✦Bucky Masterlist - Main Masterlist - Read on aO3!✦
✦summary: you and Bucky get stranded on a mission, and the hotel... well, you know the rest✦
✦warnings/tags: bucky barnes x female!reader, friends to lovers, light emotional angst, everyone's bad at feelings, fluff, smut, big porn level smut (dirty talk, there was only one bed, praise kink, teasing, nipple play, finger sucking, super soldier senses, posessive sex, forced eye contact, dumbification, making out, sensitive reader, perfectly "appropriate" use of bucky's metal arm, bucky gets nasty, body worship, overstimulation, mean!bucky, degradation kink, monster dick bucky, he fucks like a machine), no use of y/n, no descrption of reader✦
✦wc: 7k✦
✦Author's Note: request! a true classic for a reason✦
This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.
An hour ago, that worst thing was the rain, pounding down over you and Bucky’s heads, drenching you right down to your bones. Before that was the mission starting late, which meaning it would run late, which meant that you weren’t going to be home until almost four in the morning. Before that it was being put on the mission with Bucky. Just Bucky.
Just you and Bucky, in the middle of Norway, alone with about fifteen ex-Hydra scientists. You weren’t even supposed to be in the field to begin with. You’re the nerd, the glasses, the intelligence and books and never the fists, until Walker and Yelena decided they hated you, and put you here.
“I don’t know how- How to do field things, or- I can’t even shoot a gun-“
“You will have Bucky Barnes,” Yelena had waved her hand, not looking up from her tablet. “It will be fine.”
“But what if it’s not fine,” you’d pleaded. “What if there’s a- A storm, or more people than we thought, or- Or Bucky gets hurt-“
“Who is in charge of Bucky’s health?” Yelena had cut you off with a pointed look, and you’d swallowed.
“I’m not- I wouldn’t say in charge-“
“You make him eat vegetables. That is in charge.”
“I make all of you eat vegetables-“
“You don’t make me eat vegetables,” Walker had muttered, and you’d flipped him off.
“That’s because I hate you.”
Walker had scowled, Ava—pressed against the wall of the room and clearly trying not to be involved in this conversation—had snorted, and Yelena’s mouth had twitched.
“See,” she’d given you a winning grin. “You are a natural leader. You will be fine.”
“I will not be fine-“
Bucky had said your name, and everyone in the room had gone still. He’d been left out of this meeting. From Yelena’s wide eyes and Ava’s smirk, it hadn’t been hard to work out that it was on purpose.
“What isn’t going to be fine,” Bucky had muttered, and Walker and Yelena had an exchanged sharp, you do it looks.
Walker had lost the glare off, sighed, and turned to Bucky with a wide, winning grin.
“You’re taking the scout on her first mission, buddy, congrats- Shit- Hey-“
Bucky had stormed forward, metal hand flexing like he was thinking about wrapping it around Walker’s throat. He’d stopped himself, shot you a strange look, and jerked his head.
“Out,” he’d grunted, before pausing and adding, “Please.”
The please hadn’t been necessary. You’d almost run out the room with a nervous look back, a little worried you were going to come back to a bloodbath. The glass was supposed to be fully soundproof. You’d still been able to hear muffled, furious shouting.
Bucky had stormed out after almost an hour, given you a tight look, strange look, then stomped down the hall. Yelena had given you a thumbs up. You’d—foolishly—hoped that meant you were off the hook.
It hadn’t.
You’d been dropped in Norway with Bucky a week later, an hour after planned—Alexei wanted to bring his camera, and wouldn’t hear anyone tell him no—with plans to be picked up in the morning.
“Stay close,” Bucky had muttered, not meeting your gaze. “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
You’d nodded, your voice barely more than a breath. “James, I- I don’t know what you’d do.“
“Then don’t do anything.” He’d snapped.
You’d shrunken into yourself. You knew he didn’t like this—you weren’t a big fan either—but the bristling, electric anger almost radiating off of him, it wasn’t anything you were used to. Bucky was usually kind to you. He opened your doors and brought you muffins from the bakery down the street. You made him watch movies when he couldn’t sleep, and he asked you questions about pop culture when he was confused. You had a good—confusing, but good—relationship.
Yelena likes to tease that he like likes you. You try to punch her in the face, and always miss. He doesn’t. He couldn’t. He’s Bucky Barnes, and you’re a dork with a computer that he’s nice to because he’s a good man.
A kind, handsome, perfect man with a jawline you’d kill to kiss and hands you’d die to hold. A man who remembers your birthday when you sometimes forget, and knows your coffee order, and lets you push him around even thought he could crush you with a single hand. You’d like him to crush you with that hand. Maybe pin you down with it and split you open and kiss you with those soft lips that always ghost with a smile at your stupid jokes.
You never should’ve told Yelena about your tiny, little, totally manageable crush on him to begin with. It’s going to be the death of you. You’re sort of starting to worry that this was Yelena’s grand plan to finally make you talk to him. If it was, you’re actually going to kill her, or hire someone who can.
Because it started raining. And after it started raining, lightning cracked through the sky, and thunder followed, and you and Bucky got slowed down. Slowed down enough that—combined with the weather conditions—Alexei couldn’t come pick you up. And you had to find a hotel in Norway.
And the only room left had one bed.
And you’re going to jump off the balcony and pray that Bucky doesn’t catch you.
“You should take a shower,” he mutters, tossing your bag onto the couch. “I’ll go find some extra clothing.”
You nod, pulling at the sleeves of your drenched shirt. “I- I can take the couch-“
“No.”
You sigh. “Bucky-“
“I’m on the couch,” he shoots you a stern look, bracing his hands on his hips. “And you’re on the bed.”
You swallow, and nod. Arguing with him right now doesn’t seem productive. You’re lucky he’s still talking to you after the mission.
It didn’t go poorly. In fact, given everything, it actually went better than you could’ve hoped for. But Bucky is still looking at you like you’re a problem, and it’s making you sort of sick. You don’t want to be something extra that weighs on his shoulders. Don’t want to be an extra layer of ice, pressing down on his chest when he’s already the one keeping you both together. It’s already cold enough as it is.
You shower. Bucky finds clothing—an oversized, thin fabriced shirt that just drapes past your thighs—and follows after you. Neither of you say much, and you try not to let the silence feel like poison, but it’s hard. He’s never been quiet with you this long, but you’ve also never been in this kind of situation with him before.
“Alexei will get us in the morning,” he mutters, stepping out of the shower with only a towel wrapped around his waist. “Then we’ll get you home.”
“Oh- Okay.” You flush, staring down at your hands. His chest is broad, and bare, and warm looking. The rivers of scars over his shoulder and pecs look like they’d be easy to map, and the dip of his towel show off the strength of his stomach. Thick and muscled, soft in all the right places, probably easy to wrap yourself in, and-
Bucky mutters you name, and you’d stopped staring at your hands without thinking. You clear your throat and slide into the bed, grabbing your phone with shaking fingers and pretending to be deeply invested in the blank lock screen. In your periphery, Bucky doesn’t move for a long moment. You dare to look at him under your lashes, and find him staring back.
“Bucky?” You ask softly, and Bucky’s throat bobs. “Are you-“
“You did good,” he grunts, and you blink, heat rushing between your thighs.
“I- I did good?”
He nods tightly. “Today. You did good.”
“Oh.” You swallow, unable to break his gaze. “I- I didn’t do much-“
“You got me through the lab. You listened.”
“Anyone can listen, James.”
Bucky’s jaw twitches, and he huffs something close to a laugh. “You’d be surprised,” he mutters, grabbing his warm clothing off the arm of the couch. “And don’t sell yourself short, doll. You listen real well.”
Your mouth falls open, and you think you might be frozen in place. Bucky retreats back to the bathroom, and you’re not even sure what to do with yourself. You’re sure he didn’t mean it like that, but god, it would’ve been nice if he did. Your head certainly takes the thoughts and runs with them. Bucky over you in this same bed, that metal hand pressed against your stomach, cooed praise and light orders of take it and make some noise for me, doll. The gleam in his eyes when you’d listen, the way he’d feel buried inside of you, the burn of blue eyes as he’d watch you come apart, driving into your cunt over and over and over-
“Night,” Bucky grunts, and you blink at him through the dark.
“Night,” you breathe back, and for a second, you just stare at each other.
Bucky’s gaze softens slightly. You could swear is does. And maybe it’s just a trick of the light, but his gaze drags down the fabric of your sleep shirt, catching on your bare thighs and spread legs. His tongue darts over his lips, and you press your thighs together, shifting nervously on the mattress.
He looks back up to you, jaw working tight.
“Night,” he mutters again, and you swallow.
He goes for the light, and you glance at the couch. It’s small. More of a sectional than a functional piece of comfort.
“Bucky?” You say, before you can think better of it. “Do you- Do you want to sleep in the bed.”
Bucky freezes, his hand on the light switch. You swallow, pulling the sheets higher up your body, and Bucky mutters your name. “You don’t have to-“
“Are you going to be able to sleep on the couch?” You whisper, and his jaw ticks again.
“That’s not your shit to worry about-“
“Alexei’s going to talk the whole ride home,” you push, and his throat bobs. “And you- You get really grumpy when you don’t sleep.”
Bucky chuckles. “I get grumpy, huh.”
You nod, and he sighs. His hand curls into a fist, and for a second, you’re sure he’s going to tell you no.
“I- I really don’t mind-“
“Alright,” he cuts you off, words short and clipped. “You win.”
You blink, and try not to smile when he hits the lights. The streetlamps outside let you see his figure, walking over to the bed. You force yourself not to hold your breath, and lie down like everything is perfectly normal.
The mattress dips. Bucky lies flat and stiff on his back, slowly pulling the sheets over his body, and you turn away, trying to hide the flush blooming over your face.
This was a mistake. That’s clear now. You adore him too much, and you wanted to help, and it made you forget about the actual consequences of Bucky being right there, next to you, wearing only sweats and emitting heat like a furnace. The bed feels smaller than it did a moment ago, but that might just be the size of him. Your fingers brush, and his hand jerks away like he thinks you’re going to burn. You twist further over, pulling the blankets with you.
“You’re hogging,” Bucky grunts, and you pull your knees a little into your chest.
“Sorry,” you mumble, trying to loosen your grip. “Just- Cold.”
It’s not cold. It was, before he climbed in next to you. Now it’s impossibly humid, like you’ve been dropped in to a hot spring. Bucky sighs, and doesn’t take the slack of the sheets you offered. You shift in the bed, trying to make yourself smaller, trying to offer him more space.
The minutes crawl past you. It’s been an exhausting day, but you’ve never been more awake. You’re worried he can hear your heartbeat. You’re worried he can smell the arousal, pooling between your thighs whenever your feet brush. You’re almost curled fully into a ball, the sheet wrapped around you like a cocoon. A restless, anxious pill bug of a cocoon, trying to find a spot on the bed where you’re not painfully aware of Bucky’s presence.
His hands, brushing near your spine when you roll the wrong direction. The steady sound of his breath, that should be calming but only works you up more and more. The line of his jaw when you risk a look, and the flutter of his lashes as he stares at the ceiling. At least he’s not sleeping either. You can be grumpy together, in the morning.
“You’re movin’ too much,” Bucky grunts, and you’re flushing so deeply you’re worried you’re going to light on fire.
“Sorry,” you breathe, and he sighs.
“’S fine.”
You think he might just give up and go back to the couch, but he doesn’t. You consider taking the couch yourself, but you’re stubborn. You asked him to do this, and if you try to go to the couch, Bucky will just throw you back to bed and take the couch himself.
That’s a nice idea. Strong arms wrapped around you, manhandling you, folding you over and tossing you wherever he pleases like a fuckdoll.
You risk another look, and almost whimper.
He’s staring at you in the dark, that strange, hooded look gleaming in his eyes. Your heart pushes into your throat, and your fingers dig into your hips as you hold yourself. Neither of you seem to be able to think of anything to say. Bucky licks his lips again, his eyes darting down to the arch of your neck, and your breath catches. The air seems to be pressing over your skin like a shroud. You’re not sure what to do with yourself but try to breathe.
This must be a dream. Bucky wouldn’t look at you like that during the day. And if it isn’t a dream, he probably doesn’t mean it the way your sleepy, addled brain thinks. He’s always had the same effect on you as a strong drink. Making you a little loose-lipped and foolish and delusional. There’s a reason you don’t go out with him. You’re not trying to ruin the good, steady friendship you’ve had for so long.
“I’m sorry you got stuck with me,” you whisper, and Bucky frowns.
“Stuck with you?”
“On- On the mission.”
His frown deepens. “I’m not stuck with you, that’s-“
He cuts himself off, rolling onto his back with a groan. He runs a hand over his face, and you swallow, pushing up a little to hold his gaze.
“It’s okay, I- I get it-“
“I wasn’t stuck with you,” he cuts you off, tone surprisingly stern. “I mighta been- Harsh,” he lets out a sharp breath, shaking his head. “But listen to me, I’m never- I like havin’ you around, alright? Never stuck with you.”
“But-“
“You matter,” he grunts, staring firmly up at the ceiling. “I don’t like this ‘cause you- You’re not supposed to be in these kinda situations, doll. That’s it. Don’t think it’s anything else.”
“Oh- Okay.” You whisper, and Bucky’s eyes dart to yours.
“Got it?”
You nod, and he sighs, looking back to the ceiling. His arms are still crossed, and he doesn’t look cold, but just lying there without blankets, it can’t be comfortable.
“Bucky?” You say softly, and he grunts. “Do you want the blankets?”
“I’m good-“
“We could share,” you add quickly, and he shoots you an amused look.
“I tried to share. You’re the one who kept yankin’ them away from me.”
You flush, wrinkling your nose. “They’re small-“
“They fit the mattress. Should fit two people.”
“Well, they didn’t think one of those people would be you.”
Bucky raises his brows, and your eyes widen.
“I- I just mean- You- You’re very big, and- I’m smaller- The sheets are smaller, and you’re big-“
“Said I’m big already,” he drawls, and you’re going to smack him.
“Well, you are,” you snap, yanking the sheets fully around you. “And now I’m not sharing. Because you’re being a butt.”
You flip over, burying your face in a pillow when Bucky laughs. It’s a low, deep sound that rolls through your body, almost making you dizzy. You feel the mattress shift behind you, and curl further into yourself.
“Your heart is racing,” he mutters, low and rough, and you’re sure you’re dreaming now.
“Your heart is racing.”
Bucky chuckles again. That’s a dangerous sound. He shouldn’t be allowed to make it.
“You’re bein’ bratty tonight,” he murmurs, a large, light hand tracing over the curve of your hips. “It’s cute.”
You want to roll over and hit him or something. It’s not fair to do that. Not right now, not to you. “James…” You whisper, and he hums.
“Love when say my name like that,” he toys with your hair between, and you bite back a moan. “You know you’re the only one I let say it, right? Only one who could get away with damn near anything ‘round me.”
You make a disgruntled, confused little sound that’s a mix between a moan and whine. You’re really not sure what the fuck is happening, but you’re terrified to ruin it. To move wrong and break from the dream.
“But Christ, doll,” Bucky wraps his hand slowly around the back of your neck, and you can’t stop yourself from leaning back into the touch. “I’m tryin’ real hard to be gentleman, and you’re not making it easy.”
His thumb drags over the base of your hairline, and the mattress dips again. Your breathing becomes shallow, as Bucky leans down. His lips brush near your ear, and you whimper, clinging onto the sheets for dear life.
“I can smell you,” he says, and you’d like the mattress to just swallow you whole. “Can smell how you get fuckin’ wet looking at me, how you gush whenever I touch you,” he squeezes that back of your neck gently. “Tell me to back off. Before I do something real stupid and selfish.”
You roll over slowly, and try not to moan at just the sight of him. Hanging over you in the dark, broad shoulders and parted lips, staring at you like he wants to eat you alive.
“Selfish?” You manage to breathe, reaching up to rest your hand, flat against his burning chest. “James, you’re not-“
“Don’t.” He catches your wrist, but doesn’t push you away. “I want you all to myself. I’d call that selfish.”
You shake your head, your heart pounding your ears. Your nails scrape over his skin, and his whole body almost shudders with restraint. He mutters your name, cupping your cheek, his thumb dragging against your lower lip.
“Please,” he rasps. “Don’t look at me like that, doll, c’mon-“
“What if I want you to look at me like that,” you whisper, and Bucky’s fingers flex against your jaw. “What- What if I want you too.”
Bucky’s gaze drops back to your lips. His tongue flicks out again, and when he looks at you, you can feel the desperation, tight as a wire between your bodies, begging to be snapped.
You’re not a brave person. You have never been. But under his attention, you feel like you could do anything. You drag your hand over his shoulders, and he shudders. You hold him, trembling with anticipation, and tug him down. He lets you, lowering until your lips are just brushing, his eyes lidded and features blown out.
“You sure?” He mutters, letting out a sharp breath when you nod. “I’m not- One night ain’t gonna be enough-“
“Good,” you whisper, and Bucky groans, fully dropping his brow. “Bucky- Please-“
Bucky kisses you, and you’ve dedicated countless hours to dreaming of this moment. You’ve played it out in a million scenarios, a million different ways, with a million different results. You never dared let yourself think that the reality would be better than the dream, and yet you’re here. And Bucky’s kissing you, and you didn’t know anything could feel so good.
He’s slow. Almost cautious, like he’s trying to test the waters of just how much he’s allowed to take. His lips are chapped and warm, working softly against yours, lighting a little fire with every single, teasing kiss. His tongue brushes over your low lip and you suck in a sharp breath. Bucky hums, pressing a little further down, caging you beneath the mass of his body, trapping you beneath him.
You’re exactly where you want to be. You open your mouth when his tongue presses on your lower lip, tugging gently on his hair to coax him on. He moans down your throat, weaving his fingers into your hair and tugging ever so lightly back. You let him guide you, clinging to his shoulders, getting swept away in the mass of him, the feeling of having him everywhere. His free hand drags down to caress your side, and you arch into the touch with a soft, uncontrolled sound.
Bucky groans, and his kiss gets sloppier. His movements become shorter, his lips demanding against yours. You’re already out of breath, but you don’t dare to push him away. You’ll let him kiss you like this until your head is spinning, until you pass out from the pleasurable, burning ache of his kisses and touches.
“Jesus,” Bucky mutters against your lips, kissing between every word as if he can’t stop himself. “You’re so fuckin’ soft for me, doll, so sweet and easy.”
You whine and Bucky chuckles, kissing you deep and long and so torturously slow. His hand drags further down, tugging the hem of your shirt up. Your legs spread mindlessly, all the thoughts in your head being sucked away by Bucky’s kisses. Cool, metal fingers drag up your sensitive thigh, and you gasp, whole body shivering under the touch.
“You like that, huh,” Bucky kisses one corner of your mouth, then the other. “Tryin’ to take it nice and slow, but you’re already begging for a little, more. Look at you,” he kisses up your cheek, over your jaw. “Gonna take real good care of you, doll. Make it feel real good for my pretty, needy girl.”
Words are already failing you, and you’re getting a little worried for what kind of boneless, fuckdoll puppet you’re going to be when he’s done with you. It’s an electric, hopeful fear. You hope you can feel him when you sit down tomorrow. You hope you can’t walk straight for a fucking week.
Bucky kisses over your nose, then your neglected cheek, and down your jaw. His teeth graze against you, his hand in your hair angling you around so he can suck little bruises right under your jaw. Those thick, metal fingers are still teasing along the inseam over your panties, and when his thumb brushes against the embarrassingly wet spot against your core, he groans against your skin.
“So wet,” he mutters, kissing over the sore mark under your jaw, then attaching his lips near your pulse point. “All for me, isn’t it? Thinkin’ about me fucking you, nice and slow.”
His tongue flicks against your throat, and you make a borderline pathetic noise.
“Bu- Bucky-“ You cry out, wrapping your arms fully around his neck. “Just for you- Only for you- Please-“
Bucky groans, pushing his face further into your neck. His thumb drags back against your clothed slit, teasing the lightest amount of pleasure until you’re clenching around nothing.
“More,” you try to demand, but it’s breathy and broken. “James, I- I need more-“
You roll your hips up, and Bucky’s thumb bumps right up against your clit. Your thighs try to push together and hold him there, but he grabs them forcing them back open and pushing his knee right against your core.
“Demanding,” he presses a quick kiss to your lips then pushes back up, tracing his thumb over the curve of your swollen bottom lip. “You wanna try that one again?”
You swallow and shake your head, trying to push him just a little, just to test what will happen. Bucky’s jaw ticks. He pushes his knee further forward against your cunt, and you cry out, rolling your hips to chase a little extra friction. Bucky lets you, his thumb pushing a little further into your mouth.
He groans when you take him, swirling your tongue and sucking as the need between your thighs builds impossibly high. He keeps hitting against your clit, but not with nearly enough pressure, and he’s planted against your fluttering cunt, but you need him in you. You need to not be able to think, outside of Bucky all around you. If you were stronger, you’d try to pull him back down, but you’re not. You’re a messy, fluttering mess beneath him, unable to remember how cold it was moments ago as you suck on his thumb like a whore.
Bucky presses on your abdomen, pushing you deeper into the mattress, and you grab his wrist. You give him your best, watering, pathetic eyes. You need more of him the same way you need oxygen. His knee isn’t enough, no amount of him is enough. If you don’t get to drown in the pine scent and massive strength of him, you might start actually screaming.
“Look at you,” Bucky mutters, leaning over your body with a smirk. “So pretty like this, doll. Could drive a man fuckin’ crazy.”
You whimper, eyes dropping to his crotch. To the thick, massive tent pressing against his sweats, and the slightly dark spot against the gray fabric. You moan around his thumb, and watch it twitch slightly. Bucky groans, leaning further down so the head of his cock drags against your soft thigh. He pulls his thumb away, smearing a line of spit over your cheek, then ducks down and lick it away. You moan, turning your face to try and meet his lips, and he chuckles.
“That’s right,” he mutters, indulging you with a slow, gentle kiss. “I know what you need, baby. I’ve got you.”
You hum, eyes fluttering closed and Bucky goes back to kissing you like you’re something priceless. You’re still fucking yourself on his knee, the feeling spreading like a warm, rising tide through your body. Bucky hums, his now free hand slowly dragging under your shirt. Teasing up your side, under your breast, then pinching your nipple between two fingers and rolling it in tight, fast circles.
He swallows the cry that leaves your lips, flicking your nipple before soothing the hurt with his thumb.
“Easy,” he mutters. “Nice and easy. Let’s get you ready, huh?”
You nod, thinking back to that tent in Bucky’s pants. You’re going to need to be ready to take that. And whatever he has to do to get you there, you’re more than willing to let him.
Bucky pulls back up and slowly guides your t-shirt over your head, tossing it off to the side and helping you settle back into the mattress. A low groan rumbles through his chest as his eyes rake over your body, and your arms instinctively go up to cover yourself from the unrelenting, almost feral gaze.
He catches your wrist and pins it over your head, giving you a stern, knowing look.
