know where you got it, and licking it off.
He definitely wants to find out if there's more.
"Vas-tu enfin m'embrasser?" It can't be louder than a whisper, Bucky's ears so finely attuned to your voice he's sure he could pick it out of any room.
He feels his cock throb, responding to your words despite not even knowing what they mean. You could have been reciting the the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Bucky wouldn't have cared.
It was never about what you said, or what language you spoke it in, it was always about how you said it. Bucky answers with the only thing he can make sense of.
"I don't know what that means but it turns me on."
Your hand snakes a path down Bucky's chest, sliding between the space where your bodies are pressed together so you can palm his bulge.
"Ça se voit." You purr, thumb pressing into his zipper.
Bucky's dick jumps under your touch, all his want pooling under your hand.
"That's not fair." He groans, his grip tightening on your hips, enough to make the fabric of your dress bunch between his fingers. "All my cards are on the table."
You pull back, pushing up onto your toes again as you stretch towards him. "Je vous dirai tout ce que vous voulez savoir. Il suffit de demander."
"Okay it's even less fair when you do that." He crumbles, meeting you halfway and pressing his forehead into yours. "I'm already caught you can stop with the siren song."
You laugh, low and soft and mercifully real. "Demande , Bucky."
He doesn't find the words he was looking for, no grand speech or sweeping music. Just the weight of his better judgment finally giving out on itself.
His lips find yours with a sigh of relief, the tension between you finally releasing with a palpable burst.
Your soft against him, nose turning ever so slightly to slot against his.
It's gentle at first, soft, exploratory. A test of pressure, the shock of feeling you so close against him.
Then it turns, pressure grows, each of you pushing harder into the other. Hands take on lives of their own, grabbing at any inch of exposed skin they can find. Yours are everywhere, his neck, his arms, his jaw and at the sliver of skin at his waist. You leave fire burning in your wake, mouth slanted against him as you swallow every sound that escapes.
Maybe you weren't joking about eating him.
The tension that existed before comes back tenfold, growing into something malicious and untenable. It burns even brighter now, like the first puff a cigarette. His body is already craving more and you're still on his lips.
When the need for air finally wins out, your bodies are so entangled Bucky is sure half of the dance floor is giving you a dirty look.
Bucky can't hear your breathing but he can feel it, the rapid rise and fall of your chest against his. The way your lips are parted, the skin around them irritated from his scruff. It strike a white hot pulse of possession.
You look wrecked and Bucky can't get enough of the fact that he's the one who did it.
When you speak it's at the same time, two gravely voices begging the same question.
"Ramène- à ta maison?"
"Can I take you home?"
Both of you are answered with another kiss.
Bucky - woefully unprepared Bucky, takes you back to his apartment. He guides the most ethereal woman he's ever met up two flights of stairs and into his shoebox.
Okay, it's little bigger than a shoebox but not by much.
He does his best to steer you through the living room, kissing you earnest as he walks you back toward his bedroom. In part just to kiss you, but also to keep you from seeing the makeshift bed on the floor by the couch.
You either don't notice his tactics or don't care. By the time you make it to his room you've stopped walking altogether. No, instead your legs are wrapped around his waist, having jumped up somewhere between the kitchen and bathroom. Just threw your weight at him between kisses and trusted him to catch you.
It makes his head feel warm to think about.
The bed is softer than he remembers, his hands sinking into the plush mattress as he lays you down on it.
He waits until your back is flat, then leans onto his haunches. His chest pulls tight at the distance, like an invisible is string gone taut between you. His jacket comes off in rushes drags of sleeves down his arms, one side even catching on his wrist in the hurry. He doesn't even remember putting it back on, doesn't remember much about leaving the club except the way you were tucked into his side with a hand in his back pocket.
The jacket lands somewhere behind him with a thud, the sound marrying beautifully with your giggle.
Bucky has to take a moment just to look at you.
You perched on your elbows and staring up at him with nothing but excitement. Youwith your dress bunched up around the tops of your thighs, bare skin catching in the dim light of his lamp. You with a pretty smile on your lips, any lipstick that you had started the night with long gone.
He wonders if it's rouge on your cheeks or if you just glow like that all by yourself.
For a second, he's out of his body. Who is he to have this? The soft bed beneath his knees is unfamiliar, the trust you offer yourself up with even more so.
It must show on his face.
"Bucky?" You whisper, humming as you bring his attention back to you. "Ça va?"
He nods, only half sure he understood the question. "I'm okay." He promises, "Just making sure you're real."
You melt, slight enough that only someone as well attuned as him would notice. Shoulders curling inward, lips twitching at the corners, the brief break in your eye contact.
Slowly, you lower yourself flat once more, this time grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him with you.
Your hands grab the hem of shirt, reclaiming the skin you had teased on the dance floor. This time you don't stop at a sliver, pulling it up over his head until it lands somewhere by his jacket.
A low breath blows from between your teeth, borderline a whistle. "Es tu?" You ask, cocking an eyebrow as you flatten your palm over his abdomen.
Bucky can't be bothered to decipher that one, instead he decides he's much more bothered by the fact that you are still wearing so much clothes.
Okay the dress really isn't much in the way of fabric but his point stands. It's between him and your skin and that's crime enough.
Your zipper slips between his fingers twice, the delicate metal pull taunting him as he tries to grasp it. That's when he gives up.
The zipper pulls apart with just a little pressure, coming undone in a cascade of popping teeth. From the top of the dress to the end of the zipper at the base of your spine, it's rendered useless in seconds.
Bucky waits to be scolded, a hand slap or sharp glare.
When he finally looks back up at you all he sees is want, pupils blown wide with your bottom lip pulled between your teeth.
Bucky's hands freeze where they had been pulling the dress down, fabric bunched in his hands like a brute.
Then you nod.
It rips like paper, tearing along the seam that had run up your hip and all the way to the base of the zipper.
He throws it so hard it hits the wall.
You're even worse bare, the sight of you in nothing but a bra and panties enough to turn what's left of Bucky's mind to mush.
It's his turn to be greedy. He copies the path you took, from sternum to ribs to belly button. Only he paints it with his mouth instead.
A kiss over your collarbone, then just over your heart. Then one is pressed in the valley between your breasts, another further down at the base of your ribs. Until finally he laves one more just above the waist band of your underwear, low enough for the elastic to tickle his chin.
Your breath catches, a sharp gasp that catches just as he makes contact. Like he's caught you off guard, something he didn't even know was possible.
It would make even the worst cowards brave.
Bucky tucks a finger into the elastic on either of your hips, pausing just long enough for you to know his intentions.
Without missing a beat you raise them, lifting off the bed by just as inch and giving Bucky the only signal he needed.
They don't even get pulled all the way off, abandoned somewhere around your ankles and left for you to kick away as Bucky gives all his attention to the sight in front of him.
The low lights cast a shadow across your body, draping you in gentle curves and sharp contrasts. It settles over your skin until you look like a painting, and your cunt is no exception.
There at the apex of your thighs, Bucky's is pretty sure sits the holy grail.
He moves slow, like a predator stalking its prey. He makes a home for himself between your thighs, pushing your knees apart to make room as he lays down between them.
Your words from earlier play back in his mind, the translation Sam had fed him.
"Vous êtes à croquer" He whispers, pressing a kiss to the inside of your knee. He probably butchered the pronunciation, dragged the vowel too hard or exaggerate a letter that doesn't belong but you don't seem to care. "Means you look good enough to eat."
As if forgetting him, your legs immediately try to close, a little whimper bubbling from the back of your throat as you're blocked by his hands.
Bucky clicks his tongue, using the movement to shift your position. The legs that had been on either side of him are lifted onto his shoulders, rendering you completely vulnerable to hid intentions.
"Sil te plaît." You whine, hips jerking up toward him. Your breathing turned erratic, sharp inhales and cut-off exhales as you wait for him to finally do something.
Bucky doesn't pretend to hide just how much he likes it.
His fingers find you first, wet heat that catches on his skin. You feel like fire, tantalizing and hypnotic. His index and pointed drag through your folds, parting them to give him a better view of your ruin.
He repeats the motion a few times, gathering slick around his digits and watching your reaction with every pass.
The tensing of your thighs when he just misses your entrance, the way your chest stills when he passes over the hood of your clit.
Your body is a language he's desperate to be fluent in.
The taste of you melts on his tongue, potent and sweet. Better than anything he's had the privilege to swallow in years.
One lick, then a second slower one. The full width of his tongue pressing flat against your clit. Then he can't bear another second, closing his lips around the bud in a sloppy wet kiss.
Your hands fly to his hair, followed by a jagged moan that sounds more like it was torn from your body than given willingly.
"Bucky-" you gasp, fingers pulling on brown locks, "Fuck!"
Your slip up is missed completely, half covered by your thighs over his ears and half drowned out by the his own satisfied groan.
His mind is blissfully blank, for the first time in a long time he's not thinking about anything other than the task at hand.
Your pleasure isn't even a direct motivator, well it is, but Bucky's driven by his own just as much. The way you feel in his mouth, the vibrations of your moans and the how your entire body jolts when he finally slides two fingers inside of you.
It's relief, finally understanding that as much as he wants you, you want him. It only fuels him further, his nose pushing against your clit, fingers working along side his tongue inside you. Curling at different angles until he hears that scream again-
"Bucky!"
You're wet everywhere, the insides of your thighs and down his chin. Some sick part of him wishes he could bottle it, where the most natural part of you as a cologne.
His own hips grind into the mattress, more instinct than intention. He's harder than he's been in seventy fucking years and you don't even speak the same language.
Your legs go rigid around his head, tightening as your orgasm starts to build.
Bucky's making sure you get there, pressing his fingers into that spot inside you until he's all but giving it a massage. Your walls pulling tight around him, pulsing in time with your rapid heart.
His lips close around your clit one more time, tonguing it with gentle pressure. He can't help but hum, he's damn near choking on you and would die happily if it was between your legs.
Then it all bursts.
His nightmare, his French muse, his siren, his Venus cums hard on his tongue.
Bucky swears he can taste a whole language, the sweetest elixir God could have ever made and he's drinking it from the source.
You're one fire above him, broken curses and whimpered babbles of his name.
As it retreats, your grip finally loosening, Bucky crawls back over you. Not stopping until he's above your face, watching it contort in the come down.
You're still speaking, the sound of it finally coming back into focus.
"So good," you gasp, "So fucking good Bucky don't stop-"
Everything goes still. An entire orbit freezing in place.
He can see it in your eyes, something hazy and romantic as you finally lock in on him. Your hands cup his face, oblivious to the fact that you've given it away.
"You speak fucking English?" It comes out harsher than Bucky means for it to. "This whole time you spoke-"
You groan, pulling his lips back to yours.
Despite it all, Bucky goes willingly. He kisses you and instead of betrayal he tastes something sweeter.
"Was gonna tell you." You whisper, "But wasn't this more fun?"
When he pulls back that look is there again, the mischief he saw that first night.
He kisses you again, even harder this time.
Yeah, he thinks, it was.
Collab Masterlist (If you're interested in Bumpin' that)
─ house of the evening bloom
avatar: the last airbender au
monster hunter!zuko x vampire!courtesan!reader
you've spent decades trapped inside the house of the evening bloom, a vampire pleasure house ruled by the cruel lord kage. escape is impossible, but when a warden arrives in ba sing se hunting monsters, instead of running in fear, you see an opportunity. all you have to do is get him into your bed first.
⤷ word count: 22.8k
─ tags
18+ content minors dni: adult zuko, smut, p in v sex, spit kink, spit swallowing, fingers in mouth, finger sucking, mouth covering, faking orgasm, exhibitionism (lowk dubcon?), dirty talk, rough sex, hair pulling, blood drinking, blood drinking as an aphrodisiac, kissing, mention of death, mention of parricide, violence, suicidal!reader, torture, psychological torture, starvation, noncon sex work, noncon vampirism, mentions of kidnapping, mentions of hazing, swearing, mentions of drugs and alcohol, violence, age gap ig, reader is sometimes referred to as 'spider lily', ancient japan inspired setting with some chinese and european influence but set in the atlab world, lmk if i missed anything.
─ authors note
this fic is if blue eyed samurai and the witcher had a baby. please let me know if you enjoyed, this took me over two months to write im not even joking. big thank you to @firingstars for helping me workshop the dirty talk and to @pinksplace for reading the first half to reassure me <3
⤷ main masterlist | follow @artficlly-archive for post notifications
It was said that deep within the Pleasure District lay a garden unlike any other in the Earth Kingdom.
The garden in question was maintained by Lord Kage, the Red Prince of the Pleasure District, and like all great collectors, he was known for his discerning eye. Rumours claimed he spent vast sums in search of the perfect additions to his collection—beautiful blooms, delicate blooms, rare blooms—flowers worthy of being cultivated beneath his care. City-goers whispered that he had agents in every corner of the world, that they tirelessly wandered the streets and marketplaces, the festivals and temple grounds, all in search of the next perfect flower to capture their master’s attention.
Most laughed the stories off as little more than idle gossip or folklore spun to frighten badly behaved children, while others were perceptive enough to change the subject. Lord Kage was wealthy and well-connected enough that no officials ever questioned his unchanging appearance over the decades. He was powerful enough that no magistrate or imperial official dared investigate his affairs. Lord Kage paid his taxes, entertained the right nobles, and kept Ba Sing Se’s elite well supplied with pleasures they could never publicly admit to enjoying.
Despite Lord Kage’s vast wealth, everyone understood that neither riches nor influence could silence the whispers of high society or the common folk. Those whispers spoke of the grand crimson manor tucked between neighbouring pleasure houses at the far end of the Pleasure Mile, with its lantern-lit balconies and silk-draped rooms. They spoke of the flowers that inhabited its halls, none of which ever appeared to wilt. Much like a peach pear, one could savour its sweet flesh and get lost in the ghost stories murmured in the dark over campfires. However, if one wasn’t cautious enough and bit too deeply, they risked chipping a tooth on the pit at its centre, because in Ba Sing Se, everyone knew that wherever there were whispers, there was always a rotten truth at its core.
As a girl, like many others, you had been fascinated by those stories. After lessons, you and your friends would linger at the edge of the Pleasure District, peering down the streets you had been expressly forbidden from entering. You would stand on your tiptoes between the crowds, trying to catch a glimpse of the House of the Evening Bloom. From a distance, it had hardly looked sinister. Just another elegant manor of dark-polished wood and red-painted pillars, with curved, barrel-tiled roofs that glowed red beneath rows of lanterns when dusk settled over the city. You used to dare each other to sneak as closely as possible, to witness those fabled unwilting flowers. Were they truly as beautiful as society claimed, and did they only bloom at night? You had imagined rare orchids hidden behind the shoji, night-blooming jasmine unfurling beneath moonlight, exotic peonies brought from distant corners of the world.
But you’d never once imagined the flowers were girls.
Girls who had once been just as young and foolish as you, girls with painted lips and empty smiles, girls given the names of flowers in place of their own.
Girls who never grew old.
Girls who thirsted for blood.
And above all, you had never imagined that one day Lord Kage’s attention would settle upon you. Or, that over a century later, you would no longer remember the sound of your true name, only the one he had given you. Because what were you, if not just another unwilting flower in the garden of the House of the Evening Bloom?
There was a rumour, floating like a petal in the wind—a whisper passed from flower to flower, that the Blue Spirit had been sighted in Ba Sing Se.
Although none of you were permitted to step outside the confines of the House of the Evening Bloom, lest you be dragged back screaming, you were all keenly aware of the happenings beyond its walls. Men liked to talk in pleasure houses; they would boast over cups of sake or baijiu, eager to impress whichever flower they had chosen to entertain them for the evening. Merchants bragged of their adventures and riches, generals recounted tales of military victories, and government officials often spoke too candidly of politics after enough wine. It made the flowers, and likely every other courtesan lining the Pleasure Mile, remarkably well-informed despite never truly participating in the world they heard so much about.
You and the others received little compensation for your work—silks and jewels, a place to hide from the sun, a steady supply of blood to stave off the gnawing hunger. Gold was meaningless when every coin you earned ultimately found its way back into Lord Kage’s coffers. No, information held far greater value within the House. Over the decades, the flowers had begun trading whispers amongst themselves. A noble's scandal for details of a political appointment, rumours of war bartered for stories of a distant province she would never see again. It was a pathetic sort of currency when viewed from the outside, but one many of you clung to all the same. The gossip symbolised the world beyond the lacquered gates that still existed, a reminder to stay grounded as the time ticked by and the House remained unchanged year after year.
So, when one patron mentioned the Blue Spirit, the flowers listened. When another repeated a similar tale several nights later, you all remembered. When a third swore he had seen the masked hunter himself stalking the lower ring of the ring, the rumour spread through the House like wildfire.
Tales of the Blue Spirit varied depending on who recounted them. Some claimed the Blue Spirit was merely a man. Others insisted he was something far older, a spirit sent to punish creatures that had overstayed their welcome in the mortal realm—and that was why he wore the blue oni mask, to conceal a face beyond comprehension. Entire covens were reportedly wiped out beneath his blades—century-old demons and beasts, powerful enough to command cities and armies, reduced to little more than cautionary tales and ash. One merchant—though thoroughly drunk and petrified—swore that he had witnessed the fabled man emerge from the Foggy Swamp one evening, with the severed head of a Jorōgumo attached at his hip. Because when it came to the Blue Spirit, details changed, but the outcome never did. He brought death to those deemed monstrosities by the mortal world.
He was a Warden—a monster hunter.
Unsurprisingly, the House of the Evening Bloom had grown restless in response to the talk of his presence in Ba Sing Se. What had once been mere whispers suddenly felt tangible enough to taste. The thought of the masked Warden climbing the manor steps, twin blades in hand, should have frightened you.
It certainly frightened Madame Yoru.
The Mother of Blossoms maintained the same cold composure she always had, but you had noticed there was a strain beneath it these days. Courtesans were snapped at for the slightest mistake, servants hurried from room to room with their heads bowed in the hope of not incurring her wrath, and even the most favoured flowers appeared careful not to linger too long in her presence. If Madame Yoru was worried, then perhaps there was some truth to the rumours after all…thatthought had settled over you with a sick sort of clarity, and you had allowed yourself one dangerous thing: hope.
Though, unfortunately, it was difficult to entertain such thoughts with Madame Yoru’s nails currently digging into your jaw. The Mother of Blossoms stood before you in a haze of crimson silk and gold jewellery, her sharply painted lips stretched into a smile that had never quite reached her eyes. She was beautiful and elegant, yet monstrous. Just after you had readied yourself to enter the parlour to begin a night’s work, she had cornered you in the hallway with a particularly murderous look and forced your face up to meet her gaze. Her dark eyes swept over your face with open disapproval.
“You’re becoming a poor investment,” she tutted.
You remained silent—you had learnt there was little point in arguing.
“You were once one of Lord Kage’s favourites,” she continued. “Men crossed the Earth Kingdom itself to spend an evening in your company. Lately, however… you appear determined to waste his generosity.”
The word generosity almost made you laugh the moment it slipped from her tongue. As if sensing your wayward thoughts, Madame Yoru’s grip tightened.
“You mope, you sulk, you spend every free moment hiding away in your rooms as though sorrow were a particularly attractive accessory.” She paused with a sneer, assessing your reaction for any sign of defiance. “Men do not pay for melancholy, Spider Lily. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Madame,” you uttered in response.
“Good.” Her thumb brushed across your cheek with mock affection.
“You are wilting, my dear girl.” She murmured, and that callous, predatory smile of hers had returned. “And all of Ba Sing Se knows that the flowers here do not wilt.”
Your gaze lowered as Madame Yoru leaned in closer, breath cold against your ear. “If you fail to earn your keep tonight, then perhaps another few months in the box will remind you to be grateful.”
For a long moment, everything fell silent. The noise that had wafted down from the parlour—chatter, laughter, the shuffle of footsteps and the clink of cups—faded away, replaced by a sudden, piercing ringing that filled your ears as a sob clawed its way up your throat. Absolute, indescribable terror seized you so suddenly, so violently, that a wave of vertigo washed over you. It wasn’t a gentle lapping at your ankles, but a tidal wave—powerful and large enough that the impact knocked the breath from your lungs and caused you to lose your footing, your body being thrown and spun wildly in the imaginary current. If you were still human, you would’ve emptied the contents of your stomach onto the floor. But in that moment, you couldn’t even find the words. Could get a breath past the lump in your throat, not blink away the tears stringing at the corners of your eyes—
No.
No, no, no, no.
You couldn’t go back. You couldn’t go back there. You couldn’t do it, no, you couldn’t do it. You couldn’t do it again. They wouldn’t send you back, right? You wouldn’t go back there. You couldn’t do it. You couldn’t do it. You couldn’t do it. You couldn’t do it—
Madame Yoru had always been frighteningly perceptive when it came to her flowers, and she caught your reaction at once. The widening of your glassy eyes, the visible tremor that rattled through your body as you gaped at her, still speechless, rooted in place and defenceless—
You couldn’t do it. They couldn’t send you back. You couldn’t do it again—
Madame Yoru hummed, satisfied, wearing the look of someone who had found the knife and knew exactly how to twist it. Only when she had satiated herself on watching you come apart into a thousand tiny pieces, did she finally release your jaw.
“Run along, Spider Lily.” She gave your cheek a little pat, though with the ferocity with which she executed it, it felt closer to a slap. “Best find a client before it’s too late.”
It was the sting across your cheek that finally pulled you from your spiralling thoughts. Your feet carried you down the corridor before your mind could catch up, silk whispering around your ankles as much as your own consciousness as you walked.
You couldn’t go back.
The thought repeated itself over and over, drowning out everything else, that tidal wave of panic returning every time you thought you’d wrenched yourself from the waters.
You couldn’t do it again. You couldn’t go back. You couldn’t go back again—
You would smile, let them touch you, and take whatever they desired. You would perform. You would endure every humiliating moment of it if it meant avoiding the alternative. Because all the flowers knew that the House would never dare beat them. A misplaced blow could split skin and damage a face, leaving a mark no amount of powder could fully conceal, and the Red Prince did not tolerate damage to his property. He had perfected other methods of breaking in his flowers and keeping them broken.
You couldn’t go back there, not again—
You forced the thought away before it could fully form and willed your hands to stop shaking. The world around you blurred into crimson silk, polished wood and the warm glow of lantern light as you stumbled forward. You only became fully aware of your surroundings again when the grand doors of the parlour stood open before you. With Madame Yoru’s threat still echoing through your skull, you stepped inside.
The House of the Evening Bloom was designed to impress. The parlour occupied the very heart of the manor, rising through two lavish storeys, with the high ceiling above hidden behind silk banners and hanging lanterns. Black-and-red-painted pillars rose to support balconies that encircled the upper levels, allowing wealthy patrons to observe the entertainment below from private vantage points. Performers played soft melodies from raised platforms while servants drifted through the crowds carrying trays. The air smelt of oudh incense—potent enough to disguise the scent of predators.
At the centre of the room, sat the flowers. The display platform rose in broad tiers, forming a pyramid of embroidered cushions and low-backed seats. From a distance, it resembled a carefully arranged bouquet, every flower positioned to best display her beauty for prospective buyers. To outsiders, the hierarchy likely appeared backwards. The women seated closest to the floor on the lowest tiers of the display belonged to the most sought-after courtesans. They were the favourites; they occupied the lowest rows because they were the easiest to reach. Patrons entering the parlour naturally gravitated towards them first, and those women had spent decades ensuring it remained that way. They laughed loudly, flirted shamelessly, and guarded their positions by tearing one another apart whenever an opportunity presented itself. Many had been in the House long enough that they scarcely remembered life beyond its walls. The higher tiers belonged to everyone else—the timid and overlooked, the freshly broken, the ones men admired from afar but rarely approached. In recent years, you had found yourself preferring the solitude of the top; it was far more peaceful than the dogfight down below, even if the Mother of Blossom’s threat hung around your throat like a noose.
You climbed the platform in silence.
You couldn’t go back.
Layers of crimson silk flowed around your legs, embroidered with golden spider lilies that shimmered in the lantern light. Golden and tortoiseshell ornaments adorned your carefully arranged hair, delicate chains and ivory-carved blossoms brushing your shoulders with every step. Settling onto your cushion, you scanned the room.
You wouldn’t go back.
Below, the evening had already begun. The men laughed over their cups of sake, baijiu and wine. Flowers smiled and entertained, weaving between servants and guards as they pulled clients into private rooms.
The performance was underway.
And as you folded your hands neatly in your lap, and fixed a pleasant smile upon your face, you allowed only one thought to echo through your mind.
You had to be chosen tonight.
After an hour of observing from atop the display, a disturbance near the entrance diverted your attention from the creeping dread that still lingered despite your best efforts. Ordinarily, you would not have cared. The House of the Evening Bloom was never truly quiet. Patrons drifted in and out throughout the evening, servants hurried along, and every so often, a drunken noble would become convinced that his wealth entitled him to more attention than he had paid for. Such disruptions were common enough that they rarely merited more than a fleeting glance from the flowers.
This disturbance, however, carried an alarming scent.
Your attention shifted immediately. The man standing near the entrance looked entirely unlike the usual clientele who frequented the House. There was no silk draped across his shoulders, no expensive rings embellishing his hands, nor the carefully cultivated confidence of a noble accustomed to buying whatever caught his eye. In fact, he looked as though he had spent the past month on the road. Dust stubbornly clung to his boots and the hem of his clothing. A worn pair of dao swords were strapped across his back, with a small saddlebag thrown over his shoulder. His dark hair had fallen loose from whatever effort was made to tie it back, framing a face marked by an old, marbled burn scar that extended across one eye and down his cheek.
Despite his scar, or perhaps because of it, he was handsome. Beautiful, even.
Not in the polished way of wealthy men, but in the manner of a blade that had seen years of use. There was something undeniably striking about him, from the broad set of his shoulders to the strong, calloused hands hanging at his sides. He possessed the lean, powerful build of someone accustomed to surviving by skill rather than privilege, a man who carried every possession he owned upon his back and trusted only his swords.
Most importantly, he smelt… dangerous.