“Don’t hide,” he scolds, his metal hand slowly trailing down your exposed body. “Most gorgeous fuckin’ girl I’ve ever seen, trying to hide her pretty little body from me.” He grabs your waist, squeezing the soft skin before massaging it, holding your gaze the whole time. “Been driving me made for years, baby. Thinking you were right there and I’d never get to have you like this.” He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “Torture. Goddamn torture.”
Your mouth is hanging open, your breaths coming out in short helpless pants. You’re not even really sure what to do with yourself but lay there, and you’d feel worse about that if it didn’t seem to be exactly what Bucky wanted as well.
“Thought about just fuckin’- Living with my face here,” he palms at your breast, the cold of his metal hand a sharp contrast to the fire, brimming under every inch of your skin. “Marking those up until the whole world knew that you were mine. My needy little slut.”
You whimper, and Bucky’s lips twitch.
“Yeah, I know you like that,” he flicks your nipple, watching with dangerous attention as your body seizes up. “Always could smell you gettin’ wet when I’d tell you what to do. Drove me out of my mind, you got no idea.”
You think you’ve got some idea. His grip on your hands is tight like he’s trying to fuse your bodies together, and his every muscle is rippling with restraint. You let out a low, soft whine of his name, and Bucky makes that deep, hungry sound again.
“This pussy,” he mutters, dragging his hands back down your body, cupping your pussy and grinding the palm of his hand against your clit. “It’s mine, isn’t it, doll.”
“Ye- Yes,” you whisper. “It’s yours, James- Please.”
Bucky grins, hooking two metal fingers around the ruined fabric, knuckles bumping against your needy pussy, eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “Damn right it is.”
He rips your underwear off in one motion, and you don’t even get a second to adjust to the feeling before Bucky’s shoving his ring finger straight into your cunt, pressing his thumb down over your sensitive clit. You make an embarrassingly loud sound, almost bucking off the bed, but the metal hand is impossibly strong. He pushes you back down, crooking his finger deep inside of you, and laughs when your eyes roll back in your head.
“Come on, doll. Eyes on me,” he pumps his finger once, twice, the slaps your sensitive cunt before shoving his hand back in. “Eyes on me.”
You force your eyes to open back up, locking onto his as you try to adjust to the feeling of him inside you. It’s just one finger. One thick, massive, metal finger that you can feel straight through your core and to your toes. The cold makes every sensation starker. Bucky’s forced eye contact makes you feel raw and exposed, like a meal he’s about to savor.
“Good girl,” he coos, pulling that finger almost fully out, swirling his thumb around your clit, and pushing it back in.
“Buckyyyy-“ You moan, lashes fluttering as he bumps right against that gooey spot deep inside of you. “Don’t- Don’t tease-“
“I’m not teasin’,” he leans over you, his hand picking up the pace. “Keep those pretty eyes on me, baby. You can do it.”
You try. God you try. Bucky fucks his finger into you like a machine, reangling his hand so the metal palm is slapping against your clit, working you open more and more and more until you’re whimpering and unravelling beneath him. It’s so overwhelming, you’re almost forgetting to breathe. You strain against his hold on your hands, but it’s hopeless, and you just end up wiggling below him, tits bouncing in his face.
Bucky groans at the sight of you, his hips jerking and cock dragging against your sensitive inner thigh, but he doesn’t slow down or offer you another kiss. He just keeps you pinned beneath him, drawling out praise and mocking words, shoving in a second finger when the first starts to slip in and out too easy.
“Greedy fuckin’ pussy,” he rasps, eyes burning against yours. “Bet my cock is gonna slide right in, doll. Made to take me like the pretty slut you are.”
You moan again, every last bit of dignity slipping through your trapped fingers. The eye contact makes it too intense, and the second finger is bullying you open just right, offering a little extra pressure against your sensitive g-spot. Bucky’s eyes flash, when a tiny, hitched noise leaves your throat, and presses down harder.
“That’s it, isn’t it,” he mutters, watching every twitch of your face, every flutter of your wet lashes like some kind of incubus sex-hawk. “There’s the spot, baby. Feels so good, I know you want to cum.”
You whimper, nodding desperately. Bucky grinds his hard palm against your over-stimulated clit, and your think you’re going to explode.
“It’s alright, babydoll,” he coos. “Let go.”
Your orgasm snaps through you like a rocket, ripping every nerve of your body and making your vision go white. You thrash and scream as you pussy gushes and clenches, your eyes still unable to leave Bucky’s. His jaw is hanging open, his face lust-drunk and predatory, and it just makes your orgasm crest higher. You think he could shove his whole arm in you and you’d be able to take it, with how he’s unraveled.
If the size of his cock in his pants is any indication of what’s coming. That’s for far better than worse.
You’re trembling when you come down, tears streaming down your cheek and broken mewls escaping your lips. Bucky leans down slowly, kissing your cheek, then your closed eyes, then your open mouth.
“You’re doin’ so well, baby,” he murmurs, letting your wrist go so he can cup your jaw. “Gonna fuck you so good, my sweet girl.”
You make a pathetic, eager sound, and Bucky’s faint smile ghosts over your lips. He leans back up, his thumb dragging against a hickey he left on your neck, and his shoulders shake.
“No idea,” he mutters. “No fuckin’ clue what you do to me.”
He pulls a little further back, tugging down his sweats, and you squeak at the sight of him. You didn’t think dicks could actually look like that without steroids or surgery or something. Thick and veiny, a good amount of hair cropped around heavy balls, his thick, angry head twitching as he fists himself and drags his thumb over his slit.
You look up at him, almost drooling. “You- You’re-“
“Big?” He teases, and you try to scowl, but it’s more of a pout.
“Shut up,” you whine, and he laughs, crawling slowly over your limp body.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Bucky leans down, kissing you like you’re not both sex-addled, ruined wrecks of people. It’s the kiss you imagined when he would be a knight, and you’d be a princess, and he’d sweep you off your feet in your dreams. Slow and loving, more of an oath than an act of need. Trying to say things neither of you know how to articulate with words. You reach up, cradling Bucky’s face between your hands, and he lets out a shuddering breath, muttering your name.
“I’m not gonna be gentle,” he warns, and you smile against his lips.
“Yay.”
Bucky rolls his eyes, but kisses you again, holding onto that soft, honey-sweet moment. His cock rubs between the lips of your pussy, and your breath catches.
“You’re so big,” you whisper, and it’s not a joke anymore. He’s nudging against your entrance, and a sting is already building back up behind your eyes.
“I know,” Bucky mutters, kissing away your tears. “But you can take it, doll. Know you can.”
You nod, letting Bucky kiss you into the mattress. He’s holding you down with the weight of his hips, stopping you from squirming or crawling away as he nudges in the first inch.
“Fuuuuck,” he groans. “So tight, doll, shit-“
Another inch, and you’re struggling for air. The stretch burns in the best possible way, making your head spin and your mouth hang, agape and useless. Bucky kisses your open lips like he can’t help himself, and you can feel his control already slipping as he groans, pushing a little more inside.
His thumb fumbles to find your clit, rubbing tight circles, easing you further and further open. Bucky moans when he bottoms out, his whole body tensed as he tries to hold himself still, giving you time to adjust.
Your eyes cross, and your toes curl, and slowly the pain shifts into a warm, desperate pleasure.
“Bu- Bucky-“ You whisper, scratching at his back. “Move, please.”
He grunts, and pulls his hips fully out before driving them slowly back in. You moan, and he grabs your jaw, forcing his mouth back over yours.
“Feel so fuckin’ good,” he grunts against your lips, repeating the long, torturous motion. “Sweet fuckin’ doll, gonna milk this cock, aren’t you. Let me fuck you however I want.”
You mewl and nod, a molten puddle in Bucky’s arms. The sheets are long tossed to the ground, so you grab his bicep, blinking up at him with needy, pathetic doe eyes. Bucky groans, his pace picking up slightly.
“That’s right,” he grunts, finding an angle that makes him bully your g-spot, a rhythm that pushes broken moans out of your throat. “So sensitive, gorgeous when you cry for me, shit-“
Bucky groans, pressing down to kiss you, all bruising force and spit. You let him, unable to think outside of the consuming way he’s around you, the brutal split of his cock inside your abused pussy.
He’s fucking you so that the bed creaks, so that everything feels floaty and light and impossibly good. His abdomen presses against your clit and his dick hits every good spot inside of you, rearranging your guts and turning you into pure putty. It’s embarrassing, how quickly you’re getting to the edge again. Bucky notices, and doubles down, slamming his hips down just a little harder.
“Like that, baby?” He grunts, watching your slack, cockdrunk expression. “Like bein’ fucked like this? Wanna soak my cock, show me how fuckin’ good it feels?”
You nod, another wrecked noise escaping your throat. Bucky snakes his metal hand between your bodies, rubbing your clit in small, tight circles.
“Again, doll, cum on this dick,” he spanks your clit, then goes back to the circle. “Cum for me-“
You shatter with a cry of Bucky’s name, pussy clenching and fluttering, body arching off the mattress. Bucky groans and doubles over, pressing his face between your breasts and mouthing at them like an animal. Your hands shoot into his hair as you try to hold onto something, your orgasm just cresting higher and higher as Bucky keeps fucking into you. You can feel his cock pulsing inside of you, his shallow thrusts desperate and uncontrolled, his moans vibrating against your skin and making your whole body twitch.
“Bu- Bucky-“ You sob with pleasure, pressing his face further into your body. “Fuck- James- Oh my god-“
Your orgasm doesn’t seem to be settling. It just builds higher and higher as Bucky keeps fucking into you, desperate and rough. You rock beneath him, overstimulated and dazed, and his wraps his mouth around your nipple, sucking hard as his thrusts start to get jagged.
You pet his head with trembling fingers, gasping every word with a hoarse voice. “Come on, James, pleaseee-“
Bucky moans your name, and crashes back up to your lips as he slams home, and cums deep inside your cunt.
There’s so much of him. He kisses you with tongue and long moans, and you’re barely even able to return the affection as he empties himself into your warm cunt. You can feel him in your throat, in the tips of your fingers, almost bursting out of your tummy and seeping through your pussy lips. Bucky fucks you through his orgasm, slower and slower with every thrust, panting against your lips. You clench around him and he buries himself back in with a grunt, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you up into his lap.
You kiss his slowly, everything a little bit of a haze as you finally float back down from your long orgasm. Bucky kisses all over your face as the last of him spills inside of you, then presses his face against your neck, letting out a shaky breath.
His tongue flicks against another one of those bruises he left, and you shiver.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, and you hum, leaning your cheek against the side of his head.
“’S okay.”
Bucky sighs, leaning back to meet your hooded, starry eyes. You’ve never been so exhausted, but fuck, you don’t care. You’ve also never felt so close to someone. To Bucky. You never want to let go.
“That’s gonna hurt in the morning,” he mutters, and you’re not even sure which part he’s talking about, but it doesn’t matter, so you just shrug.
“Worth it.”
Bucky swallows, glancing down at your lips. Like he’s suddenly not allowed to just kiss you.
You lean forward for him, and he immediately melts over you. You smile into the kiss, curling into his chest, and he lets out a low, rough groan. You should probably get off the bed soon. Neither of you are going to be able to sleep in it now. But you really don’t care. If you could, you’d just stay here forever.
Bucky leans back, tracing his thumb over the corner of your mouth. He’s looking at you like you’re a dream. You hope he thinks you’re looking at him the same way.
“Might be a little late,” he rasps. “But can I get you dinner?”
You giggle, and nod. Bucky’s shoulders sag.
“Thank god,” he mutters, leaning back in for another kiss. “Got no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this, doll. Really.”
You hum, and just kiss him back. You’ll show him that you know exactly how long later, because you’ve been waiting even longer. For now, you just let him kiss you. You’re going to have all the time in the world, to ruin other beds. You don’t want to waste a single second of his heat and ease in this one. Finally, in Bucky’s arms.
✦End note: it can't believe i've never done this trope before it's amazing i love it here✦
✦If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3✦
Summary : Of course, out of everyone in the universe, you had to fall in love with a soldier from Brooklyn.
Pairing : Bucky Barnes x Guardian of The Galaxy! reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : Will they, won’t they trope, one night stand to lovers, fluff, angst-ish with a happy ending! grief/mourning, sexual content (including semi public sex, no anatomical detail as per usual). Childhood abuse/neglect, trauma dumping with Bucky, Reader is a humanoid alien described to have non-specific markings on her skin. Reader is described to have two hearts but looks like a human female otherwise. Reader is the daughter of Ego (half siblings to Star Lord and Mantis). Described the plot of GOTG vol 2, Infinity war, Endgame, GOTG vol 3, and a little bit of lead up Thunderbolts. Earth is referred to as Terra. Food. (Let me know if I missed anything!)
Word count : 13.7k
Note : This has been in the works for like, 6 months now, and I’m finally happy with how it turned out! The title is taken and inspired by “Let Me Down Easy” by Gang of Youths. Enjoy!
You told Peter Quill you would never live on Terra when you were thirteen years old.
You were sitting cross-legged on the floor of a Ravager ship with grease streaked on your cheek and a stolen ration bar in your hand. You had the confidence of a little girl who had never once seen Earth and had already decided it was not fun at all.
“You said your planet still uses wheels,” you said, horrified.
Peter looked up from where he was painting a blue stripe on one of Yondu’s old shoes because he thought it looked cool. “Wheels are useful,” he shrugged.
“They are primitive.”
“Cars are cool.”
“Cars are slow.”
“They have music.”
That, unfortunately, made you stop dead in your tracks, because Terra did have good music. Peter made sure everyone knew that. He had his cassette player and he treated it like the planet lived inside that little plastic box and those stupid orange headphones.
Still, you lifted your chin. “Fine,” you rolled your eyes. “One point for Terra. I’m still never moving there.”
Peter threw a bolt at you. You caught it without looking.
From the doorway, Yondu laughed,“Both of you kids are idiots.”
You grinned. Peter grinned. Yondu scoffed and pretended he didn’t love either of you.
Back then, you and Peter were just Ravager kids. You grew up with rooms under engine bays, learning how to steal and squeeze into tight spaces before you learned how to talk about feelings.
You called Peter your brother as a joke. He called you his sister, too, when he was annoyed with you, which was often. Mostly because you stole his snacks, rewired his blasters, and told alien girls he cried during Footloose (the girls would be so confused and ask what is a loose foot?).
Neither of you knew, until years later, that the joke turned out to be true.
Why would you even think that? You looked so different.
By the time you learned you were both children of Ego, everything was already falling apart. You and Peter both stood there with celestial light in your veins and heartbreak deep in your stomach.
Ego looked at you and Peter like you were not his children at all. To him you were not people, not family. You were not kids Yondu had fed, clothed, shouted at, protected, and raised in his own terrible way.
You and Peter were… batteries.
And then Yondu died.
What were you supposed to do then? How were you supposed to process the fact that your father was a monster and your daddy was fucking dead?
That grief changed you. It changed Peter, too.
For a while, neither of you joked about anything.
Yondu’s parenting hadn’t always been… healthy. He had been mean, loud, unfair. He pitted you and Peter against each other because he said it “builds character”. He taught you to steal, lie, shoot, and run,
But he had also taken you in. He tried his best and loved you, even if he never knew how to show it properly.
The Guardians became your family after that, making space for you the way that they made space for Peter.
And it didn’t take long for you to realise why your brother was so fond of them : no one really knew how to leave each other alone.
Rocket complained about everyone while making sure everyone had weapons that worked. Groot wrapped little branches around your wrist when he thought you were upset. Drax gave you advice that was almost always terrible and occasionally devastatingly profound. Gamora understood what it meant to be made by a monster, and yet still wanted to be better. Mantis, newcomer to the group, too, touched your hand one night and whispered that your sadness felt like a dying star.
The Guardians didn’t fix that grief, they could not. They filled that hollow emptiness with arguments over music, bad plans, worse jokes, emergency repairs, and shared meals.
You had been a Ravager first, but with this rag tag band of freaks, you became more than Ego’s child, more than Yondu’s ward. You were a Guardian of the Galaxy, with all the terrible decisions and accidental tenderness that came with it.
For a while, that was enough. What more could you ask for? Your family was insane and the galaxy kept trying to kill you in increasingly creative ways, which honestly felt normal enough. You had missions and people to annoy. You had Peter to bully whenever he got too sentimental about Terra. You had a place to stand. You had a reason to stay.
Then came Thanos, and Titan.
Titan was dead in a way that made your skin crawl. It was huge and orange and silent, a ruined sky stretching above you like the planet itself had given up long before you arrived.
The fight came back to you later in flashes, though your brain still struggled to fill in the full picture: You remembered Tony Stark bleeding into the ground and Stephen Strange looking at everything like he already knew the ending. You remembered Mantis holding on to the Mad Titan’s sleep with everything she had, small but braver than almost anyone gave her credit for. Peter Parker, an arachnid boy to the best of your understanding, had been fighting for his life. You remembered throwing yourself at him, blades in hand, the remnants of power burning beneath your skin. You hated the way it reminded you of Ego. You hated the way it made you feel like his daughter. But in that moment, with your chosen family around you and that monster in front of you, you used it anyway.
You were a guardian; and guardians didn’t have to be healed to fight for each other. You didn’t have to be whole.
But it was not enough.
The plan almost worked, which just made it worse. For one breathless second, it felt like you might actually pull it off. Mantis had him under and the gauntlet was right there. Everyone was moving, shouting, straining, almost winning.
Then Peter found out about Gamora, and grief did what grief always did in your family: it broke.
You couldn’t even blame him, really. Later, maybe, people would.
Maybe they would say he ruined everything. Maybe they would say he should have held it together.
But you knew Peter. You knew that kind of loss. If someone had stood in front of you mentioning Yondu’s death like it was necessary, you weren’t sure you would have been any smarter, any less reckless.
Neither you nor Peter had ever learned how to grieve quietly.
Then Thanos was gone, and you never knew silence would get worse than the fight.
At first, you thought the dust on your hand was from the planet. Titan was full of it, after all. But then your fingers started to break apart, coming undone, and grey at the edges, scattering into the air before your mind could make sense of it.
You stared at your own hand, as if you looked hard enough, you could force it to stay.
Peter saw it happen.
One second he was Star-Lord, heartbroken and still trying to understand what he had done, and then he was just Peter. Your brother, the boy from the Ravager ship, the idiot who used to throw bolts at you.
“Hey,” he said, and there was panic in it immediately. “No. No, no, no—”
You tried to reach for him, but your arm started disappearing halfway there.
That was when the fear finally hit you like a child reaching for light in the dark. You looked past Peter and saw Mantis fading too, eyes wide and wet, her hand stretching toward you even as her own body betrayed her. Drax was already gone. The battlefield was emptying itself one person at a time, and all you could think was that your family was scattered across the galaxy and you had not said goodbye to any of them.
You had spent your life acting like leaving was easy because Ravagers left. Guardians left. People like you learned how to walk away before anyone could see what it cost. But this was not leaving. This was being taken. This was the universe reaching into your chest and ripping you out before you could choose a final word, a final joke, a final insult about Terra just to make Peter laugh.
Peter lunged for you, hand outstretched, desperate to catch what was left, but he… started disappearing, too.
Then you were both dust.
—
And then, five years later, you woke up in what felt like the middle of the end of the universe.
One second, you were dust on Titan. The next, you were gasping air back into your lungs, stumbling through a portal with Peter shouting and Mantis grabbing your arm like she needed to make sure you were real. There was no time to understand or ask what had happened, where you had been, or why everyone looked like they had spent years grieving you.
There was only Thanos standing across the battlefield like the galaxy had not already suffered enough because of him.
So you fought him again, and this time, you won.
Earth, as it turned out, was not boring.
Earth was loud and muddy and actively on fire, which was frankly more personality than you had expected from Peter’s stupid little wheel planet. Earth had witches throwing red light from their hands, sorcerers opening glowing doorways in the air, flying men in metal suits, a giant green Terran who looked like someone had inflated a nerd with steroids, and at least one god with an axe. There were soldiers with wings, tiny insect people, archers with no self-preservation, and a man dressed like a flag who kept throwing a shield like he had never heard of blasters.
Earth also had Bucky Barnes.
Rocket introduced you to him two days after the battle, when everyone was still sleep-deprived and trying to figure out what the fuck had happened in the five missing years. The Avengers had put the Guardians in a motel, which was… an interesting choice. The bed was too soft, the ceiling was too low, and everything on Terra smelled like detergent and old carpet. You were sitting on the floor because it felt less ridiculous than the springed-cot thing they called a mattress when Rocket kicked the door open without knocking.
Rocket had been introducing “Terran freaks” to you, which mostly involved dragging various Avengers to the motel and describing them in the least respectful way possible. He had spent five years coming back and forth from Earth, apparently, which meant he met most of the important ones. And those he hadn’t met yet, he already knew about through stories.
“This is Green Monster Man,” Rocket said yesterday, showing Banner around to the guardians.
“That’s Bug Guy,” Rocket said this morning, taking Scott Lang on a tour of the motel, showing him off like a show-and-tell presentation.
Of course, this time, he had a new guy to show around.
“Hey,” he said, jerking one thumb over his shoulder. “This is Metal Arm Man.”
You looked up.
And fuck.
Metal Arm Man was beautiful, in the way some Terrans seemed to admire. He was not shiny, like a Sovereign. In fact, he was quite the opposite. He looked like a man who had crawled out of several consecutive wars. He had tired blue eyes, dark brown hair tucked behind his ears, a jawline carved by old gods, and a black-and-gold metal arm— so it made sense why Rocket had taken a liking to him. Or. y’know. His metal appendages.
He stared at you too, and there was nothing polite about it. His eyes moved over the faint shimmer under your skin and the Ravager leathers you had refused to trade for Earth clothes. He looked at the bruise healing along your collarbone, and the knife strapped to your thigh.
Rocket looked between the two of you and made a gagging sound. “What the hell are you two doing?”
The man cleared his throat, like he had remembered manners halfway through staring at you. “My name’s Bucky.”
You blinked. “Bucky?”
His mouth twitched. “Yeah.”
You stared at him for another second, genuinely trying to decide whether Terra was playing some kind of joke on you. “Is that even a real name?”
From somewhere in the hallway, Peter shouted, “Don’t make fun of Terran names! You’re embarrassing me!”
You ignored your brother. Bucky, to his credit, didn't look offended. If anything, he looked amused, which only made him more annoyingly attractive.
“It’s um...” He scratched the back of his head with a human arm. “It’s short for James Buchanan Barnes,” he said, as if that made it any better.
You frowned. Why are earth names so unnecessarily long and complicated? “That’s worse.”
Peter, who apparently had still been listening in, made a noise from the hallway. “Can you be normal for literally one minute?”
“No,” you and Rocket said at the same time.
Bucky actually smiled then.
And you, who had spent most of your life insisting Terra was primitive, boring, and overrated, had the unfortunate thought that maybe you had been wrong.
—
You ended up on the motel roof that night because Earth rooms were suffocating.