It was faint beneath the oudh incense and lotus perfume that saturated the parlour, hidden beneath road dust, sweat, and woodsmoke, yet your senses recognised it immediately. Judging by the way heads began to turn throughout the room, you were not the only one. One by one, the flowers detected it, then the guards, then the servants. The mortal patrons remained blissfully unaware, continuing their conversations and laughter without interruption, oblivious to the silent ripple that had spread through the House of the Evening Bloom. Yet beneath the music and chortling, an unspoken understanding had settled over every undead creature present.
A Warden had entered the room.
Beneath the aroma of travel and humanity, something far more familiar lingered—the scent of death. Not the rich scent of fresh bloodshed, nor the stale odour of a battlefield long abandoned. It was something deeper than that. Something that seemed to soak itself into a person over the years, settling deep beneath the skin until it became impossible to wash away. You had encountered Wardens before; every flower in the House had. No matter how often they bathed, no matter how expensive the oils and balms they wore or how carefully they disguised themselves amongst ordinary travellers, they all carried that same scent eventually. It clung to them like a second shadow, marking them as surely as any uniform ever could. And this Waren was especially ripe with it.
“You’re not welcome here, friend.” Your gaze shifted towards the entrance, where two guards had stepped into his path before he could properly pass through the threshold into the parlour. “And Lord Kage isn’t receiving visitors tonight.”
A subtle tension settled across the room. The servants continued their work, carrying trays between tables. The musicians played on without interruption. Flowers laughed at jokes they had likely heard a hundred times before and poured sake for patrons eager to believe themselves charming. The performance continued, yet beneath it all, every eye remained fixed upon the stranger standing in the doorway.
It was never a good omen when a Warden appeared at the House of the Evening Bloom. Over the decades, dozens had attempted to destroy it—Lord Kage, being an impossibly old vampire, had naturally amassed some enemies along the way. Some foes came seeking glory; others sought coin. A handful simply believed themselves righteous and powerful enough to purge the Red Prince and his coven from the mortal realm. Most had perished before reaching the upper floors. But what unsettled you was not that this Warden had come—it was how causally he had done so. There was no attempt at stealth, no disguise beyond ordinary clothing, no effort to conceal the weapons strapped to his back or the purpose that seemed to radiate from him. He stood before the guards with calm patience, despite being a man willingly walking into a den of creatures powerful enough to reduce entire districts of the city to bloodless husks. His stoic expression never wavered. If he felt fear, he hid it remarkably well.
“I have business with him,” the stranger’s voice carried easily through the room, rough from disuse. His tone suggested he was accustomed to being obeyed, or perhaps even feared. Not because he demanded it, but because few people were foolish enough to argue with him once he had spoken.
“Business,” one of the guards scoffed. “What business?”
“Personal.”
The guards exchanged a look. “You’re not with the Crimson Ward.”
At that, the stranger’s eyes narrowed slightly, “No.”
Several flowers perked up immediately—you weren’t the only one listening. The Crimson Ward were the only Wardens authorised to enter the House and sample its goods without scrutiny. Lord Kage employed and paid them generously to deal with troublesome do-gooders and fellow, overzealous Wardens alike. Most of the Crimson Ward had long since discovered that guarding a wealthy vampire lord was significantly easier and more profitable than hunting one. You knew for certain that the scarred man was not among their number; you would have remembered him otherwise.
“Then Lord Kage won’t see you.”
“He will.” The certainty in his voice made the guards hesitate. There was no arrogance in his tone, no bluster. He sounded as if he were merely stating a fact—whatever this man had come here for, he was completely convinced he would get it.
You found yourself leaning forward slightly.
Eventually, one of the guards sighed. That alone released some of the pressure rising in the room. “Your name?”
The Warden hesitated for half a breath. “Lee.”
A lie. You had spent a century listening to people deceive one another. The falsehood was obvious. Apparently, the guards recognised it as well. Their expressions soured, but after a moment of consideration, they stepped aside.
“We’ll send word.” There was no kindness in their tone, rather something closer to a snarl. “Indulge a little in the goods, won’t you? It’ll be some hours before Lord Kage can see you.”
Unbothered, the stranger inclined his head and entered, posting himself near one of the pillars at the entrance, appearing entirely unmoved and uninterested by the dazzling display of women before him. The reaction from the lower tiers was immediate—Peony was first from her seat, moving with the effortless confidence that had made her one of the House’s most sought-after flowers. Her crimson robes swept across the floor as she approached him with a smile that had ruined countless men.
“You’re certainly causing a stir,” she purred, a hand stroking down his dusty outershirt. You could only find yourself surprised that she had lowered her dignity enough even to consider looking at dirt, let alone touching it. The Warden looked at her politely enough, clearing his throat as he stepped away from her touch.
Undeterred, Peony continued. “If Lord Kage is occupied, perhaps I could help pass the time?”
“I’ll wait.” The answer arrived so quickly and with such finality that a small crease appeared between Peony’s brows.
Nearby, Orchid stifled a laugh, and moments later, she tried her own approach, only to receive a similarly disinterested response. Camellia followed shortly after. Then Jasmine. You watched the rotating exchange unfold with growing fascination. None of them managed to hold his attention for long, and the rejection irritated the lower tiers considerably. The stranger answered their questions cordially, offered little in return, and continued to scan the room. That, more than anything else, confirmed your suspicions.
While the flowers vied for his attention—the looks they exchanged were nothing less than feral, like a street dog guarding its next meal—his gaze continued to drift across the room. He studied the exits, the balconies, the guards stationed throughout the parlour, and the patrons occupying the surrounding tables, cataloguing each detail unabashedly. A Warden without question, a dangerous one at that. Perhaps—if you dared to consider it—an opportunity. The thought arrived unexpectedly, carrying all the recklessness that hope often brought. You should have dismissed it; any rational person would have. Yet before you could reconsider, before you could remind yourself of all the reasons why such an idea was foolish, you found yourself rising from your seat.
The movement immediately drew attention. Conversations faltered, and several nearby flowers turned to stare. Regular visitors to the House of the Evening Bloom had long since learned that Spider Lily rarely descended from the upper tiers to hunt. In recent years, you had become something of a fixture there, content to remain beyond reach. Most men admired you from afar, too intimidated by your melancholy to ever approach. The fact that you were moving now was shocking enough to silence an entire section of the parlour. You ignored them—ignoring people had become a particular skill you’d developed, along with making a man finish before he even had a chance to stick his cock inside of you. Gathering your skirts, you descended the platform. Whispers rippled down the display in your wake, but none were bold enough to stop you.
The soft rustling of silk followed every step. Gold and tortoiseshell ornaments chimed softly amidst your hair. Around you, conversations resumed in hesitant murmurs, though more than a few eyes continued to track your progress down the tiers. Your gaze never left the stranger, and as he noticed the whispers, he looked upwards—towards the display, towards you.
The change was immediate.
You’d spent decades studying people, studying men, learning the subtle shifts in expression and posture that revealed what words often concealed. You recognised it the moment it happened, the instant his attention focused on you and the room simply… disappeared from his awareness. The guards, the flowers, the patrons, the exits he had been so carefully cataloguing—all of it vanished, and all his eyes could do was remain fixed upon you.
Even from across the parlour, you watched as he inhaled sharply, a breath that seemed to shudder in his chest as he took you in entirely. His shoulders stiffened imperceptibly before relaxing again, and for the first time since entering the House, he looked almost uncertain about what to do with himself. It was almost amusing. Peony had practically draped herself across him and earned little more than polite indifference, yet now he stared as though he had forgotten what he was saying… or thinking, or perhaps where he even was.
You continued your descent, neither of you looking away. By the time your feet touched the parlour floor, the whole room felt strangely distant. Peony gave you a miffed expression that implied she had every intention of exchanging words with you once dawn broke. But none of it mattered—by the time you reached the Warden, your course had already been set.
Lord Kage rarely granted audiences to unknown visitors, particularly Wardens. Any meeting required trust, and trust within the House was established through a simple test. A Warden intending to kill the Red Prince rarely spent an evening in the company of one of his flowers. Those willing to drink sake, share a bed and permit themselves to be fed upon were generally considered safe enough to entertain—at least long enough to determine whether they posed a genuine threat.
You circled the stranger in a slow, lazy loop, close enough to smell the road dust and steel, close enough to confirm that beneath the scent of death lingered something warmer.
Human. He was entirely human.
Your gaze flicked briefly to the burn scar before returning to his eyes, observing how, for the first time since he entered the House, a sliver of emotion leaked through his stoic expression, his brows twitching ever-so-slightly.
“You smell of death, Warden.” You hummed, not even offering him a smile. “You need a bath.”
It wasn’t a request; the words left your mouth before you could reconsider them. Turning, you began walking towards your private room without waiting to see if he followed.
You already knew he would.
And sure enough, moments later, the sound of footsteps echoed behind you as the House of the Evening Bloom watched in stunned silence.
You closed the shoji behind you, shutting out the noise of the parlour echoing down the corridor. Your private entertaining room was mostly quiet, with only faint sounds from neighbouring rooms and the servants' corridor seeping through the walls. Like everything in the House of the Evening Bloom, the space was crafted for beauty. Tatami covered the floor, and silk wall hangings featuring cranes and plum blossoms decorated the walls. Embroidered cushions surrounded a low, polished table near the entrance, while a raised sleeping platform at the back was draped with sheer red silk curtains. Twisted wood carved into flowering branches outlined the edges. It was less of a bed and more of a stage upon which Lord Kage’s prized flowers were expected to bloom.
It was a quiet, feminine gasp that drew your attention, your head twisting fast enough that the dangling accessories in your hair clinked together. Beside the Warden stood a servant girl, a tray clasped to her chest. She was cowering in place, clearly startled as she had just bolted upright from her previous position seated at the low table. The Warden did not appear particularly surprised or bothered by her presence. He dumped the worn saddlebag that had been slung over his shoulder haphazardly at her feet, along with his dao swords. They landed heavily enough that the girl jolted—the poor thing looked as though she had seen a ghost. You suppressed a smile.
She was probably no older than seventeen when she was turned, maybe nineteen at most. Like most servants working for the House, her role didn't tell the whole story. Any patron who took a moment to look at the servants would see that everyone in the manor was unusually beautiful. In truth, she was a fledgling, a flower in training. Just another one of the many unfortunate souls still undergoing the long and often brutal process required before Lord Kage deemed them suitable for receiving clients—there was more to being a flower than simply perfecting the arts of pleasure. Newly turned vampires were dangerous creatures. Their hunger ruled them completely, and few possessed the restraint necessary to feed without killing. Before they could be trusted with patrons, they were subjected to years of training, punishment and correction until they learned precisely how much blood to take and when to stop. Lord Kage liked to call the experience of laying with a vampire a little death—ecstasy from the orgasm, but also the adrenaline of sacrificing the body to be fed on, with the trust that the taker would stop before the afterlife came knocking.
When Lord Kage or Madame Yoru weren’t tormenting the fledglings, it was the other flower’s turn to sink their fangs in. Perhaps that was why you’d become soft over the years, offering the fledglings some reprieve by letting them hide in your rooms. You’d once been the golden girl of the House of the Evening Bloom, the type to lash out, the one who ruled the bottom of the display like Peony or Orchid. You’d allowed them to turn you into the monster they wanted you to be. You weren’t sure what had been the turning point in your attitude—maybe the day you realised none of it had ever mattered, that you’d lived a fuller and freer life in the few decades you’d spent as a mortal than in any of the centuries you’d spent as an immortal. As a result, you had rarely entertained guests in recent years. Most evenings, the fledglings could slip into your room under the pretence of cleaning or preparing you for the night, stealing a few precious moments of peace away from the endless demands of the House.
Judging by this one’s expression, however, she had not expected her moment of peace to end so abruptly—particularly not with a Warden. You simply inclined your head at the girl, and she was quick to rush to your side, practically quivering behind you. You squared your shoulders, and with a practised smile, you turned to face your guest.
“Are you a sake or a baijiu man?” You inquired.
The question caught him slightly off guard. You got the impression that, despite his self-assurance, he wasn’t the type to frequent brothels. Now, out of the parlour and fully under the weight of your attention, you wondered if he expected you to pounce on him then and there? Or maybe he simply didn’t appreciate the art of building tension.
“Tea is fine.”
You arched a brow. Most men requested alcohol before anything else; it gave them the sense that they were more witty and important than they actually were. It gave them the confidence to perform under the scrutiny of an experienced, beautiful woman—or maybe simply the guts to let you plunge your fangs deep into their neck.
“What type?”
“Jasmine.”
That surprised you more than it should have; the answer felt strangely domestic coming from a man who smelled so strongly of bloodshed. Nonetheless, you masked your disbelief with a perfectly composed smile, inclining your head. You waited for the servant girl to move, but quickly realised she was still cowering behind you. Your gaze slowly shifted towards her as you glanced over your shoulder expectantly.
“You heard him, Petal. Have the kitchens prepare tea, and ask the boys to bring up water for a bath and a change of clothing—these are filthy.” You gave the Warden a pointed look, and he huffed in response.
The girl blinked.
“Oh. Yes, Miss,” she replied, bowing so swiftly that she almost lost her balance.
The Warden chuckled under his breath, shaking his head as he rubbed a hand along his sharp jaw, watching as she vanished through the shoji. “I thought the point of these places was to get your patrons undressed, not dress them up?”
You clasped your hands together, slinking forward with slow, graceful steps.
“It is,” you hummed, coming to a stop before him. “Doesn’t mean I can’t treat you a little, hm? Can’t have you wandering back onto the street in those, the Pleasure Mile will think we serve any ruffian who comes knocking at the door.”
“So, it’s all about appearances and money then?” He asked, his voice lowered now that you had drawn closer. His amber eyes surveyed your every move. “Eliteism… it runs rich with you vampires, doesn’t it?”
You grinned wide enough to show your fangs, testing him with your next words. “It isn’t always about money. You’re not only here because of the mercy of my master, but also on the account of your trade. You can pay in other ways if you have skills deemed useful enough—that is what the Crimson Ward does.”
He scoffed at that. It didn’t take a genius to understand he didn’t think favourably of his kin, likely taking issue with the fact that the Wardens had taken the easy route out by serving the Red Prince rather than killing him. His tongue darted out as he wet his bottom lip, his eyes trailing down the expanse of your silk robes, catching on each embroidered detail.
“I take it they call you Spider Lily?” He asked, the subtle irritation in his expression neutralising. “They’re embroidered on your robes.”
“Yes, very perceptive of you,” you dipped your head. “And what do they call you?”
“Lee.”
The lie arrived quickly this time, and you gave him a sly look. “Your real name, I mean.”
The Warden looked mildly inconvenienced—as if debating feeding you another lie was worth the gamble. A reluctant sort of resignation settled across his features as he must have decided you were far too perceptive to fool.
“It’s Zuko.”
“Zuko,” you drawled, testing the sound and taste of it on your tongue. “It suits you, it is handsome sounding.”
Stoic as ever, he didn’t so much as blink at your praise.
“What is yours?”
A laugh escaped you before you could control yourself, a palm flying to cover your mouth.
“My name?” You giggled. “Spirits—if you had asked me several decades ago, I might have had an answer.”
You twisted your wrist, your hand gesturing as if flicking the thought away. “In truth, I don’t even remember anymore.”
The lie slipped easily from your tongue, and if he didn’t believe you, he didn’t let it show. With a sigh, you felt the fleeting amusement drain from your body; instead, a quiet intensity settled as you met Zuko’s eyes.
“When they turned me into one of them, they remade me,” you uttered. “The girl I was before is dead. She has to be dead, because she never could have survived this place or these people. So I killed her, I tore her apart until she no longer existed. So understand when I say that even though I may smile like her, and speak in her voice, and wear her skin, inside I am something monstrous—”
You cut yourself off as the shoji slid open, servants flooding into the room. The serious look that had taken command of your features dissolved as you smiled in that artful way you had mastered, ushering in the two young men carrying a large, wooden bathing tub. More followed, emptying steaming buckets of water into the tub before retreating. When you glanced back at Zuko, he remained rooted to the spot. You could have sworn there was a crack in his stoic composure. Perhaps your eyes were simply fooled by the lantern light, but for a fleeting moment, as he watched your performance, a look of pity crossed his features.
By the time the servant girl re-entered, carrying a tray with jasmine tea carefully balanced in her hands, the bath was filled, and the other servants had excused themselves with quick bows. You watched as she placed the teapot and cups on the low table before stepping back with a bow of her own. However, unlike the others, she didn’t leave. She lingered, if only for a moment—just long enough to fully draw your attention. When you looked at her, meeting her gaze with the full weight of your eyes, she immediately lowered her eyes. Still, she remained in place, as though she had something she desperately wished to say.
“Run along now, Petal. You wouldn’t want the Madame to catch you gawking.”
The girl’s spine straightened, startled as though she had been caught stealing. Colour rushed to her cheeks, and she immediately dipped into a hurried bow. “Y-yes, Miss Spider Lily.”
She turned towards the door and made it all of about two steps before stopping in her tracks.
Your brow furrowed, “Petal?”
The servant girl hesitated, fingers twisting in the fabric of her sleeves. The inner struggle she faced was evident on her face—initially, fear reigned. She took a few more steps until concern clouded her features, and the guilt weighing on her conscience eventually triumphed. Spinning around, she blurted out the words, probably before she had a chance to think better of them.
“Miss Spider Lily, be warned! I overheard the guards and Madame Yoru, they’ll be watching through the hole in the wall—!”
The words died abruptly on her tongue, and her eyes darted towards Zuko. Only then did she seem to remember that the Warden was still present, and mortification flooded her expression.
Between the private rooms, there was a narrow, dark corridor. It was intended solely for servants to move discreetly through the House. It saved the fledglings from weaving around temperamental flowers and clientele who often reached a point of blind lust that they would fuck anything that breathed. But it was not only a safety measure to protect patrons from the fledglings and their uncontrollable thirst, as it also served as an observation point. Each private room was not as private as one might think, as each one had a concealed hole somewhere within. It wasn’t a large hole, just large enough for one to hold a single eye up to the gap and spy without being noticed. One of Madame Yoru’s favourite activities was slipping into the hidden corridor, sliding open the shutter and checking that the flower within was blossoming to expectations.
“Oh,” you couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at your lips. “Oh, dear.”
The poor girl looked ready to throw herself from the balcony. Crossing the room towards her, you reached out and gently cupped her cheek. “Thank you, sweet girl.”
You knew, deep down, she was only trying to do you a favour, out of whatever kindness was still left within her undead heart, even if she were simply stating the obvious. The tension left her shoulders immediately at your reassurance. Her gaze lifted to yours, and the look she gave you landed twisted and uncomfortable in your chest. You had seen it before, in Petal, in countless servants before her. An unspoken attachment formed between frightened young women trapped beneath the same roof. Perhaps it was because you listened when others didn’t. Perhaps it was because you remembered what it felt like to be new here and how easy it was to become cruel. Whatever the reason, Petal had attached herself to you years ago. You felt sorry for her, sorry for all of them—the girls who came before, the girls who would come after—each one believing themselves special enough to escape the fate waiting for them.
Your thumb brushed her cheek once. “Hush now, and go before you are missed.”
The girl nodded, and this time she obeyed. The shoji slid shut behind her, leaving you alone with the Warden. His interest seemed piqued by the unfolding events, and he watched expectantly as you let out a shuddering breath, silence settling over the room. For a breath, your thoughts drifted. You hoped, no, maybe you even prayed to the Spirits that no meddling ears had heard the girls' outburst. The House of the Evening Bloom was a dangerous place for those at the bottom of the pecking order. The slightest indication of betrayal or spilling House secrets in front of a client, a mysterious Warden no less… she would be doomed to the box.
A creeping sensation snaked over your skin—cold. So very cold, and dark… and quiet. It had been so quiet, so quiet that your own thoughts had sounded like the tolling of a bell against your skull. And your legs, oh your legs and your back, how they had ached and ached. The gnawing hunger had ached too, until the scent of iron and fear all blended into one, and you would press your lips against the tiny holes and scream and scream and beg—
The Warden cleared his throat.
“From what I have gathered, I won’t be able to meet your master until I lie with you and allow you to feed from me?”
His voice startled you enough that you realised that for a fleeting moment, you had allowed your mask to slip. Nevertheless, he was straight to the point, and you found yourself liking that. He certainly didn’t seem eager to dig into whatever haunted you. You shook off whatever strange, maternal feeling that had overtook you and spiralled into despair. You turned away, crossing the tatami towards the bathing tub, leaving those terrible thoughts far behind. Steam curled lazily from the water’s surface, filling the room with its warmth. You perched yourself lightly upon the wooden edge. While trailing your fingers through the water, you considered the question.
“You are correct,” the corners of your mouth faintly lifted. “All Wardens who pass through our doors must face this test.”
An empty reflection stared back at you as you disturbed the surface, ripples breaking up the shimmering surface.
“If it reassures you, being fed upon is not painful—most patrons become rather fond of it. It heightens the feelings of pleasure during sex; some say it’s the best way to experience orgasm.” You glanced up at him, catching the tail end of his eyes narrowing, as though he were attempting to determine whether you were mocking him. You held his gaze, expectant. He crept closer as he replied.
“What I have heard is that it is addictive. That all those merchants and noblemen out there are no better than those who frequent opium dens.”
His hand vaguely motioned back in the direction of the parlour, and your head tilted in thought.
“Well, yes. That has been said too. It’s a biological thing, I imagine, to make our prey relax. Some find themselves feeling a little lethargic afterwards, depending upon how much blood is taken. Is it not said that the calmer the animal at slaughter, the better the meat?”
The Warden didn’t appear to like that answer, a scowl hanging from his lips as you laughed airily. You pulled your fingers out of the water, then gave them a quick shake to get rid of the droplets.
“Part of our hunt is to become… irresistible,” you reminded him.
Then, apparent that he had nothing more to say, and having allowed the silence to linger just long enough, enough that it rattled you a little—silence bothered you now, much like the dark, it came with the taste of iron—you spoke a single word, regaining control of your own simmering sanity.
“Strip.”
Going off your prior assumptions that the Warden wasn’t one to frequent such places, you had anticipated resistance from him. A snarky remark, perhaps? He seemed fond of those. A challenge, even? At the very least, a flicker of hesitation? Rather, Zuko merely held your gaze before reaching for the ties of his outer shirt. There was a practical, matter-of-fact element to his movements, as though removing one’s clothes—in front of a probable enemy at that—was no different than sharpening a blade or cleaning mud from a pair of boots. Most men who entered your chambers either treated the act as a performance or approached it with nervous anticipation. Instead, he shrugged off the first layer, dumping it atop his saddle bag. Beneath it was a lighter layer, old, stubborn stains soaked into the fabric. Old blood, a mixture of his and others, dirt, sweat, rain… you caught it all in a single whiff. It certainly painted the picture of a man who lived one contract to the next. You watched silently as he grasped the collar, tugging it over his head in one fluid motion. And as you had expected, bare skin revealed all. There was obvious strength in his build, powerful arms and broad shoulders shaped by years of repetition—training, battle, survival. Your eyes drifted down his sculpted chest, lingering on the scars that marked portions of his skin. A rather large impact branded his midriff, similar in severity to the mark on his face, and joining it was a collection of scratches and gashes. Some were faded, nearly white with age, while others remained fresh. You wondered briefly how many creatures had left their mark upon him before he had buried a blade in their hearts.
You were so intrigued by the thought, in fact, that it took you a delayed second to realise that during your pondering, he had already loosened the tie of his pants. Before you had the mind to relish in the reveal, to coax or tease, to enjoy the drawn-out tension of it all, he was already standing completely naked before you. Your eyes drifted down, following the trail of coarse hair to where his cock hung between his muscular thighs. Larger than most, you would give him that—but—did he know how to use it? That was the real question. You found yourself studying him longer than necessary, long enough that he noticed. One dark eyebrow lifted as he watched you expectantly in return. The silent question amused you enough that your lips tugged into a smirk, and from your position perched on the edge of the tub, you motioned towards the steaming water.
“You’ll do.” You teased, which earned the smallest twitch of irritation from him—you considered that a victory. “Get in.”
Without protest, he stepped towards the bath. Steam curled around him as he lowered himself into the wooden tub, water sloshing softly against the sides. You grasped a washcloth, soaking it in the rising water as he settled himself. As he leaned back, sighing through his nose and resting his arms on either side of the tub, some of the tension left his posture. Though not all of it—even at rest, he carried the impression of a drawn bowstring. His amber eyes lifted through the steam to watch as you wrung out the rag. The scent of cypress soap mingled with his musk of death as you placed the cloth against his shoulder and began working away the grime accumulated from weeks on the road. Zuko seemed content to sit in the silence that had fallen between you, leaving only the occasional splash of water as you worked from one shoulder to the other, alternating between soaking and wringing out the cloth.
With a splayed hand, you leaned closer, the washcloth sweeping across his chest, past the line of the water to his sculpted abdomen. You were close now, close enough that your breath fanned across his cheek, close enough that the sleeves of your robes were soaked as your fingers paused just above his groin—
Zuko’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, and your eyes snapped to his neck.
His blood smelled delicious.
You could sense it now that you were inches away, the subtle thrum of his heartbeat, the blood pumping through his veins… how many days had it been since you had a full meal? You hadn’t thought you were that hungry, but now, faced with his neck right there, you were ravenous—
“You don’t seem to be afraid of me.”
His observation startled you out of whatever bloodlust-induced trance you had found yourself in, your hands immediately finding his thigh as you swept the washcloth down his leg. You glanced up at him, only to find he had been watching your every movement intently.
“Should I be?” You asked, innocently.
His expression remained unreadable.
“No, I’m here to kill the Red Prince, and anyone who stands in my way.” His husky voice made you go unnaturally still for a beat. “If you stand aside, I will show you mercy.”
If he had expected your reaction to be more instinctual or guttural to his reveal of intentions, something more reasonable to such a threat, he didn’t show it. His heart remained beating steadily, his breath even. You slowly straightened your spine and looked down at him. A smile pulled faintly at the corner of your mouth, which then surfaced into a giggle.
Mercy.
If only he understood what mercy looked like to someone in your position.
“You’re rather blunt, aren’t you?” You murmured, the giggle still on your breath. As if anyone within the House of the Evening Bloom was not aware of his intentions. A Warden simply didn’t just show up to enjoy the goods—no, there was one of two reasons: one, to join the Crimson Ward, or two, to kill you all. “I can’t tell if you’re brave, or simply a fool.”
“Hmf,” the sound he made might have been a sign of amusement or annoyance. With him, it was difficult to tell.
The conversation lapsed again as you worked the washcloth down his arm. Water glistened against his skin, tracing the old scars and faded marks. There were more of them than you had initially realised, smaller nicks that hadn’t been immediately obvious in the low light. Your eyes eventually drifted upward, towards the awful scar encircling his left eye. Without really thinking, you reached forward. A single, damp finger trailed a wet line down the warped flesh.
“How did you get this—”
His reaction was immediate, his whole body flinching as his hand shot up, water splashing as he closed his grip around your wrist. You grasped the edge of the tub harder with your other hand, steadying yourself as you teetered from the sudden motion.
“My father had…” His head turned to face you, his mouth opening as he ran his tongue over his teeth, and then slowly released his hold. “...interesting ideas around how to best punish his children.”
The answer caught you off guard—you had expected something far more heroic, some grand tale of his journeys as a Warden. But as you had come to understand, it appeared Zuko was not one for boasts. You twisted your hand where it was still loosely encircled in his grip, pulling his arm towards you as you placed his palm face up in your lap.
“He did that to you while you were a child in his care?” You asked, head dipping as you focused on his hand. You swept the soapy washcloth down his forearm to his wrist, then across his palm, lacing your fingers with his as you worked the suds between each digit.
The thought of a parent doing such a thing to their child felt deeply wrong. The memory of your own father had faded over time, but what remained was gentle. A hand resting atop your head, ruffling your hair. Laughter around the dinner table. The sensation of being carried to bed, the feeling of safety as you were tucked under the blanket. Those were from earlier on, but the older you had grown, the murkier those happy memories became. You supposed your father had hurt you once, too. Not in a physical manner but rather… expectations that had crushed parts of your soul. Expectations that had strained and bittered your relationship. As you massaged the mound of his thumb, pushing your soft digits against the calluses of his palm, he spoke up once more.
“Does that surprise you?” He asked quietly, though there was thickness to his voice, like he was on the edge of letting a groan slip out. “That some of the worst monsters out there are human?”
Your eyes flickered upward, your fingers continuing to massage down his forearm to the crease of his elbow. You realised how beautiful his eyes were in the low light, like molten honey. His pupils dilated as he awaited your reply, the weight of his full attention solely resting on you. You had been human once. So had Peony, Orchid and the other flowers, Madame Yoru, too, and even Lord Kage himself. You didn’t know at which point you had slipped between human and monster, or if the monster had been within you all along. Maybe that was why all those who remained in the House of the Evening Bloom became the way they did in the end—hungry, spiteful, depraved—because you had all always been that way.
“No,” you uttered. You dropped his arm back into the water to wash the soap off. Slowly, you stood, circling the tub. A trail of water dripped from your sleeves onto the tatami as you perched on the opposite side. Your attention turned to his other arm, and you repeated the same process of carefully working soap between each finger. The task gave you something to focus on besides his distant expression.
“My father was a cruel man. He tried to make me cruel, too, but I was always… resistant to his teachings. He said, I was disrespectful and weak for always questioning him, so he challenged me to an Agni Kai.” Zuko continued, and your brows rose. A firebender—you supposed you should not have been surprised. Many Wardens were benders of some kind; the elements often came in handy when hunting particular beasts. Firebending, especially, since so few creatures possessed an immunity to flame itself. You dimly recalled ancient stories of some of the first Warden clans originating in the Fire Nation, before their trade and message spread beyond borders. “After I was defeated, he banished me. Said I couldn’t return home until I became a real man, brought pride to my ancestors and regained my honour.”
His gaze drifted somewhere beyond the room, beyond the House of the Evening Bloom, likely beyond Ba Sing Se itself. “I became a Warden shortly after, like my Uncle, and have walked that path ever since.”
You considered his words, eyes cast down, as you pressed your thumb down his forearm, massaging the hard muscle just beneath the skin. “Well, most would say the path of a Warden is an honourable one.”
A scoff escaped him, though the sound held little amusement. His arm slipped away from your grip as he dipped it back under the water, washing the soap and grime away. “I wouldn’t say that for that Crimson Ward of yours.”
There was genuine disdain in his voice now, enough to make you glance up from the soapy water, a teasing lilt to your voice. “You really don’t like them, do you?”
“They’re an insult to our trade,” his jaw tightened. “Cowards are what they are.”
You found yourself curious despite everything; Wardens rarely spoke about one another—at least not in your experience. Yet something told you that if Lord Kage’s hired hunters and Zuko ever crossed paths, his blood would not be the one to follow shortly afterwards.
Your hand slid under the water once more, scrubbing the washcloth along his submerged thigh, and for a moment neither of you spoke. The lantern light danced across the water’s surface, casting shifting reflections over damp skin and wood alike. You found yourself studying him again as you swept your palm down past his knee, your chest dipping lower towards the water’s edge.
“Does your father know you are a Warden?” The question slipped out before you could stop it.
Zuko’s gaze lowered to the water, watching as you slowly rose, levelling your spine.
“Oh yes,” there was something dark settled behind his stoic, amber eyes. “Some years ago, I returned home. He was happy to receive me, saying I had become a true man during my banishment. That his judgement had been correct all those years ago.”
The bitterness in his voice was hard to miss. The water shifted quietly as he leaned back against the tub, elbows resting on the edge on either side of him. His broad chest expanded as he sighed. You placed the washcloth over the side of the tub with a quiet slap, water trickling down the wood into a puddle below. You found yourself reluctant to break the silence, yet curiosity won in the end.
“What did you do?” You asked softly, though the words were not accusatory.
The bathwater was beginning to grow lukewarm, the tendrils of steam that had drifted lazily between you now gone. It was the warmth of his body that made up the space between you, that and the weight of his gaze that had somehow grown more scathing than it had been previously.
“I did what any honourable Warden would do if they came across a monster,” he answered with absolute certainty and complete absence of regret or guilt. “I killed him.”
Absolute silence followed, and Zuko watched you from across the narrow gap separating you, waiting. Almost as if he was expecting something, though what exactly, you couldn’t say. Your expression remained carefully neutral, save for the slight crease between your brows as you studied him in return. His pupils were fully dilated now, swallowing almost all the amber in his eyes. Beneath the water, his heartbeat remained strong and steady, each pulse loud enough for your sharpened senses to detect. You could almost imagine seeing the faintest ripple spread across the surface with every thump of his heart against his ribs.
You were hungry, so very hungry, it had been days since your last feeding—
The distance between you suddenly felt even smaller, especially as Zuko leaned forward. Water sloshed against the sides of the tub as he shifted, one arm leaving the edge so his palm could brace against the rim. His gaze dipped briefly towards your mouth, lingering there for a moment that felt a little too long to be accidental before returning to your eyes. His hand snaked around your waist, damp fingers settling against the silk gathered at your side, and before you could fully process the gesture, he was drawing you closer.
One moment, you were watching him and the next, his mouth found yours.
Instinct took over, decades of training clicking into place as you half gasped, half moaned into his mouth, automatic and reactive. He swallowed your breath whole, groaning as your hands skimmed up his shoulders to the hair at the nape of his neck, threading through the damp strands with a tug. His head lulled back, a chuckle rumbling in his chest as your lips parted, then met again properly. His head slanted as he adjusted his grip on your waist, tugging you even closer. His tongue teased along your bottom lip before sweeping into your mouth, and for a fleeting moment, you met him halfway, allowing him to pull you under—
A thought struck you suddenly. You hadn’t heard the telltale sounds of Madame Yoru stalking down the hidden corridor, nor the quiet scrape of the shutter being slid open—
You pulled away abruptly, chest heaving from the effort. Your hand slipped from his hair, down his shoulders to his chest as you pushed back, putting a small but deliberate distance between the two of you as he tried to chase your lips.
“Patience, Warden,” You huffed, watching as he tried to calm his own breathing, one hand still gripping your waist. His expression was guarded, save for the faint narrowing of his eyes as he tried to determine why you had stopped. “You haven’t even had your tea yet.”
Gently, you removed his hand from your side, then rose from where you sat. He didn’t look the most pleased about it, but nevertheless, he relented to your authority. You motioned to the pile of clothes and towels the servants had left nearby before turning back to where the teapot sat on the low table. As you knelt upon one of the cushions, you heard the slosh of water behind you as he rose from the tub. The patter of water over the tatami followed as he stepped out, unhurriedly crossing the short distance to the pile. You kept your gaze averted, not out of bashfulness but rather not wanting to encourage any lingering lust that coursed through his veins before the right eyes were watching.
Your attention drifted to the clay teapot that had been quietly brewing all the while. Your fingers brushed against the warm surface, along the delicately painted cherry blossom petals that embellished its curve. As you gripped the handle and carefully poured the steaming liquid into the cup furthest from you, you could hear the rustle of fabric. By the time you lifted your gaze, placing the teapot back down, Zuko had half-heartedly dried himself off. The small towel hung low across his hips as he settled down onto one of the cushions across from you. He accepted his cup without thanks, eying you as he took an audible sip, the scent of jasmine merging with the cypress soap and the underlying aroma of death.
“How did you end up here?” he asked. For a brief moment, you couldn’t tell if he was asking because he was genuinely interested in an answer, or if he simply wished to distract himself from the fact that his cock was half-hard. A weighted silence settled over you both again.
You smiled at him over the rim of your cup, although it was empty. That was a trick the Madame had taught you years ago, to at least pretend to be mortal. The best way to please a client was to make them feel at ease, and the best way to do that was to make them forget entirely that they were face-to-face with an undead monster. You had learnt to pretend to drink alongside them, to hold your wrist and hand in the perfect position that implied weight, to act as though your cup was always overflowing even when it was bone dry.
“Lord Kage took a liking to me.” The answer came easily. Only because it was an answer that had been practised countless times over the decades, one that had been drilled into you since your arrival. But even if your answer was flawlessly spoken, with the perfect inflexion and sweet, empty smile to match, displeasure flickered across Zuko’s expression.
“When were you turned?” He asked.
You leaned back slightly. Normally, you wouldn’t have entertained such questions, rather you would have artfully steered the conversation away, but you already knew there was nothing normal about anything that had unfolded so far. The memories were distant, a faded quality to them, the edges fraying the more you tried to hold onto them. The harder you reached, the more they seemed to slip, until you began to wonder if you weren’t remembering the moments themselves at all, but rather the memory of memories. Details blurred and condensed until your mind filled in the gaps incorrectly, like they were events that happened to someone else entirely. Sometimes you felt like two beings were warring within you—Spider Lily and the girl you once were. Those fragments felt like they belonged to her, the girl, your true self. But you weren’t her anymore, you were Spider Lily. And no matter how much that girl tried to claw her way out, she was trapped, deep underground in that box. And you had learnt that the only way you could survive was to become the monster, to become Spider Lily, to become just as terrible as the rest of them.
“I couldn’t tell you,” you finally replied after a pregnant pause.
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember pieces.” Your fingers tightened around the cup. “After a while, the years all blur together. Seasons become decades, decades become centuries.”
A faint smile graced your lips. “Though, I remember it was spring.”
The Warden’s brow quirked.
“I was supposed to debut after the summer solstice—my mother had spent all winter preparing the last of my yomeiri-dogu, my father a dowry to ensure I would be secure.” As your eyes lifted to meet his, you could see the pieces clicking together as he realised exactly the type of wealth and status you had once been born into. “I was supposed to be the catch of the season… but I couldn’t help but feel terrified.”
At the time, you believed you had been afraid of marriage, of leaving your home, family, and friends, of marrying a man who would have been a stranger to you. But in recent decades, you began to wonder if, deep down, you had known all along. Perhaps you had a premonition of what was to come.
“Terrified of what?” Zuko’s rumbling voice asked.
“Of making a mistake—” you laughed softly. Your reply had layers to it. It hadn’t just been the idea of making a mistake during your debut, of tripping over your own feet or making a fool of yourself. It had been the fear of making a mistake by marrying, of committing yourself to a life of lies. “—Of marrying a stranger, only to become some trophy wife within a gilded cage.”
The answer seemed to surprise him, and you knew you could both see the irony within your words.
“I had seen my mother live that life, and I did not wish to repeat it. I wanted to… continue school, travel, fall in love. So I ran away.” Your brows knitted together. “I ran away, and made it all of what? A few blocks? Only to end up within another cage entirely, I—”
You reeled yourself back, smoothing over your expression with a pleasant smile.
“I think I was nineteen at the time, maybe twenty at most.”
A beat passed as Zuko studied you, and a wavering thought wondered if he was undergoing some horribly misguided attempt to try and discover a flicker of humanity left within you. Madame Yoru and the guard still weren’t at the spying hole; the most you could do was steel yourself.
“Do you remember who ruled at the time?”
You snorted. “No.”
“No?” He repeated, eyes narrowing.
Did he think you were lying?
“It’s funny, isn’t it? How a girl’s mind works?” Your thumb traced the rim of your cup. “I remember the colours of silk everyone wanted that year and the styles we wore our hair in. I remember the rose hip and hibiscus perfume my friend wore and how she always took her tea lukewarm with honey. I remember the boy I spent months pretending not to like.”
Your smile turned distant.
“But Kings? Wars? Politics? No, not a single recollection.” You shook your head. “It’s all so ridiculous now, thinking back on it.”
The Warden grunted in response, displeased. For a second, you thought that he would allow silence to fall over you both again, to allow himself some peace as he drank his tea, while you sat across from him pretending to do the same. In contrast to your expectations, he spoke up once again.
“I take it that you were turned against your will then?”
The question made you hesitate, and suddenly you had the uncomfortable realisation that this entire time he hadn’t been interested in your replies, but rather your reactions. You lowered the empty cup you had been nursing, properly lowered it until it connected with the table with a soft clunk. It wasn’t a graceful movement, not perfected and artful in the way Spider Lily would, but rather the actions of a girl caught entirely off guard. You looked up sharply, and he simply stared with a smug expression.
The mask slipped. A short, bitter laugh escaped you. “You think any of us are here willingly?”
Zuko’s arrogant expression didn’t change.
“Lord Kage likes to collect pretty faces. Girls, boys—anyone who catches his attention,” you spat. “He turns us and brings us here to be broken in and serve. There’s nothing more valuable than a whore that doesn’t age.”
“And if you refuse to serve?” Zuko questioned.
“Oh,” you hissed. “I think we both know there are plenty of ways to break a person, immortal or not.”
“They beat you?”
“No,” you muttered with a mocking little pout. “You really think Kage would damage his own merchandise?”
“What does he do then?” The Warden pried.
Your gaze drifted towards the floorboards, and for a fleeting second, you could feel it. That creeping darkness at the edges of your vision, shaking hands against rusted iron, and the stench, Spirits the stench—
Your eyes snapped up, and you found he was watching you intently as you teetered dangerously on the edge between reality and a dream. Eerily, you spoke.
“They put us in a box.”
“A box?” he repeated, confused.
Realising he was baiting you for more information, your expression twisted. You sucked in a deep breath, planting your hands hard enough on the low table that the teapot rattled. For a moment, you juggled between indifference and performance, before finally settling on one of your practised, pleasant smiles, even if there were a few cracks in it.
Zuko looked mildly vexed by your sudden withdrawal. It was entirely obvious to you now that he didn’t seem concerned anymore with covering up his true intentions with his line of questioning.
“Are you finished with your tea? I can pour you—”
“You want something from me, don’t you?”
Despite the abruptness of the Warden’s interruption, his tone and expression were entirely calm, perhaps too calm. Your smile fell while his only grew, your composure fully cracking. You pushed up until you were kneeling on the cushion, hands braced against the table as you stared across at him. Had your intentions truly been that obvious? A horrible thought dawned upon you, enough to make a cold chill run down your spine. If it had been that obvious, had the others noticed, had Madame Yoru? Is that why she was taking so long to take a peek? Were they all out there, secretly planning Spiritsknew what—
You couldn’t go back.
You couldn’t go back to that box—
“You willingly came to me. You walked down from the display and sought me out, not the other way around—”
“Careful, Warden.”
The warning came smoothly, so smoothly that the look in your eyes would’ve made any normal man quiver with fear. As you knelt, slightly towering over where he sat, still naked aside from the towel that clung around his hips, an unnatural stillness took over you. It was the kind of stillness only an apex predator on the hunt could hold. Zuko looked unimpressed.
“Is it revenge on your master?” He queried, leaning forward with an emboldened expression. “You want me to kill him, to create enough of a commotion for you to escape?”
Your eyebrows scrunched, head tilting as you examined him with a perplexed expression.
“Escape?” You laughed, though it was humourless. “There is no escape from this place.”
You cut your laugh off shot, expression abruptly steeling as you stared at him, speaking with complete and utter seriousness and sincerity. “The only escape from this place is death.”
That finally seemed to throw him, his face screwing up in confusion. The first genuine surprise you’d manage to get from him all evening. You leaned further over the table, until your faces were inches away, until you could feel his breath tickling your lips. Your next words would require his full attention.
“I want you to kill me.”
“What?” Zuko barked immediately, bewildered.
The words felt strangely easy once spoken aloud, like a weight had been lifted off your tired shoulders. You smiled steadily and unwaveringly, as though you were discussing the weather and not proposing your own execution. “I will help you get an audience with Lord Kage, as long as you promise to kill me before you leave this room.”
The silence that followed was palpable. All Zuko could do was stare, obviously struggling to contain whatever emotional leakage was slipping through the cracks of his usually stoic expression.
“After your master is dead, you will be free to leave this place—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” you muttered. “Unless you are the Blue Spirit himself, I do not think you are capable of killing the monster that is Lord Kage. I appreciate the sentiment of your mercy, but the only true kindness you can show me at this point is ensuring I am dead regardless of whether you defeat him or not—”
“What if I am him?” Zuko cut over you, and you blinked.
“What?”
“What if I am the Blue Spirit?”
A scoff escaped you before you could stop yourself.
“If you were the Blue Spirit, we would not be having this conversation. I would already be dead,” you sneered. “So, I am asking you a favour. After I fuck you and feed from you, enough of a performance to get them to trust you, I need you to kill me.”
You watched his expression harden, yet he didn’t even flinch as you leaned in close, a sharp, seductive smile pulling at your lips. You couldn’t even hear his heart change from its steady beat as your breath ghosted his bottom lip. “Do you agree to this?”
Zuko’s eyes narrowed, the scar pulling tight as he leaned backwards sharply, establishing some distance. “Why would I agree to that?”
Anger flooded your face, your fangs peaking out over your bottom lip as you hissed at him.
“I need you to grant me that one mercy. It shouldn’t be hard for you, should it?” The low table groaned under your weight as you dug your palm harder into the surface, the wood nearly splintering under your inhuman grip. “You are a Warden, after all.”
“Hold on—”
His voice sharpened for the first time all evening, and you knew he was about to argue. But the words had scarcely left his mouth before both of you went deadly still in unison, hearing the warning sign you’d been waiting for since the moment you entered the room. It wasn’t anything immediately obvious, no raised voices or knocks at the door. Just footsteps, unhurried, circling the room in the inner, hidden servants' hallway tucked between the walls.
Your head turned instinctively towards the far wall of the room, near the raised bed platform. Anyone ordinary or unfamiliar with the House of the Evening Bloom would have heard nothing more than servants passing by, but you knew better. You had learned the rhythm of those footsteps years ago. Madame Yoru wasn’t one to hurry; she was the worst type of predator—the one that liked to torment and toy with her food long before the thought of ending its misery ever crossed her mind. She wanted you to hear her. The heavier tread alongside her steps was likely one of Lord Kage’s guards. The Madame to confirm you had performed and earned your keep, and the guard to confirm that the Warden had allowed himself to be defiled and filthied by his enemy.
Instinct took over just before the footsteps paused. You surged to your feet, sweeping the low table aside with far more strength than any mortal woman could possess. It skidded across the tatami, a sharp crack sounding as it struck the opposite wall. The clay teapot and cups rattled violently as lukewarm tea spilt across the floor.
Zuko didn’t bother questioning your actions or urgency as you closed the distance between you, just as the cover on the eye-sized hole on the far wall slid open.
You tumbled to the floor, him flat on his back, the towel twisted and barely covering his lower half as you straddled his hips, kissing him. There was nothing gentle or hesitant about it; it was intended to be heard as much as seen. Your fingers tangled into the loose strands of his damp hair as you pressed yourself close. He groaned into your mouth, tongue sweeping against yours as his hand settled on the small of your back. You arched into his touch, only the silk of your robes separating you as you teasingly ground your hips against his already rehardening cock. The movement earned an irritated little grunt from him, and he pushed himself up. You followed the flow of his movements, allowing him to manoeuvre you as you wrapped your legs tightly around his waist.
Zuko lifted you as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Blindly, he guided you both to the bed, your lips working desperately and needily against one another. Perching himself on the edge, he settled you onto his lap, the mattress dipping beneath your combined weight. When you finally drew back, the Warden eagerly chased your lips. You huffed out a breathless laugh, resting your forehead against his. The towel had been lost at some point, leaving him completely bare beneath you. You dragged your fingernails across his shoulders and chest, giggling as he kissed a wet trail of kisses along your jaw and neck.
Slipping gracefully from his lap, your bare feet met the floor without a sound. You slowly rose to your full height between his spread thighs. His cock stood flushed and heavy against his stomach, the head already glistening with precum that caught the lowlight. You met his gaze with a knowing smirk, taking two measured steps backwards, fingers finding the fastening of your robe.
Was he performing as well? All too aware of the unseen eyes that were watching from behind the wall? Or had genuine lust slipped through the cracks of his restraint? The question flickered once before you snuffed it out. Zuko had been caught in your web the moment you kissed him, and already the persona of Spider Lily had settled over you like a second skin, fangs digging in. Given the irregularities of the evening, it was startlingly easy to push every opposing thought aside. Decades of training had carved this routine into your bones—the slow reveal, the calculated arch of your back, the precise tilt of your chin. Your mind would quiet, it always did when you let the mask take over. There was no room for doubt when every movement had been rehearsed and executed a thousand times.
You were numb to it.
The embroidered silk loosened around your frame. You eased it from your shoulders, letting the crimson fabric slip down your arms in a slow, liquid cascade. The Warden’s brow lifted, the only outward sign of interest, but neither of you could deny how his eyes tracked the motion hungrily as the robe peeled away from your breasts. Your peaked nipples caught briefly on the silk before the garment continued its descent, sliding over the curve of your waist, the flare of your hips, until it pooled in a shimmering circle at your feet.
You stood bare before him. Zuko remained seated on the edge of the raised bed, elbows braced behind him, amber eyes dragging over every inch of your exposed flesh with unapologetic focus. His gaze lingered on the swell of your breasts, the drip of your navel and the smooth line of your thighs. You stepped out of the robe at your feet with unhurried grace and closed the short distance between you. Your bare skin brushed the inside of his knees as you sank slowly to the floor. Your fingertips trailed down the hard lines of his abdomen, mapping each scar and ridge of muscle before your lips followed, pressing soft, lingering kisses along the same path.
Zuko’s breath stuttered ever-so-slightly, his throat working as you settled between his thighs. His heartbeat thrummed beneath your mouth, quickening with every brush of your lips, the steady pulse of blood rushing just beneath the surface. The closer you drew his thigh, the stronger the scent became—rich, metallic, threaded with the faint sweetness of arousal. It filled your senses, and the barely restrained hunger that had been growing within you honed. You could smell the artery pulsing beneath his skin, the blood hot and eager, and the need to taste it clawed at the back of your throat. Your tongue flicked out, tasting the salt and the clean bite of remnants of cypress soap, but it was the iron-rich promise beneath that made your mouth water.
There was an ache in your belly, a deep, gnawing ache. You’d known aches in your time. The ache of slick heat between your thighs, never to be satisfied. The ache of sobs that rattled your chest and tears that stained your cheeks. But this ache had nothing to do with desire or agony, but rather everything to do with the veins pulsating so close to your teeth.
With no warning or even an indication of what was to come, you sank your fangs into the saddle-worn, meaty flesh of his inner thigh. The Warden hissed, the sound breaking into a low groan as your mouth sealed over the punctures. His blood flooded across your tongue, thick and warm, laced with the tang of adrenaline. It was far richer and cleaner than the thin, alcohol-tainted taste you were used to from clients. You swallowed greedily, each pull sending a fresh wave of heat through your own veins.
It took everything within you not to consume him entirely, to suck him dry until only a husk remained.
No.
No, you had to remind yourself.
Your hunger would settle, and soon it would not matter at all. You needed him alive for your meeting with Death to come to fruition.
The aphrodisiac in your bite hit him almost instantly, your eyes catching how his cock twitched hard against his stomach, another bead of precum sliding down the flushed head. His thighs trembled beneath your hands as pleasure rolled through him. You lingered a moment, savouring the taste with a muffled, wanton moan, then forced yourself to draw back enough to lap at the bite wound. Your tongue moved in slow strokes, sealing the punctures with saliva, while Zuko’s breath came ragged above you. One of his hands found your hair, fingers threading through the strands and dislodging a few of the gold and tortoiseshell pins that held it in place. The soft clink of metal against the tatami barely registered over the sound of his breathing.
You looked up at him through your lashes, lips still wet with his blood and smiled.
“You taste… delicious,” you murmured, voice low and velvet-smooth, every syllable curated for the audience you both knew were watching.
His molten honey gaze burned into yours as you braced your hands on his knees and rose from the floor. Blood still slicked your lips and chin, thin streams trailing down your throat, pooling along your collarbones. You leaned in again, pressing your mouth to the hard plane of his stomach, then higher, kissing and licking your way back upward in a glistening, sticky path of spit and blood. His muscles jumped beneath your lips.
Reaching his chest, you paused, breath ghosting over his nipple before your fangs sank into the firm swell of his pectoral. The flesh gave way with a soft, wet pop, and fresh blood welled up against your tongue. Zuko groaned roughly, his body convulsing beneath you as you drew another slow mouthful from the wound—
The moment did not last long.
With a low growl, his hands clamped around your waist and hauled you upward, dragging you onto his lap in one powerful motion. Your knees settled on either side of his hips, and the length of his cock was wedged between your bodies.