It wasn’t exactly difficult. Terran buildings were hilariously easy to escape from. All it took was one window, one rusted ladder, a short jump, and you were on the roof with your back against a humming vent and your knees drawn up to your chest, looking out over a planet you still didn’t understand.
Earth was strange at night. The fire and smoke from the battlefield were gone from here, replaced by yellow streetlights, blinking towers, the rush of wheeled vehicles dragging themselves along roads like they had nowhere better to be. The sky was weird. There was too much light from the city and not enough stars visible. You could barely see anything past the haze, and for someone who had grown up under infinite darkness in a space pirate ship, that felt almost cruel.
Your fingers moved absently over your arm.
The markings there were faint tonight, but still visible. Thin lines of soft, light trailing from your wrist toward your elbow, glowing under the skin like someone had hidden stardust in your veins. Proof, if you needed it, that you were not human. These were markings of your mother’s species, but it didn’t really matter, did it? Your mother’s planet was a dead one. You had no true home.
Behind you, the roof access door creaked.
You didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. “You’re still here, Metal Arm Man?”
You heard a pause, then a huff that might have been a laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “Still here.”
Bucky Barnes stepped onto the roof like he was trying not to startle a wild animal. He was wearing the same thing he was earlier: dark shirt, dark jacket, dark boots. The metal arm reflected the weak rooftop light as he walked closer, black and gold lines shifting with him.
He stopped a few feet away, giving you space.
“Your brother cornered me downstairs,” he said.
You finally looked over at him. “Pete?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “He wanted to talk to me about Captain America collectible trading cards.”
You blinked. “About what?”
“That was pretty much my response.”
You tried to picture Peter, still freshly returned from being dust in his home planet, cornering this beautiful and haunted-looking Terran soldier in a motel hallway to discuss little paper images of a man in a flag suit. You had no idea what trading cards were. You had no idea why Captain America needed collecting. You had no idea why Peter was like this, except that unfortunately you knew exactly why Peter was like this.
“He’s very embarrassing,” you said.
Bucky’s mouth twitched up. “He seemed excited.”
“He gets like that when Terra is involved. The planet does something to his brain.”
“Pretty sure he was asking if I knew how much the 1944 set was worth.”
You stared at him. “Do you?”
“No.” This time, he did laugh. It was a startled sound that seemed to slip out of him before he could stop it. The sound suited him too much. It made him look younger for half a second, less broken from war and more like someone who might have once been very good at smiling.
He walked closer after that, though still not too close. “Mind if I sit?”
You looked back out over the city. “It is your planet.”
“Not sure that means much.”
“No?”
“No.” You could hear him being flat and careful. There was something he wasn’t really saying.
So you shrugged, and Bucky sat beside you with a polite amount of space between your shoulder and his. For a while, neither of you spoke. Somewhere in the building, you could hear Drax laughing. And in a nearby home, you could hear a young voice crying quietly enough that they probably thought nobody could hear. But you could, your hearing was better than human hearing.
You did not feel better than human that night, though. You… felt tired.
Bucky’s eyes moved to your arm. You thought he was looking at your species marking. But then he asked, “does it hurt?” and you knew he was talking about something much more… sensitive.
You glanced down at your arm, turning it over to show the deep scarring line that never quite healed from your battle with Ego. “No. Not usually.”
“What is it?”
You flexed your fingers, watching the light shift faintly beneath your skin. “Proof that my planet-sized narcissist father tried to kill me.”
Bucky turned his head toward you.
You smiled without humour. “My biological father is a living planet. He made many children across the galaxy because he wanted to use us as batteries for his expansion plan.”
Bucky stared at you for a second, then looked out over the city again. “That’s a lot.”
“Yeah,” you leaned back, “I have been told my childhood is not a good first-date topic.”
His mouth twitched again, but it was kinder this time. “This a first date?”
You looked at him, and the rooftop seemed to tilt slightly. “I don’t know. Is sitting on a roof after a universe-ending battle a date on Terra?”
“Usually no.”
“Usually?”
“I’m old. Dating got weird while I was gone.”
While I was gone.
Huh. Another little door with some probably horrible backstory behind it. You wondered how many of those he had
So you pushed your door open first.
You just started talking because the city sounded too alive after all that death, and because Bucky Barnes gave you the kind of comfort that made people say things they didn’t mean to say yet.
You told him about Ego first, because that was the biggest part of the story on paper. But he was not the part that hurt the most.
You told him how mother’s home planet had already been dying when Yondu found you. The sky had been the wrong colour for so long that you thought all skies looked sick. You remembered your mother’s hands, or maybe you had invented that memory. You remembered being small, hungry, angry, and too tired to cry properly.
Then Yondu came. He got you out because that was what he did.
Bucky listened without interrupting. He didn’t rush to relate, though you suspected he might’ve been able to. He sat there beside you on the motel roof, one knee bent, metal arm resting still against it, and let the words come out.
You looked down at your hands.
“I’m sorry,” Bucky said eventually.
People said that a lot, and you usually hated it. But from him, it didn’t sound empty. Maybe, it was because his voice already carried so much sorrow that it knew how to make room for yours.
You swallowed. “The funny thing is, Yondu threatened to eat Peter and me so many times. But at least he was there. I might have Ego’s blood, but Yondu gave me a home.”
Bucky sighed. “Blood doesn’t mean much by itself.”
You looked at him.
His eyes were fixed on the city, but he was not really seeing it anymore. The streetlights reflected faintly in his face, illuminating the tired slope of his mouth and the shadows beneath his eyes. “I had a family once. Parents, a sister, everything.”
And just like that, Bucky pushed his door open too.
Maybe it was easier to trauma dump to a pretty alien girl who he’s pretty certain he won’t see again.
He told you about war, handing you broken parts of himself and trusting you not to cut yourself on them. He told you about leaving home, about falling, about waking up in the hands of monsters. He told you enough that your stomach turned cold.
You had known there was something wrong in him. It made more sense now that you knew they had taken a living thing apart and put it back together with instructions missing.
You looked at his arm again, even though that wasn’t the arm. Then, you looked at his face. “Oh,” you said, after he told you about HYDRA. “They made you a weapon.”
Anger rose in your stomach, a real, hot, familiar anger. It was the kind of anger you had learned from Ravagers. It was actionable. It was pure and feral.
“Are they dead?” you asked.
That made him look at you.
You blinked. “What? It’s a reasonable question.”
Bucky studied your face, and he looked almost amused behind the exhaustion of his eyes. “Most of them.”
“Most is not all.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”
“Do you want help?”
His eyebrows lifted.
“I am very good at killing people,” you added, because honesty, that seemed polite.
Bucky stared at you for half a second, then laughed again, this time with more breath in it. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
You smiled despite yourself, then looked away before it got too real. You had known him for less than a day, properly, and the rooftop felt smaller than it should. His shoulder was not touching yours, but you were aware of the space between you.
Bucky seemed aware of it too.
“So,” he said after a while, voice lighter in a way that felt deliberate, “do aliens have one-night stands?”
You turned to him slowly. “Do we have what?”
“One-night stands.”
You stared.
He seemed to realise he had lost you and shifted slightly, almost embarrassed. “I uh… Casual sex. You know… two people spending a night together because they want to.”
“Oh.” You considered that. “Yes. Obviously.”
He exhaled a laugh. “Obviously?”
“You thought Terrans invented casual sex?”
“No.”
“That would be a very Terran thing to think.”
His smile lingered, and so did yours.
The air changed then, and it had been changing for a while, probably from the moment Rocket shoved him into your orbit and called him Metal Arm Man like he was doing you both a favour. But now there were no Guardians yelling in the lobby, no brother to embarrass you with trading cards. Just the two of you on a motel roof, talking your asses off about monsters who called themselves fathers and creators, grief, and sex like any of it belonged in the same conversation.
Maybe it did.
Maybe this was what survivors did. Maybe they took the worst things that had ever happened to them, laid them down between each other, and then reached for each other anyway.
“So,” you said, because you were suddenly very aware of your own two heartbeats, “is this you asking?”
His eyes flicked back to yours. “Maybe.”
“Maybe is a coward’s answer.”
That did something to him. You saw it in the slight shift of his jaw, the way his gaze darkened, the way his human hand curled loosely against his knee. Still, when he spoke, his voice was careful.
“I’m asking,” he said. “But only if you want that.”
You didn’t answer immediately, though not for being unsure. You were very, annoyingly sure, actually. You wanted him in a way that felt too quick and too simple after a lifetime of things being complicated. You wanted his mouth and his hands and the sadness in his eyes. You wanted to forget the battlefield for a few hours. You wanted to feel alive in a way that didn’t involve fighting for it, for once.
You leaned closer anyway.
“On my planet,” you said, “we do not call it a one-night stand.”
“No?”
“No,” you shook your head with a chuckle. “Mostly because I don’t have a planet. But if I did, I would call it a very reasonable use of a night.”
Bucky’s smile was small and devastating. “That so?”
“Yes.”
You were close enough now to see the tiny flecks of grey in his blue eyes and the faint scar near his mouth. Yet, he held himself like he was giving you every chance to change your mind.
You didn’t.
Instead, you touched the metal fingers resting beside him. The vibranium was cool under your hand.
“I want that,” you said. Then, because you had never been good at masking kindness, you added, “And I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
Bucky’s face changed, but not with pity, thank the stars. You would have left immediately if it had been pity.
Instead, it was recognition.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me neither.”
When he kissed you, it was careful for all of two seconds.
His mouth pressed yours once, soft and hesitant. His human hand hovered near your waist before settling there, warm through your shirt. His metal hand stayed braced against the rooftop beside you, like he was holding himself back from touching too much too soon.
It was infuriatingly sweet.
So you fixed it.
You leaned into him, fingers curling into the front of his shirt, and kissed him back harder.
Bucky made a small sound against your mouth, and his hand tightened at your waist. His mouth opened under yours, and the kiss turned deeper, messier.
You had kissed people before. You had kissed in back rooms of spaceports, against ship walls, in the dark corners of bars where nobody cared about names. You knew what casual was.
This did not feel like that.
Bucky kissed you like he was trying to remember how, and somehow that made it worse. When your fingers slid up into his hair, he exhaled against you.
He was a little rough at the edges. He was careful, then hungry, then careful again when you shifted closer and his metal hand finally moved to your hip.
You pulled back just enough to breathe, your forehead nearly touching his.
Bucky’s eyes opened slowly. His pupils were dark, his mouth swollen.
“Sorry,” he said, voice rough. “I’m a little rusty.”
You blinked at him. Then you looked very deliberately at his metal arm.
“You don’t have rust.”
For a second, he just stared at you. Then he laughed. “No, I don’t.”
You traced your fingers down the front of his shirt, feeling his breathing change beneath your touch. “You don’t need to apologise.”
His eyes dropped to your hand.
It should not have been so attractive, how kind he was. So you kissed him again.
By the time the two of you made it back inside, laughing under your breath, Bucky nearly knocked his shoulder against the frame trying not to let go of you.
It was still supposed to be simple. That was what you told yourself when he kissed you against the wall. That was what you told yourself when your hands found the edge of his shirt and pulled it over your head. That was what you told yourself when he paused, forehead against yours, and asked again if you were sure.
You were.
So for a few stolen hours, neither of you had to be a weapon.
You just made each other feel good.
—
In the morning, someone knocked on your door.
It was a determined knock, followed by a pause, followed by another knock that was weirdly polite.
You opened your eyes slowly.
For a second, you had no idea where you were. The light coming through the curtains was thin and grey and Terran. Then you became aware of the warm body behind you, the weight of an arm across your waist, the steady rise and fall of Bucky Barnes breathing against the back of your neck.
Oh.
Right.
The knocking came again.
Beside you, Bucky stirred awake. His arm tightened around you for half a second before he seemed to remember where he was, who you were, and what had happened the night before.
“I am Groot?” came a muffled voice from the hallway.
You closed your eyes.
Bucky’s voice was sleep-rough when he whispered, “Is that…?”
“Yes,” you whispered back. “That’s Groot.”
“He okay?”
“He’s asking about breakfast.”
“I am Groot,” Groot said again, more insistently this time.
You dragged a hand over your face. “What the hell is an IHOP?”
Bucky blinked, then made the mistake of laughing.
It wasn’t particularly loud, but you felt it against your shoulder and immediately wanted to do several stupid things, including staying exactly where you were and never opening the door. Unfortunately, Groot knocked again, and then someone in the room next to yours opened their door.
“I am going to kill both of you” Nebula called to you from the hallway.
You sat up so fast Bucky almost got elbowed in the chin.
Oh, shit.
Bucky sat up beside you with his hair a mess, eyes wide, mouth pressed tightly together like he was trying very hard not to laugh and make this worse.
You put a shirt and trousers on, panicking, making bucky put his boxers on, too.
Nebula continued, voice flat and merciless. “Some of us were trying to sleep. Some of us didn’t need to hear whatever Terran mating ritual you were performing in there all night!”
Your entire body went hot.
“You heard?” you opened the door to peek outside to see a crowd of guardians already converging there. You weren’t opening the door fully yet. Obviously. Bucky was still trying to find his shirt.
Nebula scoffed, “It was impossible not to.”
From the hallway, Rocket’s voice cut in. “I just put a pillow over my head.”
You dropped your face into your hands.
Bucky’s hand touched your back as he made his way to look for his socks, still shirtless.
“I still don’t know what IHOP is,” said Mantis, because apparently, she was there too.
“A breakfast place,” Bucky said, loud enough for everyone to hear. To be fair, Bucky had never really been there either. It was only a thing after the war, so all the knowledge he had about chain restaurants came secondhand from Sam’s stories and Shuri’s travels.
Drax, answer loudly from the hallway. “Why is it called that?”
“It stands for International House of Pancakes,” Bucky shouted back, looping his belt through. You stared at him, and he looked almost apologetic.
Before Bucky could answer, there was another voice in the hallway.
Peter.
“Why is everyone standing outside—” His voice cut off into a silence, which meant Peter Quill had looked through the half-open door, seen Bucky Barnes half-dressed, and experienced several emotions at once, most notably disgust and awe, which you were unaware could coexist .
Then he shouted, “YOU HAD SEX WITH A HOWLING COMMANDO?”
You froze. Bucky froze.
You stared at Peter through the gap in the door, genuinely exhausted. “I have no idea what that means.”
Peter looked like he hated that he knew something about his sister’s sex life, but was amazed you bagged a historical figure he learned about in school. “It means he’s a war hero!”
Bucky, looking increasingly like he regretted being alive, said, “Quill—”
Peter opened the door a little wider. “No, no, no, no, I’m not judging. Sir, I respect you very much.”
“Oh my god,” you said.
“Don’t call him sir,” Nebula said from somewhere out of sight.
Peter ignored both of you, because Peter had never once let good advice stop him. “Bucky, sir, would you like to join us at IHOP?”
You turned to him in alarm. “No.”
Bucky looked between you and the doorway.
“No, please,” you said, smoothing your stupid borrowed human shirt that said I ❤️ New York. “Bucky. Just go.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
You immediately realised how that sounded a bit aggressive and winced. “Not like that. I mean— before they make this worse. Before Peter starts asking you questions about ancient Terran history or Rocket asks if your arm has detachable components.”
“I was building up to it,” Rocket said, looking a bit pissed.
Bucky rubbed a hand over his face. You could see the smile fighting its way onto his mouth despite everything, still unfairly attractive. He finally found his shirt under the bed, while you looked very hard at the wall and pretended you were not noticing the way his back moved.
Bucky pulled his shirt on, then his jacket, then paused by the bed.
Rocket was still muttering about pancakes, Groot was making curious little noises, and Peter was whispering something that sounded like “World War Two Legend” under his breath. But inside the room, between you and Bucky, there was a pocket of silence.
“I’ll see you around?” you said.
“I hope so.” Then he smiled like he wanted to say something else, but then Peter coughed very loudly in the hallway, and the moment snapped. Bucky gave you one last look, then stepped out into the corridor, where Peter immediately straightened.
“Big fan,” Peter said.
“Pete!” you groaned.
Bucky, because he was apparently kind even under extreme psychological pressure, just nodded. “Thanks.”
Just like that, he left with a kiss on your temple.
Peter spent the entire walk there explaining World War Two to you.
Rocket and Drax collectively ordered too much food. Nebula threatened three different utensils. Groot liked the syrup so much he tried to drink it straight from the little container. Mantis, still not fully adjusted to Earth mornings, asked if your “night of physical bonding” had helped with your sadness, which made you put your head down on the table while Peter choked on his coffee.
By the time you got back to the motel, you saw a small Terran phone on the nightstand that you hadn’t noticed when you left.
It had one number saved: Bucky.
—
You were supposed to leave Earth after a week.
It had been the initial plan. It was only supposed to be one extra week on Peter’s weird little wheel planet, just long enough for Rocket to patch the Benatar, insult several Earth scientists, establish reliable interstellar communication, and call NASA a hobby club with delusions of grandeur.
Unfortunately, the Benatar was more fucked than anyone wanted to admit.
Earth, being a backwater planet with no shortage of paperwork, five years of stagnation, and parts that apparently could not just be stolen without “causing an international incident,” made repairs painfully slow. Rocket had to source pieces from Stark warehouses, Wakandan labs, old S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra storage, and one aerospace facility where he bit a man for calling him a raccoon.
So one week became five months.
And of course, you had to pass the time somehow.
Bucky Barnes was a very, very good way to pass the time.
The phone came in handy, because every time you weren’t helping a guardian with an annoyingly administrative task, you were lonely. So, you would call him.
It might not have been a one night stand anymore, but it was still casual.
It was so casual you fucked him every time the two of you were alone for more than seven minutes. You did it in his temporary apartment, your motel room, the roof, his kitchen, the backseat of a borrowed car, after he made the mistake of telling you the windows were tinted.
Huh. Maybe this contraption on wheels wasn't as useless as you thought it was.
Bucky had survived many things, including war and brainwashing, but apparently nothing had prepared him for you, wearing Ravager leathers deciding she wanted him immediately and treating Terran public decency like a loose suggestion.
There was the bar incident, which he still could not talk about without going pink in the ears. See, Bucky Barnes had not expected to be getting a blowjob from an alien girl in a cubicle of a newly reopened dive bar bathroom.
But there he was.
Things happened.
There was also the alley behind a Brooklyn diner, where his metal hand ended up in your folds, and you learned, very quickly, that Terran technology was not always primitive.
There was the temporary compound supply closet, where you had gone in looking for a power converter and came out with your hair ruined and knees weak, and Bucky looking like he had seen god in a storage room full of printer paper. There was the motel laundry room at three in the morning, where the machines rattled so loudly that you thought no one could hear you, until Drax walked past the next day and told you he sincerely wished his “pounding” would produce “strong children.”
You looked like you wanted the planet to split open and swallow you whole.
It was filthy and stupid. It was fun. It was definitely casual.
That was what you kept saying, anyway.
Calling it casual meant it didn’t matter that his metal arm felt good. Casual meant it did not matter that his human hand felt just as good. Casual meant it didn’t matter that he figured out exactly when you wanted him to be gentle and when you very much didn’t, that he could make you forget every insulting thing you had ever said about Earth with his mouth on your neck and that Brooklyn rasp in your ear.
Casual meant you could leave when you had to.
Bucky made that harder by being annoyingly charming outside of bed. He introduced you to human food like pizza, bagels, and pancakes. He taught you how to tell real New York pizza from the “modern stuff,” even when you were still struggling to eat the flimsy-foldable bread thing in the first place.
“You like it,” he said, watching you steal a pepperoni from his box.
You shrugged, but didn’t deny it. He smiled at you like you were funny, which was dangerous because you liked his smile far too much.
Then one afternoon, he told you he was from Brooklyn, and you sat up so fast you nearly kicked over the coffee table.
“Brooklyn,” you said. “As in No Sleep Till?”
Bucky blinked, then laughed. “Yeah. Shuri made me listen to that.”
“Pete loves that song.”
“Of course he does.”
You nodded solemnly. “It is one of the only respectable things about this planet.”
He leaned back, smiling into his coffee. “Brooklyn?”
“No. Music.”
He looked so offended you had to kiss him.
That was the problem with Bucky. He was too easy to kiss, too easy to want, too easy to crawl back to after a long day of Rocket screaming at wiring diagrams and Peter trying to explain why Earth malls used to matter culturally. Bucky made you food and started leaving space for your knives on his temporary dresser like that was a normal thing to do for someone you were only sleeping with.
The Benatar was fixed eventually.
Rocket announced the news to Avengers and Guardians and Asgardians and Wakandans alike, over breakfast like it was good news, because it was. Your family could leave, because the ship could fly.
Bucky didn’t say anything.
He just looked at you across the table, and you realised with a sick little twist in your chest that casual had become the biggest lie you had ever told.
—
The night before you left Earth, you found yourself on top of Bucky Barnes again in his makeshift New Asgardian tent.
It was getting increasingly harder and harder to pretend your chest didn’t hurt every time he looked at you like you were a treasure he had found in the wreckage and wanted, desperately, to keep.
His hands were on either side of you, your knees pressed into the cot on either side of him, your palms braced against his chest, your hair falling around your face while you rode him hard enough to make the frame knock into the fabric.
“Fuck,” Bucky breathed, head tipped back against the pillow, eyes half-lidded and wrecked. “Baby—”
You hated when Terrans called people that. Well. You hated it until he did it.
When he did, it made a warm pool in your stomach, made both your hearts kick faster, made you grind down harder just to hear him lose his breath again.
His metal hand tightened on your thigh. His human hand slid up your waist, warm and rough, thumb pressing into the place beneath your ribs like he was checking that you were still there.
You leaned down and kissed him because you couldn’t stand his face.
You could not stand his beautiful, sad, earnest face. You couldn’t stand that he had kissed you on the temple in a motel hallway once and therefore ruined your life forever. You couldn’t stand that he had made Earth feel less like Peter’s stupid planet and more like a place with someone waiting for you to come back.
Bucky groaned into your mouth when you moved again, taking him until your thighs shook.
“Christ,” he rasped, dragging his mouth down your throat, the place where your pulse was too fast. One pulse. Then the other. “You’re gonna kill me.”
“Good,” you said, breathless. “Then I don’t have to leave you.”
It was meant to be a joke. It didn’t feel like one.
You were leaving in the morning, and earlier today, Drax had asked if Bucky would be joining you and then said that he hoped so because Bucky seemed like he had “excellent reproductive prowess.”
You had kicked Drax under the table.
Bucky had not laughed much after that.
Now he looked up at you, hair messy against the pillow, mouth swollen from kissing.
After you rode out your high and drawn out his at the same time, you collapsed next to him.
“Stay,” he said, barely above a whisper, as if he had been holding it in for weeks and it had finally slipped out
“Bucky...”
“I know,” he said quickly, and his hands slid up your back, holding you against him. “I know. Pete’s out there. The Guardians are out there. I know that’s your family.”
You swallowed hard. “You could come with me.”
His face changed. There it was, the conversation you had been circling. You knew in reality, that this was nothing more than a ridiculous, impossible fantasy you had been trying not to build.