The aphrodisiac-like effect in your bite was taking hold fast. There was nothing left of the cool, calculating Warden who had walked through the door. His breathing had gone ragged, pupils blown wide and dark, the grip on your waist unconcerned with care. His fingers dug into your skin with bruising force, pulling you closer, rutting his cock against your belly in short, desperate rolls of his hips. His heart hammered against your chest, every exhale carrying an edge of a groan he couldn’t quite swallow.
“I can tell,” you cooed, voice syrupy-sweet, “that my bite is taking effect on your system now.”
Zuko’s only answer was a strained, half-irritated grunt, his jaw tight as he fought to keep some thread of control. His eyes were heavy-lidded, lashes fluttering, but the tension in his body told you he was losing the battle fast. Very much aware of the watching eyes from the wall, you continued teasing, hips grinding a slow circle that had his blunt nails biting deep enough to leave marks.
You smiled against his throat, listening to the rush of blood just below the surface.
“That’s it, Warden. Feels good, doesn’t it?” You hummed, taunting. “Understand why men get addicted now? Are you going to get addicted to me too?”
Zuko’s only answer was a strained, wordless sound caught somewhere between indignation and raw need—his sharp jaw set in a way that spoke of a man fighting to keep his composure.
“That’s alright,” you whispered, breath hot against the shell of his ear. “I like you better when you don’t talk, Warden.”
His cock remained trapped between your bodies, each lazy roll of your core smearing his warm, slick precum across your stomach. With the taste of his blood still in your mouth, a wicked thought crossed your mind. “Want to taste yourself?”
Pulling back enough to meet his eyes, you could see the internal battle that raged within him—pride, restraint, the knowledge that this was still a performance? You were unsure. And, as if relenting to some hidden urge, he finally mustered a nod, his eyes glazed over.
Your mouth hovered over his, close enough that the word brushed his lips. “Open.”
He obeyed without hesitation.
You gathered the mixture on your tongue—thick saliva laced with the copper tang of his blood—then let it drip slowly. A long, glistening strand stretched between your mouths before it broke, the warm, pink-tinged glob landing half on his waiting tongue and half across his lower lip and chin. Zuko flinched at the sensation, a low, involuntary sound catching in his throat, but he didn’t pull away.
You watched the slow motion of his throat as he swallowed, his eyes fluttering half-shut like the taste had hit him like a drug. With a soft giggle, you used your thumb to smear the remaining mess across his lower lip, pressing it onto his tongue so he could taste every drop.
To your surprise, he reciprocated the motion, tongue sweeping over the pad of your thumb. You watched intently as he savoured the taste, suckling and nibbling at the digit—
A flicker of arousal pooled warm and unwelcome between your thighs, surprising enough that you felt your cunt flutter in response as your composure faltered. Before he could catch his breath, you withdrew your finger and leaned in again, your mouth crashing against his in a messy, open kiss. Your tongues slid together, the taste of his blood shared between you. His lips parted wider as he chased the flavour, a groan rumbling from his chest. Your hands framed his face, holding him steady as you licked into his mouth, sucking his tongue.
While he was distracted, you rose smoothly onto your knees, guiding the flushed head of his cock between your thighs. The moment you began to sink onto him, Zuko’s hips jerked upward in a helpless thrust. The kiss broke on a rough, breathy moan that spilt from his throat into yours, and you took him in one slow motion, until your hips met his and he was buried to the hilt inside you. The stretch forced a shallow sound from your own throat, more for the watchers than from any real pleasure, but the heat of him was undeniable. You could feel every thick inch pulsing within your walls as they adjusted around him.
Once you were fully seated, you began to move, hips rolling in a slow, sensual rhythm that dragged him in and out of you. Each rise and fall was calculated, each squeeze of your inner muscles timed to wring the most reaction from him.
Zuko groaned. His hips bucked up to meet yours, driving himself deeper, and you felt the exact moment his control began to fracture. Your fangs found the strong column of his throat, and the skin gave easily beneath your bite, his hot, rich blood flooding your mouth in a sudden rush. Zuko’s cock jolted hard inside your cunt, pulsing in time with every swallow, his hips stuttering upward in short, desperate thrusts as the pleasure of your bite crashed through him. His head tipped back, a broken groan tearing from his chest, and you felt him throb and twitch as if the act of feeding was dragging him closer to the edge with every mouthful.
“You’re losing control, Warden,” you whispered against his throat. A thin line of blood escaped the corner of your mouth, rolling hot and sticky down your chin. “I can feel it.”
Your hand pressed flat on the centre of his chest and pushed. Zuko went willingly, letting you tip him onto his back until he lay flat against the sheets.
Still straddling his hips, you moved on him with the same poise you had perfected over decades, each rise and fall of your hips made to look desperate while remaining entirely controlled. Your inner walls squeezed him at carefully chosen intervals, timed to the rhythm of his breathing so he would feel every calculated flutter. Every moan pitched just right—soft at first, then louder, breathy, the kind of sound that made men feel powerful. Your hands rested lightly on his chest, fingertips tracing idle patterns across his skin, but your real focus stayed locked on his face. You watched the subtle twitch of his brow, the way his throat bobbed when you clenched just right, the faint flare of his nostrils when you sank to the hilt. You were looking for the smallest flicker of a reaction that told you whether to slow down or grind harder. The head of his cock was dragging against sensitive places you knew were better to ignore. You noted the way his breathing had quickened, the slight tremor in his thighs, and the way his eyes rolled back as he lost himself in the sensation. All good signs—you catalogued each one.
When his grip tightened, and his hips began to lift to meet yours in short, involuntary thrusts, you decided it was time. You let your performance build, your moans growing louder, more breathless, your body moving with just the right amount of desperation. Your head fell back, exposing the long line of your throat, and you let out a carefully crafted cry—high, broken, the sound of a woman coming undone. Your walls fluttered around him, your thighs trembling on cue as you rode out the fake climax, every detail flawless.
But when you looked down again, Zuko’s eyes were no longer half-lidded with pleasure—they were sharp, focused, and unmistakably irritated.
His jaw was set, mouth pressed into a thin line, and his hands had gone still on your hips—
He hadn’t finished.
The tension in his body wasn’t the kind that preceded release; instead, he was watching you with growing displeasure. You felt the shift immediately. The air between you changed, the heat of exasperation swelling. His gaze pinned you in place, and you could see the realisation dawning in his expression: he had seen through the act.
Fuck.
He hadn’t orgasmed.
He hadn’t even been close, like somehow within those last moments he had willed himself not to, just to prove a point, but worst of all—
He knew you had faked it.
For an uneasy moment, you wondered why he was so angry. After all, wasn’t this entire arrangement for the benefit of Madame Yoru and the guard? A performance meant to earn their trust so he could reach Lord Kage? Your pleasure had never come into the equation—only your ability to seduce and filthy what was supposedly an honourable Warden. When had he even noticed the moment your moans turned scripted, your body moving on muscle memory rather than genuine need? The entire evening, it seemed the Warden was determined to unearth something solid beneath the act, as if he were deeply offended by the idea of interacting with Spider Lily, but rather desired you, the girl hidden behind the mask.
“Finished with your fun, are you?” he growled.
Before you could answer, he flipped you over in one swift motion. Your stomach met the sheets, and his hands pressed down hard—one between your shoulder blades, the other pinning the small of your back—so you couldn’t even lift your hips or escape the weight of him. Using his knee, he spread your legs wide, every inch of you open and helpless beneath him.
“What are you—?”
“Does that act really work on other men?” He snarled low enough that only you could hear it. You squirmed under his weight, not entirely from discomfort or the desire to be free. An intense, unwelcome pulse of heat flared low in your belly at the sudden dominance in his tone. “Kind of pathetic, really.”
How had he managed to fight through the aphrodisiac so cleanly? You could only hazard a wild guess that he or Warden’s as a whole must have built up defences to such tricks. Zuko leaned down until his chest was flush against your back, his breath searing against your ear.
“You truly thought I wouldn’t notice that you didn’t finish?” His hand swept over the curve of your spine, fingers sliding between your thighs to stroke through your folds. The touch made both of you pause—his fingers came away slick.
The realisation that you were genuinely wet, genuinely aroused, startled you.
“Pathetic little courtesan act, moaning on cue like I’m some green client you can play. You feel that?” He dragged his fingers through the wetness again. “That’s real. You’re drenched.”
You were suddenly, painfully aware of Madame Yoru’s single watching eye behind the hole in the wall. You could imagine her straining, trying her best to hear the words being rasped into your ear.
“Why do you care?” you hissed back, voice tight. “I’m just trying to help you—”
He cut you off with a hard, deep thrust that punched the air from your lungs. You cried out, body jerking beneath him.
“If I noticed,” he growled against your ear, hips already snapping into you in a brutal rhythm, “then they certainly did. We’re going to have to make it more believable if I’m going to see your master.”
“Fuck—!” The word tore out of you raw as he drove into you again and again, the angle forcing every thick inch to drag against places you’d spent decades ignoring. You squirmed, trying to adjust, but his weight kept you pinned flat, unable to do anything but take it. Your hands fisted the sheets, knuckles white, and for the first time in years, the sounds spilling from your throat were desperate and involuntary.
You weren’t acting anymore.
The pleasure was building too fast, and Zuko seemed to have forgotten this was supposed to be a performance. His grip on you was possessive, his breathing uneven with something that felt dangerously close to real hunger. You were too far gone in the overwhelming sensation to stop it now.
“Fuck—Warden—”
His fingers slid into your hair and yanked, gathering a fistful at the roots and hauling your head back until your throat arched in a taut line. The sharp pull sent a bright sting across your scalp that only enhanced the pleasure already tearing through you. He drove into you again, the wet slap of skin loud, your mouth fell open, each thrust forcing another, a high, shameless moan to spill out of you before you could catch it. The shock of it hit like ice water. This wasn’t part of the act—
Your walls fluttered around him without permission, your thighs trembling, heat coiling and snapping low in your belly so abruptly that you couldn’t breathe. Every plunge of his cock was too much and not enough, and you couldn’t stop the noises pouring out of you, gasps, whimpers, broken little cries that pitched higher each time he bottomed out.
Zuko leaned over you, chest pressed to your back, and hissed words directly into your ear, breath harsh.
“Shut the fuck up,” he commanded. “I’m trying to work here.”
“Ah—fuck, I—I can’t—” The words tumbled out before you could stop them. Your hands clawed at the sheets, and you realised you were shaking—actually shaking—because the pleasure was cresting too fast, and you had no control over the way your body answered him.
His hand came up, palm clamping over your mouth, then two thick fingers pushed past your lips and pressed down on your tongue, trying to muffle the sounds. Tears prickled at the corners of your eyes.
“Mmf—please, I’m—mmm—” Your voice cracked, the words muffled around his fingers, and the realisation that you were begging, truly begging, sent another helpless flutter through your cunt.
You couldn’t stop it, couldn’t fake it, couldn’t slow the way your hips tried to push back against him, even though he had you pinned flat. A choked sob left you, half-moan, half-cry, and you felt your walls clamp down around him. The pleasure kept building, surging higher, and you knew there was no stopping it now. You were lost to it, lost to him, and the only thing you could do was moan around his fingers as he fucked you through it. You couldn’t tell anymore if he was still playing his part or if the aphrodisiac and the heat of the moment had finally cracked his restraint. Every snap of his hips drove him deeper, the angle forcing the thick head of his cock to drag over the exact spot you needed him—
“I can feel you’re close,” he breathed into your ear. “Make it real this time.”
You quivered around him, the pressure inside you winding tighter and together until it burst. A raw, broken scream tore out of you, muffled against his palm, your body locking down hard, pulsing and clenching so violently that your vision spotted. You convulsed beneath him, thighs trembling, a flood of slick coating his cock as the orgasm ripped through you.
“Fuck, there you are,” he snarled, voice rough.
He didn’t stop.
He kept driving into you through the aftershocks, using the frantic, fluttering squeeze of your cunt to chase his own release. The wet, obscene sound of it filled the room, the slap of skin against skin loud enough that you knew Madame Yoru and the guard could hear every filthy detail. His fingers stayed buried in your mouth, pressing down on your tongue while his other hand kept you pinned flat. He used the tight grip of your body like a man starved, hips burrowing in short, brutal strokes that dragged your orgasm out until you were sobbing against his palm, over-sensitive and shaking.
You felt his rhythm falter for the first time, hips stuttering, and then he buried himself to the hilt with a guttural groan. Heat flooded you in thick pulses, his cock twitching hard as he emptied himself inside you, grinding through the last shuddering waves until he finally stilled, chest heaving against your back.
The room was thick with the sound of both of you panting. Zuko’s weight still pressed you into the mattress, his breath hot against the nape of your neck, each exhale shaking slightly as he came down. You lay beneath him, body limp, every muscle trembling in the aftermath. Your mind was reeling, struggling to catch up with what had just happened.
You had orgasmed.
Really orgasmed.
There had been no performance, no calculated moan, no careful scripting of your reactions. A strange mix of disbelief and fear curled in your chest.
Zuko shifted above you. With a low grunt, he pushed himself up onto his hands, his softening cock still nestled inside you. To your surprise, he didn’t pull out. Instead, one of his calloused hands left your shoulder and began to stroke down the length of your spine, palm warm and unexpectedly gentle. You stayed perfectly still beneath him, too stunned to move, the steady rhythm of his hand grounding you even as your thoughts spun wildly.
The hole in the wall slammed shut with a sharp crack. Madame Yoru and the guard were obviously satisfied with what they had seen. At the sound of their retreating footsteps echoing in the inner corridor, you shot upright so quickly that Zuko’s cock slipped free. Before you could even register the loss, you were on him.
Your lips crashed into his, hands fisting his hair and dragging him down into a kiss that was all teeth and desperation. He met you with equal force, one hand clamping around the back of your neck. The taste of his blood still lingered between you, and you poured every tangled, confused feeling into his mouth.
When you finally tore away, both your breathing was ragged, foreheads touching. You could feel his seed beginning to ooze out of you, and all you could do was swallow down the dread lodged in your throat.
Steeling yourself, you finally spoke, your voice scarcely more than a whisper—
“I need you to kill me now.”
For a long moment, Zuko simply looked at you.
He slowly leaned back, putting a few inches of space between you. The warmth that had temporarily blossomed vanished as his expression settled back into that familiar, unreadable mask. It was that stoic look you’d become accustomed to in your short time together, that hardness that swallowed every flicker of emotion before it could fully surface. You couldn’t help but wonder if he was angry with himself; he certainly gave off that impression. Perhaps, even if just for a moment, he had forgotten why he was here—forgotten Lord Kage, forgotten the House of the Evening Bloom and all its flowers. If only for a fleeting second, it was just your two souls meeting—like two stars colliding in the darkness—like the Spirits had willed that you meet on this one fateful day before you were both cast back out into the abyss. Regardless, it seemed your repeated request had shattered whatever illusion he’d allowed himself to entertain.
Without answering, he rose from the bed in one smooth motion. You dared to hope that his silence was a reluctant sort of acceptance. You remained seated, tracking him with your eyes as he crossed the room. His broad shoulder blades flexed beneath weathered skin as he bent to retrieve your discarded robe. For a second, you foolishly thought he meant to hand it back—
Instead, he tossed it at you.
You jolted as the embroidered silk struck your chest, sliding down your lap.
“You’re going to kill me, right?” you asked, voice tight.
He ignored the question entirely, as well as the pile of clean clothes the servants had left out. Returning to his discarded dirty pile, he dragged his blood and sweat stained undershirt over his head, followed by the heavier outer layers that carried the dust of half the Earth Kingdom upon them.
“Warden,” you tried again, rising to your feet as you gathered your robe around yourself. Humiliation curled hot up your spine. “We had a deal—”
He let out a slow breath through his nose as he adjusted his scabbard over his shoulders. “Just run away.”
You scowled, a bitter laugh escaping before you could stop it. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
You thrust your arms into the sleeves of your robes with more force than necessary, fingers fumbling against the silk as anger began to eclipse despair. “That the only escape from this place is death.”
Only then did he fully look at you, nostrils flaring and eyes narrowed in irritation. “Can you even hear yourself—”
A deafening crack echoed through the room as the shoji slid open so violently that it rattled in its frame. At the sound, Zuko had immediately assumed a fighter’s position, feet placed a shoulder-width apart, fists raised, while all you could do was gape in disbelief.
Peony stood in the doorway, chest rising and falling in quick, furious breaths, dark eyes fixed entirely upon you—
“You stupid, greedy bitch.” The words left Peony before either you or Zuko had the sense to react. All you could muster was to stare back at her in complete and utter bewilderment. You couldn’t believe she had the gall to march in, especially knowing the Zuko hadn’t left your side yet.
“Peony—” you started.
She crossed the room in three quick strides—entirely ignoring Zuko, who tracked her every movement with a Warden’s assessment—and slapped you hard enough that the force made your head turn. Pain blossomed across your cheek as your balance faltered, one hand flying instinctively to your face as you recoiled in shock. It took you a few baffled seconds, but you eventually lifted your head to look at Peony. She was trembling, not with fear, but with fury.
“I claimed him,” the words came through clenched teeth. “I was there first.”
You blinked at her, still dazed from the blow. Of course, the flowers often fought among themselves; the environment had always been built to pit you against one another, you were each other's competition after all. Though it was historically in the form of public humiliation or a not-so-subtle tongue-lashing, never anything this unbelievably reckless and blatant. But it seemed Peony had long passed the point of caring about consequences.
“The moment he walked through the doors, everyone saw it.” She took another step forward, eyes frantic. “He was mine.”
You couldn’t place her distress. You had expected her to be angry with you, yes, but this fury came from another origin entirely, like beyond the resentment was all-consuming fear. Deep down, you knew this had the stench of Madame Yoru’s meddling attached to it.
“Peony—”
“No,” she snarled. “Don’t you dare.”
The decades of polished smiles and practised elegance you had observed her hold over the years fractured all at once. The closer you stared, the more you noticed the details out of place. The slight smudge of her painted lips bleeding into her white face powder, the decorative pins in her hair slightly askew, eyes glistening with unshed tears—
“You’ve spent years sitting up on your little perch, pretending you were above the rest of us.” She jabbed a finger towards the direction of the display beyond the walls. “Too miserable to work, too miserable to smile, too miserable to earn your keep. Leaving the rest of us to deal with the disgusting, filthy scraps.”
She took another step forward, a manic laugh slipping past her sharp lips. “But the moment a handsome Warden walks through the front doors, suddenly Spider Lily remembers how to descend?”
Your jaw tightened, teeth grinding. “He chose me.”
“Oh, spare me.” Peony laughed with a gasp, clutching at her chest before her dark eyes narrowed with a hiss. “You challenged me. I wanted to drag you off him the moment you left the parlour.”
She pointed her finger at your chest. “I would have, if Madame Yoru hadn’t ordered me to wait until your little performance was over.”
Peony smiled wider, shoving your shoulder with a single, hard blow. “You’ve always been Lord Kage’s favourite, haven’t you? It has to be why Madame Yoru still keeps an embarrassment like you around.”
She shoved you hard again, hard enough that your calves struck the edge of the bed, her hands catching your robes as she made a fist around the embroidered silk. “I’ll make sure you pay for this. I’ll see you stripped of every scrap of favour you have left.”
“And when Lord Kage hears about this—” she yanked you forward, “—he’ll put you back in the box.”
Your hands instinctively flew to her wrists as dread washed over you, your breath hitching—
Her smile had turned vicious, knowing exactly what she was doing to you. “This time they’ll leave there until you forget your own n—”
Her hand drew back, intending to strike you once more. You braced yourself for the impact, frozen in place by just the mere mention of that box. But Peony faltered, her body jerking. You felt her grip loosen, her jaw going slack, a mixture of shock and horror flooding her features.
Confused, she slowly turned her head, and you followed her gaze.
Zuko was no longer half-dressed on the opposite side of the room. The Warden didn’t even seem to be present, replaced instead by a figure wearing a weathered, blue oni mask that obscured their face. But it was only when twin amber eyes met your gaze through the narrow eye slits that the scene before you clicked—
The Blue Spirit stood before you. Zuko, the man you’d spent all evening with—teasing him, sharing stories from a childhood you’d long since pushed to the recesses of your mind, drinking his blood and allowing him to fuck you senseless—was the Blue Spirit. You felt sick, yet almost laughed aloud at the same time. Was this what the Spirits had rewarded you with after a century of waiting and agony? Was this what fate had considered necessary? Two stars, burning fiercely in the night sky, only to explode on contact. Two stars destined to bring destruction to this place, like locusts to a garden. The petals would shrivel, and the flowers would wilt, and the House of the Evening Bloom, the greatest garden in the Earth Kingdom, would finally perish.
Peony’s eyes widened.
“No…” the word barely escaped her lips, and you followed her gaze down her robes. A wooden stake was punched cleanly through her chest, the pointed tip peaking out through a tear in her robes. For a moment, you both stared down at it, disbelief washing over both your faces.
Then the flesh around the wound blackened.
“Peony—” you gasped.
Lurching forward, your instincts overpowered reason, your hands catching her shoulders just as her knees threatened to buckle. For the briefest of moments, you thought you had caught her—until she began to fall apart. The flesh beneath your fingers cracked with a dry, splintering sound, fine fractures appearing across her throat and jaw. It spread over the rest of her body like frost across glass. You watched, horrified, as the colour drained from her skin. Flecks of ash lifted from her cheeks, drifting weightlessly between the two of you.
Her mouth opened as if to scream, but nothing came out.
Peony collapsed inward—not to the floor, but instead through your grasp—dissolving into a cloud of grey ash that slipped through your fingers and settled softly across the tatami. Her crimson robe crumpled a heartbeat later, folding neatly into the empty space where she had stood, as though the woman inside it had never existed at all. The room fell deathly silent, your gaze fixed on the pile of ash. Your empty arms were still outstretched where Peony had stood mere seconds before, your hands curved around nothing. Slowly, very slowly, you lifted your eyes. Zuko—the Blue Spirit—stood motionless, stake still clenched in one hand. The carved, wooden oni mask concealed every trace of expression, but something about the way he stood unnerved you all the same.
And to your disgust, and absolute horror… You couldn’t muster a shred of sadness or grief for Peony. Neither of you had been close, no, one did not make friends in the House of the Evening Bloom. But you had been trapped all the same, two gilded cages directly opposite each other so you could watch the other pace like a wild animal.
No, the only thing you felt was envy—envy that she had been taken, freed from this place, and you had not.
With wide, glassy eyes, you swallowed and slowly lowered yourself to your knees. The movement stirred the ashes scattered around Peony’s discarded robe, her essence swirling briefly across the tatami before it settled once more.
“Go on, do it,” you breathed. “I’m ready.”
The mask tilted, and you couldn’t help but feel there was something almost animalistic about his silent assessment. When he finally spoke, his voice was muffled behind the carved wood.
“No.”
You stared at him. “...No?”
A laugh bubbled in your chest, tight and high as your chest shook. Zuko remained still, towering above you, watching with what you could only imagine was disdain. It was only as tears began to blur your vision, thick, fat droplets pouring down your cheeks and under your chin, that you realised your laughter had morphed into ugly sobs. They rattled your entire body, rattled you so thoroughly that each wail went a wave of pain and nausea through you, your body folding in on itself as you braced your palms against the tatami.
The longer you sobbed, and the longer he silently watched, the hotter the flicker of resentment deep within you began to burn. Your head snapped up, your tearful expression pulled into a snarl as your voice rose despite yourself, finally unconcerned with anyone overhearing your demands.
“Why?” you shouted. “Why won’t you just kill me?”
Zuko scoffed—actually scoffed—and through the slits in the mask, you could see his eyes narrow. “You said only the Blue Spirit stood a chance of killing Lord Kage, that the only reason you wanted death first was because you believed no other man could achieve it. That you were afraid of the consequences of running if he didn’t fall—”
“Stop—”
“So I will kill him. I will kill him, and you will be free.”
“Zuko—”
“Run, run while you still can. You still have a few hours before the sun rises—”
“This wasn’t our deal!” You snarled, finally cutting over him loudly enough that he paused his spiel. “You agreed to kill me.”
He went quiet in a way that made you think he was making a face behind the mask, and his tone hardened as he finally replied. “I never agreed to anything.”
“You don’t seem to understand, do you?” You snapped, exasperated. Sniffling, you wiped at your face with ash-stained hands, anger finally forcing you back into your kneeling position to meet his eye fully. “Everyone and everything I have ever known is dead! They are all bones and dust in the earth now—where would I go, who could I even turn to? There is nowhere for me to run!”
“Then make a new life for yourself.” His voice was sharp enough to cut as he stared down at you, a hint of coldness in the way he held his shoulders. “You survived, what are you so afraid of?”
You laughed again, bitterly, looking at him as if he had lost his mind. Your next words came out in a snarl. “I haven’t seen the sun in years. I am a relic of a time that no longer exists! I don’t even remember my own name—how am I supposed to simply make a new life?”
“You remember enough, even if you pretend you don’t.” Zuko sneered. “That much is clear.”
“I thought you were supposed to be honourable,” you taunted. Maybe if you angered him enough, he would snap and kill you. Maybe if you provoked him, he would abandon the moral high ground, which he appeared determined to sit upon. “I thought as a Warden you were supposed to kill monsters, not fuck them."
The blue oni mask tilted again, his shoulders rising with a deep breath—the only sign that your words had affected him—before slowly settling. The fingers that had been curled into a fist at his side relaxed, the accusations you had hurled fizzling out as he denied you the reaction you desired.
“You’re not a monster,” he muttered, almost pitying. “I never thought you were.”
His softheartedness surprised you enough that you paused, chest heaving, voice trembling. You were a fool. A fucking fool. Kneeling before him, his seed still inside you, begging him to kill you when it was obvious he had never seen you as a threat. For all his callousness and coldness, you’d never expected the Warden to look beyond the act, to want to look beyond the mask.
“I am broken,” you confessed, head hanging low. “I am broken beyond repair. No matter what I do, I will never be free of this place.”
Whatever begninity had overtaken him waned; the familiar sound of a scoff reverbrating from behind the mask. “You are only broken if you allow yourself to remain that way. Pull yourself together.”
You swallowed hard, nails digging into your palms. “Do you know what they do if we disobey? If we try to run away? He will hunt us down, no matter where we run or where we hide. He will find us, and he will drag us down into that box—”
“What box? You all keep talking about this damned box—”
Your eyes flickered to the floor as his voice faded, shrinking in on yourself. Zuko shifted his weight, an uneasy mood sweeping over both of you as he realised your expression didn’t match the reaction he had anticipated.
Darkness flooded your mind, the weight of silence, walls pressing in…
You couldn’t go back.
“What is the box, Spider Lily?” Zuko repeated himself, his tone suddenly and eerily calm.
You couldn’t go back.
“The box…” You began, although your words sounded distant now, muffled and warped. It reminded you of the quiet mornings when all the clients left and the House fell into silence. You would bathe yourself in the lantern light, then slip under the surface, holding yourself there until your lungs burned. “It’s beneath the manor. They keep it past the cellars and wine stores in a room made of stone.”
A tremor passed through you as you instinctively wrapped your arms around yourself, unable to look up at the Warden.
“It isn’t large,” you continued after a long, shuddering pause. “Not much taller than a child. It’s wide enough to fit one person, but only just. You can’t stand or lie down. The best you can manage is crouching—knees tucked against your chest, your back bent, and your head lowered.”
“The cramps start after… I don’t know.” You frowned, frustrated, eyes locked onto the tatami, Zuko’s boots at the corner of your vision. “Hours, perhaps. Maybe days. It’s impossible to tell how quickly or slowly time passes. But eventually, your body knows time has passed, your muscles seize and give out. You slump over from exhaustion.”
Your eyes squeezed shut, the room around you disappearing—the darkness, the silence, the phantom iron walls—
“Eventually, you stop trying to find a comfortable position, because there isn’t one.”
Zuko was deathly silent and still across from you.
“It is completely dark, so dark you can’t even see your own hands in front of your face.” Your breath hitched. There was a reason why you and many of the other flowers always kept your rooms lit, even when morning broke. “And silent too, so very silent.”
“You’d be surprised how loud silence can become—at first, you listen for footsteps, voices, anything. Your own mind becomes so loud, so you try to distract your thoughts. You count, you recite songs, poems, recipes, anything your mind can grasp onto.” You laughed softly, a disturbed little sound. “Then you begin hearing things that aren’t there.”
The words left your mouth before you could stop them, rushing out like a tidal wave—
“You hear conversations, laughter, people calling your name, scratching and knocking at the walls. I used to hear my mother singing—” You abruptly cut yourself off. You hadn’t meant to admit that.
You exhaled loudly. Loud enough that your shoulders shook as you finally dared to look up at the Warden. Only the blank oni mask greeted you.
“They never feed you at the same time, they’re careful at making sure you don’t recognise patterns. They don’t want you knowing whether it is morning or night… whether you’ve been there for three days or three weeks. They want you disoriented and afraid.”
Your eyes narrowed as you recalled it.
“But the hunger…” Your hands drifted to your stomach without thinking. “It becomes so terrible and all-consuming that you stop caring. You find yourself licking the inside of the box, because the iron tastes of blood. You convince yourself the rust tastes sweet.”
Another tight laugh bubbled to the surface, caught somewhere between your teeth.
“When they finally do feed you, they pour it through tiny holes in the lid.” Your voice was bitter as you recalled it. “And even if you’ve spent hours telling yourself that you’ll keep your dignity, that you won't give them the satisfaction of seeing you beg, you throw yourself under it. You scramble for every drop—it runs down your face, your clothes, the floor. And they laugh. They stand above the box and laugh while you lap it from the floor. They laugh while you beg for more.”
You held the oni mask’s stare, sullen as you recalled it, the sensation of sticky, half-congealed blood running over your head and face, of sucking the clots caught in your hair. “By the time they let you out, you’ve forgotten why they even put you in there in the first place. So you beg forgiveness for a crime you can’t even remember committing.”
“I’ve been in the box three times,” you admitted. “I don’t know how long for, but I am certain it was months, if not years. All I can remember is that when they opened that lid, I thanked them. I thanked them for their mercy and kindness. That I begged them to put me back to work instead of sending me back to that darkness—”
Zuko turned abruptly. He didn’t so much as spare you another glance before striding towards the shoji. His boots struck the tatami with enough force to make the floorboards underneath creak. You still couldn’t read his expression beneath the oni mask or fully discern the emotion behind his silence, but everything he refused to say was revealed in the stiff set of his shoulders and his precise, clipped movements. A predator, a hunter, a killer—whatever the label, he effortlessly adopted the persona within moments, just as casually as you changed into your robe each evening.
He reached the shoji in three long strikes, his hand shooting out. The wooden frame shuddered violently from his grip, his fingers punching through the paper before he realised the force he’d used. For a heartbeat, he remained locked in place, head bowed ever-so-slightly as though overcoming whatever storm threatened to surface beneath the mask. You had a sickening realisation. The longer you watched his mannerisms, the more obvious it became.
He was furious.
When he finally spoke, his voice was dangerous enough to send a chill through you.
“I am going to kill your master.” His fingers tightened around the frame until the splintering wood creaked. “And then I am going to burn this place to the ground. You’d be wise to run while you still can.”
He slid the shoji open, and the distant, faded sound of sanxian strings and the laughter of drunken patrons floated down the empty hallway. You lurched to your feet, so quickly your knees nearly buckled beneath you.
“No!” The word tore from your throat raw. Your foot caught in the discarded folds of your robe, pitching you forward. You stumbled blindly across the room, crashing hard against the abandoned bath. The heavy wooden tub lurched at the impact, long cold water sloshing over the rim and soaking the sleeves of your robes. You barely felt it, your attention locked onto his back as he began to walk away. The one person capable of ending your ongoing, century-long nightmare was disappearing into the hallway. “I need you to kill me!”
A sound escaped your chest, and you shoved yourself away from the path, palms skidding over the wet timber. Half crawling, half stumbling, you threw yourself after him. Your vision blurred so thoroughly by tears that the doorway became little more than a smear of light. But, by some miracle, you caught him just before he crossed the threshold, your knees striking the tatami with enough force that your teeth clattered as you clung to his ankles.
“Please…” The word came out as a sob. You clutched at the worn leather of his boot, as if your sheer desperation could anchor him in place.
“I need you to…” Your forehead dropped against his shin. “Please… please.”
Your shoulders shook uncontrollably. The tears came harder now, droplets pattering across the leather as your breath dissolved into ragged sobs.
“I need you to free me. I can’t…” You choked. “I can’t do this anymore.”
With a quiet exhale through his nose, Zuko looked down. The carved blue mask peered at you, molten honey eyes lost to the shadows. Ever stoic, he shifted his stance. Not to comfort you, but rather free him himself. Stepping back, he broke your grasp with a firm tug. Your hands closed around empty air.
Without another word, the Blue Spirit disappeared down the corridor.
As the shouting began, you remained collapsed in the doorway, hands still outstretched, sobbing so violently that you were sure your ribcage would cave in.
You did not know how long you had remained on the floor. Time had become meaningless again, dissolving into the same shapeless darkness that had swallowed entire decades of your existence. At some point, the tears had stopped falling quite so freely, though your cheeks remained damp and tight with salt. You stared blankly at the tatami beneath your face, following the woven igusa with unfocused eyes.
Beyond the room, there had been screams. The crash of splintering wood as furniture was thrown, the pounding of hurried footsteps through the corridors, and the shoji slamming open and shut. The carefully rehearsed illusion of the House of the Evening Bloom—the laughter, the music, the flirtation—had collapsed into naked panic. You had barely reacted to any of it. The sounds reached you, distant and distorted. Every cry blurred together until they became little more than white noise—like an earthquake, or the sound of blood rushing in a silent room.
At some point, others had tried to rouse you from your catatonic state. Patrons, fellow flowers, the servant girls you had tried and failed to protect. They had pleaded with you, begged you to move before the flames creeping through the manor swallowed you whole.
Unbeknownst to them, you welcomed the idea.
Each of them eventually gave up, leaving you where you lay. All too terrified by the fire—or maybe rather they were fearful of the Blue Spirit that still prowled the halls. The scent of smoke grew stronger as time passed. At first, it had been faint, an almost pleasant layer to the oudh incense that permanently clung to the walls. Then came the heat, creeping beneath the shoji, filling the room one slow breath at a time. You couldn’t quite find the will to care, to even react to the fact that the House of the Evening Bloom was quite literally burning before you. You simply watched as the smoke became thicker, listening as the walls and roof groaned and shuddered around you. If this was how it ended, then perhaps it was fitting.
You had resigned yourself to your fate, that was, until the shrill voice of Madame Yoru sounded over the chaos. It was as if a bucket of ice water had been thrown over you, waking you from your fugue state, suddenly aware of how hot and suffocating the room had become—
“You!” She hissed, and you slowly lifted your head. She no longer resembled the immaculate Mother of Blossoms. Half of her elaborate hairpins had come undone, black hair hanging loose around a face streaked with soot. One sleeve of her expensive, crimson robe had been burned away entirely, exposing blistered and blackened skin beneath, yet she seemed oblivious to the injury.
Her usually cruel expression had melted into something feral, for once her immaculate posture and composure were shattered. She stalked towards you with a snarl. Her nails buried themselves deep into your hair before you even managed to push yourself upright. Agony exploded across your scalp as she dragged you across the tatami.
“What have you done?” she shrieked. “Do you understand what you have done?”
She threw you, hard. You struck the edge of the low table, which was still pushed up against the wall—one of the ornate carved legs splintered on impact, collapsing onto your side.
“What did you tell him—?”
A kick caught you in the ribs.
“What deal did you make with him—?”
You curled instinctively around the blow, arms shielding your head as another strike glanced off your shoulder. Smoke was pouring through the open doorway now, the ceiling groaning above you. Madame Yoru seized your sleeve, hauling you upright, only to slap you hard enough that your vision flashed white.
“I never understood why you were his favourite,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “You were always weak and ungrateful. I should have let you starve in that box—”
Her hand shot towards your throat, and you stumbled backwards instead, managing to wrench yourself free as silk tore beneath her fingers. Instinct seized what little remained, and you tore out of the room. Stumbling down the hallway, you dodged upturned furniture, fallen beams and splintered shoji. Somewhere behind you, Madame Yoru screamed.
You burst into the parlour, your hand flying to your mouth as a series of hacking coughs tore from your throat. Thick smoke clawed at your lungs with every inhale, while a wall of blistering heat rolled across your skin so fiercely that your eyes watered. You knew you should’ve kept running, should’ve sprinted out the doors into the street beyond, taken in the world before the sun crept over the horizon, lost yourself in the maze of Ba Sing Se… but instead you were rooted at the centre of the room. Your gaze drifted upward, and you laughed.
The display was burning.
The great tiered platform, once the pride of the House of the Evening bloom, had become little more than a towering pyre. Flames climbed hunrgily from perch to perch, devouring lacquered timber until blackened and spilt apart with deafening cracks. Silk cushions shrivelled, embroidered fabrics curling in on themselves before erupting into showers of glowing embers. How many nights had you spent up in the highest tiers, looking at the men below? How many times had you prayed never to descend those steps again? One by one, the carefully placed seats where you and the other flowers had spent decades waiting to be chosen gave way. You watched as it collapsed inward, showering you in a spectacular burst of sparks and hot wind.
The fire spread greedily across every familiar corner of the parlour. The paint of the red and black pillars crackled, the draperies that had once enshrouded the room billowed as pillars of flame, and the lanterns that had once hung above were lost in the smoke. The low tables lay overturned amongst shattered porcelain, abandoned cups of sake and baijiu bubbling.
Your laughter caught in your throat as movement stirred beyond the smoke—at the mouth of the corridor stood Madame Yoru, and with no hesitation and fangs bared, she lunged.
But to your surprise, and maybe horror, she made it all of half the distance before a blur of blue and black crossed your vision. And much like Peony, Madame Yoru was frozen in place, mouth agape in confusion as she slowly looked down at the wooden stake protruding cleanly through her chest.
Almost immediately, cracks spread across her skin, the shrill sound of her scream cut short as her body fractured, collapsing into a pile of ash that scattered across the burning floor, revealing Zuko. The masked Warden’s chest was heaving, visible wounds poking through slices in the fabric of his clothes. Despite it, deep down you knew. You knew that if Zuko was standing before you… That if the House of the Evening Bloom was burning around you… No, Lord Kage would never have allowed it. So it could only mean… You knew it could only mean that…
Lord Kage, the Red Prince of the Pleasure District, was dead.
The monster was dead.
The Blue Spirit had killed him—he had done what centuries of Wardens before him had failed to accomplish.
He had killed him.
Your knees buckled, and you collapsed before him, a sound caught somewhere between a cough, sob and a laugh escaping you. Suddenly, the smoke no longer felt so unbearable, nor did the heat radiating from the fires surrounding you. As Zuko stepped closer, over the pile of robes and the scattered ashes Madame Yoru had left behind, you raised your chin to meet his gaze with a sniffle. Up close, you could see the full extent of his wounds; some were deep, but nothing life-threatening or crippling. You could even see the bite mark you’d left on his neck peeking out at you from under his undershirt. Blood and ash were smeared over the oni mask, and you studied the blank, smiling expression carved into the wood.
“Lord Kage is dead.” Zuko finally spoke, loud enough to be heard over the roar of the flames, though his voice was gravely from the smoke. “You’re free now.”
Free.
The word felt foreign.
You smiled up at him, not the practised smile of Spider Lily, but simply your smile. Perhaps the first honest smile you had worn since entering the House of the Evening Bloom. And it seemed to tell him all he needed to know, as he didn’t appear surprised as you reached out with trembling hands for the stake still clenched in his fist. He did not stop you as you guided the sharpened point towards your chest, resting it directly over your undead heart.
Still smiling, though tears blurred your vision, you pressed it into your skin, just hard enough to feel the promise waiting on the tip. When you finally spoke, there was no performance left within you. Only the girl Lord Kage had stolen all those years ago, asking for one final act of mercy. You curled your fingers around his and spoke what you hoped would be your final words.
“Kill me.”
if you enjoyed, please let me know! leave a comment or a reblog. i no longer have a taglist. if you want to keep being notified when i post please follow @artficlly-archive and turn on post notifications! <3
my sweet darling art this fic has blown me away with every snippet, outline, piece of dialogue, and part of world building you’ve teased me with.
getting to see it all together now? holy fuck it’s like I’ve had the wind knocked out me, it is so fucking exceptional I honestly can’t even begin to describe how much I loved every moment.
Summary: What if the hottest thing Bucky Barnes has ever heard is a language he can’t understand? While everyone else is trying to translate your words, Bucky is far more interested in the way they sound rolling off your tongue. The more time he spends with you, the less he believes he needs to understand you at all. Besides, there are plenty of ways to talk.
PSA (Pink Service Announcement): brining back Bucky Barnes the flirt. he never died because i said so. set around TFATWS. I couldn't find any canoncial evidence of Bucky speaking French but I didn’t look that hard. you don't need to translate anything to understand what's happening, but if you want to please feel free!
Word Count: 6.3k
Warnings: google translate French, gratuitous use of italics. Bucky Barnes goes to the club, cursing, grinding on the dance floor, hot and heavy make out, oral (fem receiving)
DT: the bestest betas a girl could ever ask for, my sweet @artficlly, @heldbybarnes, and addy (I still can’t believe you know French), thank you guys so much for reading I truly would not have made it through this last stretch of writing without you. I owe you all a billion kisses or Jell-O shots, please let me know what you prefer!
also dividers by the extraordinarily talented @barnesonly
Bucky's first mistake was taking his eyes off the target.
Eyes straying from his mark across the room, first exit, second exit, and the large window. His eyes sweep the entire room, mentally checking every off every possible escape route. Calculating every possible entrance where someone could sneak in. Call it an old habit, call it paranoia, call it boredom. Bucky doesn't fucking care, it's just what he does. Working or not.
Whatever it is, it leads to his eyes sweeping right over you.
Bald suit, bald suit, gaudy heiress, bald suit, you, bald suit, billionaire-
You.
That's Bucky's second mistake, letting himself do a double take.
It's less conscious than that though, like catching his reflection in a mirror. His eyes move on their own accord, sliding away from his careful profiling and locking solely onto you.
Draped in silk and sin, poised and perfectly posed. You're perched on a bar stool, entertaining a small group of bald suits with wild hand gestures and well timed grazes of your hand.
He watches one of your manicured fingers reach out and adjust the lapels of one of their jackets. It's the only time Bucky's ever wished he had his father's hairline.
The movement is practiced, too perfect to be anything but well-rehearsed. You move like mercury, gentle and smooth. Like you could kill him if he dared to touch you.
Bucky's third mistake is abandoning his position. It's bad enough he's lost sight of the target, that bald suit went to bathroom three minutes ago. Oblivious, Bucky abandons his spot in the shadows. Losing any vantage point he may have had and walking straight through the heart of the crowd.
He can't be bothered with politeness, shouldering his way between conversations without even sparing them even an apologetic glance. It's only ten strides, maybe twelve before he has you back within view.
It's even worse up close, the curve of your chin, the tilt of your smile and the way your tongue peeks out between your lips to grab a wandering drop of champagne off the rim of your glass.
His fourth mistake is looking at your lips.
Pretty, plush, painted with perfect precision. They only serve to tighten your already iron clad grip on him. He doesn't hear a word you say, he already knows your voice will match the rest of you.
It's enchanting, the way they curve around each word. He's never taken much stock of how people look when they talk. A mouth moves and he takes no thrill in the way it shapes sound. Until yours. Until he saw them part to allow a laugh passage. Suddenly he's quite sure there's nothing sexier.
Like Venus has pulled him into her orbit, another moon for her collection.
Bucky doesn't stop until he's close enough to hear the men around you, chuckles, music and the clinking of dishes all falling to distant static.
Bucky's fifth mistake is not realizing that there is no static, at least not in the bubble surrounding you. In fact your circle of jesters has gone quiet, beady eyes staring into him as he obliviously stares at you.
A hand passes back and forth in front of his face, finally freeing him from his reverie.
When Bucky comes to there's laughter again, at his expense.
He doesn't even care, too busy processes that he can actually hear it this time. Ringing out an octave above the rest is your giggle, distinctly feminine. It sounds rehearsed, borderline unnatural, as if you've had to force it up your throat and then pitched it be heard above the rest.
It's fake, obviously so. At least to anyone willing to actually listen.
You're talking then, face turned toward him with a smirk on your lips. Your voice is smooth, velveteen. It pulls him in, as if you're giving him all of your attention with every word.
Bucky leans closer, all of his focus swimming around the sound of your speech.
It hits him all at once.
He's listening, hard. His ear turned toward your face to make sure he doesn't miss a syllable and-
He can't understand a word you say.
What is that? Russian? German? No, he knows those. He only speaks of a little bit of Slovakian, but it doesn't sound like that's it either.
It's melodic, although Bucky can't be sure if that's the language or just you.
You stare at him expectantly when you're done, voice lilting up as if you've asked him a question. Head cocked slightly to the side to match.
Like you've told him something he should have already known. Alpine gives him the same look when she wake him up at three a.m. to let him know her bowl is empty.
You're not a cat though, even if your eye gleam with mischief like one.
Is it French? Maybe you're speaking French?
"I'm sorry I don't-" he fumbles for a moment, heat rushing his cheeks with a vengeance. "I don't speak-"
Your bottom lip juts out in a pout, corners turning down into a soft frown. You say something to the rest of the men, layering it with silk and buttercream.
He catches a few more syllables that time, the fluidity as they string together some collection of words. Whatever they are has the men disappearing, a slow retreat. Like how ink dilutes in water. Gone before he can even pretend to sound out the first half of what you said.
Your shoulders lower for just a moment, visibly relaxing as you take a step closer to Bucky.
"Agent Barnes, oui?" You ask. Your smile is smaller this time, more friendly than enchanting. His name is different on your tongue, thick and accented. It's slower than before, as if you took extra care crafting it properly on your tongue.
His name has never sounded like that before. Like someone was paying attention, cared about getting it right.
He wants to know yours. Badly.
Wants to trace each of your teeth with his tongue, lick each syllable off it and taste your voice.
He feels like a kid in a school gym, sweaty palmed with a flipping stomach.
That kid never used to falter though. Bucky prays he’s still in him somewhere.
Sam’s voice cackles in his ear, his tone something between amusement and frustration.
“I see you’ve met Sirène.”
Bucky’s eyes snap to yours, Sirène?
“I thought we were solo on this one Sam?” Bucky does his best to keep his voice level, offering you a small nod as he speaks.
“Our guy is wanted in several countries Buck, including hers. We went over all of this in the briefing? They sent her over for backup, y’know another set of eyes and someone who could sweet talk his foreign associates.”
The bald suits, presumably.
“Oh.”
“Yeah oh.” Sam’s voice trails on, Bucky hears something about plans and paperwork. Bucky’s also pretty sure there’s a jab about listening ears in there too.
While yeah, he probably should pay more attention during briefings, he’s also pretty sure no file could have adequately prepared him for you.
You’re still in front of him, bottom lip pulled between your teeth as you bite back a laugh.
“Siren?” Bucky repeats, directing the question toward you. Eliciting another giggle.
“See-ren.” Sam corrects in his ear. “It’s French.”
Bucky feels his confidence build ever so slightly, at least he was right about that.
He tries again, taking the same care that you did with his. It's a code name, of course it is. But it's something.
Your grin is enough to turn Sam's voice in his to static.
"Makes sense." Bucky muses, "Pretty sure you could lure any man, anywhere."
Your reply drips like honey, the deepening in your tone unmistakable. "Vous aussi?" You murmur.
Bucky feels his knees start to melt with the way they hit him. Molten and sultry. "I'd fall right in line with them." He continues, unable to directly respond the way he wishes he could.
Thirty languages programmed deep in his psyche and somehow French isn't one of them.
"Quel genre d'espion ne parle pas français?" You tease, or at least he thinks you tease.
"I should'a listened when my Ma told me to take French in school."
"C'est pas grave, je les aime mignons et bêtes." You lean in closer on that one, taking the collar of his shirt between your fingers and smoothing it over.
"I don't know what that means but it turns me-"
"Oooh-kay." Sam sing-songs, cutting Bucky off. "If you two are done with whatever this is, we need to find our target."
Shit. Bucky curses. Of course Sam is right, he really should focus.
He turns to look at you, something apologetic already half off his tongue when you start to lean in.
With a hand on his chest, you toe up and whisper in his ear. Or more accurately, into his ear piece.
"Il Dans le coin le plus à droits, assis fauteuil en cuir." You murmur, close enough for your lips to brush the skin oh his ear lobe. "Nous-I'm observe depuis trois minutes."
You pull back, the hand on his chest snaking up to his neck and curling around the back of it. Just enough for the tips of your fingers to dance along the hair at the base of his head.
"J'ai entendu sa femme dans la salle de bains. Elle disait qu'il ne fait pas confiance à ceux qui viennent seuls à ce genre d'événement." You continue, all but purring as you rake your nails over his skin. You let out a laugh then, one of the fake ones from earlier. This time you keep it low, soft enough that it won't travel further than the two of you. "Heureusement, je suis venu accompagné d'une belle cavalière."
Bucky's mind in swimming, swirling with the ecstacy of your touch and the vibration of your voice. How is a man supposed to even pretend to listen?
"Little help on the translation Sam?" Bucky asks. Doing his best to follow your lead, he slides an arm around your waist, his hand resting heavy over the slope of your hip.
He can feel his pulse in his palm, thrumming hard under the skin with nerves. You don't seem to notice, or perhaps care, not bothering to move an inch as Bucky waits for Sam's response.
"Our guy is across the room at eight o'clock. He likes couples so she's doing her best to sell it." Sam explains, "So maybe loosen up a bit, give her a hand yeah?"
Bucky feels his throat bob as he swallows, his tongue suddenly gone thick. His nod is short, hardly visible and too stiff for the kind of level head this situation calls for.
"Yeah." Bucky exhales, "I can do that."
He forces himself to ignore Sam's chuckled Can you? in his ear.
"Respirer profondement." You whisper, taking the hand Bucky had placed (respectfully) on your hip and moving it around to your back, letting it rest at the base of your spine, just where your ass begins to curve.
One long exhale later, and Bucky finds his nerve.
His hand splays out over your skin, daring to take up the space there. With one quick pull he brings your chest flush to his, nearly throwing your balance as he does so.
You beam, smile widening with approval.
"Nice." Sam chides in his ear, equal parts proud and disgusted.
You squeeze Bucky's shoulder. "Il vient par ici."
"He's headed toward you." Sam translates.
You bring your hand around from the back of Bucky's neck, sliding it down over his collarbone until your palm rests flat on his sternum. "Laissez- parler."
"Let her do the talking." Sam tells him. Through a window a light catches Bucky's eye, a red scope trained in his direction. Sam's careful aim sitting on his shoulders like armor.
"My pleasure." Bucky agrees.
With his hand still on your back, the skin below his ear buzzing from where your lips had brushed, Bucky thinks he means it more than either you are Sam truly understand.
Bucky's began to wonder if S.H.I.E.L.D. asked you to stay on to test him.
Or more specifically, test his sanity.
With the arrest made, a power vacuum big enough to swallow Wilson Fisk opened up. Wannabe kingpins popping up every three blocks with the potential to wreak more havoc than they have any right to.
And with the dissemination of your Target's organization, most of them happen to be French.
They need you, S.H.I.E.L.D. of course. Not Bucky, no Bucky just likes your company.
If he can even call it that.
What do you call it when you spend all day with someone and then also spend all of your free time with them and spend all the time you're not together replaying their words in your head?
Sam calls it a crush, Bucky staunchly disagrees.
What do you call it when you can't understand a word the other person says?
Sam calls it a Love Actually. Bucky doesn't know what the fuck that means.
You laughed when he told you about it though, loud and obnoxious. Hard enough for your head to tilt back and expose the thin skin of your neck. The line where muscle meets collarbone and the kissable swell of your clavicle.
Bucky doesn't look up it, afraid of what he'll find.
Instead he asks you to teach some more French.
Je m'appelle Bucky. My name is Bucky.
Explained to him with a smile as you finally slipped him your own.
Pour qui travaillez-vous? Who do you work for?