“You could,” you said again. “Thor’s coming.”
Bucky huffed a laugh, but it broke halfway through. “Yeah, well. Thor doesn’t exactly blend in here either.”
“You don’t blend in anywhere.”
“That’s fair.”
You tried to smile.
Bucky’s hand came up to your face, metal fingers careful against your cheek. The cool touch made your eyes sting.
“I haven’t been home in a long time,” he said.
“I know.”
“I don’t even know if New York is still home,” he admitted. “But I think I need to try.”
You nodded, even though it felt like swallowing glass.
You understood. Bucky had been dragged through so much. He had only just been handed a life that belonged to him. For the first time in a long time, this was his chance to figure out who he was when nobody was using him.
How could you ask him to leave that?
And how could he ask you to stay?
Your only tether to anything like family was Peter and Guardians.
Earth had Bucky.
Space had everyone else.
You pressed your forehead to his. “You’re breaking my hearts,” you whispered.
His breath hitched, kissing the edge of your lips. “Yeah?”
“Yes,” you said, wiping at your cheek angrily. “And they’re both beating quicker than they should be.”
He laughed then, and you laughed too, even as tears slipped hot down your face and fell onto his skin.
He kissed them off your cheeks.
You kissed his lips then as if you could press every unsaid thing into his mouth and make him understand. I’m sorry. I want you. I have to go. Come with me. Stay safe. Wait for me. Don’t wait for me. Please wait for me.
Eventually, Bucky rolled you beneath him with one smooth shift and you gasped against his mouth.
For a second, you thought he only meant to hold you there.
His weight settled over you, his hair fell around his face, his breath still uneven from what you had done to him not long ago, and yet when his hips pressed between your thighs, you felt him already hard again.
You blinked up at him.
Bucky froze, because in all honestly, his uncontrollable evidence of wanting you had made him feel like a perv. It was almost funny, really. This man had survived unspeakable things, but apparently getting hard again too quickly in front of the girl leaving his planet in the morning was what made him look embarrassed.
Your lips parted.
He let out a rough little breath, eyes flicking away for half a second. “Sorry.”
You stared at him. “Why are you apologizing?”
He was embarrassed and wanting and so painfully Bucky that it made your chest ache. “Super soldier thing,” he muttered. “I can, uh…”
You raised an eyebrow.
He looked down at you, cheeks faintly flushed now, and that was worse than all the filth you had done together in the last five months. “…go again,” he finished.
Then, you laughed, but not because it was funny.
But because of course James Buchanan Barnes would be hovering over you on your last night on Earth, looking sweet and apologetic for the fact that his body still wanted yours after you had already wasted him half to death.
He laughed too, quieter.
“You don’t have to,” he said quickly. “I just— I want you. But you don’t have to.”
You reached up and touched him. His stubble scratched against your palm. His eyes closed for half a second like he was trying to memorise that too.
It was your last night, with his sheets tangled around your legs, with his body over yours.
You were tired and sore. But you wanted him again so badly it felt dumb.
“Yes,” you whispered.
Bucky opened his eyes.
You hooked your legs around his waist and pulled him closer. “Yes. Please.”
He kissed you first, like he was saying thank you into your mouth. Then his hand slid down your side, over your hip, between your thighs, touching you with careful fingers until your body reacted to him all over again.
He pushed into you again, slow enough that you felt every inch and stretch until your back arched.
His forehead dropped to yours.
“Look at me,” he said.
You did.
He moved slowly at first,one hand tangled with yours against the sheets, the other braced beside your head. It was not the frantic, filthy kind of sex the two of you had gotten so good at. It was not trying to see how fast you could make him come apart before someone noticed you were missing.
This was him fucking you like he wanted you to remember exactly what leaving felt like.
Every thrust pushed the air from your lungs, and every drag of his body against yours made your thighs tighten around his waist. You dug your nails into his back and he groaned into your neck, hips snapping harder for a second before he caught himself again.
“Don’t,” you gasped.
He lifted his head. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t hold back.”
His eyes darkened.
Your voice cracked around the next words. “I want to miss all of it.”
Bucky kissed you hard, and then he gave you exactly what you asked for. He fucked you into the mattress with the kind of hunger that had been hiding his mouth at your throat, his hands on your hips.
You let yourself have it.
For once, you didn’t try to make it funny.
You just let him have you.
And when you came, it hit you so hard you cried out against his shoulder, bones trembling. Bucky followed after, burying his face in your neck with a broken sound, holding you so tightly it almost hurt.
Good.
You wanted it to fucking ache.
For a long time afterwards, neither of you moved.
The room smelled like sweat and sex and Bucky’s laundry soap. Your skin was damp against his. His heartbeat thudded under your ear, steady precious.
Eventually, you whispered, “I’m going to miss this.”
His hand stilled in your hair.
You closed your eyes. “I’m going to miss you.”
Bucky pressed his mouth to the top of your head.
“I’m gonna miss you, too,” he said.
You wanted to be brave about it. Still, your throat burned.
You shifted enough to reach for the little device on the makeshift nightstand. It was small, flat, and ugly, because Rocket had built it from three different communication systems, one stolen Stark component, and another thing he claimed was “probably not radioactive anymore.”
You placed it in Bucky’s hand.
He looked down at it. “What’s this?”
“A communicator.”
His brows lifted. “This works in space?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“Some parts of space are unreachable,” you said, defensive because Rocket had already explained the limitations six times and you understood maybe half of them. “There are dead zones, black-market relay issues, Kree interference, and weird cosmic nonsense. Also Rocket said if you press the red button too many times, it may get hot.”
Bucky stared at you.
You sniffed. “But it works.”
His thumb moved over the edge of it, careful. “Yeah?”
“Yes. So reach out, please.” Your voice went low. “Even if I don’t answer right away, even if it takes a while. I’ll answer when I can.”
Bucky looked at you then, and the naked hope in his face nearly killed you.
“I’ll visit,” you said quickly, because if he looked at you like that much longer, you were going to do something embarrassing like stay. “From time to time.”
“From time to time,” he repeated.
You winced.you knew that sounded terrible, as if you didn’t want to give enough effort. “I mean I will come back,” you said, grabbing his wrist. “I mean it. I don’t know when. I don’t know how often. My family attracts disasters like Drax attracts confusing conversations, but I will come visit.”
Bucky’s hand turned under yours until he could lace your fingers together.
“I’ll be here,” he said.
Then Bucky sat up, reaching toward the floor where his jeans had been abandoned hours ago. He searched the pocket and pulled out a thin chain tangled around his fingers.
He looked almost shy when he handed it to you.
You took it, frowning at the two small metal plates hung from the chain, stamped with Terran letters and numbers you didn’t fully understand.
“What is this?”
“My dog tags.”
You stared at him, then thought of the only other dog you know of: Cosmo. “You’re not a dog.”
He laughed, soft and pained. “No.”
“Then why are they called that?”
“I don’t know. It’s an Army thing.”
You turned the tags over in your palm. “They have your name,” you said, before looking up.
His smiled.
Oh.
“They’re important,” you realised.
Bucky nodded once. “They’re from… before.”
And just like that, you understood. Your fingers closed around the tags.
“Bucky,” you whispered.
He shrugged like it didn’t matter, which meant it mattered terribly. “Figured you should have something.”
You looked down at them again, and your vision blurred. “I don’t have anything like this to give you.”
“You gave me a space phone that might explode."
You laughed. Bucky smiled, but his eyes were wet too.
You leaned forward and kissed him gentler, before he slipped the chain over your head. The tags settled between your breasts, cold against your skin, right between your two stupid, breaking hearts.
Bucky watched them land there, and the look on his face made heat curl through you all over again.You touched the tags. “How do they look?”
His eyes lifted to yours.
“Like mine,” he said, then seemed to realise what he had said.
You went very still.
Bucky’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t mean—”
“You did,” you said.
He looked at you.
You crawled back into his lap, the chain shifting against your bare skin, the communicator forgotten on the bed beside you. His hands came to your waist automatically.
“Good,” you whispered.
Then you kissed him again.
By morning, your body ached everywhere.
When you finally stood in the doorway with your bag over your shoulder and his dog tags hidden beneath your shirt, you and Bucky looked at each other like you both wanted to ask again.
Stay.
Come with me.
Both of you were too kind to say either out loud.
You kissed him one more time before you boarded the Benatar.
—
You visited Bucky Barnes four times in the next three years.
Four times sounded almost generous if you didn’t think about all the days between.
Still, you messaged him when you could.
Sometimes the communicator worked, and sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes your voice arrived through the little device in his palm three weeks late, half-swallowed by static and distance, saying, “—Rocket says if this thing starts beeping, that's technically your fault—” before cutting out entirely.
Sometimes Bucky sent you a message and had no idea whether it reached you.
Still alive?
That was his most common one. It looked and sounded casual. It was anything but.
You usually answered with something stupid, like: Unfortunately. Or Yes. You?
Or once, after apparently being shot at by pirates, chased through a collapsing space station, and nearly eaten by something Peter insisted was “not technically a worm”, you texted back: Define alive.
Bucky read that one in his kitchen at two in the morning and was scared shitless for your life.
Then he looked out of his window.
Brooklyn never showed enough stars, but some nights, when he couldn’t sleep, he went up to the roof anyway. He stood there with his jacket pulled close, metal hand resting on the ledge, eyes lifted to a sky that hid you from him.
He wondered where you were.
He wondered if you were safe. He wondered if you were injured and pretending you weren’t. He wondered if Peter was annoying you. He wondered if Rocket was taking care of you the way he promised to. He wondered if you ever looked out into the dark and thought of him, too.
—
The first time you came back, it was only for two days.
You told nebula to land on his roof, because of course you did. Bucky had already learned that you considered swinging, hinged doors a Terran inconvenience because you stubbed your toe on one once.
He had been waiting there for twenty minutes, when your little shuttle appeared above the building, and Bucky forgot every reasonable thing he had ever planned to say.
You jumped down with a bag over your shoulder, boots hitting the concrete like you had never once doubted you would land on your feet. For a second, you just looked at him. He looked at you, too. Eight months sat between you awkwardly, until you smiled.
“Your planet still smells strange,” you said.
Bucky’s mouth twitched. “Hi to you too.”
He kissed you, and it wasn’t frantic at first. It was worse. His hands came up to your face like he was checking that you were real, thumbs brushing your cheeks, before you made a small sound and pulled him closer by the front of his jacket.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead stayed against yours.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said quietly.
You swallowed, suddenly irritated with him for sounding so grateful. “For two days.”
“I know.”
“It’s not enough time.”
“I know,” he said again.
His apartment was exactly like him in the worst way. There were books stacked beside the couch, a blanket folded over the arm, mugs drying beside the sink, and a little space cleared on the dresser where, after one hour, your duffel bag somehow ended up.
You walked around slowly, inspecting everything. Bucky followed you like he was trying not to look nervous.
“It’s very square,” you announced eventually.
He leaned against the kitchen counter. “You said that about the motel too.”
“Terrans love boxes.”
He laughed and spent the days showing you his neighbourhood.
That night, you didn’t do half the filthy things you had promised yourself you would do on the way there. You had thought you would make the most of the short visit, but instead, you ended up under his blankets, your back against his chest, his arm around your waist, your body so tired from travel and space jumps that you fell asleep before you could even make a joke about his mattress.
Bucky stayed awake.
He couldn’t help it. He had spent eight months imagining you in this apartment, and now you were here. His dog tags rested against your chest beneath one of his shirts. He could feel the little metal plates when his hand settled over your ribs.
“You still wear them,” he murmured.
You weren't fully asleep. “They are important.”
“To me.”
“To me too,” you said, voice thick with exhaustion.
Bucky’s breath hitched.
You seemed to realise what you had said a second later, because you shifted and cleared your throat. “Also, they’re useful identification in case I misplace you.”
He huffed a laugh into your hair. “In case you misplace me?”
“Yes.”
“Where would you misplace me?”
“I don’t know. Your planet has many streets.”
A long silence passed as your fingers found his hand over your waist, and instead of moving it away, you threaded your fingers through his.
After a while, Bucky said, “You know, this feels like one of those old war movies.”
You turned your head slightly. “What does?”
“This. You showing up for two days and leaving again.” His voice was light, but trying too hard. “Like you’re a sailor being shipped out.”
You blinked in the dark. “I am the sailor?”
“Yeah.”
“And what are you?”
You felt his smile against your neck before he said, very seriously, “The damsel.”
You chuckled sleepily. Bucky chuckled, too, arms wrapping around you properly when you playfully tried to twist away from him. “Oh, you poor thing,” you said. “Do you require rescuing, princess?”
“Every few months, apparently.”
You laughed again, quieter this time.
Then the humour faded, because every joke with Bucky seemed to have a cliff beneath it.
—
The second time you came back, it was for five days.
Rocket needed Bruce Banner for something involving gamma signatures, and deep-space interference. You came with him because someone had to stop Rocket from biting another scientist.
Also because Bucky was there.
Not that you said that.
You invited him to the ship and while Bruce was there, too. Rocket gagged. “Not in my lab.”
You didn’t make it to dinner before you ended up in Bucky’s apartment.
This time, the urgency was there. Five days was longer. You could do more than cuddle in five days.
Bucky kissed you against his front door with one hand at your waist and the other braced beside your head. You laughed into his mouth when he almost tripped over your bag, and he muttered something about you being a menace before kissing you harder.
Afterward, as your skin cooled beneath his sheets, Bucky went quiet.
“What?” you asked, turning your head on the pillow.
He stared up at the ceiling, one hand resting on his stomach. “I went on a date.”
He looked like it had been eating him alive. He looked like he hated himself for it.
Against your better judgement, as you took in the absurdity of the conversation, you laughed. It came out a little too bright.
“Oh,” you said. “Okay.”
Bucky looked at you. “Okay?”
“Yes. Okay.” You pushed yourself up on one elbow and tried to look mature. “That’s good.”
He didn’t answer. He almost would rather you shout at him, even if you never said you were exclusive and had no reason to assume so.
You kept going because silence was dangerous. “You live here. You should date. You should have… Terran meals and Terran walks and whatever else dating is.”
“I had dinner where she worked,” he said quietly.
You looked at him for a moment, then asked another question because you were stupid and cruel to yourself. “How was she?”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Nice.”
“Nice is good.”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty?”
He turned his head toward you, and he looked hurt now. “Don’t do that.”
Bucky seemed to regret saying it as soon as he did. He looked away again, but you had already seen too much.
You swallowed. “It is not like we’re in a relationship.”
“I know.”
“You can date.”
“I know.”
“Then how was it?”
“She…” he gulped, knowing it went nowhere, knowing he would never see her again because it felt so wrong, he felt nauseous afterwards. “She’s not you.”
Oh.
You didn’t know what to do with that.
You wanted to tell him not to wait for you, but the thought of him not waiting made your breath hitched. You wanted to tell him to date someone else, but not her. Actually, not anyone. You wanted to say you were sorry, or that you loved him.
Instead, you reached for his hand.
He let you take it.
“I don’t want you to be lonely,” you said.
“I know.”
You looked at him. “But?”
Bucky squeezed your fingers once. “But I still am.”
—
The third time, you visited, you stayed for a week
That time, Sam invited you to a Wilson cookout at his sister’s house.
Bucky asked badly as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Sam’s having a cookout. Sarah’ll be there. The boys too, but… we don’t have to go.”
You stared at him. “Do they know about me?”
“Yes.”
“What do they know?”
He looked uncomfortable.
You narrowed your eyes. “James Buchanan Barnes.”
“Oh, now it’s the full name?”
“What do they know?”
“That you visit.” He smiled faintly, but it faded quickly. “I… I just wanted you there.”
So you went on the short flight to New Orleans with him.
The Wilson’s Louisiana house was warm and smelled of grilled food and salt air.
You stood beside Bucky, as kids pointed out your markings, and suddenly became very aware that you didn’t know how to be introduced.
Sarah solved that immediately by smiling at you like she had already decided she liked you.
“So,” she said, handing you a plate, “you’re Barnes’ long-distance girlfriend.”
Bucky froze. Sam took one sip of his drink like had been waiting all day for this.
You laughed at once. “That’s not what this is.”
Sarah’s eyebrows lifted.
“It is more like…” You glanced at Bucky, then away, because his face had gone blank. “What you Terrans call an intergalactic booty call.”
Sam choked.
One of the boys immediately asked, “What’s a booty call?”
“Ask your uncle,” Sarah said.
Sam looked betrayed. “Why would you do that to me?”
You wanted to take it back.
You wanted to say, actually, no, that was wrong. Actually, he’s not that or I cross galaxies for him.
But you didn’t say any of that.
Later, while Sarah’s boys asked you increasingly strange questions about space, you caught Bucky looking at you from across the yard. He was leaning against the railing beside Sam, who was saying something to him. But Bucky was not really listening. His eyes were on you like a lost puppy.
You mouthed, stop.
He smiled faintly.
Three days later, you begged for his spare arm.
Bucky said no before you even finished explaining.
“It is for Rocket,” you insisted.
“That makes it worse.”
“It’s for Christmas!” You told him, leaning across his kitchen table. “He’s my best friend.”
Bucky leaned back, looking at you. You were wearing one of his shirts again, hair still damp from his shower. His apartment looked both wrong and right around you, as if you had always belonged there and were always about to leave.
“Fine,” he said at last.
Your face lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah. But I want something.”
You immediately narrowed your eyes. “I don’t make deals with soldiers.”
Bucky smiled, but it was fragile. “Just come back soon, yeah?”
Oh.
He didn’t look away, even though you could tell he wanted to.
Soon.
As if soon was easy, as if your life was not a mess of missions, emergencies, broken engines, family obligations, cosmic disasters, and Peter doing stupid things with massive diplomatic consequences.
“Bucky…”
“I know,” he said. “I know you can’t promise me anything.”
You swallowed.
“I know,” he repeated, but his voice was rougher now. “Just… try.”
You could have fought a demand or mocked a plea. But this…
You reached across the table and took his hand.
“I’ll try,” you said.
—
The fourth time, you came back two months later.
He opened the apartment door and just stood there, staring at you like he couldn't quite believe you were here.
You held up a bag, because apparently, you had taken a detour on the way to his apartment. “I brought bagels.”
His eyes dropped to the bag, then back to your face.
You lifted the bag higher, because you couldn’t survive much more of that look. “Bread circles, Bucky. Are you going to let me in or do Terrans eat in corridors now?”
He let you in.
The bagels were forgotten on the counter within minutes.
You told him about Mantis on the second night.
You were in his bed, his arm around you, the room dim except for the weak city light through the blinds. The dog tags rested against your bare sternum, rising and falling with your breathing. Bucky’s fingers had been tracing absent shapes along your side, soothing, when he asked about how Christmas in Knowhere went.
So you told him that Rocket loved the arm, but you also told him the bigger revelation.
“Mantis is my sister,” you said.
Bucky’s hand paused for a second. “Your sister?”
You nodded, staring at the ceiling. “She’s one of Ego’s, too.” You said with a smile. “She was already family. I mean, before. She was already one of ours. But now…”
“Now it’s different,” Bucky said.
“Yes.”
He shifted slightly to look at you. “How do you feel?”
You took a long breath. “Happy. I want to kill him again, but he’s already dead, so...”
Bucky smiled faintly. “I’m glad you have her.”
You believed him.
And he was telling the truth. He was glad, and Bucky would rather jump off a bridge than ever be cruel with your happiness. He never made you feel guilty for having family beyond him, never treated the Guardians like a competition, never asked you to shrink your world until only he was left in it. He loved you too much for that, even if neither of you had said the word.
But mantis being your sister, when all you ever wanted in life was family, meant that you’ve got another reason to stay up there.
Every piece of family you found among the stars tied you tighter to a life Bucky could only visit through broken messages and sparse wondering.
And what did Earth have?
One soldier in Brooklyn.
And later, after you fell asleep, Bucky laid awake beneath you and looked toward the window.
He wondered where you would be in a month.
He wondered if the communicator would work or if Rocket would be stripping it for parts again in an emergency.
He wondered if one day you would stop coming back and he would still find himself on the roof, looking up, waiting for you.
Then he looked down at the dog tags resting against your chest. For a few days, at least, the universe was small enough to fit in his bed.
—
Months later…
Rocket almost died, not in the abstract way all of you almost died every other cycle, either.
Rocket actually almost died.
You could still see it when you closed your eyes: his body on the table, fur matted, chest refusing to rise like a normal raccoon.
For a second, you thought your best friend had gone somewhere none of you could follow.
Then he came back.
Against all odds, Rocket lived.
The High Evolutionary was gone, his ship was wreckage. The children and the animals aboard the ship were safe. Knowhere had become both an ark and a home to many, many new faces.
Everywhere you looked, there was evidence of survivals. There were kids sleeping in corners because they hadn’t yet learned beds were safe and strange animals blinking under unfamiliar lights.
And now, your family was changing.
Mantis said she wanted to go. Although it felt like your sister was abandoning you, she reassured you that she wanted to see the universe without Ego. She wanted to find herself without the guardians breathing down her neck.
Which was fair
But she was your sister. You had barely gotten to have that before this. And yet, you understood.
Then Peter said he was leaving, too.
He was leaving for Earth because he wanted to see his grandfather again.
Peter tried to say it casually, but he was terrible at it. When he said it, he was not Star-Lord. He was not the idiot who had danced in front of Ronan, or the man who had lost Gamora, or the brother who had thrown bolts at you across Ravager floors.
He was just Peter, a little boy who had been taken from home, finally admitting there was still someone there he needed to go back to.
And maybe because everyone else was saying the brave thing out loud, you did, too.
“I could come with you,” you said.
Peter blinked at you. Then his face scrunched up in immediate disgust. “You can’t come live with my grandpa with me.”
You smacked him upside the head.
“Ow!”
“No, dumbass,” you rolled your eyes, "I'm not gonna live with you.”
Peter rubbed the back of his head, wounded and hurt, but then his eyes dropped to the chain beneath your shirt.
His eyes changed.
“Ohhh,” he said.
You looked away at once. “Don’t.”
Peter’s mouth opened wider. “Ahhh.”
“Peter.”
“Oh my god.”
“Don’t.”
But he was already grinning, all mischief and brotherly cruelty. “I see now.”
Drax leaned forward, deeply alarmed by being left out of something. “What? What are we seeing?”
“Nothing,” you said quickly.
Nebula folded her arms, finally catching up, “Guess who else is on Terra?”
Your face went hot.
Drax’s eyes widened. “Ah.”
“I am not going because of him,” you sputtered out, clearly lying through your teeth, “maybe I just want to learn of Terran music!”
The pretense was paper thin, and even you knew it.
Rocket made a rude little noise from his seat.
You turned. “What?”
He lifted both paws. “Didn’t say anything.”
“I am Groot,” Groot said mildly from beside him.
Rocket nodded. “Exactly.”
You looked at Groot in betrayal.
Groot only blinked at you with those gentle eyes.
Mantis smiled softly. “You do touch the metal necklace every time someone mentions Terra.”