Your voice guiding him through the pronunciation as you and Sam prepared him for a few simple phrases he might hear.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? What the fuck are you doing?
Rasped though the static of a com as you watch him through a security cam in a van about two hundred feet away. A huff of frustration and Bucky is sure a matching furrow in your brow.
That one is probably his favorite.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? When you catch him eating from one of those shitty breakfast trucks parked outside.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? When he takes you out for sushi (a nice place Sam recommended, emphasizing its romantic atmosphere despite Bucky's protests), this time gasped in mock horror as he picked up a fork.
He'd stared back confused, already half-offended before he realized what you were talking about.
You waved the chopsticks sitting between your fingers at him, clicking their ends together once as if to punctuate the sentence.
Bucky had fumbled, ripping open the paper that held his pair and holding them uselessly in either hand.
"I'm not exactly sure how to-"
You'd already reached across the table before he could finish, grasping his hand and articulating it with your fingers. You pulled and flexed until satisfied and then slid the chopsticks into place.
"Mieux." You'd said with a satisfied nod
Bucky had to ignore the way he stirred in his boxers under the drip of your praise.
At least he's pretty sure that's what it was.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? Shouted over a loud bass and shitty DJ. Bucky learns that in the heart of Brooklyn, people do still dance. It just looks little different now.
And it hurts his ears.
Stiff as board, he watches you from just a few feet away. A tight dress, strappy heels, the lace of your bra just beginning to tease itself over the neckline-
What the fuck are you doing? He curses to himself, blinking hard as if it could change the way his body is already reacting.
You're dancing, hips swaying in time with the music while your face sits in a scowl. Lips pressed into a line as you stare him down with what he thinks is French for contempt.
"She wants to go to an American Club," Sam had told him. "A bunch of us are gonna go, y'know make a night of it."
Bucky hadn't been easily convinced.
He'd laughed, full chested and slightly terrified. "Hard pass."
Sam knocked his shoulder, hard enough to yank Bucky straight out of his cowardice.
"Don't be an idiot." He'd chided.
"I'm not it's just not my scene." Bucky tried to reason. "You honestly think she'd want me there? What so I can stand there awkwardly all night and pretend to get buzzed?"
Sam's groan bounced off the walls around them, "You're shitting me right?"
Bucky shrugged.
"You've been making fuck-me eyes at each other for the past month." Sam deadpanned.
The denial was second nature, the only thing that made sense. "She doesn't feel that way-"
"Do you speak French?" Sam interrupted.
"No."
"Okay then shut up and listen to someone who does." Sam said.
Bucky's protest died on his tongue.
"Just fucking go tonight okay? I'll play translator and then if you don't believe me after that you really are fucking hopeless."
So Bucky Barnes, despite being just about seventy years too old, went to the club.
He wore those cargoes that make the lady at his Chinese place stare at his thighs. A black t-shirt that is probably a little too small but his other one was dirty and he didn't have time to wash it. Topping it off with a leather jacket and a scoff at himself in the mirror.
"Qu'est-ce que tu fous?" He whispered to himself, already picturing ten different versions of your disgust.
Sam had already been knee deep in conversation with you when Bucky finally got there.
Vowels flying left and right, wild gesticulations that made Bucky fear for the safety of your drinks next to you.
He had to ignore the way his heart jumped when you spotted him. Forced himself to brush off the way you immediately stopped talking to Sam.
"Bucky! Tu es venu!" You crooned in his ear, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as you took a hug. A month later and the way you say his name is still enough to send a shiver up Bucky's spine.
You'd already had a drink, probably two if the looseness of your shoulders is anything to go by.
When you pulled back it was to give him an appeasing look, eyes traveling over him with slow deliberation. When you finally met his eyes again, your finished with a slight cock of your head. Then you nodded, as if he'd answered a question you silently asked.
"Vous êtes à croquer, Sergeant." You finally spoke, ending the sentence with one last hum and a pat on his shoulder.
Then you were gone, pulled away by another agent and into the dance floor, leaving him alone with Sam at the bar.
Minutes passed, long stretches of silence with nothing but the chaos of the music and the crowd around them. The shouts of drunk partiers ordering more drinks, the clamor of girls at the DJ booth.
"You look good enough to eat."
Sam finally broke the silence, taking a long swill of his drink before looking at Bucky for his reaction.
"That's what she said." He explained, nodding in your direction. "She also spent our entire conversation staring at the door waiting for you."
Bucky's pulse stuttered, then began pounding a new rhythm. Something between surprised and utterly terrified.
His face burned, like when you sit too close to a campfire. Bright hot and impossible to ignore. Across the club you glowed with your own light. A flame burning so bright you hurt his eyes, flickering with motions so fluid he has no choice but to keep staring anyway.
You caught his stare, lips setting into a frown as his favorite words rolled off your tongue one more time. "Qu'est-ce que tu fous?"
Finally, Bucky thinks he knows how you want him to answer.
The look, the contempt. It's something else entirely. It's half-lidded and frustrated and utterly sick of waiting. You're not disgusted, you're wanting.
Shit, Bucky realizes, What the fuck have I been doing?
His jacket is shrugged off before he can think better of it, too busy holding eye contact to make sure he actually passed it Sam's direction.
"Hold this." He says, reaching over to steal the last few sips from his friend's drink.
Your frown turns back up, lips quirking with mischief. The same hint of trouble he saw that very first night.
As if you know, you lift on hand, using it to crawl your finger in a slow 'come hither' movement. Then you turned, breaking the spell and leaving Bucky to stare at your back as you fell back into the music.
"Don't think I need to translate that one." Sam cracks, letting out a low whistle as your hips began to sway even harder than before.
"No." Bucky grunts, "You don't."
By the time Bucky makes it to you, he already knows he won't last long.
He comes up from behind, and the smile you throw him over your shoulder nails his coffin.
It's three songs, maybe four.
Three songs of your body pressed so tight to his Bucky's not sure where you end and he begins.
Three songs of the curve of your ass rolling against his cargoes until he's fighting at his zipper.
Three songs of your arm stretched above your head, hand curled around the back of Bucky's neck.
Three songs of your lips brushing over his skin. The seam of his jaw, the hollow of his collar bone, just over the thump of his jugular.
Three songs of Bucky realizing he's been paying too much attention to talk.
You say plenty without ever even opening your mouth.
His hand closes over your hip and your body answers with a sway, your weight leaning back into his chest.
He finds the courage to bring his other hand to your front, splaying it protectively over your stomach. You return it in ten fold, pushing onto your toes and leaning your head onto his shoulder.
He can't hear the noise you make but he feels it vibrate through your chest, a low rumble echoing through every part of you he can feel.
For the first time Bucky's able to hear what you've been trying to tell him. Finally, it's a language he can speak.
Mercifully, he's fluent.
His hands spin you around slow, pulling until you're face to face. The lean down is just as tortuous, bending until you're all but nose to nose.
The noise of the club around you acts like a curtain, drawing closed around your bodies until he forgets anyone is there at all.
Your eyes dance from his own down to his lips, lashes fluttering with the movement and dusting your cheeks. There's glitter on your nose, Bucky's torn between wanting to know where you got it, and licking it off.
He definitely wants to find out if there's more.
"Vas-tu enfin m'embrasser?" It can't be louder than a whisper, Bucky's ears so finely attuned to your voice he's sure he could pick it out of any room.
He feels his cock throb, responding to your words despite not even knowing what they mean. You could have been reciting the the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Bucky wouldn't have cared.
It was never about what you said, or what language you spoke it in, it was always about how you said it. Bucky answers with the only thing he can make sense of.
"I don't know what that means but it turns me on."
Your hand snakes a path down Bucky's chest, sliding between the space where your bodies are pressed together so you can palm his bulge.
"Ça se voit." You purr, thumb pressing into his zipper.
Bucky's dick jumps under your touch, all his want pooling under your hand.
"That's not fair." He groans, his grip tightening on your hips, enough to make the fabric of your dress bunch between his fingers. "All my cards are on the table."
You pull back, pushing up onto your toes again as you stretch towards him. "Je vous dirai tout ce que vous voulez savoir. Il suffit de demander."
"Okay it's even less fair when you do that." He crumbles, meeting you halfway and pressing his forehead into yours. "I'm already caught you can stop with the siren song."
You laugh, low and soft and mercifully real. "Demande , Bucky."
He doesn't find the words he was looking for, no grand speech or sweeping music. Just the weight of his better judgment finally giving out on itself.
His lips find yours with a sigh of relief, the tension between you finally releasing with a palpable burst.
Your soft against him, nose turning ever so slightly to slot against his.
It's gentle at first, soft, exploratory. A test of pressure, the shock of feeling you so close against him.
Then it turns, pressure grows, each of you pushing harder into the other. Hands take on lives of their own, grabbing at any inch of exposed skin they can find. Yours are everywhere, his neck, his arms, his jaw and at the sliver of skin at his waist. You leave fire burning in your wake, mouth slanted against him as you swallow every sound that escapes.
Maybe you weren't joking about eating him.
The tension that existed before comes back tenfold, growing into something malicious and untenable. It burns even brighter now, like the first puff a cigarette. His body is already craving more and you're still on his lips.
When the need for air finally wins out, your bodies are so entangled Bucky is sure half of the dance floor is giving you a dirty look.
Bucky can't hear your breathing but he can feel it, the rapid rise and fall of your chest against his. The way your lips are parted, the skin around them irritated from his scruff. It strike a white hot pulse of possession.
You look wrecked and Bucky can't get enough of the fact that he's the one who did it.
When you speak it's at the same time, two gravely voices begging the same question.
"Ramène- à ta maison?"
"Can I take you home?"
Both of you are answered with another kiss.
Bucky - woefully unprepared Bucky, takes you back to his apartment. He guides the most ethereal woman he's ever met up two flights of stairs and into his shoebox.
Okay, it's little bigger than a shoebox but not by much.
He does his best to steer you through the living room, kissing you earnest as he walks you back toward his bedroom. In part just to kiss you, but also to keep you from seeing the makeshift bed on the floor by the couch.
You either don't notice his tactics or don't care. By the time you make it to his room you've stopped walking altogether. No, instead your legs are wrapped around his waist, having jumped up somewhere between the kitchen and bathroom. Just threw your weight at him between kisses and trusted him to catch you.
It makes his head feel warm to think about.
The bed is softer than he remembers, his hands sinking into the plush mattress as he lays you down on it.
He waits until your back is flat, then leans onto his haunches. His chest pulls tight at the distance, like an invisible is string gone taut between you. His jacket comes off in rushes drags of sleeves down his arms, one side even catching on his wrist in the hurry. He doesn't even remember putting it back on, doesn't remember much about leaving the club except the way you were tucked into his side with a hand in his back pocket.
The jacket lands somewhere behind him with a thud, the sound marrying beautifully with your giggle.
Bucky has to take a moment just to look at you.
You perched on your elbows and staring up at him with nothing but excitement. Youwith your dress bunched up around the tops of your thighs, bare skin catching in the dim light of his lamp. You with a pretty smile on your lips, any lipstick that you had started the night with long gone.
He wonders if it's rouge on your cheeks or if you just glow like that all by yourself.
For a second, he's out of his body. Who is he to have this? The soft bed beneath his knees is unfamiliar, the trust you offer yourself up with even more so.
It must show on his face.
"Bucky?" You whisper, humming as you bring his attention back to you. "Ça va?"
He nods, only half sure he understood the question. "I'm okay." He promises, "Just making sure you're real."
You melt, slight enough that only someone as well attuned as him would notice. Shoulders curling inward, lips twitching at the corners, the brief break in your eye contact.
Slowly, you lower yourself flat once more, this time grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him with you.
Your hands grab the hem of shirt, reclaiming the skin you had teased on the dance floor. This time you don't stop at a sliver, pulling it up over his head until it lands somewhere by his jacket.
A low breath blows from between your teeth, borderline a whistle. "Es tu?" You ask, cocking an eyebrow as you flatten your palm over his abdomen.
Bucky can't be bothered to decipher that one, instead he decides he's much more bothered by the fact that you are still wearing so much clothes.
Okay the dress really isn't much in the way of fabric but his point stands. It's between him and your skin and that's crime enough.
Your zipper slips between his fingers twice, the delicate metal pull taunting him as he tries to grasp it. That's when he gives up.
The zipper pulls apart with just a little pressure, coming undone in a cascade of popping teeth. From the top of the dress to the end of the zipper at the base of your spine, it's rendered useless in seconds.
Bucky waits to be scolded, a hand slap or sharp glare.
When he finally looks back up at you all he sees is want, pupils blown wide with your bottom lip pulled between your teeth.
Bucky's hands freeze where they had been pulling the dress down, fabric bunched in his hands like a brute.
Then you nod.
It rips like paper, tearing along the seam that had run up your hip and all the way to the base of the zipper.
He throws it so hard it hits the wall.
You're even worse bare, the sight of you in nothing but a bra and panties enough to turn what's left of Bucky's mind to mush.
It's his turn to be greedy. He copies the path you took, from sternum to ribs to belly button. Only he paints it with his mouth instead.
A kiss over your collarbone, then just over your heart. Then one is pressed in the valley between your breasts, another further down at the base of your ribs. Until finally he laves one more just above the waist band of your underwear, low enough for the elastic to tickle his chin.
Your breath catches, a sharp gasp that catches just as he makes contact. Like he's caught you off guard, something he didn't even know was possible.
It would make even the worst cowards brave.
Bucky tucks a finger into the elastic on either of your hips, pausing just long enough for you to know his intentions.
Without missing a beat you raise them, lifting off the bed by just as inch and giving Bucky the only signal he needed.
They don't even get pulled all the way off, abandoned somewhere around your ankles and left for you to kick away as Bucky gives all his attention to the sight in front of him.
The low lights cast a shadow across your body, draping you in gentle curves and sharp contrasts. It settles over your skin until you look like a painting, and your cunt is no exception.
There at the apex of your thighs, Bucky's is pretty sure sits the holy grail.
He moves slow, like a predator stalking its prey. He makes a home for himself between your thighs, pushing your knees apart to make room as he lays down between them.
Your words from earlier play back in his mind, the translation Sam had fed him.
"Vous êtes à croquer" He whispers, pressing a kiss to the inside of your knee. He probably butchered the pronunciation, dragged the vowel too hard or exaggerate a letter that doesn't belong but you don't seem to care. "Means you look good enough to eat."
As if forgetting him, your legs immediately try to close, a little whimper bubbling from the back of your throat as you're blocked by his hands.
Bucky clicks his tongue, using the movement to shift your position. The legs that had been on either side of him are lifted onto his shoulders, rendering you completely vulnerable to hid intentions.
"Sil te plaît." You whine, hips jerking up toward him. Your breathing turned erratic, sharp inhales and cut-off exhales as you wait for him to finally do something.
Bucky doesn't pretend to hide just how much he likes it.
His fingers find you first, wet heat that catches on his skin. You feel like fire, tantalizing and hypnotic. His index and pointed drag through your folds, parting them to give him a better view of your ruin.
He repeats the motion a few times, gathering slick around his digits and watching your reaction with every pass.
The tensing of your thighs when he just misses your entrance, the way your chest stills when he passes over the hood of your clit.
Your body is a language he's desperate to be fluent in.
The taste of you melts on his tongue, potent and sweet. Better than anything he's had the privilege to swallow in years.
One lick, then a second slower one. The full width of his tongue pressing flat against your clit. Then he can't bear another second, closing his lips around the bud in a sloppy wet kiss.
Your hands fly to his hair, followed by a jagged moan that sounds more like it was torn from your body than given willingly.
"Bucky-" you gasp, fingers pulling on brown locks, "Fuck!"
Your slip up is missed completely, half covered by your thighs over his ears and half drowned out by the his own satisfied groan.
His mind is blissfully blank, for the first time in a long time he's not thinking about anything other than the task at hand.
Your pleasure isn't even a direct motivator, well it is, but Bucky's driven by his own just as much. The way you feel in his mouth, the vibrations of your moans and the how your entire body jolts when he finally slides two fingers inside of you.
It's relief, finally understanding that as much as he wants you, you want him. It only fuels him further, his nose pushing against your clit, fingers working along side his tongue inside you. Curling at different angles until he hears that scream again-
"Bucky!"
You're wet everywhere, the insides of your thighs and down his chin. Some sick part of him wishes he could bottle it, where the most natural part of you as a cologne.
His own hips grind into the mattress, more instinct than intention. He's harder than he's been in seventy fucking years and you don't even speak the same language.
Your legs go rigid around his head, tightening as your orgasm starts to build.
Bucky's making sure you get there, pressing his fingers into that spot inside you until he's all but giving it a massage. Your walls pulling tight around him, pulsing in time with your rapid heart.
His lips close around your clit one more time, tonguing it with gentle pressure. He can't help but hum, he's damn near choking on you and would die happily if it was between your legs.
Then it all bursts.
His nightmare, his French muse, his siren, his Venus cums hard on his tongue.
Bucky swears he can taste a whole language, the sweetest elixir God could have ever made and he's drinking it from the source.
You're one fire above him, broken curses and whimpered babbles of his name.
As it retreats, your grip finally loosening, Bucky crawls back over you. Not stopping until he's above your face, watching it contort in the come down.
You're still speaking, the sound of it finally coming back into focus.
"So good," you gasp, "So fucking good Bucky don't stop-"
Everything goes still. An entire orbit freezing in place.
He can see it in your eyes, something hazy and romantic as you finally lock in on him. Your hands cup his face, oblivious to the fact that you've given it away.
"You speak fucking English?" It comes out harsher than Bucky means for it to. "This whole time you spoke-"
You groan, pulling his lips back to yours.
Despite it all, Bucky goes willingly. He kisses you and instead of betrayal he tastes something sweeter.
"Was gonna tell you." You whisper, "But wasn't this more fun?"
When he pulls back that look is there again, the mischief he saw that first night.
He kisses you again, even harder this time.
Yeah, he thinks, it was.
Collab Masterlist (If you're interested in Bumpin' that)
Summary: What if the hottest thing Bucky Barnes has ever heard is a language he can’t understand? While everyone else is trying to translate your words, Bucky is far more interested in the way they sound rolling off your tongue. The more time he spends with you, the less he believes he needs to understand you at all. Besides, there are plenty of ways to talk.
PSA (Pink Service Announcement): brining back Bucky Barnes the flirt. he never died because i said so. set around TFATWS. I couldn't find any canoncial evidence of Bucky speaking French but I didn’t look that hard. you don't need to translate anything to understand what's happening, but if you want to please feel free!
Word Count: 6.3k
Warnings: google translate French, gratuitous use of italics. Bucky Barnes goes to the club, cursing, grinding on the dance floor, hot and heavy make out, oral (fem receiving)
DT: the bestest betas a girl could ever ask for, my sweet @artficlly, @heldbybarnes, and addy (I still can’t believe you know French), thank you guys so much for reading I truly would not have made it through this last stretch of writing without you. I owe you all a billion kisses or Jell-O shots, please let me know what you prefer!
also dividers by the extraordinarily talented @barnesonly
Bucky's first mistake was taking his eyes off the target.
Eyes straying from his mark across the room, first exit, second exit, and the large window. His eyes sweep the entire room, mentally checking every off every possible escape route. Calculating every possible entrance where someone could sneak in. Call it an old habit, call it paranoia, call it boredom. Bucky doesn't fucking care, it's just what he does. Working or not.
Whatever it is, it leads to his eyes sweeping right over you.
Bald suit, bald suit, gaudy heiress, bald suit, you, bald suit, billionaire-
You.
That's Bucky's second mistake, letting himself do a double take.
It's less conscious than that though, like catching his reflection in a mirror. His eyes move on their own accord, sliding away from his careful profiling and locking solely onto you.
Draped in silk and sin, poised and perfectly posed. You're perched on a bar stool, entertaining a small group of bald suits with wild hand gestures and well timed grazes of your hand.
He watches one of your manicured fingers reach out and adjust the lapels of one of their jackets. It's the only time Bucky's ever wished he had his father's hairline.
The movement is practiced, too perfect to be anything but well-rehearsed. You move like mercury, gentle and smooth. Like you could kill him if he dared to touch you.
Bucky's third mistake is abandoning his position. It's bad enough he's lost sight of the target, that bald suit went to bathroom three minutes ago. Oblivious, Bucky abandons his spot in the shadows. Losing any vantage point he may have had and walking straight through the heart of the crowd.
He can't be bothered with politeness, shouldering his way between conversations without even sparing them even an apologetic glance. It's only ten strides, maybe twelve before he has you back within view.
It's even worse up close, the curve of your chin, the tilt of your smile and the way your tongue peeks out between your lips to grab a wandering drop of champagne off the rim of your glass.
His fourth mistake is looking at your lips.
Pretty, plush, painted with perfect precision. They only serve to tighten your already iron clad grip on him. He doesn't hear a word you say, he already knows your voice will match the rest of you.
It's enchanting, the way they curve around each word. He's never taken much stock of how people look when they talk. A mouth moves and he takes no thrill in the way it shapes sound. Until yours. Until he saw them part to allow a laugh passage. Suddenly he's quite sure there's nothing sexier.
Like Venus has pulled him into her orbit, another moon for her collection.
Bucky doesn't stop until he's close enough to hear the men around you, chuckles, music and the clinking of dishes all falling to distant static.
Bucky's fifth mistake is not realizing that there is no static, at least not in the bubble surrounding you. In fact your circle of jesters has gone quiet, beady eyes staring into him as he obliviously stares at you.
A hand passes back and forth in front of his face, finally freeing him from his reverie.
When Bucky comes to there's laughter again, at his expense.
He doesn't even care, too busy processes that he can actually hear it this time. Ringing out an octave above the rest is your giggle, distinctly feminine. It sounds rehearsed, borderline unnatural, as if you've had to force it up your throat and then pitched it be heard above the rest.
It's fake, obviously so. At least to anyone willing to actually listen.
You're talking then, face turned toward him with a smirk on your lips. Your voice is smooth, velveteen. It pulls him in, as if you're giving him all of your attention with every word.
Bucky leans closer, all of his focus swimming around the sound of your speech.
It hits him all at once.
He's listening, hard. His ear turned toward your face to make sure he doesn't miss a syllable and-
He can't understand a word you say.
What is that? Russian? German? No, he knows those. He only speaks of a little bit of Slovakian, but it doesn't sound like that's it either.
It's melodic, although Bucky can't be sure if that's the language or just you.
You stare at him expectantly when you're done, voice lilting up as if you've asked him a question. Head cocked slightly to the side to match.
Like you've told him something he should have already known. Alpine gives him the same look when she wake him up at three a.m. to let him know her bowl is empty.
You're not a cat though, even if your eye gleam with mischief like one.
Is it French? Maybe you're speaking French?
"I'm sorry I don't-" he fumbles for a moment, heat rushing his cheeks with a vengeance. "I don't speak-"
Your bottom lip juts out in a pout, corners turning down into a soft frown. You say something to the rest of the men, layering it with silk and buttercream.
He catches a few more syllables that time, the fluidity as they string together some collection of words. Whatever they are has the men disappearing, a slow retreat. Like how ink dilutes in water. Gone before he can even pretend to sound out the first half of what you said.
Your shoulders lower for just a moment, visibly relaxing as you take a step closer to Bucky.
"Agent Barnes, oui?" You ask. Your smile is smaller this time, more friendly than enchanting. His name is different on your tongue, thick and accented. It's slower than before, as if you took extra care crafting it properly on your tongue.
His name has never sounded like that before. Like someone was paying attention, cared about getting it right.
He wants to know yours. Badly.
Wants to trace each of your teeth with his tongue, lick each syllable off it and taste your voice.
He feels like a kid in a school gym, sweaty palmed with a flipping stomach.
That kid never used to falter though. Bucky prays he’s still in him somewhere.
Sam’s voice cackles in his ear, his tone something between amusement and frustration.
“I see you’ve met Sirène.”
Bucky’s eyes snap to yours, Sirène?
“I thought we were solo on this one Sam?” Bucky does his best to keep his voice level, offering you a small nod as he speaks.
“Our guy is wanted in several countries Buck, including hers. We went over all of this in the briefing? They sent her over for backup, y’know another set of eyes and someone who could sweet talk his foreign associates.”
The bald suits, presumably.
“Oh.”
“Yeah oh.” Sam’s voice trails on, Bucky hears something about plans and paperwork. Bucky’s also pretty sure there’s a jab about listening ears in there too.
While yeah, he probably should pay more attention during briefings, he’s also pretty sure no file could have adequately prepared him for you.
You’re still in front of him, bottom lip pulled between your teeth as you bite back a laugh.
“Siren?” Bucky repeats, directing the question toward you. Eliciting another giggle.
“See-ren.” Sam corrects in his ear. “It’s French.”
Bucky feels his confidence build ever so slightly, at least he was right about that.
He tries again, taking the same care that you did with his. It's a code name, of course it is. But it's something.
Your grin is enough to turn Sam's voice in his to static.
"Makes sense." Bucky muses, "Pretty sure you could lure any man, anywhere."
Your reply drips like honey, the deepening in your tone unmistakable. "Vous aussi?" You murmur.
Bucky feels his knees start to melt with the way they hit him. Molten and sultry. "I'd fall right in line with them." He continues, unable to directly respond the way he wishes he could.
Thirty languages programmed deep in his psyche and somehow French isn't one of them.
"Quel genre d'espion ne parle pas français?" You tease, or at least he thinks you tease.
"I should'a listened when my Ma told me to take French in school."
"C'est pas grave, je les aime mignons et bêtes." You lean in closer on that one, taking the collar of his shirt between your fingers and smoothing it over.
"I don't know what that means but it turns me-"
"Oooh-kay." Sam sing-songs, cutting Bucky off. "If you two are done with whatever this is, we need to find our target."
Shit. Bucky curses. Of course Sam is right, he really should focus.
He turns to look at you, something apologetic already half off his tongue when you start to lean in.
With a hand on his chest, you toe up and whisper in his ear. Or more accurately, into his ear piece.
"Il Dans le coin le plus à droits, assis fauteuil en cuir." You murmur, close enough for your lips to brush the skin oh his ear lobe. "Nous-I'm observe depuis trois minutes."
You pull back, the hand on his chest snaking up to his neck and curling around the back of it. Just enough for the tips of your fingers to dance along the hair at the base of his head.