“I don’t.”
“You are touching them now.”
You dropped your hand like the metal had burned you.
“This is amazing.” Peter looked delighted. “My sister is moving to Earth for that old robot. We’ll practically be neighbors.”
“He’s not old.”
Nebula finally looked up.
Peter held up a finger. “He fought in World War Two.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“It means old.”
“He looks fine.”
Rocket barked a laugh. “Oh, she’s got it bad.”
“I don’t have anything”
Drax nodded with grave certainty. “She has been claimed by the metal warrior. He gave her necklace plates.”
“They are called dog tags.”
“You are not a dog.”
“That is what I said!”
Nebula smiled a little, which for her was basically hysterics. “You cross galaxies to crawl into his bed and wear his military identification around your neck.”
Well, when she said it like that…
Mantis leaned closer. “He makes you less lonely.”
Finally, everybody shut the hell up.
Because yes. He did.
Right.
Rocket looked away first.
He was picking at a seam in his jacket, claws worrying the fabric until the thread started to pull loose. His ears were low, though he was clearly trying to make them not be. His mouth had twisted into that flat line he wore whenever feeling like he wanted to bite.
Mantis was leaving. Peter was leaving. You were leaving. The children of Ego, all drifting off in different directions like the dead bastard pleft cruelty in your blood.
Rocket scoffed. “Great. Real touching. Everybody’s got somewhere better to be now.”
Your hearts felt hurt. “Rocket.”
“What?” he snapped, too fast. “It’s good. It’s great. Everyone’s got somewhere to be.”
Rocket didn’t look at you.
He had almost died. He had woken up into a universe where he was finally captain, and now his family was peeling apart.
“Family’s still family,” you said, “Even when we’re spread out.”
You looked around the room at the only family you’d ever really known, and here was Rocket pretending not to be sad.
The raccoon looked up at you three, and this time, he looked… okay.
“I am groot,” Groot said, finally.
I love you guys.
—
Bucky wasn’t expecting a knock on a random Tuesday.
He should have been, probably.
That was his life now: he always had knocks at weird hours, which was usually campaign staff with clipboards. Sometimes it was Sam showing up because apparently “boundaries” were optional during election season. Other times it was someone from legal, or from security, or an intern from the press being brave enough, or stupid enough to knock on the former winter soldier’s door at 8AM.
He had only just started his campaign for congressman, and already his personal life felt less personal the more people tried to pry open his head with a crowbar.
So when the knock came, he thought someone had leaked his address.
He thought this must be a reporter. His life must be blowing up.
He set the mug down, rubbed a hand over his face, and walked to the door trying to make his expression less like it belonged on a wanted poster.
Then he opened it and the entire world stopped.
You were standing in his hallway.
You.
You were actually there, clothes damp from rain, hair windswept, a duffel bag hanging from your shoulder, his dog tags tucked beneath your shirt.
Behind you, Peter Quill stood near the stairwell, a respectful amount of distance, but probably a reminded that he was still your brother. He gave Bucky a small thumbs-up before scurrying down the stairs. He had already said goodbye in the car and given you his address in Missouri after driving you here, obviously. You didn’t know how cars worked. Yet.
Bucky barely saw him, mostly because he couldn’t stop looking at you.
You looked nervous, which was so wrong it almost hurt to see. You had fought gods, monsters, armies, and living planets. And now you were standing in his doorway like you were afraid he might say reject you.
“Hi,” you said, voice smaller than usual.
Bucky’s hand tightened around the edge of the door.
“I’m here to stay,” you said. “If that’s okay.”
For a second, nothing existed to Bucky, not even the campaign or reporters or Earth or space. Just you.
Then Bucky stepped forward and pulled you into his arms.
Your duffel slipped off your shoulder and hit the hallway floor, but neither of you cared. His metal hand spread across your back, gentle even when the rest of him was shaking. His human arm was wrapped around your waist as buried his face against your neck.
You went still, startled by it, and then folded into him without any resistance whatsoever.
Bucky closed his eyes.
His throat tightened so suddenly he almost couldn’t get the words out.
“How long?” he asked.
Your fingers curled into the back of his shirt. “For the foreseeable future.”
Oh.
Oh, stars.
Bucky pulled back just enough to look at you.
Your eyes were watering. His probably were, too, but he didn’t care. He didn’t have room to care. You swallowed.
“I should’ve asked you first,” you rushed out. “I know. I just wanted it to be a surprise, and Pete thought it might be a good surprise, so I’m—”
Bucky kissed you.
He couldn’t stand to listen to you ask permission to be wanted. Because of course you were wanted.
Yes.
Yes, stay.
Yes, here.
Yes, with me.
You made a broken little noise into his mouth, and Bucky’s hand slid into your hair, holding you there like he was anchoring both of you to the same planet.
When Bucky finally pulled back, his forehead stayed pressed to yours.
For a second, neither of you spoke.
Then you whispered, “Good surprise?”
Bucky let out a laugh, but it broke. “Yeah,” he said, voice wet. “Yeah, sweetheart. Good surprise.”
You sighed then.
Bucky bent down, picked up your duffel, and stepped back into the apartment. You crossed the threshold, eyes moving over the campaign papers on the table, the tie abandoned on the couch, the books stacked by the window, the stupid square Terran box of a home you had to teased every time you visited.
—
And then life kept going.
You stayed, and the world didn’t collapse.
Bucky still had campaign meetings and reporters still asked questions that made your fingers twitch toward knives you were no longer allowed to carry in certain government buildings. Peter sent too many messages after getting you both a smartphone. Rocket called every once in a while, calling Earth “a bureaucratic sinkhole.” Bucky tried to teach you how primaries worked, and you told him Terrans had made voting sound more complicated than interstellar smuggling.
He won anyway.
By the time Mantis visited Earth months later, Bucky Barnes was now Congressman Barnes, which still sounded fake to your alien brain.
The news loved it, obviously. They wrote all sorts of headlines:
Former Winter Soldier wins historic congressional seat.
James Buchanan Barnes sworn into office.
Congressman Barnes has an alien girlfriend.
That one was your favourite.
You framed it.
Bucky came home one evening, saw it hanging in the hallway of your new DC penthouse, and stopped dead with his briefcase still in his hand.
You were sitting on the floor nearby, sorting through a box of your things and pretending very hard not to watch him notice.
He stared at the headline.
“You framed it,” he said.
“Yes.”
“In the hallway, where guests can see it.”
“That is usually why people hang things in hallways, is it not?”
Bucky sighed, but he didn’t take it down.
The penthouse had been a compromise, which was to say Bucky had wanted something secure and reasonable, and you had wanted the biggest house with the biggest windows.
You’re still not used to Terran skies, but from high up, DC was lovely. You could see glowing roads and monuments with headlights and ridiculous little wheeled vehicles dragging themselves around.
Bucky said the place made sense for security.
When Peter visited for the first time, he looked at the glass walls, the high ceiling, the guest rooms, the kitchen big enough for a small diplomatic crisis, and said, “Oh. So you guys are rich rich now.”
“It’s practical,” Bucky said, even though rich wasn’t a place he’d use.
“It has what? Two walk in closets ” Peter said, and guessed right.
“I wanted a third one for all my knives,” you said. “But I had to compromise.”
Bucky looked at you like he loved you and regretted encouraging you at the same time.
And slowly, it became yours.
You had your weird human boots by his polished shoes. You had strange little space trinkets on his shelves, and your faux fur jacket thrown over the back of his very expensive chair.
When Mantis visited, Peter visited, too.
He was still arguing with security about his blasters when she stepped into the penthouse and looked around with wide eyes.
“Oh,” she said softly. “You live very high.”
Bucky was in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, opening pizza boxes.
“Your sister likes windows,” he said.
He said it like your wanting mattered enough to explain the whole place.
Mantis smiled.
Bucky glanced at you, then slid a box toward all three of you. Eventually, Peter sat on the floor like he owned the place. Mantis sat cross-legged beside him, studying her slice with concern. You curled into Bucky’s side on the couch, his arm along the back of it, his knee against yours.
Mantis took one bite and her eyes widened. “This is amazing.”
You looked at Peter, your brother, who had once thrown bolts at you across the floor of a Ravager ship and now sat eating pizza in your living room. You looked at Mantis, your sister, free and alive and choosing her own way through the universe. You looked at Bucky, the man who had once been a one-night stand in a motel room, but now, he was your home in every sense of the word.
And tonight, the universe was small enough to fit in one living room.
Mantis leaned back, pizza balanced carefully in both hands.
“I like Earth,” she said.
You looked at her, then at Peter, then at Bucky.
“Yeah,” you said, leaning into your lover’s side. “It has one or two good things.”
—end.
Extra note: I think this reader would make a wonderful Thunderbolt. Thoughts?
➸ Synopsis: “Wooow.” Yelena scans the living area of your room, walking around and poking at various things. “It’s much tidier than I thought, given you’ve been practically hiding away in here the past month.”
All you can do is stand, fidgeting as you watch her flit around the room before heading into your bedroom. Quickly, you follow behind. “I have not been hiding. I was just in the kitchen, wasn’t I?”
“Ah, you’re right, that was inaccurate.” She flops onto the bed before startling you with a serious expression. “You only hide away when Bucky’s here.”
➸ Notes: Reader's powers are inspired by Heartrenders from Six of Crows! I love the idea of being able to sense and control other people's bodies (hearts, lungs, blood, etc.) and how it affects someone living with that ability. I hope it came across well. Poor Reader doesn't know how much her team actually cares for her. It reminds me of that one clip from Meet the Robinsons where Goob is getting complimented and says, "They all hated me."
(づ-̩̩̩-̩̩̩_-̩̩̩-̩̩̩)づ Anyways, this is my first smut so please be gentle.
➸ Word Count: 8,805
Masterlist 🌒
“Sir, please we don’t want trouble. There are kids here.” A woman, maybe in her late thirties, manages to say through her tears.
“Shut up and keep your head down.” One of the gunmen kicks the office desk she’s pressed against, making her cry harder.
Including the asshole scaring the woman, nine heartbeats thrum against your senses. Their breaths are quick but deep as they try to hold their composure. In situations like this, the robbers know that if the thirty-four civilians packed into the bank sense weakness, they’ll lose control fast.
Most of the hostages are clustered near the front entrance. It’s hard to focus only on the robbers heartbeats from this distance without accidentally killing someone or knocking out a civilian.
Finally, you catch hold of all nine, steady and taut inside your chest, as if they’re your own. With a breath, you begin to slow them. Slower. Another breath. Slower, and—
“I’m just saying this isn’t an Avengers-level threat.” Walker’s voice cuts through the silence, his “whisper” nowhere near as quiet as he thinks. It takes everything in you not to shove him out of the air duct you’re crouched in.
“Yeah, well, we’re not actually Avengers, so suck it up and let’s get this done.” Yelena elbows John aside, shimmying forward until she’s peering through the grate with you.
“We’ve got two down in the back. Bankers are safe in the vault. Bucky’s pursuing the last guy who tried to head for the roof… oh, never mind, we’ve got three down.” Ava’s voice crackles through your earpiece. You huff and pull it out.
“Can you two please shut up for one minute so I can concentrate?” You glare at Yelena and John before refocusing on the people below.
You feel the closest heart. You seize it. Then the next. Then—
“That’s it. You’re taking too long.” John interrupts, and before you or Yelena can react, he drops from the vent straight into the crowd.
“Shit.”
“Goddamn it.”
Both you and Yelena hiss before following him down.
You strip off your gloves, twist around one gunman, and press your hand to his neck. His heart seizes instantly, dropping him unconscious.
Another lunges for you. You dodge, barely, but Yelena is already there, taking him down with ease. Fighting has never been your strength; distance is safer, even if it takes longer to get a hold.
Your heartbeat spikes, except it’s not yours. Another gunman has grabbed a civilian, pressing his gun to her head. Hands raised in a mock surrender, you draw his heart into your chest. After a few seconds, you’ve got him. You stop it.
But in that final split second before blacking out, his finger pulls the trigger.
The shot is deafening. You don’t think, you just tackle the woman to the ground. Miraculously, you’re both unharmed. A quick check confirms she’s shaken but fine, so you’re back on your feet, sprinting toward the next gunman.
You lunge for his neck, but instead of skin your hand closes around a blade. Pain sears your palm as the man whirls, knife flashing toward your torso. He doesn’t get the chance, John slams his shield into him, knocking him flat, and kicks his head to keep him down.
Clutching your bleeding hand, you glare at John’s smug grin.
“You’re welcome,” he smirks before striding off.
The fight ends within seconds, though it felt like forever. As the team confirms the building is clear, you snag the knife, slice off a strip of your undershirt, and bind your palm tight. The gash isn’t deep, but it burns. Placing your gloves back on, you exhale sharply.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Quiet. Quick. Controlled. That was the plan, to minimize casualties. Your power isn’t meant for large groups; you should have been stationed in the back, where only three gunmen held their ground.
Normally, that’s what would’ve happened. You and Bucky had learned to work well together. He understood how much focus you needed, and his steady confidence in you made the job easier.
Now, though, concentration around him is next to impossible and the shame of why burns in your chest as you take in the aftermath.
Joining the others, you help guide the civilians out of the building. The evening sun is so bright it stings your eyes, forcing you to adjust after so long in an air duct. Behind the police barrier, the gathered crowd cheers, watching as hostages stumble into the arms of loved ones. You can’t help the small smile that curves your lips when you see the woman you saved throw her arms around her husband. His hands cradle her face as he kisses her forehead, relief written in every line of his body. That kind of life has never been in the cards for you, as much as you’ve ached for it. This line of work never allows for that kind of connection, and it doesn’t help that almost everyone you’ve met is afraid of you.
Across the crowd, Bucky strides toward the police, gesturing at the building as he no doubt gives instructions on containing the gunmen. Even from here you can feel his heart, steady and strong, threatening to stop your own. His metal arm catches the sunlight, flashing bright and your chest tightens. What you’d give to have his hands on you. He’s always so gentle, aware of the strength he carries. And his eyes, so soft despite everything he’s been through, always look at you like he can see right into your soul. Like now, as you realize you’ve been staring far too long. He’s noticed, of course. That crooked smile of his spreads, and you whip your head away. God, this is exactly why you can’t be near him, you lose focus and end up looking like a lovestruck idiot.
He starts moving toward you, cutting through the crowd, and your chest constricts. Before he can reach you, someone calls your name. You turn, grateful for the interruption until you see Val, waving you over toward the press.
Of course.
This has become your unofficial role on the team: stuck answering questions while the others get to pose for a few photos and head home.
“There she is. Isn’t she adorable?” Valentina trills, far too enthusiastic for the aftermath of a robbery. “She’s captured the hearts of people all across the world.”
You turn your head to hide the eye-roll threatening to break free. How long had she spent thinking of that line? From the looks of it, you’re the only one not amused. Bucky and Yelena stand nearby, the latter trying to suppress a laugh but failing miserably, until Ava calls them both away, clearly eager to return to the Watchtower.
With a long breath, you resign yourself to answering questions, hoping to wrap things up quickly enough to follow and maybe get back before sunset.
—————————————————————
After nearly two hours of standing under hot lights, dealing with Val, and forcing a smile, you finally make it to the tower. Exhaustion from the completely avoidable fight seeps into your bones. All you want is your bed.
The sound of arguing greets you before you even feel the quickened heartbeats in the common area. Suppressing a groan, you drag your feet toward the voices.
“This is ridiculous. I analyzed the situation, saw they were getting antsy, and made a tactical decision,” John Walker snaps, his voice rising with irritation. As you step sheepishly into the large room, his eyes snap to yours. “I wouldn’t have had to if she did her job.”
Don’t stop his heart. Don’t. It would be so easy, but then you’d have to dodge his shield when he woke up. Instead, you settle for rolling your eyes.
“Walker.” Bucky’s voice cuts across the room, sharp with warning. He leans against the wall, arms folded, watching.
“It’s not her fault you can’t keep your fat mouth shut, John,” Yelena drawls from the couch, sprawled out with a bag of chips. You drop into the only empty seat beside her.
“It was an easy job, and you couldn’t even handle it,” John fires back. “If you can’t fight, you should at least be able to do your… magic body stuff or whatever.”
“Magic body stuff?” Ava echoes mockingly, reaching over to steal chips from Yelena. “Don’t look at me like that. Bucky and I did our job. It’s not our fault you can’t.”
You lean forward, elbows braced on your knees, pushing your hair back with gloved hands. Being stuck with the world’s most unstable team is a challenge at the best of times. And you can’t even argue, because technically, John’s right, it was your fault. Ava should’ve taken your position, the three of them working the guards one by one. Still, no one hits your nerves quite like Walker does.
“You know,” you mutter, your voice quiet and tired, “next time I could just take the air from your lungs, Walker. Maybe then you’d stay quiet long enough for me to do my job.”
The room goes still, their heartbeats pounding louder in your ears. It’s absurd. You can barely knock out a room full of people for more than a few moments, let alone actually hurt someone unless your bare hands are on them. Even in a room full of seasoned killers, no one is immune to fearing what you can do.
“Oh wow, you guys look terrible.” Bob breezes into the room with a chuckle, climbing to his usual perch by the window.
You seize the chance for escape, pushing to your feet. “That was a joke. And I’m sorry, I’ll do better next time.”
They laugh it off, eager to let the tension shift, but you’re not listening. You slip toward the elevator, pain shoots up your hand as you press the button for your apartment's floor. The doors nearly close, until Bucky slides in at the last second. Exactly what you need to end your night: another opportunity to embarrass yourself.
You keep your gaze fixed on the panel as he presses a button. Not his floor, but to the infirmary.
Your eyes snap up, scanning him for any sign of injury. By now, you're attuned to his body; the rhythm of his heart, the way his lungs expand with each breath, the steady flow of blood through his veins. Everything moves faster than it should, a result of the serum, while the dull aches lingering beneath it all belong to a man far older than he looks. Chronic pain aside, everything is functioning exactly as it should.
Still, Bucky is good at hiding things, even from you. His control over his own body is remarkable, and considering his past, it isn't surprising.
“You’re hurt?” The words tumble out before you can stop them, worry overriding caution.
He stands tall, eyes on the glowing numbers. Only when the elevator slows does he glance at you, his brow lifting slightly. “No. But you are.”
Heat rushes up your neck. His eyes flick to your gloved hand, then back to your face. You’d forgotten about it completely, too caught up in the press and your exhaustion.
“It’s just a scratch, Bucky.”
His gaze softens, impossibly so, and it takes effort not to shrink beneath it. He shrugs, turning back to the doors. “Even scratches need to be taken care of. And that—” he gestures to your hand “—is not a scratch. You couldn’t even press the button without wincing.”
Damn ex-assassin always noticing everything.
After following him inside, you sit in the empty infirmary, watching as he pulls items out of drawers. You can’t help but take a deep breath, the room blissfully quiet as opposed to the war zone upstairs. The heart filling your chest is strong, soothing all of the nerves from the day as he lays out the disinfectant and wrap next to you.
Suddenly, he’s far closer than you thought he was. You had been too relaxed, and now his hand is open in front of you, waiting. Looking at him in question, you’re taken aback by the soft creases in his eyes as he smiles.
“Your hand.”
Hesitating, you slowly begin to remove your glove, and immediately pause. Bucky’s heart spikes, his breath hitching. To a normal person, looking at him you’d never know, his face gives nothing away. To you, though, it’s clear as day.
“I can do it, Buck.” You swallow the hurt, not wanting him to feel bad for being afraid when he’s the one trying to help.
His brows furrow before he steps closer, removing the glove for you.
You’re practically holding your breath as he unwraps your hand, his heartbeat steady once more. His flesh hand cradles yours, his metal one gently dabbing antiseptic over the cut. His hand is surprisingly soft, though it’s not as if you can compare it to many others.
You wince as the cut burns, instead focusing on the way his thumb moves in slow circles over the back of your hand.
“For the record, I think removing all the air from Walker’s lungs is a great idea.” His eyes lift to yours, humor flickering in them. “Or I could show you how to punch him properly, knock the wind outta him. Same result, and way more satisfying.”
A laugh bursts out of you before you can stop it. “I don’t think his ego would recover from that.”
“I don’t know, he’d probably manage. A little humility wouldn’t hurt.” Buckys pauses, “You really did great. I know you weren’t expecting a fight, and they should’ve been more careful.” His whole demeanor shifts, jaw tight as he stares at your palm before beginning to wrap it. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
“Well, he’s not totally wrong, Bucky. I should’ve seen the knife. I could’ve gotten someone hurt... or worse.” His thigh presses against yours as he secures the wrap, and you feel how close he is, his presence overwhelming. His head is bent, his hair falling forward, and you have to fight the urge to push it back so you can see him more clearly. Clearing your throat, you force yourself to look away. “I need to improve my combat skills, it’s not like I can spend all my time talking to the press.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Don’t see why not. You’re good at it. Better than I was, you should’ve seen the interviews during my congressional run.” Oh, you’ve seen every one of them, but he doesn’t need to know that. “I think you’ve really captured everyone’s hearts.”
You groan. “Just for that, I’m sticking the press on you next time. You can tell them how worrying the robbery was.”
He laughs at that and in his concentration finishing the wrap, you watch as he catches his bottom lip, wetting it. Oh no.
Before he can give a snide reply, you’re standing, tucking your hand safely back into the glove. His face is surprised as you put distance between the two of you. This is way, way, way worse than you thought. “Thank you, Bucky. I, uh, I’m really tired so I should…” You gesture to the elevator with your thumb. Not waiting for a reply, you quickly make your exit.
———————————————————————
The kitchen is warm, the evening sun shining softly through the windows, perfectly from your seat at the dining table. Every now and then, you pull your eyes from your book, focusing your senses on those in the building, and tracing your gloved palm. The mark underneath now faded to just a scar.
“Stop sticking your hand in the box,” Bob complains, trying to snatch the cereal box from Alexie.
“I got it, I got it, don’t worry.” He pulls out a tiny figurine, but his enthusiasm drops as soon as he sees it. He clicks his tongue. “Ghost, why is it always Ghost, huh? Why not Red Guardian? My figure looks much cooler.”
“Because people love me,” Ava says from across from you, feet propped on the table, tossing a crumpled wrapper in the air and catching it.
“It’s easier to mass-produce, you wear a mask so the cereal company doesn’t have to spend more trying to detail a face.” You interject before feeling the wrapper hit your head. “Or it’s because people love you.”
Alexie places the figure on the shelf, in line with the rest of his collection. You turn your senses back to the building… still nothing, but it’s been a few hours, so it should be any time now.
“What’s wrong with you, huh? You’re all twitchy and weird-looking.”
Realizing Alexie is talking to you, you pull your focus back before overcompensating with a laugh. “I’m not twitchy. I’m reading.”
“You haven’t turned the page in 30 minutes,” Yelena sits on the counter, now holding the cereal box, snacking.
“Sometimes when I’m reading,” Bob interjects, “I— uh— read a whole page and when I get to the end I realize I wasn’t paying attention, so I have to start all over. Does that happen to anyone else?”
You snap your finger into a point at him. “Exactly.”
“No,” Ava replies at the same time as you.
As your eyes fall back to the page, you get a faint sense of two people arriving at the building. Snapping the book shut with a clap, you stand. “I can’t pay attention, I think I’ll finish in my room.”
“You’re not staying for dinner again?” Bob says, the frown causing a crease between his eyebrows, almost making you want to stay.
Almost.
“I ate a big lunch. Not hungry.” You reply, making your way toward the exit.
“Hmm shocker.” Ava drawls, sitting up and scanning you with her eyes.
“When the others get back just text me the updates on the weapon manufacturers.” You rush out, eager to exit. All you see before leaving the room is Ava giving an exasperated thumbs up at you.
You try to not look behind you as you walk through the halls and up to your floor because you can feel Yelena following you. Failing, you chance a glance over your shoulder, only to be greeted by her smile, way too excited. “Aren’t you staying for dinner?”
“Ah,” she pretends to think, “no.”
Finally, you arrive at your door, and before you can attempt to bid her goodnight, Yelena slips through and into your room.
“Wooow.” She scans the living area, walking around and poking at various things. “It’s much tidier than I thought, given you’ve been practically hiding away in here the past month.”
All you can do is stand, fidgeting as you watch her flit around the room before heading into your bedroom. Quickly, you follow behind. “I have not been hiding. I was just in the kitchen, wasn’t I?”
“Ah, you’re right, that was inaccurate.” She flops onto the bed before startling you with a serious expression. “You only hide away when Bucky’s here.”
Shit. Shit shit shit. Of course, she’d be the one to notice. You scoff, “I have not been hiding from Bucky. What reason could I possibly have to do that?”
“Now see, that is what I have been trying to figure out. But, you can’t lie to me, you are definitely hiding from him.” Checking various pockets in her pants, then her hoodie, she pulls out her phone. “On the 2nd, you finally left your room and went to the gym to walk on the treadmill, after 5 minutes you rushed back here saying you were already tired. Bucky returned from seeing Sam early, just a few minutes later. The 11th, you practically sprinted up the stairs from the common room, only for Bucky to show up with groceries.”
“That’s not—”
“And right now, let’s see. Ah yes,” she turns the screen around, and you watch the security footage of John and Bucky entering the elevator.
You groan, resigning to sitting on your bed, holding your head in your hands. It’s been exhausting, avoiding the man. You thought that if you just went a few days without seeing him, all of the stupid feelings swarming your brain would go away. Until a few days turned into weeks, then a month. It feels like the longer you go without facing him, the worse it seems to get. “Alright. Fine, yeah I’ve been hiding from him. Mystery solved. Are you happy?”
“No, see, I care more about the why. Did you do something to upset him? Because whatever it was it couldn’t be worse than whatever John does daily. And besides, he has a soft spot for you.”
You try to ignore that last part. “No.”
“Mmm, did he do something to upset you then?”
“Yelena—”
“Oh oh, I know!” Glaring, you take in her excitement at your expense. “You accidentally saw him changing after a mission. It would make sense, those military guys always just find a corner rather than a room with a lock like a normal person.”
Your cheeks burn red at the thought, and immediately you realize your mistake. She’s standing in an instant, the dawning smile taking over her face.
“Oooo no, it’s that you wish to see that, isn’t it?” Your mouth gaps at her. Wanting to refute her, but she’s obviously not going to be convinced she’s wrong.
“It’s not—“
“No, no listen I get it. He’s attractive for a man who is over a century old, people go crazy for that, not me but people, sure.” She pops up, pacing in front of you. “And the arm. It has an appeal, I can see how it could add to it.” Suddenly she stops, turning to you with a clap of her hands. “I will help you.”
She’ll… what? “No, absolutely not, Lena he’s basically our coworker, I don’t want help sleeping with him. In fact, I’m actively trying to not.”
“Of course not,” she says in mock offense. “What I meant was locking away in your room will do nothing for the problem. No, what I’m saying is, you need to get laid.”
That’s somehow so much worse. The thought of going out and finding a stranger to sleep with has never been appealing. Sure, going to a bar and flirting is fun, but as the night goes on, there's always the question of removing the gloves. It’s always felt wrong, lying and making up excuses about why you have to keep them on. The reality is, it would take one moment for you to end someone’s life with your hands on them, and it would be unfair for them not to know.
However, the biggest issue currently isn’t that. Bucky being attractive is an objective truth. It was somehow easier to write off the moments where your eyes would catch on Bucky’s hands, wondering how they’d feel on your thighs, or his lips behind your ear. Because if you just turned away, you could think of something else entirely. But the ache in your chest, of wanting the simple act of his hand in your own again, or your mind constantly trying to find ways to make him smile, is much harder to shake. It’s as if your mind is conjuring a shadow in every waking moment, morphing images of what it might be like to have him there. But he’s not, and he never will be, and that harsh reality is devastating, as if you’re mourning a life you’ll never be allowed.
So, you’ll continue your distance, wallowing in the grief silently. At least you were… until you had a spy determined to bring it all up to the ugly surface.
“I don’t want to sleep with a stranger, alright.” There’s no fight left in you, only the hope she’ll just drop it.
Yelena stands for a moment, her earlier energy dipping. You’re surprised by the way her breath hitches in her lungs. “Oh no,” she says softly, as though the realization of how deep you are is dawning on her. “I was wrong.”
You can't even hide the horror on your face as she stands, suddenly much more serious. The only words echoing in your mind are just drop it. “Oh, this is much harder to fix.”
You can’t hide the tears that threaten to spill. Instead, you turn away, finding something to keep you busy, but nothing is enough to stop the feeling of your chest constricting. “There’s no fixing this. The reality is, I’m running around the tower, hiding, and he probably hasn’t even noticed.” You can’t help but let out a sharp laugh. “It’s like Walker said, I can’t fight, I’m a terrible shot, I’m a liability in any instance against more than four people.”
She tries to cut in, but you don’t let her. “People are scared of me. I feel it. I feel it in you, I feel it in the rest of the team, and I’ve felt it every time I’ve ever tried to get close to someone.” You can’t keep the bitterness out of your voice. “I can’t kiss someone without feeling it. Can’t hold them. You know, I haven’t accidentally killed or hurt someone since I was seven, and still, I have to wear these stupid gloves because otherwise, people are too afraid to be within arm's length of me. I’m not allowed to love someone, because they will never, ever, truly want to love me.”
Your voice is raised, the weight of everything finally breaking through, and you can hear the tremor in your words.
“I didn’t—” Before Yelena can say whatever comfort she was planning, you're both startled by Ava.
“Oh my god, don’t do that!” Yelena shouts, as Ava clicks her mask open.
“I told you to stop phasing into my room.” You turn after blinking away any tears, using the distraction to compose yourself.
“The door was unlocked. Anyway, we’re meeting on the roof in ten. Apparently, the people we think stole all of the weapons material got a heads-up that we’re looking into them. We need to get there before they’re gone.” Before either of you can ask any questions, she’s gone.
The journey up to the roof is tense. Yelena looks like she’s fighting to continue the conversation, but you spend the entire jet ride in silence, avoiding eye contact with both her and Bucky. It’s not just you who’s upset; everyone seems frustrated, and it’s easy to see why. You’ve received reports of stolen military-grade material and finally connected the dots to the organization responsible. If they complete whatever weapons they’re mass-producing, there’s no telling who they’ll sell to or what those buyers plan to do with them.
The team silently makes its way to a large warehouse that seems empty. According to your reports, however, it leads to an entire operation beneath the building.
“I’m not picking up any activity,” Yelena says.
“Me neither. Can you sense anything?” Bucky looks at you, his brow creased.
You move away from him, crouching down. This is bad. “No. Not even one person. They must’ve already packed up. They could be anywhere by now.”
“Well, we don’t know that for sure. Let’s see if anyone’s down there,” Walker says, leading the way down a tunnel. The rest of you follow behind. When you reach the opening, you see it. The ‘basement’ is essentially another warehouse, but in much better condition than the one above.
Bucky takes charge, pointing to the two levels of the basement. “Alright. There are two stories. Yelena, lead Walker and Ava on this level. Look for anyone we didn’t pick up, or anything we can use to locate them. If you find any material or blueprints, bring them back. We can use them to figure out what they’re planning to build. Meet back at the jet in an hour.”
They all nod, Ava speaking up. “What about you two?”
Bucky responds, “We’ll take the second floor. It’s smaller, likely used for storage, not building.” Before you can say more, everyone moves in different directions. Yelena waits for you, her concern evident, but you nod at her reassuringly, letting her know you’ll be fine.
“Come on,” Bucky says, all hard edges. He usually is in the middle of a mission, his mind focused entirely on the task at hand, constantly aware of anything that could go wrong. Hopefully, he’ll be too distracted to notice just how not fine you are.
You crouch together near the stairs and listen. It’s hard to focus on anything past the pounding of your own heart. “Clear.”
As usual, you stick close to Bucky’s back, following him as he leads the way, his gun drawn. Both of you scan the area, but soon, his hand drops, holstering the gun. Though seemingly more relaxed, you can feel the frustration in him. He was right about this floor being smaller. The ceiling is normal height, as opposed to the expansive space upstairs.
The floor is mostly open, with only a few scattered rooms. You both spend time flipping through scattered papers and checking drawers. It becomes clear that they had a head start, and there’s almost nothing left.
Across the room, you watch Bucky’s back as he searches. His muscles tighten under the leather, and his hair, once neatly pushed back, falls in loose waves. Turning quickly, you run a hand over your heated face. Just get this done. One hour, then you can go back to the peace of your room.
Your eyes catch on one of the open rooms near the back, and you decide to check it out. The doorway is lined in metal with a panel on the side. Inside, it’s small, clearly just for storage, though the shelves lining the walls are bare. There’s a small metal table in the middle. You tap your finger on it, taking a moment to just breathe.
“We might not even need the whole hour; they’ve already cleared out,” Bucky says, startling you. You hadn’t even realized he’d followed you inside.
“Maybe we should just go back upstairs to help. They might’ve forgotten something there.” Your heart constricts; the distance you were trying to keep has now dwindled significantly, and you’re eager to get out of the room before the ex-assassin can try to question you.
A beep sounds and as you try make your way out of the room, you're jolted back. Bucky pulls you back towards his chest, and right where you stood, a metal door slams shut with a force that absolutely would’ve hurt you. Staring, you try to calm your rapid breaths as the reality of it seeps in. You’ve both just been locked in, and there’s no handle.
“Are you okay?” Bucky asks. You realize with a jolt that you’re still against his chest, his hands holding your arms where he grabbed you, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles while you calm yourself.
All at once, you try to put as much distance as you can. Which, in the tiny room —no, not room, vault— is not much at all. His eyes scan you, his heart still as fast as your own, before he turns to the sealed door. Watching as he attempts to pry it open, you try to shake the way his chest felt against your back, and the need lingering for wanting him there again.
One month, and all of these feelings are so much worse off, it’s as if you never left that stupid infirmary. “There has to be a way out.”
“There is.” He turns, hand resting on his hip. “The panel out there can open it.”
Pressing the comm in your ear, you try to reach someone from the upper level, only to be met with deafening silence. You lean against the far wall, trying to look more casual than you feel, though the way your chest is rising in panic is evidence enough. Surely they’ll notice and come for you both, right?
How fast do people run out of air in a room this size? Is it a few hours or a few minutes? With how fast you’re breathing, it’ll probably be much sooner. The vault is only dimly lit by one hanging bulb, and it feels as if everything is collapsing into darkness. There’s pressure on your face, and you feel as though everything is constricting until you register the cool metal.
“You need to slow your breathing.” As your eyes adjust, blurry from tears you didn’t even know had appeared, you see Bucky standing in front of you. His hands softly cup your face. “You can feel mine, can’t you? Take it in, follow the way I’m breathing.”
You can feel it. His breath is strong and slow, though his heartbeat is faster than his usual pace. Still, you hold onto the feeling, the way it melds into your chest as if it belongs there. As the panic from being stuck subsides, a far worse panic seeps in as you realize just how close he is. Your face heats under his hands, and he licks his lips before pulling away. You could’ve sworn he was pulling you closer.
“It’s a weapons vault, only made to keep things in. The others will realize we’re missing; we just gotta hold tight for an hour.” He moves a few steps away, leaning against the table. “Maybe less if Yelena comes down to check on you.”
Your head snaps up at that. “Why would she do that?”
In the dim light, you can barely make out the way his eyes squint as he stares. “Dunno, but she spent the entire ride looking like she was waiting for you to collapse. Or the way she was glued to your side even after I gave her orders to lead the others upstairs.”
Licking your lips nervously, you turn from his interrogating gaze. “I wasn’t feeling well earlier; she probably was just worried.”
His head nods. “That why you weren’t going to dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Mmm.” His metal finger taps the table a few times as he chews over his words. Kicking off the table, he takes a step in your direction. “That why you’ve been missing almost every dinner the past month?”
Oh god. Every worst-case scenario you ran through in your head seems to hit you full force. Clearing your throat, you put on the most convincing face you can. “Yeah, I, uh, just have been really busy.”
Two more steps.
“That why you’ve been avoiding me all month?”
He noticed. Of course, he noticed. If Yelena did, then the man you’d been actively running from would, too. Your hand fidgets with your glove, suddenly very aware of the scar and the realization that came with it. “I wasn’t—”
Two more steps, and suddenly Bucky is back where he was just moments ago, and your chest seems to tighten again. “You were. You still are. I don’t know if you forgot, sweetheart, but I know when someone’s hiding from me.”
With nowhere else to look, your eyes land on the ground. Every explanation sounds worse than the last, and you fight against the urge to just blurt out the real reason. Rip the band-aid off so you can finally hear the words you’ve been running from: I don’t want you.
“You know I’ve had to deal with John following me around. Alexei, too. I’ve had to sit through him telling me about his glory days during the Cold War.” His head turns, biting the inside of his cheek before his eyes meet yours, the blue threatening to drown you. “I kept looking over, hoping you’d save me. Hell, I even considered setting off the alarm just to get you out of that room of yours.”
He missed you too. The truth of it causes guilt to creep in. Before you can get any word out, he continues, stepping just a bit further. “So I gotta know. What’s going on in that pretty head of yours that’s making you avoid me?”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were.” You feel his fingers as he softly pushes your hair behind your ear, before tilting your chin up, forcing you to face him. “And before you try to come up with some other lie, consider this: the reason you’ve been hiding from me is exactly the reason I’ve been wanting you not to.”
You can hear your heartbeat thrumming in your ears. Or maybe it’s his. His face is so close that you can’t just feel the breath inside him, but also feel it on your skin. No words form inside you, only every want that’s been building inside the past month. Before you can even comprehend what you’re doing, you're leaning in, catching his lips.
He wasn’t expecting that, made obvious by the way his heart stutters, but he’s quick to compose himself. The hand that was holding your chin now moves to the back of your head, deepening the kiss. You grasp for anything you can to hold yourself up, one arm around his neck like a lifeline, your back hitting the wall, and he’s moving with you. You feel his metal hand sliding onto your hip, and your mouth opens at the feeling of him holding you steady. With what feels like all of his effort, Bucky pulls away just enough to look at you. For a moment, the room is filled with nothing but your heavy breathing, and you think that if the room ran out of oxygen, at least you would die happy.
A smirk crawls onto his face. “As much as I enjoyed that, and will be doing it again, it doesn’t answer my question.”
You try to ignore the thrill his promise of again brings, instead trying your best to clear your head. In searching, your eyes land on your hand, which still rests along his neck. Hesitantly bringing it in front of you, you mumble, “I wanted to do that. The night in the infirmary and, if I’m being honest, a lot longer than before then.”
His hands catch your own, and your heart stutters. His eyes crease, breathing in slowly to calm himself. “Why didn’t you?”
That familiar feeling is back: shame. The burden you carry always throwing up a wall, right when you think things are going well. Pulling one hand from his, you place it on his chest, trying to ignore the way he swallows. “I felt it, when I went to take off my glove, Buck. And I don’t blame you, everyone feels like that with me. I’ve accepted it. But I…” The words die on your lips as you realize he’s smiling again, not teasing, but in disbelief.
“You know, I used to wear gloves. Never left my apartment without ‘em.” His metal arm appears in front of you, the black and gold shimmering faintly in the dim light. “I knew people were scared of it. Of me. It made me a weapon, and I thought that if I just covered it up, people would see me differently. But the thing is,” metal cools your cheek as he rests it against you, “it’ll always be part of me. And hiding it only made it harder to find people who didn’t just want me despite it, but because of it. Because of the man I am right now.”
He pauses, and for the first time, you catch something almost shy in his expression. “And that feeling you got from me in the infirmary wasn’t fear, it was me getting in my head about how badly I wanted to feel your hands on me.”
And the way he says it, there’s no room for argument. No interpretation needed or room for doubt. Only the fact that you’ve been aching to touch him, and he’s wanted the exact same thing. With a breath, you tear off the gloves, tossing them in the corner before they’re moving up his neck and into his hair. In that instant, his lips are back on yours, a soft groan escaping his lips at the feeling of you.
This kiss is harder, more desperate as he presses you against the wall, and you’re achingly aware of the way his body feels against you. Your hands can’t seem to still, wanting to feel as much of his as possible, and it seems his have the same idea. His flesh hand, warm against your cheek, as his mouth moves behind your ear. His lips are hot, and you can’t help the breath that escapes you. They’re not there long, moving down the expanse of your neck, until they make it to the spot just under your chin. Your body moves involuntarily against him, and you feel his lips curve into a smirk before nipping the skin. His other hand is back on your hip, testing the hem of your shirt. Desperate for more, you manage to breathe out a quiet, “please,” and you’re taken aback by the breathy sound that escapes him. His lips are back on yours, nipping your bottom lip, and as his hand reaches under your shirt, the cold metal against your ribs makes you gasp. He takes the opportunity to move his tongue, exploring your mouth.
It’s just a slight shift in his body, as his hand moves higher, but you become quickly aware of his leg between your legs, bent just barely. The movement makes you breathe his name. You can feel the weight on him against your hip, your own thigh grinding, adding not just pressure on yourself but to him as well. He breaks the kiss just long enough to see where you’re situated, a smile curving his lips just before returning. Cold metal jolts you as he gently moves your bra out of the way, your heart thrumming as he kneads, his thumb just barely catching your nipple. His flesh hand has moved back to your hip, seemingly desperate for you to move against him again. You feel his thigh, the muscles constricting under you, and you can’t help the tremble that overcomes you as he moves you again. You can feel how wet you are, desperate for more friction.
“Bucky,” your voice is a lot more pathetic than you thought it would be, and he’s quick to kiss your forehead, moving you again against him.
“I know, sweetheart, I know.” Your head falls back as his fingers pinch your nipple, his breath coming in heavy pants as he watches your face. “See what hiding was keeping you from?”
Of course, he’s going to tease you. You expect nothing less from James Barnes. But in your need, you can’t bring yourself to come up with a retort. Instead, you bring your hand to his cheek, hoping he will see the desperation. “Please, Bucky, I need more.”
Just like that, all of the composure he may have had disappears as he takes in a shaky breath. In one move, his hands move to your thighs, picking you up. Before you can let out a noise in surprise, his lips are back on you. Moving to the table, he gently sits you down, keeping the space between your bodies as minimal as possible. Your hands unzip his jacket, and he allows you to toss it off. Your hands dip under his shirt, exploring the new territory. You’ve seen him shirtless countless times, the image seared into your memory, but the feeling is unimaginable. His breath hitches as you move to his back, one hand reaching his shoulder before slowly coming back down, nails lightly scraping the muscles. Where he stands between your legs, rather than his thigh, this time his hardness presses against you, and you can’t help the way your legs hook around him, desperate for more.
With a groan, Bucky’s head lands heavily on your shoulder, his breath heavy. “You know they could be looking for us right now.” His voice is deep, barely able to come out. You can’t help but want to claw more of those beautiful sounds out of him. Taking the opportunity he’s giving you with his forehead against your shoulder, you rake your hand through his hair, exposing his neck before latching on. His hands tremble against your thighs, breath hot, a soft whimper escaping as you nip and suck the spot behind his ear. With your other hand, while he’s distracted, you find his wrist. He protests as you pull away, bringing his wrist into view, and reading the numbers on his watch.
“We have 30 minutes.” A smile takes over your face at his disbelief.
He pulls in, and you think he’s going to kiss you again, but instead, he stops short. “Ya know, I should probably stop here, since you made me go a whole month not getting to see that pretty face of yours.” His breath is hot as he moves his lips across your skin, slowly until he’s ghosting your neck. “Do you know how crazy you made me? All I could think about was how I should’ve kissed you. Hell, how I should’ve kissed you the first day we met.” Shock rolls through you at his confession. His hands move back under your shirt, shifting slightly until it’s tossed over your head, and he’s kissing your chest. “All I could think about was how your hand felt, and these thighs against me.” He’s moved you so you’re laying down on the table, before moving to your thighs, kissing the fabric. His face is back to yours, long hair tickling your face as he kisses you. Finally, you manage to pull his shirt over his head, and you can’t help the way you stare.
“You’re so beautiful, Bucky.” You’re breathless as your eyes crawl back up to his face, tempted to trace the nervous crease of his brow. His lips are back on yours in an instant, his teeth nipping your bottom lip, distracting you as he unbuttons your pants. You gasp into his mouth, and he desperately takes it, as his hand dips down until he’s cupping your core. With a light touch of just his middle finger, he dips between your folds, his hip bucking against your thigh as he lets out a moan, his head coming to rest on your chest while he struggles to regain his composure.
“You’re so wet,” he drawls, his ring finger joining his middle finger, gathering your slick, and moving up to tease your clit pulling a desperate sound out of you. “That’s it, you’re doing so good for me, sweetheart.”
Your back arches at the feeling, your hand gripping his hair. His lips attach to your nipple, sucking as you grind on his fingers. Through your haze, you admire the way his back moves, the muscles shifting with the way his fingers circle you, in a slow, steady rhythm. His eyes are shut, like he’s raging some kind of internal war, until it seemingly comes to a head. All at once, he’s above you again, kissing you hard until he removes his fingers. You want to mourn the loss, but instead, you watch as he places them in his mouth, letting out a groan. His mouth is on you as soon as his fingers are out, as if he can’t stand not having you on his tongue. His hands tease your hips until you’re lifting, so he can remove your pants, tossed somewhere in the tiny room with your gloves and shirt. You think he’s going to remove his own next, but instead, his mouth is trailing down, his hands rubbing circles on your thighs, begging you to open them. You let out a keening noise, needing more as his lips suck and nip at your thighs. Going everywhere but where you need them most.