"J'ai entendu sa femme dans la salle de bains. Elle disait qu'il ne fait pas confiance à ceux qui viennent seuls à ce genre d'événement." You continue, all but purring as you rake your nails over his skin. You let out a laugh then, one of the fake ones from earlier. This time you keep it low, soft enough that it won't travel further than the two of you. "Heureusement, je suis venu accompagné d'une belle cavalière."
Bucky's mind in swimming, swirling with the ecstacy of your touch and the vibration of your voice. How is a man supposed to even pretend to listen?
"Little help on the translation Sam?" Bucky asks. Doing his best to follow your lead, he slides an arm around your waist, his hand resting heavy over the slope of your hip.
He can feel his pulse in his palm, thrumming hard under the skin with nerves. You don't seem to notice, or perhaps care, not bothering to move an inch as Bucky waits for Sam's response.
"Our guy is across the room at eight o'clock. He likes couples so she's doing her best to sell it." Sam explains, "So maybe loosen up a bit, give her a hand yeah?"
Bucky feels his throat bob as he swallows, his tongue suddenly gone thick. His nod is short, hardly visible and too stiff for the kind of level head this situation calls for.
"Yeah." Bucky exhales, "I can do that."
He forces himself to ignore Sam's chuckled Can you? in his ear.
"Respirer profondement." You whisper, taking the hand Bucky had placed (respectfully) on your hip and moving it around to your back, letting it rest at the base of your spine, just where your ass begins to curve.
One long exhale later, and Bucky finds his nerve.
His hand splays out over your skin, daring to take up the space there. With one quick pull he brings your chest flush to his, nearly throwing your balance as he does so.
You beam, smile widening with approval.
"Nice." Sam chides in his ear, equal parts proud and disgusted.
You squeeze Bucky's shoulder. "Il vient par ici."
"He's headed toward you." Sam translates.
You bring your hand around from the back of Bucky's neck, sliding it down over his collarbone until your palm rests flat on his sternum. "Laissez- parler."
"Let her do the talking." Sam tells him. Through a window a light catches Bucky's eye, a red scope trained in his direction. Sam's careful aim sitting on his shoulders like armor.
"My pleasure." Bucky agrees.
With his hand still on your back, the skin below his ear buzzing from where your lips had brushed, Bucky thinks he means it more than either you are Sam truly understand.
Bucky's began to wonder if S.H.I.E.L.D. asked you to stay on to test him.
Or more specifically, test his sanity.
With the arrest made, a power vacuum big enough to swallow Wilson Fisk opened up. Wannabe kingpins popping up every three blocks with the potential to wreak more havoc than they have any right to.
And with the dissemination of your Target's organization, most of them happen to be French.
They need you, S.H.I.E.L.D. of course. Not Bucky, no Bucky just likes your company.
If he can even call it that.
What do you call it when you spend all day with someone and then also spend all of your free time with them and spend all the time you're not together replaying their words in your head?
Sam calls it a crush, Bucky staunchly disagrees.
What do you call it when you can't understand a word the other person says?
Sam calls it a Love Actually. Bucky doesn't know what the fuck that means.
You laughed when he told you about it though, loud and obnoxious. Hard enough for your head to tilt back and expose the thin skin of your neck. The line where muscle meets collarbone and the kissable swell of your clavicle.
Bucky doesn't look up it, afraid of what he'll find.
Instead he asks you to teach some more French.
Je m'appelle Bucky. My name is Bucky.
Explained to him with a smile as you finally slipped him your own.
Pour qui travaillez-vous? Who do you work for?
Your voice guiding him through the pronunciation as you and Sam prepared him for a few simple phrases he might hear.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? What the fuck are you doing?
Rasped though the static of a com as you watch him through a security cam in a van about two hundred feet away. A huff of frustration and Bucky is sure a matching furrow in your brow.
That one is probably his favorite.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? When you catch him eating from one of those shitty breakfast trucks parked outside.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? When he takes you out for sushi (a nice place Sam recommended, emphasizing its romantic atmosphere despite Bucky's protests), this time gasped in mock horror as he picked up a fork.
He'd stared back confused, already half-offended before he realized what you were talking about.
You waved the chopsticks sitting between your fingers at him, clicking their ends together once as if to punctuate the sentence.
Bucky had fumbled, ripping open the paper that held his pair and holding them uselessly in either hand.
"I'm not exactly sure how to-"
You'd already reached across the table before he could finish, grasping his hand and articulating it with your fingers. You pulled and flexed until satisfied and then slid the chopsticks into place.
"Mieux." You'd said with a satisfied nod
Bucky had to ignore the way he stirred in his boxers under the drip of your praise.
At least he's pretty sure that's what it was.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? Shouted over a loud bass and shitty DJ. Bucky learns that in the heart of Brooklyn, people do still dance. It just looks little different now.
And it hurts his ears.
Stiff as board, he watches you from just a few feet away. A tight dress, strappy heels, the lace of your bra just beginning to tease itself over the neckline-
What the fuck are you doing? He curses to himself, blinking hard as if it could change the way his body is already reacting.
You're dancing, hips swaying in time with the music while your face sits in a scowl. Lips pressed into a line as you stare him down with what he thinks is French for contempt.
"She wants to go to an American Club," Sam had told him. "A bunch of us are gonna go, y'know make a night of it."
Bucky hadn't been easily convinced.
He'd laughed, full chested and slightly terrified. "Hard pass."
Sam knocked his shoulder, hard enough to yank Bucky straight out of his cowardice.
"Don't be an idiot." He'd chided.
"I'm not it's just not my scene." Bucky tried to reason. "You honestly think she'd want me there? What so I can stand there awkwardly all night and pretend to get buzzed?"
Sam's groan bounced off the walls around them, "You're shitting me right?"
Bucky shrugged.
"You've been making fuck-me eyes at each other for the past month." Sam deadpanned.
The denial was second nature, the only thing that made sense. "She doesn't feel that way-"
"Do you speak French?" Sam interrupted.
"No."
"Okay then shut up and listen to someone who does." Sam said.
Bucky's protest died on his tongue.
"Just fucking go tonight okay? I'll play translator and then if you don't believe me after that you really are fucking hopeless."
So Bucky Barnes, despite being just about seventy years too old, went to the club.
He wore those cargoes that make the lady at his Chinese place stare at his thighs. A black t-shirt that is probably a little too small but his other one was dirty and he didn't have time to wash it. Topping it off with a leather jacket and a scoff at himself in the mirror.
"Qu'est-ce que tu fous?" He whispered to himself, already picturing ten different versions of your disgust.
Sam had already been knee deep in conversation with you when Bucky finally got there.
Vowels flying left and right, wild gesticulations that made Bucky fear for the safety of your drinks next to you.
He had to ignore the way his heart jumped when you spotted him. Forced himself to brush off the way you immediately stopped talking to Sam.
"Bucky! Tu es venu!" You crooned in his ear, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as you took a hug. A month later and the way you say his name is still enough to send a shiver up Bucky's spine.
You'd already had a drink, probably two if the looseness of your shoulders is anything to go by.
When you pulled back it was to give him an appeasing look, eyes traveling over him with slow deliberation. When you finally met his eyes again, your finished with a slight cock of your head. Then you nodded, as if he'd answered a question you silently asked.
"Vous êtes à croquer, Sergeant." You finally spoke, ending the sentence with one last hum and a pat on his shoulder.
Then you were gone, pulled away by another agent and into the dance floor, leaving him alone with Sam at the bar.
Minutes passed, long stretches of silence with nothing but the chaos of the music and the crowd around them. The shouts of drunk partiers ordering more drinks, the clamor of girls at the DJ booth.
"You look good enough to eat."
Sam finally broke the silence, taking a long swill of his drink before looking at Bucky for his reaction.
"That's what she said." He explained, nodding in your direction. "She also spent our entire conversation staring at the door waiting for you."
Bucky's pulse stuttered, then began pounding a new rhythm. Something between surprised and utterly terrified.
His face burned, like when you sit too close to a campfire. Bright hot and impossible to ignore. Across the club you glowed with your own light. A flame burning so bright you hurt his eyes, flickering with motions so fluid he has no choice but to keep staring anyway.
You caught his stare, lips setting into a frown as his favorite words rolled off your tongue one more time. "Qu'est-ce que tu fous?"
Finally, Bucky thinks he knows how you want him to answer.
The look, the contempt. It's something else entirely. It's half-lidded and frustrated and utterly sick of waiting. You're not disgusted, you're wanting.
Shit, Bucky realizes, What the fuck have I been doing?
His jacket is shrugged off before he can think better of it, too busy holding eye contact to make sure he actually passed it Sam's direction.
"Hold this." He says, reaching over to steal the last few sips from his friend's drink.
Your frown turns back up, lips quirking with mischief. The same hint of trouble he saw that very first night.
As if you know, you lift on hand, using it to crawl your finger in a slow 'come hither' movement. Then you turned, breaking the spell and leaving Bucky to stare at your back as you fell back into the music.
"Don't think I need to translate that one." Sam cracks, letting out a low whistle as your hips began to sway even harder than before.
"No." Bucky grunts, "You don't."
By the time Bucky makes it to you, he already knows he won't last long.
He comes up from behind, and the smile you throw him over your shoulder nails his coffin.
It's three songs, maybe four.
Three songs of your body pressed so tight to his Bucky's not sure where you end and he begins.
Three songs of the curve of your ass rolling against his cargoes until he's fighting at his zipper.
Three songs of your arm stretched above your head, hand curled around the back of Bucky's neck.
Three songs of your lips brushing over his skin. The seam of his jaw, the hollow of his collar bone, just over the thump of his jugular.
Three songs of Bucky realizing he's been paying too much attention to talk.
You say plenty without ever even opening your mouth.
His hand closes over your hip and your body answers with a sway, your weight leaning back into his chest.
He finds the courage to bring his other hand to your front, splaying it protectively over your stomach. You return it in ten fold, pushing onto your toes and leaning your head onto his shoulder.
He can't hear the noise you make but he feels it vibrate through your chest, a low rumble echoing through every part of you he can feel.
For the first time Bucky's able to hear what you've been trying to tell him. Finally, it's a language he can speak.
Mercifully, he's fluent.
His hands spin you around slow, pulling until you're face to face. The lean down is just as tortuous, bending until you're all but nose to nose.
The noise of the club around you acts like a curtain, drawing closed around your bodies until he forgets anyone is there at all.
Your eyes dance from his own down to his lips, lashes fluttering with the movement and dusting your cheeks. There's glitter on your nose, Bucky's torn between wanting to know where you got it, and licking it off.
He definitely wants to find out if there's more.
"Vas-tu enfin m'embrasser?" It can't be louder than a whisper, Bucky's ears so finely attuned to your voice he's sure he could pick it out of any room.
He feels his cock throb, responding to your words despite not even knowing what they mean. You could have been reciting the the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Bucky wouldn't have cared.
It was never about what you said, or what language you spoke it in, it was always about how you said it. Bucky answers with the only thing he can make sense of.
"I don't know what that means but it turns me on."
Your hand snakes a path down Bucky's chest, sliding between the space where your bodies are pressed together so you can palm his bulge.
"Ça se voit." You purr, thumb pressing into his zipper.
Bucky's dick jumps under your touch, all his want pooling under your hand.
"That's not fair." He groans, his grip tightening on your hips, enough to make the fabric of your dress bunch between his fingers. "All my cards are on the table."
You pull back, pushing up onto your toes again as you stretch towards him. "Je vous dirai tout ce que vous voulez savoir. Il suffit de demander."
"Okay it's even less fair when you do that." He crumbles, meeting you halfway and pressing his forehead into yours. "I'm already caught you can stop with the siren song."
You laugh, low and soft and mercifully real. "Demande , Bucky."
He doesn't find the words he was looking for, no grand speech or sweeping music. Just the weight of his better judgment finally giving out on itself.
His lips find yours with a sigh of relief, the tension between you finally releasing with a palpable burst.
Your soft against him, nose turning ever so slightly to slot against his.
It's gentle at first, soft, exploratory. A test of pressure, the shock of feeling you so close against him.
Then it turns, pressure grows, each of you pushing harder into the other. Hands take on lives of their own, grabbing at any inch of exposed skin they can find. Yours are everywhere, his neck, his arms, his jaw and at the sliver of skin at his waist. You leave fire burning in your wake, mouth slanted against him as you swallow every sound that escapes.
Maybe you weren't joking about eating him.
The tension that existed before comes back tenfold, growing into something malicious and untenable. It burns even brighter now, like the first puff a cigarette. His body is already craving more and you're still on his lips.
When the need for air finally wins out, your bodies are so entangled Bucky is sure half of the dance floor is giving you a dirty look.
Bucky can't hear your breathing but he can feel it, the rapid rise and fall of your chest against his. The way your lips are parted, the skin around them irritated from his scruff. It strike a white hot pulse of possession.
You look wrecked and Bucky can't get enough of the fact that he's the one who did it.
When you speak it's at the same time, two gravely voices begging the same question.
"Ramène- à ta maison?"
"Can I take you home?"
Both of you are answered with another kiss.
Bucky - woefully unprepared Bucky, takes you back to his apartment. He guides the most ethereal woman he's ever met up two flights of stairs and into his shoebox.
Okay, it's little bigger than a shoebox but not by much.
He does his best to steer you through the living room, kissing you earnest as he walks you back toward his bedroom. In part just to kiss you, but also to keep you from seeing the makeshift bed on the floor by the couch.
You either don't notice his tactics or don't care. By the time you make it to his room you've stopped walking altogether. No, instead your legs are wrapped around his waist, having jumped up somewhere between the kitchen and bathroom. Just threw your weight at him between kisses and trusted him to catch you.
It makes his head feel warm to think about.
The bed is softer than he remembers, his hands sinking into the plush mattress as he lays you down on it.
He waits until your back is flat, then leans onto his haunches. His chest pulls tight at the distance, like an invisible is string gone taut between you. His jacket comes off in rushes drags of sleeves down his arms, one side even catching on his wrist in the hurry. He doesn't even remember putting it back on, doesn't remember much about leaving the club except the way you were tucked into his side with a hand in his back pocket.
The jacket lands somewhere behind him with a thud, the sound marrying beautifully with your giggle.
Bucky has to take a moment just to look at you.
You perched on your elbows and staring up at him with nothing but excitement. Youwith your dress bunched up around the tops of your thighs, bare skin catching in the dim light of his lamp. You with a pretty smile on your lips, any lipstick that you had started the night with long gone.
He wonders if it's rouge on your cheeks or if you just glow like that all by yourself.
For a second, he's out of his body. Who is he to have this? The soft bed beneath his knees is unfamiliar, the trust you offer yourself up with even more so.
It must show on his face.
"Bucky?" You whisper, humming as you bring his attention back to you. "Ça va?"
He nods, only half sure he understood the question. "I'm okay." He promises, "Just making sure you're real."
You melt, slight enough that only someone as well attuned as him would notice. Shoulders curling inward, lips twitching at the corners, the brief break in your eye contact.
Slowly, you lower yourself flat once more, this time grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him with you.
Your hands grab the hem of shirt, reclaiming the skin you had teased on the dance floor. This time you don't stop at a sliver, pulling it up over his head until it lands somewhere by his jacket.
A low breath blows from between your teeth, borderline a whistle. "Es tu?" You ask, cocking an eyebrow as you flatten your palm over his abdomen.
Bucky can't be bothered to decipher that one, instead he decides he's much more bothered by the fact that you are still wearing so much clothes.
Okay the dress really isn't much in the way of fabric but his point stands. It's between him and your skin and that's crime enough.
Your zipper slips between his fingers twice, the delicate metal pull taunting him as he tries to grasp it. That's when he gives up.
The zipper pulls apart with just a little pressure, coming undone in a cascade of popping teeth. From the top of the dress to the end of the zipper at the base of your spine, it's rendered useless in seconds.
Bucky waits to be scolded, a hand slap or sharp glare.
When he finally looks back up at you all he sees is want, pupils blown wide with your bottom lip pulled between your teeth.
Bucky's hands freeze where they had been pulling the dress down, fabric bunched in his hands like a brute.
Then you nod.
It rips like paper, tearing along the seam that had run up your hip and all the way to the base of the zipper.
He throws it so hard it hits the wall.
You're even worse bare, the sight of you in nothing but a bra and panties enough to turn what's left of Bucky's mind to mush.
It's his turn to be greedy. He copies the path you took, from sternum to ribs to belly button. Only he paints it with his mouth instead.
A kiss over your collarbone, then just over your heart. Then one is pressed in the valley between your breasts, another further down at the base of your ribs. Until finally he laves one more just above the waist band of your underwear, low enough for the elastic to tickle his chin.
Your breath catches, a sharp gasp that catches just as he makes contact. Like he's caught you off guard, something he didn't even know was possible.
It would make even the worst cowards brave.
Bucky tucks a finger into the elastic on either of your hips, pausing just long enough for you to know his intentions.
Without missing a beat you raise them, lifting off the bed by just as inch and giving Bucky the only signal he needed.
They don't even get pulled all the way off, abandoned somewhere around your ankles and left for you to kick away as Bucky gives all his attention to the sight in front of him.
The low lights cast a shadow across your body, draping you in gentle curves and sharp contrasts. It settles over your skin until you look like a painting, and your cunt is no exception.
There at the apex of your thighs, Bucky's is pretty sure sits the holy grail.
He moves slow, like a predator stalking its prey. He makes a home for himself between your thighs, pushing your knees apart to make room as he lays down between them.
Your words from earlier play back in his mind, the translation Sam had fed him.
"Vous êtes à croquer" He whispers, pressing a kiss to the inside of your knee. He probably butchered the pronunciation, dragged the vowel too hard or exaggerate a letter that doesn't belong but you don't seem to care. "Means you look good enough to eat."
As if forgetting him, your legs immediately try to close, a little whimper bubbling from the back of your throat as you're blocked by his hands.
Bucky clicks his tongue, using the movement to shift your position. The legs that had been on either side of him are lifted onto his shoulders, rendering you completely vulnerable to hid intentions.
"Sil te plaît." You whine, hips jerking up toward him. Your breathing turned erratic, sharp inhales and cut-off exhales as you wait for him to finally do something.
Bucky doesn't pretend to hide just how much he likes it.
His fingers find you first, wet heat that catches on his skin. You feel like fire, tantalizing and hypnotic. His index and pointed drag through your folds, parting them to give him a better view of your ruin.
He repeats the motion a few times, gathering slick around his digits and watching your reaction with every pass.
The tensing of your thighs when he just misses your entrance, the way your chest stills when he passes over the hood of your clit.
Your body is a language he's desperate to be fluent in.
The taste of you melts on his tongue, potent and sweet. Better than anything he's had the privilege to swallow in years.
One lick, then a second slower one. The full width of his tongue pressing flat against your clit. Then he can't bear another second, closing his lips around the bud in a sloppy wet kiss.
Your hands fly to his hair, followed by a jagged moan that sounds more like it was torn from your body than given willingly.
"Bucky-" you gasp, fingers pulling on brown locks, "Fuck!"
Your slip up is missed completely, half covered by your thighs over his ears and half drowned out by the his own satisfied groan.
His mind is blissfully blank, for the first time in a long time he's not thinking about anything other than the task at hand.
Your pleasure isn't even a direct motivator, well it is, but Bucky's driven by his own just as much. The way you feel in his mouth, the vibrations of your moans and the how your entire body jolts when he finally slides two fingers inside of you.
It's relief, finally understanding that as much as he wants you, you want him. It only fuels him further, his nose pushing against your clit, fingers working along side his tongue inside you. Curling at different angles until he hears that scream again-
"Bucky!"
You're wet everywhere, the insides of your thighs and down his chin. Some sick part of him wishes he could bottle it, where the most natural part of you as a cologne.
His own hips grind into the mattress, more instinct than intention. He's harder than he's been in seventy fucking years and you don't even speak the same language.
Your legs go rigid around his head, tightening as your orgasm starts to build.
Bucky's making sure you get there, pressing his fingers into that spot inside you until he's all but giving it a massage. Your walls pulling tight around him, pulsing in time with your rapid heart.
His lips close around your clit one more time, tonguing it with gentle pressure. He can't help but hum, he's damn near choking on you and would die happily if it was between your legs.
Then it all bursts.
His nightmare, his French muse, his siren, his Venus cums hard on his tongue.
Bucky swears he can taste a whole language, the sweetest elixir God could have ever made and he's drinking it from the source.
You're one fire above him, broken curses and whimpered babbles of his name.
As it retreats, your grip finally loosening, Bucky crawls back over you. Not stopping until he's above your face, watching it contort in the come down.
You're still speaking, the sound of it finally coming back into focus.
"So good," you gasp, "So fucking good Bucky don't stop-"
Everything goes still. An entire orbit freezing in place.
He can see it in your eyes, something hazy and romantic as you finally lock in on him. Your hands cup his face, oblivious to the fact that you've given it away.
"You speak fucking English?" It comes out harsher than Bucky means for it to. "This whole time you spoke-"
You groan, pulling his lips back to yours.
Despite it all, Bucky goes willingly. He kisses you and instead of betrayal he tastes something sweeter.
"Was gonna tell you." You whisper, "But wasn't this more fun?"
When he pulls back that look is there again, the mischief he saw that first night.
He kisses you again, even harder this time.
Yeah, he thinks, it was.
Collab Masterlist (If you're interested in Bumpin' that)
YAYAY PINKYY happy first birthday to the magical girly whimsical oasis that is pinksplace !!!!!
but on a serious note happy 1 year!!!! tell me i’m your national anthem was the first fic i read of yours (and one of the first tumblr fics i read, might i add) and i’ve been sat ever since !!! and i fear i will never shut up about how much i love ur writing 😣😣😣 u can’t get rid of me !! but i also wanna say i appreciate not only your writing but you and your blog as a whole!! you are such a sweetheart and your blog feels like js such a safe space to me idk ??? you just give such sparkly pink sweet vibes and ilysm for it ! ppl like u are why i love tumblr / fandom space so much 🤗💘🦄✨
im sending u a bunch of kisses thru the screen rn and im telepathically squishing ur cheeks together and smooching u
MY DARLING MADDIESPASTA I had rotini then other night and I thought of you
first of all I selfishly sat with this inbox for a while because I couldn’t stop re reading it! every single time it made me blush and smile all over again
the concept of my blog giving that kind of energy is something I can only ever hope for!!! my ultimate goal has always been to just bring positive vibes to anyone who happens to pass through.
I’m so glad you read National anthem and that it brought us here today!! You are just the brightest ray of sunshine
Summary: What if the hottest thing Bucky Barnes has ever heard is a language he can’t understand? While everyone else is trying to translate your words, Bucky is far more interested in the way they sound rolling off your tongue. The more time he spends with you, the less he believes he needs to understand you at all. Besides, there are plenty of ways to talk.
PSA (Pink Service Announcement): brining back Bucky Barnes the flirt. he never died because i said so. set around TFATWS. I couldn't find any canoncial evidence of Bucky speaking French but I didn’t look that hard. you don't need to translate anything to understand what's happening, but if you want to please feel free!
Word Count: 6.3k
Warnings: google translate French, gratuitous use of italics. Bucky Barnes goes to the club, cursing, grinding on the dance floor, hot and heavy make out, oral (fem receiving)
DT: the bestest betas a girl could ever ask for, my sweet @artficlly, @heldbybarnes, and addy (I still can’t believe you know French), thank you guys so much for reading I truly would not have made it through this last stretch of writing without you. I owe you all a billion kisses or Jell-O shots, please let me know what you prefer!
also dividers by the extraordinarily talented @barnesonly
Bucky's first mistake was taking his eyes off the target.
Eyes straying from his mark across the room, first exit, second exit, and the large window. His eyes sweep the entire room, mentally checking every off every possible escape route. Calculating every possible entrance where someone could sneak in. Call it an old habit, call it paranoia, call it boredom. Bucky doesn't fucking care, it's just what he does. Working or not.
Whatever it is, it leads to his eyes sweeping right over you.
Bald suit, bald suit, gaudy heiress, bald suit, you, bald suit, billionaire-
You.
That's Bucky's second mistake, letting himself do a double take.
It's less conscious than that though, like catching his reflection in a mirror. His eyes move on their own accord, sliding away from his careful profiling and locking solely onto you.
Draped in silk and sin, poised and perfectly posed. You're perched on a bar stool, entertaining a small group of bald suits with wild hand gestures and well timed grazes of your hand.
He watches one of your manicured fingers reach out and adjust the lapels of one of their jackets. It's the only time Bucky's ever wished he had his father's hairline.
The movement is practiced, too perfect to be anything but well-rehearsed. You move like mercury, gentle and smooth. Like you could kill him if he dared to touch you.
Bucky's third mistake is abandoning his position. It's bad enough he's lost sight of the target, that bald suit went to bathroom three minutes ago. Oblivious, Bucky abandons his spot in the shadows. Losing any vantage point he may have had and walking straight through the heart of the crowd.
He can't be bothered with politeness, shouldering his way between conversations without even sparing them even an apologetic glance. It's only ten strides, maybe twelve before he has you back within view.
It's even worse up close, the curve of your chin, the tilt of your smile and the way your tongue peeks out between your lips to grab a wandering drop of champagne off the rim of your glass.
His fourth mistake is looking at your lips.
Pretty, plush, painted with perfect precision. They only serve to tighten your already iron clad grip on him. He doesn't hear a word you say, he already knows your voice will match the rest of you.
It's enchanting, the way they curve around each word. He's never taken much stock of how people look when they talk. A mouth moves and he takes no thrill in the way it shapes sound. Until yours. Until he saw them part to allow a laugh passage. Suddenly he's quite sure there's nothing sexier.
Like Venus has pulled him into her orbit, another moon for her collection.
Bucky doesn't stop until he's close enough to hear the men around you, chuckles, music and the clinking of dishes all falling to distant static.
Bucky's fifth mistake is not realizing that there is no static, at least not in the bubble surrounding you. In fact your circle of jesters has gone quiet, beady eyes staring into him as he obliviously stares at you.
A hand passes back and forth in front of his face, finally freeing him from his reverie.
When Bucky comes to there's laughter again, at his expense.