He stops only long enough for his eyes to flit over your underwear, licking his lips before they turn into a teasing smile. Before you can question it, his thumb is pressing against the wet spot on your underwear. You whine, your back arching as he takes pleasure in teasing, softly touching the wet fabric until suddenly, his thumb dips beneath it, pushing the fabric to the side so his finger can dip into your folds. He moves it just a few times inside you, before he removes the fabric completely, and immediately pumps a finger inside again. His mouth is on you in an instant, his tongue licking a strip until his lips are on your clit, sucking gently. Your hands cling to his hair, and you lift your hips at the way his moan vibrates through you. As Bucky adds a second finger, curling until he’s hitting that soft spot inside you, the coil inside you seems to tighten. He knows, his eyes flitting over your body and to your face, watching the way his tongue twists its magic. He’s seen so many beautiful expressions on your face, but this has to be one of his new favorites. Your thighs clamp around his face, and he revels in the warmth, his beard scratching as you squirm. His lips suck on your clit, tongue flicking, and you swear you’ve never felt anything so wonderful. His name escapes you like a prayer as you ride out your orgasm, his tongue staying on you, fingers slowing until you have to pull him away. And that smile, the way it shines down on you, his eyes sparkling and lips wet and swollen, you swear you died and went to heaven.
Breathing heavily, you reach for him, wanting to taste yourself, and he happily does, his hair soft against you. In an instant, you’re recovered and reaching for his belt, but he hesitantly pulls away, biting your lip once more.
It’s like the words hurt to release, his voice quiet. “We have maybe five minutes before the others are bursting in here, and as beautiful as you are, I don’t really like sharing.”
He lets out a laugh at the way you jolt up. You were so lost in him you forgot where you were. His hands are on your shoulder, stilling you, his lips gently brushing your forehead. He gathers your clothes first, gentle hands helping you into each one. You’ve never had anyone do this, the care he takes as if you’ll wither under him, placing a kiss on your thigh, hip, chest, arms, all before they’re covered. Finally, he gets his own shirt and jacket settled, and you have the pleasure of zipping the leather as his soft eyes watch you.
“How long do you think it’ll take them to realize we’re gone?” It takes a moment for him to register his words, lost in watching you.
“Oh… right. Well, they should be here soon if they can stop arguing for more than a minute and realize it. But if they don’t, the timer said it’ll release after an hour-thirty” He has the decency to look sheepish as he confesses.
You jab a finger into his chest, feigning anger. “Bucky, did you lock us in here on purpose just to have sex with me?”
“No, of course not. I just wanted you to talk to me, but I wasn’t planning for you to kiss me like that.” His crooked smile melts you, and you can’t even pretend to stay mad. “In my defense, I thought I’d be able to pry the door open before that, especially once I realized I scared you.”
He grabs your chin, his gaze steady. “Besides, I haven’t slept with you yet. And if you want that, you’re gonna have to stop hiding out in your room and go on a couple of dates with me.” His eyes crinkle, his voice teasing. “I’m a gentleman, you know.”
“We’re a little past that, don’t you think?” You can’t help but glance at his lips, and, of course, he notices.
“Of course not. I’ve got a lot planned, and you’re gonna love it. Gotta make sure my girl gets the works.” Before you can process that last part, your attention is pulled away by the sound of yelling.
It takes a few minutes, but the others finally manage to open the vault, needing to work together to pry it open. Bucky silently apologizes for it. Honestly, you'd happily stay locked in that vault forever as long as he was there.
You all finally leave the vault and make it to the jet with minimal bickering, already planning your next move for the assignment. You watch Bucky as he talks to the others, catching the way he bites his cheek holding back a smile before heading into the jet. But then your eyes fall on Yelena, whose mouth is hanging open in the widest smile known to man. Looking down, you realize where she’s looking down at your bare hands, your gloves, long forgotten in the vault.
Bob's Slammin' Pool Party (Bob Reynolds / F!Reader)
Summary: Filled request in response to:
35 with bob and a soft dom reader 🙈 (“So… You touch yourself to the thought of me? I’d like to see that in action")
Turned this into a longer Bob fic! During a nasty heat wave, Bob throws a pool party for the team; it's going well until you show up in a racy swimsuit, and Bob's eagerness gets him in trouble.
Rating: 18+ MDNI
WC: 5.8k (complete)
CW: Porn with plot, bob's pov, fluff to smut, tower shenanigans, bob is sweet, reader is afab, reader is a soft dom, reader wears scanty swimwear, reader is a thunderbolt/new avenger, soft dom/sub with woman in charge, bob's canon praise kink, bob is subby, bob likes pet names (good boy), masturbation (m), exhibitionism, talking someone through it, light angst but happy ending.
Sick af dividers by @lobster-graphics
The pool party was Bob’s big idea, which made it spectacularly ironic but maybe not surprising when it blew up right in his face.
The heat wave roasting the city stretched to day five with no end in sight, and the stale air inside the common room was somehow hotter than the air outside. None of the fancy floor-to-ceiling windows actually opened, and the one pitiful door leading to the observation deck let in the breeze equivalent of a mummy’s fart.
Worse, a text from maintenance had come through that the air conditioning wouldn’t be fixed for another twelve hours. With the heat making everyone in the city absolutely insane and violence likely, the team was on call, barred from leaving the Watchtower to seek relief elsewhere.
It was, quite frankly, the fucking pits.
Morale was low, somehow lower than the time Alexei clogged two separate toilets on the main level, and the on-sight plumber had the flu.
Bob had been trying to read, lying on the shiny marble floor with the book held above his head and his legs propped on a sofa armrest, but the words on the page were blurring together, sweat dripping into his eyes. Bodies were scattered around the room like there was a gas leak. Yelena fanned herself on a yoga mat underneath the bar top; Alexei had tried to slap together a swamp cooler, but it really just helped one small corner of the penthouse. Ava picked herself up from where she had been lying flat on her back in the middle of the floor, carrying her empty glass back to the refrigerator. The ice machine churned, spitting out a few chewed-up ice-cubes before sputtering out.
“No,” she said, softly, like someone had just broken her heart. “No. More, damn you.”
She punched the refrigerator, but nothing else came out.
“Don’t say it,” John moaned from where he had positioned himself directly in front of Alexei’s fan.
“We’re out of ice.”
Ava’s declaration was met with a chilling silence. Not chilling in the way you all desperately needed, just fucking dreadful. Bob could swear he heard you choke out a sob somewhere beyond the couch.
And Bob felt like shit about it. He lowered the book to his stomach, lips pressed together with sudden determination. Currently, his workload wasn’t the same as everyone else’s. He wasn’t technically on call because he wasn’t an active member of the team, not really. Sure, he attended his mandated therapy sessions, got to his recovery meetings, and pitched in around the place, but nobody was sending him to apprehend a gunman on the loose or mediate a heat-induced dispute.
Bob climbed to his feet, surveying the carnage, eyes roaming over the still, scattered bodies of his comrades, deciding then and there to do something about it. Be the hero, the hero that could make an ice run, the hero that could make the rest of the day pass quicker, the hero who could at least grill a few hotdogs and pass out towels.
“Guys?” He slapped his book shut and tossed it on the couch. You had dragged yourself up onto it, lying sprawled across the sweat-slicked cushions. The book thumped you on the shoulder and you whimpered weakly. “Shit. Sorry.”
“S’okay,” you slurred, not even noticing the collision.
“What is it, Bob?” John called testily from his spot near the observation deck door.
“I’m gonna go out for supplies. I can…I can go out, right?” he asked. A few heads perked up, a silent consultation took place. Nobody said he couldn’t, so he pressed on. “Drinks and food and whatever. We can use the pool down on the thirtieth floor, I think there’s a grill out there. Might need propane, but—”
“Since when do we have a pool?” you asked, brows scrunched as you studied Bob upside down.
“Since always, genius.” John again. “I swim laps in it Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“Laps. Right.” You snorted and put your head back down, brows unwinding. “Because you’re allergic to fun.”
“Please,” Ava whined, leaning heavily against the bar, staring at her four pitiful ice-cubes like they had personally betrayed her. “Anything. Get as much ice as you can.”
“Hit the bodega on Madison and 40th,” Bucky said. He had been so quiet, stewing in his spot near the bar that Bob jumped as he heard the instructions. Bucky pulled something out of his pocket as Bob went on his way toward the elevator. It was a black card. He handed it to Bob like it was a sacred relic, pinning him with a low, dead look. “We’re counting on you, Bob.”
Bob took that encouragement with him like a medal pinned to his chest. When he returned, he took his little babushka grocery cart right to the thirtieth floor. The cart was heaped with four bags of ice, ice-cold beers, 2-liter bottles of your favorite soda, chips, popsicles, a few packs of franks, tofu dogs for Ava, and buns. The pool deck was warm even through his sandals, but at least there was a nice overhang for the grill and a few lounge chairs.
Mission accomplished, he texted the group, smiling to himself. Just need a cooler and condiments.
The team wandered down one by one. Alexei brought the cooler, carrying it over his head, a Hawaiian shirt flapping open over his bare chest as he roared with joy at the sight of beer and ice, slamming down the cooler and lifting Bob into the air.
“Such a smart boy you are,” Alexei thundered, laughing, dropping Bob and swinging around to grab a beer, popping the top off with his teeth before spitting it toward the garbage. Toward, not in.
John arrived with a tank of gas for the grill and a pair of tongs. Bob told himself it totally didn’t matter that John looked like an Olympian in his little navy-blue shorts, sunglasses perched on his head. It wasn’t a competition, and this was just meant to be a chill day. Ava had changed into the sleeker, water-proof version of her suit, toting along a canvas bag full of plastic cups and plates. Sunscreen in hand, Yelena and Bucky came together, Yelena in a crop top and bikini bottoms, Bucky sporting a pair of shorts that looked like he had owned them since the 40s.
“Pretty cool,” Yelena said, watching the impromptu hang fall together—John had gotten the grill to start, making excited man noises as the flames blasted out of it almost to his head. Alexei was on beer number three, feet dangling in the shallow end. She adjusted her sunglasses, then looked Bob up and down. “Where’s your swimsuit?”
“Forgot to change,” he said with a shrug, arms laden with fluffy hotdog buns that he was about to carry over to the grill and the small table beside it. “It’s okay, though. I’m good like this.”
“Bob. It’s your pool party. You have to swim at your own pool party,” Yelena said flatly.
Bucky cracked a smirk. “I tend to agree.”
“Okay. Well.” Bob licked his lips nervously, glancing at the door behind them. You hadn’t shown up yet. His heart did a weird, spongy thing at the thought of you ditching. “Kinda busy.”
“We’re one shy,” Bucky pointed out, sliding his phone out of his shorts. He kept his other hand open, flapping it until Bob shifted the buns around and got the black card out of his pocket, returning it before Bucky had to ask. “I’ll text her. She can grab something out of your room. Is it locked?”
“No,” Bob murmured. Shit. You. You going through his stuff. You digging in his clothing drawers. You touching his underwear. You finding out how many pairs had holes. “But I don’t…I don’t know. I can run up later.”
Bucky lifted a brow. “It’s no sweat, man. You put all of this together, humped your ass across town to get beer and ice. She can do you one favor.”
He was already typing.
“Just tell me where she should look,” Bucky was saying.
Yelena rubbed his arm, snorting. “Bob? You look sick, are you okay? Is it the heat?”
“Fine. I’m fine.” He stared at Bucky’s phone like it was a detonator rigged to a bomb in his chest. “It’s, um, there should be shorts in my top drawer. Black and yellow.”
“Great. Easy.” Bucky tapped a few times on his phone and shrugged.
Yeah. Great. Easy. Bob dropped a bag of buns, swearing. His palms were coated with sweat. His mind was a few floors up, in his bedroom, trying to calculate each step you would take from the door to the chest of drawers. He was trying to remember if he had picked up after his shower that morning, or if his dirty clothes were still all over the floor. Those old swim trunks hadn’t been touched in a long time. He didn’t know how close they were to the pair of gray tube socks he kept in there that had a bottle of lube hidden inside.
He could feel steam pouring out of his ears, heart pounding and hands trembling as he returned from bun delivery. John had given him an odd look, assessing, like maybe Bob needed CPR or an epi pen. There were still drinks to pack into the cooler, and it was weird hanging out at a pool in total silence, even if Ava and Yelena were already cutting up, explaining to Bucky what “Playing Mermaids” was. Bob fumbled his phone as he tried to connect to the hidden Bluetooth speakers, his palm coated in flop sweat.
The music almost made him forget you were digging through his underwear drawer. He told himself it was going to be okay, to calm down, why would you feel the need to pick up a pair of disgusting gray tube socks? You wouldn’t. You would just find that pair of swim trunks and nothing would be embarrassing. And for a second, his anxiety actually shut up; there weren’t many situations that couldn’t be improved with ice-cold drinks and the Beach Boys’ 1966 absolute masterpiece, Pet Sounds.
“God, this album bangs,” he muttered to himself, closing his eyes and enjoying the single, blissful breeze that had happened across the deck since he wheeled his grocery cart onto it.
And wouldn’t it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong…
The door squished shut behind him. Bob peeled one eye open, face squinched against the sun as you stepped out onto the deck. A cheer went up from the pool.
“Relish! You goddess!” Yelena screamed, laughing hysterically.
Bob wasn’t thinking about the relish, or the mustard, though both were cradled in your arms, snugged up against the soft cups of your bikini. His swim trunks were tossed casually over your shoulder. The music swelled, the sounds of the city vanished, even Yelena’s screaming faded, because everything cut out beneath the high-pitched sound vibrating through his head. He had never seen so much of you outside of his frequent fantasies. Your legs. Your hips. God help him, your boobs. So much skin. So much delicious skin, and all of it dusted in the golden sheen of a tanning oil. The light caught you, sending a cascade of diamonds shimmering across your collarbone. You hadn’t bothered with a cover up, just strutted right out onto the deck in a bikini that might get you picked up for indecent exposure at a regular beach.
“Are these right?” you asked, stopping right in front of him.
Everything about this is right. Nothing has ever been righter. The word right was invented for this moment, for that swimsuit on your bangin’ body—
“Mmhm.”
You smiled, maybe shy, maybe coy, either truth zinging straight to his dick, and shimmied closer. Fuck. He caught a whine before it left his throat. “Can you grab them? Got my hands full…”
Hands full. Hands full of me, stroking me, your sweet lip caught between your teeth as you squeeze harder, twist, talk me through it—
“Yeah, yup, let me get that.” Bob plucked the shorts off your shoulder with the precision of a surgeon, taking drastic care not to let his skin brush yours. It would end him. He would jizz in his jeans in front of the whole team while the Beach Boys crooned and the hot dogs sizzled. While you watched.
“Mind helping with these?” you asked, squirming again, this time indicating the multiple bottles of condiments like a bandolier across your perfect tits. Bob timed out, hearing the question but not really hearing it, you know? Just existing in the glorious multiversal reality where you were asking him to help with your oiled up boobs and not the mustards and the ketchups.
He offered a hasty smile, hands out, hands out and shaking slightly as he reached for the electric yellow bottle of mustard tucked under your elbow. That was when John Walker decided to stride by, having returned to the cooler for another beer. He clapped Bob on the shoulder hard enough to send him tumbling against you, or rather, clumsify the already risky proposition of trying to wrestle a mustard away from your sweaty elbow and your tit.
“Great idea, Bobby,” John said casually, like he hadn’t just ended Bob’s life, shredded what little remained of his dignity.
Bob’s hand collided with the bottle, depressing it fast enough to make the cap burst open and a bright streamer of ejaculate squirt over your chest. A little landed on your chin. You jerked backward, gasping, then laughing.
How many times? How many times had he thought about doing the exact same thing except with his--
“John, you fucking oaf,” you muttered, gazing down at the mustard painted across your cleavage. At least you blamed it on the right idiot.
Bob put up his hands in surrender. “Shit. I didn’t—I’ll get a napkin.”
John lowered his sunglasses, taking in the view with a snort and a shrug. “Whoops.”
The napkins were hunkered down under an empty beer bottle by the plates and cups, which were all the way across the deck. When Bob returned to the little alcove by the door with the cooler and lounge chairs, you and John were bickering, John with his hands in the air and you still clutching the condiments to your chest. As soon as Bob was in range, John tried to rip the napkins out of his grasp.
No shot.
Bob dodged away, frowning. “I got it, man. Go cool down somewhere.”
“It’s a little mustard,” John muttered, storming away. “Not the end of the world.”
“Asshole,” you whispered, shooting daggers at the back of his head.
“Want me to try and get some in his eye?” Bob asked, smiling crookedly.
You shook your head, puffing out a pissed sigh, but the crease between your brows disappeared when Bob showed you the napkins. You tilted your chin up, giving him a better vantage. Giving him a clear, unobstructed eyeful of your beautiful boobs. Bob swallowed noisily, that buzzing whine between his ears again as he carefully wiped the mustard off of your chest, folding one clean corner to get the glob on your chin. He tried to be thorough, thorough but not creepy, which was nearly impossible when the heel of his hand accidentally grazed your left breast, making it jiggle.
No, no, no. Holy shit. He clamped his mouth shut, creating a tight line between his locked jaw and his groin, willing his dick not to get any harder than it already was. If you glanced down, you’d see the bulge thickening in his jeans.
“There,” he said, sweating, balling up the napkins. “Good as new.”
He took the bottles out of your arms one by one, dropping them down on the cooler. Bob scooped up the swim trunks that had slipped out of his grasp after he covered you in mustard, then ducked his head and pointed toward the door. “I should… I’ll be right back.”
You made an absent sound of interest as he brushed by, then swiveled back toward the pool, missing his awkward walk as he hobbled toward the interior, trying to keep his erection from scraping painfully against his zipper. He collapsed inside the hot, humid hallway, shoving himself back against the door, gulping down a frantic breath.
He wiped one shaking hand down his face, trying to remember where the bathroom was on this level.
“Get a grip, man,” he moaned, tearing himself away from the door. It wasn’t a crime to wear a little swimsuit! You were well within your rights to destroy his already tattered resolve with a thong bikini. Nobody was going to jail, but he was going to hell, because he had just lied to your face.
He would not be right back; he would need some precious time.
There was a co-ed bathroom a few doors down. Bob slipped inside with a grateful sigh, banging the door shut, hurling himself onto the closed toilet seat and ripping open his fly. A desperate whine escaped him as he fished out his dick, throbbing and red. He fisted himself from the base, corkscrewing upward, squeezing out a damning amount of precum. But it felt so good, and if he closed his eyes and lightened his touch, he could imagine it was your hand closed around him, pumping and teasing, thumb circling the sensitive crown of his head as you worked him, sweet voice winding through his ears as you told him to let go, that he was doing so well for you, that he was so big and hard and such a good boy—
“Fuck,” he arched, bucking into his grip, head falling back as he panted up toward the ceiling. He could just imagine you in front of him, on your knees, those beautiful tits heaving out of your top, slick and soft with sun screen, a pristine canvas for the cum he was about to jerk all over your luscious, divine—
“Jesus, Jesus, no, yes,” Bob bit down, then grabbed himself more firmly, losing himself to the fantasy. Your name spilled out of him along with his cum, quiet and then noisy, a plea for mercy that he shouted into his other fist.
His legs vibrated for a second as the heat burst out of him, oozing over his knuckles. Finishing was different after the serum. He was euphoric and dazed, but if he didn’t hurry up and clean himself off, get dressed, he’d get hard again and have to start over.
He mumbled to himself about professionalism and standards as he washed himself off and threw on his swim trunks. When he opened the door to join the pool party, you were standing right there, lips parted, eyes wide, and from the heat roaring in your cheeks, it couldn’t be more obvious that you knew.
“Hi,” Bob murmured, freezing in place. Maybe if he just stood still enough, you would forget he existed.
“Hey.” You slid past him, into the bathroom, your voice smaller than it had ever been.
Bob didn’t remember much of the party. You didn’t say anything, but you didn’t have to. Something was just different. Your glance lingered on him, your lips like a question mark as you decided something. How fast to go to HR, probably. Bob was lightly sunburned and deep in his feelings by the time everyone trooped back up to the common room. The air conditioning was back on, so everyone scattered, tired after a long day in the sun.
He slunk to his room like a naughty boy waiting for daddy to get home. Waiting for his punishment. Waiting for the hammer to fall.
“Stupid,” he whispered to himself, just inside his room, balling up his fist and smacking it against his forehead. “Stupid, stupid.”
“Bob?”
Oh no. His heart somersaulted to his toes. Already braced for the fall out, face screwed up into a tight pinch, he turned in place to face you. Still in your miniature bikini, you watched him from the open doorway, arms crossed, head tilted.
“Can we talk?” you asked, speaking the dreaded words.
“Sure, yeah.” He couldn’t deny you anything, least of all a deserved chance to chew him out for being such a weird perv. Jerking off in an unlocked bathroom after touching your colleague’s boobs, real fucking smooth. He was surprised to hear the door close and the lock click.
Bob stopped just shy of his bed, having backed up to that point, wondering when the hurt would begin. And it always did begin. He knew that. He knew this was the end of your friendship, and his heart already burned with the shame of knowing it was his fault.
“Why is your face like that?” you asked, brow furrowing.
“I just…” Bob drew in a stuttering breath. “I fucked up. I shouldn’t have…” He sighed, trailing off. “Can we just get this over with?”
“Get what over with?”
“The yelling or whatever. I’m a piece of shit. That stuff.”
Your expression softened, hands jerking down by your sides as you took a quick step toward him. “What? No. Bob…”
“I know you heard me. I’m not going to defend myself, it’s a waste of breath,” he continued, pushing both hands raggedly through his hair. “And I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s…I’m sure it’s violating. I’m sure you hate me now so, let’s just skip to that part.”
You closed the gap between you, doing the last thing he expected, gently cupping his face and gazing up into it like he was still worth gazing at. “I don’t hate you.”
Bob stilled. “You don’t?”
“I’m not violated,” you said, your voice pitching to an octave he felt in his blood. “Not yet anyway.”
His brows shot up.
“You’d have to try a lot harder than that,” you went on, tongue poking out sweetly between your lips. Fuck, he wanted to bite it. “Was it the mustard?”
Bob sat with the question to make sure he heard it right, and the rest of what you said. The light on his night stand fizzled, shorting out. “Among other things.”
“Such as?”
“You’re not…you’re not going to strangle me?” he choked out, skin electric, brain wired.
“Not unless you ask.”
“Oh. Oh, wow.” He shook his head, trying to bring central computing back online. With considerable difficulty. You were just so fucking cool. So hot. So not the kind of girl that ever bothered with him before. And he knew it wasn’t just because of the Sentry stuff, because he couldn’t control all of that yet, and so most of the time you just got…him. Bob. “Okay. Uh, hm.” He tried again. “Not how I thought this night was going to go.”
“Clearly.”
“And to answer your question,” he said, rushing out a nervous but giddy sigh, bubbles popping in his chest as he realized holy shit this is really happening. Get your game face on, bud. Bob leaned into your touch, then slipped his hands around your waist, urging you closer. “It was the all of it. That bikini is…” He glanced down toward your breasts, stomach clenching. “You’re beautiful. Every part of you, and it got to me, and I…I...”
“You touched yourself to the thought of me?” you asked, rubbing your thumb across his lower lip. Bob shuddered and nodded, robbed of words. “I want to see it.”