He doesn't even care, too busy processes that he can actually hear it this time. Ringing out an octave above the rest is your giggle, distinctly feminine. It sounds rehearsed, borderline unnatural, as if you've had to force it up your throat and then pitched it be heard above the rest.
It's fake, obviously so. At least to anyone willing to actually listen.
You're talking then, face turned toward him with a smirk on your lips. Your voice is smooth, velveteen. It pulls him in, as if you're giving him all of your attention with every word.
Bucky leans closer, all of his focus swimming around the sound of your speech.
It hits him all at once.
He's listening, hard. His ear turned toward your face to make sure he doesn't miss a syllable and-
He can't understand a word you say.
What is that? Russian? German? No, he knows those. He only speaks of a little bit of Slovakian, but it doesn't sound like that's it either.
It's melodic, although Bucky can't be sure if that's the language or just you.
You stare at him expectantly when you're done, voice lilting up as if you've asked him a question. Head cocked slightly to the side to match.
Like you've told him something he should have already known. Alpine gives him the same look when she wake him up at three a.m. to let him know her bowl is empty.
You're not a cat though, even if your eye gleam with mischief like one.
Is it French? Maybe you're speaking French?
"I'm sorry I don't-" he fumbles for a moment, heat rushing his cheeks with a vengeance. "I don't speak-"
Your bottom lip juts out in a pout, corners turning down into a soft frown. You say something to the rest of the men, layering it with silk and buttercream.
He catches a few more syllables that time, the fluidity as they string together some collection of words. Whatever they are has the men disappearing, a slow retreat. Like how ink dilutes in water. Gone before he can even pretend to sound out the first half of what you said.
Your shoulders lower for just a moment, visibly relaxing as you take a step closer to Bucky.
"Agent Barnes, oui?" You ask. Your smile is smaller this time, more friendly than enchanting. His name is different on your tongue, thick and accented. It's slower than before, as if you took extra care crafting it properly on your tongue.
His name has never sounded like that before. Like someone was paying attention, cared about getting it right.
He wants to know yours. Badly.
Wants to trace each of your teeth with his tongue, lick each syllable off it and taste your voice.
He feels like a kid in a school gym, sweaty palmed with a flipping stomach.
That kid never used to falter though. Bucky prays he’s still in him somewhere.
Sam’s voice cackles in his ear, his tone something between amusement and frustration.
“I see you’ve met Sirène.”
Bucky’s eyes snap to yours, Sirène?
“I thought we were solo on this one Sam?” Bucky does his best to keep his voice level, offering you a small nod as he speaks.
“Our guy is wanted in several countries Buck, including hers. We went over all of this in the briefing? They sent her over for backup, y’know another set of eyes and someone who could sweet talk his foreign associates.”
The bald suits, presumably.
“Oh.”
“Yeah oh.” Sam’s voice trails on, Bucky hears something about plans and paperwork. Bucky’s also pretty sure there’s a jab about listening ears in there too.
While yeah, he probably should pay more attention during briefings, he’s also pretty sure no file could have adequately prepared him for you.
You’re still in front of him, bottom lip pulled between your teeth as you bite back a laugh.
“Siren?” Bucky repeats, directing the question toward you. Eliciting another giggle.
“See-ren.” Sam corrects in his ear. “It’s French.”
Bucky feels his confidence build ever so slightly, at least he was right about that.
He tries again, taking the same care that you did with his. It's a code name, of course it is. But it's something.
Your grin is enough to turn Sam's voice in his to static.
"Makes sense." Bucky muses, "Pretty sure you could lure any man, anywhere."
Your reply drips like honey, the deepening in your tone unmistakable. "Vous aussi?" You murmur.
Bucky feels his knees start to melt with the way they hit him. Molten and sultry. "I'd fall right in line with them." He continues, unable to directly respond the way he wishes he could.
Thirty languages programmed deep in his psyche and somehow French isn't one of them.
"Quel genre d'espion ne parle pas français?" You tease, or at least he thinks you tease.
"I should'a listened when my Ma told me to take French in school."
"C'est pas grave, je les aime mignons et bêtes." You lean in closer on that one, taking the collar of his shirt between your fingers and smoothing it over.
"I don't know what that means but it turns me-"
"Oooh-kay." Sam sing-songs, cutting Bucky off. "If you two are done with whatever this is, we need to find our target."
Shit. Bucky curses. Of course Sam is right, he really should focus.
He turns to look at you, something apologetic already half off his tongue when you start to lean in.
With a hand on his chest, you toe up and whisper in his ear. Or more accurately, into his ear piece.
"Il Dans le coin le plus à droits, assis fauteuil en cuir." You murmur, close enough for your lips to brush the skin oh his ear lobe. "Nous-I'm observe depuis trois minutes."
You pull back, the hand on his chest snaking up to his neck and curling around the back of it. Just enough for the tips of your fingers to dance along the hair at the base of his head.
"J'ai entendu sa femme dans la salle de bains. Elle disait qu'il ne fait pas confiance à ceux qui viennent seuls à ce genre d'événement." You continue, all but purring as you rake your nails over his skin. You let out a laugh then, one of the fake ones from earlier. This time you keep it low, soft enough that it won't travel further than the two of you. "Heureusement, je suis venu accompagné d'une belle cavalière."
Bucky's mind in swimming, swirling with the ecstacy of your touch and the vibration of your voice. How is a man supposed to even pretend to listen?
"Little help on the translation Sam?" Bucky asks. Doing his best to follow your lead, he slides an arm around your waist, his hand resting heavy over the slope of your hip.
He can feel his pulse in his palm, thrumming hard under the skin with nerves. You don't seem to notice, or perhaps care, not bothering to move an inch as Bucky waits for Sam's response.
"Our guy is across the room at eight o'clock. He likes couples so she's doing her best to sell it." Sam explains, "So maybe loosen up a bit, give her a hand yeah?"
Bucky feels his throat bob as he swallows, his tongue suddenly gone thick. His nod is short, hardly visible and too stiff for the kind of level head this situation calls for.
"Yeah." Bucky exhales, "I can do that."
He forces himself to ignore Sam's chuckled Can you? in his ear.
"Respirer profondement." You whisper, taking the hand Bucky had placed (respectfully) on your hip and moving it around to your back, letting it rest at the base of your spine, just where your ass begins to curve.
One long exhale later, and Bucky finds his nerve.
His hand splays out over your skin, daring to take up the space there. With one quick pull he brings your chest flush to his, nearly throwing your balance as he does so.
You beam, smile widening with approval.
"Nice." Sam chides in his ear, equal parts proud and disgusted.
You squeeze Bucky's shoulder. "Il vient par ici."
"He's headed toward you." Sam translates.
You bring your hand around from the back of Bucky's neck, sliding it down over his collarbone until your palm rests flat on his sternum. "Laissez- parler."
"Let her do the talking." Sam tells him. Through a window a light catches Bucky's eye, a red scope trained in his direction. Sam's careful aim sitting on his shoulders like armor.
"My pleasure." Bucky agrees.
With his hand still on your back, the skin below his ear buzzing from where your lips had brushed, Bucky thinks he means it more than either you are Sam truly understand.
Bucky's began to wonder if S.H.I.E.L.D. asked you to stay on to test him.
Or more specifically, test his sanity.
With the arrest made, a power vacuum big enough to swallow Wilson Fisk opened up. Wannabe kingpins popping up every three blocks with the potential to wreak more havoc than they have any right to.
And with the dissemination of your Target's organization, most of them happen to be French.
They need you, S.H.I.E.L.D. of course. Not Bucky, no Bucky just likes your company.
If he can even call it that.
What do you call it when you spend all day with someone and then also spend all of your free time with them and spend all the time you're not together replaying their words in your head?
Sam calls it a crush, Bucky staunchly disagrees.
What do you call it when you can't understand a word the other person says?
Sam calls it a Love Actually. Bucky doesn't know what the fuck that means.
You laughed when he told you about it though, loud and obnoxious. Hard enough for your head to tilt back and expose the thin skin of your neck. The line where muscle meets collarbone and the kissable swell of your clavicle.
Bucky doesn't look up it, afraid of what he'll find.
Instead he asks you to teach some more French.
Je m'appelle Bucky. My name is Bucky.
Explained to him with a smile as you finally slipped him your own.
Pour qui travaillez-vous? Who do you work for?
Your voice guiding him through the pronunciation as you and Sam prepared him for a few simple phrases he might hear.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? What the fuck are you doing?
Rasped though the static of a com as you watch him through a security cam in a van about two hundred feet away. A huff of frustration and Bucky is sure a matching furrow in your brow.
That one is probably his favorite.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? When you catch him eating from one of those shitty breakfast trucks parked outside.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? When he takes you out for sushi (a nice place Sam recommended, emphasizing its romantic atmosphere despite Bucky's protests), this time gasped in mock horror as he picked up a fork.
He'd stared back confused, already half-offended before he realized what you were talking about.
You waved the chopsticks sitting between your fingers at him, clicking their ends together once as if to punctuate the sentence.
Bucky had fumbled, ripping open the paper that held his pair and holding them uselessly in either hand.
"I'm not exactly sure how to-"
You'd already reached across the table before he could finish, grasping his hand and articulating it with your fingers. You pulled and flexed until satisfied and then slid the chopsticks into place.
"Mieux." You'd said with a satisfied nod
Bucky had to ignore the way he stirred in his boxers under the drip of your praise.
At least he's pretty sure that's what it was.
Qu'est-ce que tu fous? Shouted over a loud bass and shitty DJ. Bucky learns that in the heart of Brooklyn, people do still dance. It just looks little different now.
And it hurts his ears.
Stiff as board, he watches you from just a few feet away. A tight dress, strappy heels, the lace of your bra just beginning to tease itself over the neckline-
What the fuck are you doing? He curses to himself, blinking hard as if it could change the way his body is already reacting.
You're dancing, hips swaying in time with the music while your face sits in a scowl. Lips pressed into a line as you stare him down with what he thinks is French for contempt.
"She wants to go to an American Club," Sam had told him. "A bunch of us are gonna go, y'know make a night of it."
Bucky hadn't been easily convinced.
He'd laughed, full chested and slightly terrified. "Hard pass."
Sam knocked his shoulder, hard enough to yank Bucky straight out of his cowardice.
"Don't be an idiot." He'd chided.
"I'm not it's just not my scene." Bucky tried to reason. "You honestly think she'd want me there? What so I can stand there awkwardly all night and pretend to get buzzed?"
Sam's groan bounced off the walls around them, "You're shitting me right?"
Bucky shrugged.
"You've been making fuck-me eyes at each other for the past month." Sam deadpanned.
The denial was second nature, the only thing that made sense. "She doesn't feel that way-"
"Do you speak French?" Sam interrupted.
"No."
"Okay then shut up and listen to someone who does." Sam said.
Bucky's protest died on his tongue.
"Just fucking go tonight okay? I'll play translator and then if you don't believe me after that you really are fucking hopeless."
So Bucky Barnes, despite being just about seventy years too old, went to the club.
He wore those cargoes that make the lady at his Chinese place stare at his thighs. A black t-shirt that is probably a little too small but his other one was dirty and he didn't have time to wash it. Topping it off with a leather jacket and a scoff at himself in the mirror.
"Qu'est-ce que tu fous?" He whispered to himself, already picturing ten different versions of your disgust.
Sam had already been knee deep in conversation with you when Bucky finally got there.
Vowels flying left and right, wild gesticulations that made Bucky fear for the safety of your drinks next to you.
He had to ignore the way his heart jumped when you spotted him. Forced himself to brush off the way you immediately stopped talking to Sam.
"Bucky! Tu es venu!" You crooned in his ear, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as you took a hug. A month later and the way you say his name is still enough to send a shiver up Bucky's spine.
You'd already had a drink, probably two if the looseness of your shoulders is anything to go by.
When you pulled back it was to give him an appeasing look, eyes traveling over him with slow deliberation. When you finally met his eyes again, your finished with a slight cock of your head. Then you nodded, as if he'd answered a question you silently asked.
"Vous êtes à croquer, Sergeant." You finally spoke, ending the sentence with one last hum and a pat on his shoulder.
Then you were gone, pulled away by another agent and into the dance floor, leaving him alone with Sam at the bar.
Minutes passed, long stretches of silence with nothing but the chaos of the music and the crowd around them. The shouts of drunk partiers ordering more drinks, the clamor of girls at the DJ booth.
"You look good enough to eat."
Sam finally broke the silence, taking a long swill of his drink before looking at Bucky for his reaction.
"That's what she said." He explained, nodding in your direction. "She also spent our entire conversation staring at the door waiting for you."
Bucky's pulse stuttered, then began pounding a new rhythm. Something between surprised and utterly terrified.
His face burned, like when you sit too close to a campfire. Bright hot and impossible to ignore. Across the club you glowed with your own light. A flame burning so bright you hurt his eyes, flickering with motions so fluid he has no choice but to keep staring anyway.
You caught his stare, lips setting into a frown as his favorite words rolled off your tongue one more time. "Qu'est-ce que tu fous?"
Finally, Bucky thinks he knows how you want him to answer.
The look, the contempt. It's something else entirely. It's half-lidded and frustrated and utterly sick of waiting. You're not disgusted, you're wanting.
Shit, Bucky realizes, What the fuck have I been doing?
His jacket is shrugged off before he can think better of it, too busy holding eye contact to make sure he actually passed it Sam's direction.
"Hold this." He says, reaching over to steal the last few sips from his friend's drink.
Your frown turns back up, lips quirking with mischief. The same hint of trouble he saw that very first night.
As if you know, you lift on hand, using it to crawl your finger in a slow 'come hither' movement. Then you turned, breaking the spell and leaving Bucky to stare at your back as you fell back into the music.
"Don't think I need to translate that one." Sam cracks, letting out a low whistle as your hips began to sway even harder than before.
"No." Bucky grunts, "You don't."
By the time Bucky makes it to you, he already knows he won't last long.
He comes up from behind, and the smile you throw him over your shoulder nails his coffin.
It's three songs, maybe four.
Three songs of your body pressed so tight to his Bucky's not sure where you end and he begins.
Three songs of the curve of your ass rolling against his cargoes until he's fighting at his zipper.
Three songs of your arm stretched above your head, hand curled around the back of Bucky's neck.
Three songs of your lips brushing over his skin. The seam of his jaw, the hollow of his collar bone, just over the thump of his jugular.
Three songs of Bucky realizing he's been paying too much attention to talk.
You say plenty without ever even opening your mouth.
His hand closes over your hip and your body answers with a sway, your weight leaning back into his chest.
He finds the courage to bring his other hand to your front, splaying it protectively over your stomach. You return it in ten fold, pushing onto your toes and leaning your head onto his shoulder.
He can't hear the noise you make but he feels it vibrate through your chest, a low rumble echoing through every part of you he can feel.
For the first time Bucky's able to hear what you've been trying to tell him. Finally, it's a language he can speak.
Mercifully, he's fluent.
His hands spin you around slow, pulling until you're face to face. The lean down is just as tortuous, bending until you're all but nose to nose.
The noise of the club around you acts like a curtain, drawing closed around your bodies until he forgets anyone is there at all.
Your eyes dance from his own down to his lips, lashes fluttering with the movement and dusting your cheeks. There's glitter on your nose, Bucky's torn between wanting to know where you got it, and licking it off.
He definitely wants to find out if there's more.
"Vas-tu enfin m'embrasser?" It can't be louder than a whisper, Bucky's ears so finely attuned to your voice he's sure he could pick it out of any room.
He feels his cock throb, responding to your words despite not even knowing what they mean. You could have been reciting the the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Bucky wouldn't have cared.
It was never about what you said, or what language you spoke it in, it was always about how you said it. Bucky answers with the only thing he can make sense of.
"I don't know what that means but it turns me on."
Your hand snakes a path down Bucky's chest, sliding between the space where your bodies are pressed together so you can palm his bulge.
"Ça se voit." You purr, thumb pressing into his zipper.
Bucky's dick jumps under your touch, all his want pooling under your hand.
"That's not fair." He groans, his grip tightening on your hips, enough to make the fabric of your dress bunch between his fingers. "All my cards are on the table."
You pull back, pushing up onto your toes again as you stretch towards him. "Je vous dirai tout ce que vous voulez savoir. Il suffit de demander."
"Okay it's even less fair when you do that." He crumbles, meeting you halfway and pressing his forehead into yours. "I'm already caught you can stop with the siren song."
You laugh, low and soft and mercifully real. "Demande , Bucky."
He doesn't find the words he was looking for, no grand speech or sweeping music. Just the weight of his better judgment finally giving out on itself.
His lips find yours with a sigh of relief, the tension between you finally releasing with a palpable burst.
Your soft against him, nose turning ever so slightly to slot against his.
It's gentle at first, soft, exploratory. A test of pressure, the shock of feeling you so close against him.
Then it turns, pressure grows, each of you pushing harder into the other. Hands take on lives of their own, grabbing at any inch of exposed skin they can find. Yours are everywhere, his neck, his arms, his jaw and at the sliver of skin at his waist. You leave fire burning in your wake, mouth slanted against him as you swallow every sound that escapes.
Maybe you weren't joking about eating him.
The tension that existed before comes back tenfold, growing into something malicious and untenable. It burns even brighter now, like the first puff a cigarette. His body is already craving more and you're still on his lips.
When the need for air finally wins out, your bodies are so entangled Bucky is sure half of the dance floor is giving you a dirty look.
Bucky can't hear your breathing but he can feel it, the rapid rise and fall of your chest against his. The way your lips are parted, the skin around them irritated from his scruff. It strike a white hot pulse of possession.
You look wrecked and Bucky can't get enough of the fact that he's the one who did it.
When you speak it's at the same time, two gravely voices begging the same question.
"Ramène- à ta maison?"
"Can I take you home?"
Both of you are answered with another kiss.
Bucky - woefully unprepared Bucky, takes you back to his apartment. He guides the most ethereal woman he's ever met up two flights of stairs and into his shoebox.
Okay, it's little bigger than a shoebox but not by much.
He does his best to steer you through the living room, kissing you earnest as he walks you back toward his bedroom. In part just to kiss you, but also to keep you from seeing the makeshift bed on the floor by the couch.
You either don't notice his tactics or don't care. By the time you make it to his room you've stopped walking altogether. No, instead your legs are wrapped around his waist, having jumped up somewhere between the kitchen and bathroom. Just threw your weight at him between kisses and trusted him to catch you.
It makes his head feel warm to think about.
The bed is softer than he remembers, his hands sinking into the plush mattress as he lays you down on it.
He waits until your back is flat, then leans onto his haunches. His chest pulls tight at the distance, like an invisible is string gone taut between you. His jacket comes off in rushes drags of sleeves down his arms, one side even catching on his wrist in the hurry. He doesn't even remember putting it back on, doesn't remember much about leaving the club except the way you were tucked into his side with a hand in his back pocket.
The jacket lands somewhere behind him with a thud, the sound marrying beautifully with your giggle.
Bucky has to take a moment just to look at you.
You perched on your elbows and staring up at him with nothing but excitement. Youwith your dress bunched up around the tops of your thighs, bare skin catching in the dim light of his lamp. You with a pretty smile on your lips, any lipstick that you had started the night with long gone.
He wonders if it's rouge on your cheeks or if you just glow like that all by yourself.
For a second, he's out of his body. Who is he to have this? The soft bed beneath his knees is unfamiliar, the trust you offer yourself up with even more so.
It must show on his face.
"Bucky?" You whisper, humming as you bring his attention back to you. "Ça va?"
He nods, only half sure he understood the question. "I'm okay." He promises, "Just making sure you're real."
You melt, slight enough that only someone as well attuned as him would notice. Shoulders curling inward, lips twitching at the corners, the brief break in your eye contact.
Slowly, you lower yourself flat once more, this time grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him with you.
Your hands grab the hem of shirt, reclaiming the skin you had teased on the dance floor. This time you don't stop at a sliver, pulling it up over his head until it lands somewhere by his jacket.
A low breath blows from between your teeth, borderline a whistle. "Es tu?" You ask, cocking an eyebrow as you flatten your palm over his abdomen.
Bucky can't be bothered to decipher that one, instead he decides he's much more bothered by the fact that you are still wearing so much clothes.
Okay the dress really isn't much in the way of fabric but his point stands. It's between him and your skin and that's crime enough.
Your zipper slips between his fingers twice, the delicate metal pull taunting him as he tries to grasp it. That's when he gives up.
The zipper pulls apart with just a little pressure, coming undone in a cascade of popping teeth. From the top of the dress to the end of the zipper at the base of your spine, it's rendered useless in seconds.
Bucky waits to be scolded, a hand slap or sharp glare.
When he finally looks back up at you all he sees is want, pupils blown wide with your bottom lip pulled between your teeth.
Bucky's hands freeze where they had been pulling the dress down, fabric bunched in his hands like a brute.
Then you nod.
It rips like paper, tearing along the seam that had run up your hip and all the way to the base of the zipper.
He throws it so hard it hits the wall.
You're even worse bare, the sight of you in nothing but a bra and panties enough to turn what's left of Bucky's mind to mush.
It's his turn to be greedy. He copies the path you took, from sternum to ribs to belly button. Only he paints it with his mouth instead.
A kiss over your collarbone, then just over your heart. Then one is pressed in the valley between your breasts, another further down at the base of your ribs. Until finally he laves one more just above the waist band of your underwear, low enough for the elastic to tickle his chin.
Your breath catches, a sharp gasp that catches just as he makes contact. Like he's caught you off guard, something he didn't even know was possible.
It would make even the worst cowards brave.
Bucky tucks a finger into the elastic on either of your hips, pausing just long enough for you to know his intentions.
Without missing a beat you raise them, lifting off the bed by just as inch and giving Bucky the only signal he needed.
They don't even get pulled all the way off, abandoned somewhere around your ankles and left for you to kick away as Bucky gives all his attention to the sight in front of him.
The low lights cast a shadow across your body, draping you in gentle curves and sharp contrasts. It settles over your skin until you look like a painting, and your cunt is no exception.
There at the apex of your thighs, Bucky's is pretty sure sits the holy grail.
He moves slow, like a predator stalking its prey. He makes a home for himself between your thighs, pushing your knees apart to make room as he lays down between them.
Your words from earlier play back in his mind, the translation Sam had fed him.
"Vous êtes à croquer" He whispers, pressing a kiss to the inside of your knee. He probably butchered the pronunciation, dragged the vowel too hard or exaggerate a letter that doesn't belong but you don't seem to care. "Means you look good enough to eat."
As if forgetting him, your legs immediately try to close, a little whimper bubbling from the back of your throat as you're blocked by his hands.
Bucky clicks his tongue, using the movement to shift your position. The legs that had been on either side of him are lifted onto his shoulders, rendering you completely vulnerable to hid intentions.
"Sil te plaît." You whine, hips jerking up toward him. Your breathing turned erratic, sharp inhales and cut-off exhales as you wait for him to finally do something.
Bucky doesn't pretend to hide just how much he likes it.
His fingers find you first, wet heat that catches on his skin. You feel like fire, tantalizing and hypnotic. His index and pointed drag through your folds, parting them to give him a better view of your ruin.
He repeats the motion a few times, gathering slick around his digits and watching your reaction with every pass.
The tensing of your thighs when he just misses your entrance, the way your chest stills when he passes over the hood of your clit.
Your body is a language he's desperate to be fluent in.
The taste of you melts on his tongue, potent and sweet. Better than anything he's had the privilege to swallow in years.
One lick, then a second slower one. The full width of his tongue pressing flat against your clit. Then he can't bear another second, closing his lips around the bud in a sloppy wet kiss.
Your hands fly to his hair, followed by a jagged moan that sounds more like it was torn from your body than given willingly.
"Bucky-" you gasp, fingers pulling on brown locks, "Fuck!"
Your slip up is missed completely, half covered by your thighs over his ears and half drowned out by the his own satisfied groan.
His mind is blissfully blank, for the first time in a long time he's not thinking about anything other than the task at hand.
Your pleasure isn't even a direct motivator, well it is, but Bucky's driven by his own just as much. The way you feel in his mouth, the vibrations of your moans and the how your entire body jolts when he finally slides two fingers inside of you.
It's relief, finally understanding that as much as he wants you, you want him. It only fuels him further, his nose pushing against your clit, fingers working along side his tongue inside you. Curling at different angles until he hears that scream again-
"Bucky!"
You're wet everywhere, the insides of your thighs and down his chin. Some sick part of him wishes he could bottle it, where the most natural part of you as a cologne.
His own hips grind into the mattress, more instinct than intention. He's harder than he's been in seventy fucking years and you don't even speak the same language.
Your legs go rigid around his head, tightening as your orgasm starts to build.
Bucky's making sure you get there, pressing his fingers into that spot inside you until he's all but giving it a massage. Your walls pulling tight around him, pulsing in time with your rapid heart.
His lips close around your clit one more time, tonguing it with gentle pressure. He can't help but hum, he's damn near choking on you and would die happily if it was between your legs.
Then it all bursts.
His nightmare, his French muse, his siren, his Venus cums hard on his tongue.
Bucky swears he can taste a whole language, the sweetest elixir God could have ever made and he's drinking it from the source.
You're one fire above him, broken curses and whimpered babbles of his name.
As it retreats, your grip finally loosening, Bucky crawls back over you. Not stopping until he's above your face, watching it contort in the come down.
You're still speaking, the sound of it finally coming back into focus.
"So good," you gasp, "So fucking good Bucky don't stop-"
Everything goes still. An entire orbit freezing in place.
He can see it in your eyes, something hazy and romantic as you finally lock in on him. Your hands cup his face, oblivious to the fact that you've given it away.
"You speak fucking English?" It comes out harsher than Bucky means for it to. "This whole time you spoke-"
You groan, pulling his lips back to yours.
Despite it all, Bucky goes willingly. He kisses you and instead of betrayal he tastes something sweeter.
"Was gonna tell you." You whisper, "But wasn't this more fun?"
When he pulls back that look is there again, the mischief he saw that first night.
He kisses you again, even harder this time.
Yeah, he thinks, it was.
Collab Masterlist (If you're interested in Bumpin' that)
blakekathryn
baratheonpilled
discoholicmusic
germansingergirl
kianamaiart
jacobvanloon
tangentwithtanner
amandla
pixelskylines