The power dipped, the air conditioning resetting, chugging louder as it struggled to come back on. He studied your face, still only half-believing this wasn’t a prank. “See…it?”
“Mmhm.” Your eyes darted down to his lips, lower, to his chest, lower, then back up. “Would you like to show me?”
“Yes.” He blurted it out before his common sense could kick in and cock block. Anyway, it was true. “How? Where?”
You seemed to take something in, file a new fact away. Your brows raised as you nodded toward the bed. “There’s fine.”
Bob stumbled back toward the bed, sitting down hard enough to make the bedframe creak and his balls ache. He felt a little drunk, a little high, but that was just the sun and the adrenaline, and your hot fucking bod positioned right in front of him. There was a look in your eyes that made his cheeks flame like his skull was too big for his skin. Pressure. Pressure everywhere, and that darkness in your gaze that promised things he’d only allowed himself to brush up against in fantasies.
“Where do you usually do it?” you asked, casual but firm.
“In the shower,” Bob answered, sitting up straighter. Just on instinct. His hands knitted together loosely in his lap as he stared up at you. “In bed.”
You nodded, taking your time, processing again. Bob’s teeth clacked together, eyeballs ticking back and forth. Every second felt like another opportunity for you to change your mind. Anything but that, please. “What do you think about?”
“Your eyes,” he said. It was maybe not sexy, but it was honest. Your lips parted at his answer. “Yeah. I’m pathetic, I know.”
“You’re not pathetic.” You shifted closer, smelling like toasted skin and coconuts and that faintly chemical tang from sunscreen. It made his head spin. Your forefinger touched his chin, lifting his face, stretching his neck. “Good boys tell the truth, don’t they?”
Bob whined without opening his mouth. How…How did you know…
“Mmhm.” He nodded, eyes locked on yours. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“What else do you think about when you touch yourself?”
His dick was going to explode out of his swim trunks. He shifted his hips, trying to relieve some of the roiling tension in his gut. His hands flexed together. “Your hands on me, rubbing me. Sometimes…just that. For a long time. You bring me close and then stop. You let me cum on your chest. You…You call me things.”
You smiled gently, holding his chin more firmly. Your other hand scratched down his neck to his shoulder, trailing faint red lines from your nails as you traced the musculature there. “What things?”
The flush in his cheeks started to hurt. It was going to undo him, saying this stuff in front of you, exposing himself with his dick still chastely in his shorts. “Good boy,” he murmured, closing his eyes from the embarrassment, from the thrill. “Yours. Your toy. Your…” he swallowed thickly, lips bone dry as he forced himself to say it. “Your favorite toy.”
“Oh, Bob,” you said, with so much adoration his heart fluttered. “You can be all of those things for me.”
“How?” he whispered, swaying slightly like he was about to pass out. “Tell me how.”
“Lie back on the pillows like you’re alone,” you instructed calmly, letting go of his chin. Instantly, he missed the skin-to-skin contact. “Show me how you touch yourself.”
Bob nodded, a little pitiful and frantic but too excited to care. He crawled up the bed, flopping onto his back with a sigh of relief. His eyes traveled past you to the chest of drawers by the door. “There’s lube in a pair of socks in that top drawer. Could you…”
You turned and did as he asked without comment, and that view of your ass was more than he needed to get the buttons open on his fly. Even without touching his cock it sprang free, heavy and curving toward his belly. You fished out the bottle of lube and tossed it to him, then joined him on the bed, perching yourself on the edge by his nightstand. The way you looked at his hard dick made it twitch involuntarily.
“Sometimes I go for a long time,” Bob admitted, in a new place, a place in his mind where he just wanted you to know everything, see everything. He thumbed open the bottle and shook out a generous amount into his palm. “And it can start to hurt, you know?”
You nodded sympathetically, leaning over to push his hair back off his forehead, the movement drawing the cups of your bikini out of whack, so much so he glimpsed the edge of one nipple. Bob ran the lube down his shaft, head tipping back against the headboard, eyes half-lidded as he concentrated on that little sliver of your areola.
“Sometimes you touch yourself so much it hurts?” you asked.
Bob grunted, coating his dick in the slippery lube, twisting his fist up and down in the way he liked. “I do it like this,” he said, abs rippling as he lifted his hips slightly. “Is that okay?”
Your expression softened again, and you gently tucked a piece of hair behind his ear. “Baby, it’s perfect however you want to do it.”
“Fuck,” he whispered. He wasn’t going to last long, not with his dick this close and slippery, your hot eyes on him, eating him up, lips opening hungrily at the vision of him humping into his own hand.
“Do you like showing me?”
“Yes.” His voice was almost nothing, tangled in his tightening throat. “Fuck yes.”
“You look so hot like this,” you said, stroking your thumb across his cheek. Your fingers skipped down his chin to his chest, nails circling his nipple. He seized, arching off the bed, scrunching his eyes shut, fist gliding faster up and down his shaft, gripping harder at the head, spiraling back down… “Has anyone ever watched you before?”
“N-No.”
“This is just for me?”
Bob nodded until his head bashed against the headboard and he winced. “S-So close. I’m gonna…gonna…”
“You can be a good boy and wait, can’t you? Just a little longer? For me…”
You crawled onto the bed, climbing over his left leg to kneel between his thighs. His vision blurred, his other senses sharpening as you came closer. He could smell your soap, your shampoo, light and tempting under the smell of the sunscreen. Bob slowed his pace, then stopped altogether, listing forward, his fingers squeezing so hard around the base of his dick to stave off his orgasm that his knees folded upward. He couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t control anything except the clench of his stomach as he clamped down on the hot coil cinching around his core.
Your hand stroked his foot, then his leg. “Look at you, obedient and all mine.”
Bob let the words sink into him like cold rain. He moaned as you leaned forward, holding his face with both hands and kissing him on the lips. The heat that had gathered in his abdomen burned upward, spreading across his chest, ratcheting his pulse. He could do anything—anything—if you kept saying things like that. Your tongue slipped in alongside his, fencing, rolling, fucking his mouth like it was yours to take, because it was and he wanted you to have it.
He didn't know why he craved this kind of attention, just that he did. The praise. The encouragement. It filled something he didn't know was sitting empty. Feeling seen, feeling accepted, feeling naked and free and loved, taken care of...
Slowly, you knelt back down, the warmth of your thighs just under his. He could feel your proximity. He wondered if you could smell the heady musk lifting from his body; the lube had mingled with his precum, churned into a thick shine that coated him from base to tip. It still didn’t feel real that you were seeing him like this, that you liked it.
“This is the best looking dick I’ve ever seen,” you said, running your forefinger up the underside, tracing the thick vein there.
Bob’s hips spasmed toward you. He blushed. “Really?”
You nodded, smiling like a minx. “I think I found my new favorite toy. Keep going, show me how you finish.”
Bob hurried to do just that, eager, with a nervous flutter in his belly. He had never beat off in front of someone, and you were watching so intently, wrapped up in every small movement of his hands as he cupped the base and his balls with one hand, his dominant hand going back to work.
“Do you need more?” you asked, sweet, showing him the bottle of lube he had tossed aside carelessly by the pillow.
“Y-Yes, please.”
His eyes widened and his mouth spilled open as you did it yourself, silvery slick liquid spurting into your left palm before you shared it between both hands, coating your fingers. The added pressure of your smaller fingers skimming up and down the overheated shaft turned his brain inside out. It couldn’t get better, he thought, no way, then you started talking, and it was over.
“I think my good boy deserves to cum, don’t you?”
Bob’s hips slammed into his fist, rising up off the mattress. “Please, please, I want it so bad—”
Your hands glided up his dick to the head, concentrating there, both of your palms soft and smooth and so, so slick—
You sank down, so close to his groin he could feel your warm breath on him, on his cock, on his knuckles, on his lower stomach, and he kept his senses just sharp enough to open his eyes a fraction, locking gazes with you, your beautiful eyes burning into him as he let your name tear out of him again, over and over again, to the rhythm of his thrusts and his pleasure erupting. You held him as his fist jerked up and down, painting his release across the heaving tops of your breasts, your throat, your chin…
“Jesus, Bob, it’s like lava,” you murmured, teasing, glancing down at the mess he had made. Your pupils were blown and hungry as you looked back up at him.
“It’s been like that since the serum,” he mumbled, groaning, handling himself gently as the buzzy little afterburns rippled through him. His hands were numb as they fell uselessly to the bed, knees lowering as he made another soft, curious sound of want and you crawled up his body to cuddle against his chest. He could smell himself all over you; fuck, it was hot. You had marked each other, your mark was just visible.
Bob kissed you, lips tentative, like this still wasn’t a sure thing even after he’d cum all over your boobs. But you didn’t flinch away, you loosened in his grasp, kissing him back enthusiastically.
“I didn’t burn you, did I?” he asked, wiping a splotch of his spend off your chin.
“No, just…hotter than I expected,” you said, nosing into his cheek. “I can’t wait to see what that feels like inside me.”
Bob closed his eyes, wondering if you could feel him getting hard again against your thigh. “Well, it’s yours, you know?” he chuckled, eyes zipping down to his thickening dick and back up to you, to your beautiful face. “So. Anytime.”
His hand closed over your shoulder, pressing you tighter into his embrace, holding you close.
“Thank you,” you murmured into his lips, dropping off another kiss.
“For what?” He smiled, a little dazed, a little dumbfounded.
Your hand trailed down his chest, between his pecs, lower. “For my new favorite toy.”
✦Bucky Masterlist - Main Masterlist - Read on aO3!✦
✦summary: you fell for bucky a long, long while ago. and you think about him, every day and every night. if only you knew that he thought about you too.✦
✦warnings/tags: bucky barnes x female!reader, friends to lovers, light emotional angst, everyone's bad at feelings, fluff, smut, plot and porn mix (dirty talk, use of sex toys , fingering, pussy eating like crazy, fantasization, praise kink, manhandling, perfectly "appropriate" use of bucky's metal arm, nipple play, dumbification, semi-public sex, dry humping, sensitive reader, finger sucking, masturbation, bucky gets nasty, body worship, overstimulation, mean!bucky, oral m!recieving, praise kink, monster dick bucky, he fucks like a machine), no use of y/n, no descrption of reader✦
✦wc: 7.5k✦
✦Author's Note: request! who wouldn't fantasize about bucky barnes?✦
You think you might be a freak.
Compared to everyone else in the building, you’re perfectly normal. On the outside. Where everyone can see. You don’t have any powers, and you’ve never been shot up with serums or infinity stones. You’re a human, with a sharp tongue and shaper brain, pretty features and a charming smile, and absolutely no desire to be anything else.
Tony even asked you once. If you’d consider it. The whole hero thing. You’d laughed and shaken your head. You told him that you’re not that kind of brave. That you prefer to stay behind the scenes, helping with the tech and med services. Tony had laughed with you, and remarked causally that you’d be good at it.
You’d smiled and waved him off. But he was wrong. Because you can’t be normal about anything.
You’re not casual. You’re obsessive, and quietly insane. You don’t become the top of your field like this while being anything else. It’s easy to contain yourself in this kind of work, in it’s order and chaos all at once. There are rules that you to follow, then break, and everyone praises you and you glow like a diamond catching sunlight.
Not absorbing it. Because it passes right through, and it’s never enough, and you get addicted to it. The praise, from these living gods. They all love you, and you bask in it, and then you look at him.
Bucky.
The only one who doesn’t praise you. Who doesn’t treat you like a good dog, bringing them treats and newspapers. When you met him, he barely treated you like anything at all. Tony had introduced you, he’d looked you up and down, shaken your hand, and walked away.
But you.
You’d been a fucking goner.
Bucky’s handsome in the way you used to only see in movies. Your exact type, from the hair to the eyes to the way he carries himself. Silent and in control, kind but not overly nice, polite without expectation. You’d made it two years without developing a crush on anyone. Somehow, surrounded by some of the world’s most handsome men, you’d maintained that tiny sliver of your sanity.
Then there was Bucky. And you lost yourself.
You’re not weird around him. You’re not a stalker, and you’re not that kind of insane. You’re perverted in the privacy of your head, drooling over his massive hands and muscles, but swallowing it before it leaks out of your lips. You don’t react when Tony says his name, save for a traitorous pulse in your cunt.
“You ready to look at his arm?” Tony asks, and you hum.
“Think so. Just maintenance?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tony sighs. “I’d work on Terminator myself, but Cap says I spend the whole time looking like I want to throat chop him. So,” he shrugs. “Don’t look like you wanna throat chop him.”
You laugh softly, and grab the tools off the bench. It’s not a big deal. You’re the only person besides Tony, in the whole building, who’s qualified to work on Bucky’s arm.
But that means you get to be close to him. Just the thought of it makes your skin hot, your heart buzzing more than thumping, your fingers fidgeting with the straps of your toolkit as you restlessly wait.
Bucky says your name, and your head shoots up. He’s there. He’s right there, and watching you with those careful, beautiful eyes.
“Hi,” you say, and it sounds so pathetically breathless.
Bucky tilts his head. His hair looks soft. You want to run your fingers through it, to pull on it, to feel it tickling over your face as he ruts into your drooling pussy-
He’s staring at you. He must’ve said something that you didn’t hear. Fuck.
“What?”
His lips twitch. Just the smallest movement up, almost impossible to catch. Your heart skips, and you almost miss his words again.
“You the one workin’ on me today?” His voice is low. It rolls through the air like thunder.
You wonder, if there’s any part of him that isn’t addictive.
You’re here for a job. You’re here to give him medical treatment. You plaster a sweet smile on your face, and gesture to the chair. You can be normal about this.
“Tony has bad bedside manner,” you say smoothly, and Bucky chuckles.
God, that’s worse than the smile. It echoes through your chest, and you almost choke on it. How fucking bad you want him.
“He does call me Schwarzeneggerevery time I’m here,” he mutters, crossing the room. “Don’t even know what that means.”
You hum, pretending to look at your tools. He’s sitting down next to you. Your knees are bumping. You’re normal. “Arnold Schwartzinagor. Actor who played the Terminator.”
“Ah.” Bucky pauses. “Sam calls me that, too. It a good movie?”
“It’s fine.” You shrug. “If you like stuff from the 80s.”
“I don’t know things from the 80s.”
You laugh softly, and look up with an apology on your tongue. You find Bucky staring at you, and your breath catches in your throat.
His eyes are so intense, you think they can see right through you. To the lust, pounding in your bloodstream. You have to open your mouth to breathe. Bucky’s eyes flick down. Just tracking a movement. Nothing about you.
You kick yourself internally, and push the casual smile back into place.
“I think you’d like some of it.” You reach for his arm, and Bucky turns it palm up, still staring at you. “I mean, any decade will have it’s ups and downs.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” You run your fingers over the plates of metal, and for a second, forget all about the Bucky attached to them. It’s a beautiful artwork of technology. Overlapping, gold-inlaid, smooth under your fingers. You turn the wrist slowly, and there’s only a faint whir. No clicks. Shuri must be using a muffler, or some kind of fluid that moves the wires instead of gears-
“You want me to go?”
Your head shoots up, a panicked flush spreading over your cheeks. “No- No- I- I’m just-“
Bucky raises his brows, light amusement dancing in his eyes. Your words falter. He’s fucking with you.
“Shut up,” you roll your eyes, and Bucky chuckles again.
God, that sound. It’s going to be the death of you.
“It’s just- It’s amazing technology.” You mumble defensively, and Bucky shrugs.
“I can tell, from the way you’re eye fuckin’ it.”
“Eye fucking.” You shake your head, biting back your smile. “How do you even know what that means?”
“Too much time with Sam.”
“Hm,” you grab your screwdriver, running your hands up the mock muscle—he should be thanking Shuri even more, she didn’t have to give him biceps—looking for a panel. “Tony told me you weren’t going to talk.”
“Tony’s got that bad bedside manner,” Bucky shrugs with his good arm. “You gonna be nicer to me, doll?”
You just hum, ducking your head to hide your flush. Doll. He called you doll.
And Bucky huffs an amused laugh, at your non-answer. But he keeps talking to you. He tells you what Sam’s already gotten him to watch, and what Steve’s trying to get him to watch next, and what Steve’s saving so they can look at it together.
“Is Star Wars any good?” He asks, and you snort.
“Do you like cowboys?”
“I’m neutral.”
“Do you like space?”
“Yeah,” he pauses, then mutters, “I wanted to go to the moon. When I was a kid.”
You look up, and find a faraway look, etched over his handsome features. Your smile softens, and you lower your voice to a whisper, because this feels like a secret. “Yeah?”
Bucky nods, his eyes finding yours again. “I heard we got up there eventually.”
“We did. A few times.” It’s hard to hold his gaze. An unbearable ache is staring to pool between your thighs. “But now there are aliens on earth, so the final frontier is less… Coveted.”
Bucky’s lips twitch. It seems to be the closest he really gets to smiling. You want to see it over, and over, and over again.
“I think you’d like Star Wars.” You’re still whispering. You don’t know why.
“Alright,” Bucky says. And that’s it. He just… Trusts your words.
He asks for you again, next week. Tony claps you on the shoulder and thanks you, because Christ, he stares at me and I feel like I’m under surveillance. You roll your eyes and don’t respond. It doesn’t feel like that when Bucky stares at you, but he also does stare at everyone. So you’re not special. You’re just another person in his line of sight.
“I tried those donuts you were talkin’ about,” he tells you one afternoon, and you hum.
It’s the new routine. Bucky comes for you to work on his arm. You’re normal about it. You talk like people, and his lips twitch, and you feel something press on top of your chest, trying to gnaw your heart right open.
“Liked them,” he adds, staring at you. As always.
You hum, looking at him under your lashes. “Did you have the cookies and cream?”
He nods. “Just like you told me to.”
You smile despite yourself. It’s those small confirmations that he thinks about you, which get you the most. It means you mean something to him. It drives you insane.
“Sam says there are all kinds of ice cream flavors now, too.”
“Sam’s right.”
Bucky sighs. “Hate it when that happens.”
You laugh, a bubbly, pathetic sound that only Bucky pulls out of you. His fingers twitch under your hand, and you glance up.
It would be wise, if you stopped doing that. Every time you find him staring at you, you feel fucking insane.
“You should try cotton candy ice cream,” you murmur. “It’s fucking crazy.”
“That is my favorite kind of thing.”
“I know.”
Bucky’s lips twitch, and your heart almost bursts. “You got a good place? For ice cream?”
You shrug. “The grocery store?”
Bucky grunts, and his fingers twitch again. You focus back on his hand, because you don’t understand why they keep doing that. The rest of the session passes, and Bucky smiles at you before he goes, and you hold onto it like he just handed you a pearl-strung noose. Clutched between your teeth and priceless, but making your breathing short.
The rest of the day always passes in a daze, after you see Bucky. The seconds rush past you in an avalanche, and then you’re in your room, and you let it take over.
How much you want him. How much you need him.
You lay, flat on your back in bed, and let your thoughts run wild. Bucky’s massive hands, one cool and one burning hand, would wander up your thighs. He’d shove your knees open, and kiss over the sensitive, hidden patches of skin. The stubble he’s been growing would scrape and tickle, as he kissed over your weeping pussy.
“All for me?” He’d murmur, and you’d nod helplessly. “You just walk around, pussy leakin’ because of how bad you need it?”
And you’d whimper. You do. There’s nothing you can do to help it, but save that desire for locked doors and hot, tangled sheets. Your fingers—smaller than Bucky’s, but all you have—rub over the swollen lips of your pussy, spreading your arousal as you picture that it’s Bucky instead. You push one finger in slowly, then a second one because you need them to stretch you like Bucky’s would.
“Messy girl,” he’d coo in your ear, and your back arches. You start to fuck yourself, slow and tentative as your thoughts run wild.
This is what just one of his fingers would feel like. Pumping in and out of you, his palm grinding down on you clit until you’re trembling beneath him. You’d try to push up into his hand, but he’d shove you right back down and kiss over your throat. Licking and nipping and driving you out of your fucking mind.
“Buckyyyy...” You moan at the air, and when you squeeze your eyes shut you can almost feel him.
“There you go, babydoll,” he’d kiss under your ear, his body pressing over yours. Warm and massive, pinning you to the bed, forcing you to just take it. “That’s it. You like that, don’t you. Like fallin’ apart on my fingers.”
You whimper and grab at the sheets. Your wrist aches, and you can’t hit that gooey, wet spot inside you, but god you just need to cum.
“I know,” Bucky would hit deeper. Wet, lewd sounds would fill the room, as he pounded his fingers into you at an unforgiving pace. “I know, sweet girl. C’mon, show me how pretty you are when you cum.”
Your back arches off the bed. Your hand shoots over your mouth as you moan and cry out his name, your thighs shaking and pussy squeezing down on your fingers. You lay there for a while after you’re done, holding the sheets in a vague form of Bucky.
Tomorrow, you’re going to see him again. Maybe just over breakfast, or passing in the hall. But you’ll see him. And you’ll have to look him in the eyes, and pray that he can’t see it just under your features. That all he’d ever need to do it touch your head, and you’d fall to your knees.
You’re devoted to him. He thinks of you as a friend, and he’s not your boss, but he’s boss adject, and there’s nothing about him that’s accessible. There’s no world where this ever goes beyond fantasy.
But god, you’re going to fantasize. You can’t hurt anyone, by just fantasizing.
That’s what you’ll tell yourself over and over, to avoid the guilt.
It’s all just a fantasy.
You‘re perfectly professional about it. It’s not Bucky’s fault that he’s so handsome it feels like you shouldn’t be allowed to look at him. You can keep your desire bottled up, keep in the warmest, wettest pits of your stomach. It can seep out between your thighs when it becomes too much to bare. It can breed into itself and spread up into your heart, festering in the dark. But Bucky will never see it. You’ll be good, and you’ll act sane, and that will be it.
He’s been through too much already, to add your insatiable, ardors devotion to his list of problems.
You’ve developed an easy friendship. That’s all you’ll allow yourself to have, all you let yourself think about in his presence. When you’re working on his arm, you don’t think about those big, cold fingers being buried in your pussy until you’re alone in your room. All your daydreams are trapped in your sheets, and your moans absorbed and locked in your pillowcase.
You think about Bucky pinning you down with a warm, splayed hand on your abdomen. About his smirk, as he bullies three metal fingers into your pussy, forcing a perfect stretch before fucking you like a toy. His cold thumb swiping over your clit, sending shivers through your body. His eyes gleaming and attention burning, as he drags out orgasm after orgasm.
That hand would be like having a personal fuck machine, and he’d act like it until the very end. All taunting and teasing until you were spent and limp below him. Then he’d kiss the corner of your mouth, your cheek, the space between your eyes. He’d coo about what a good girl you were for him, and you’d whimper, your voice lost from screaming his name.
“What’re you thinking about?” Bucky says, sitting next to you at the kitchen counter.
You swallow, and shrug meekly. You never feel small around anyone but him, but you’ve never been this lost in anyone but him. It’s a miracle no one’s noticed, how Bucky shows up and suddenly you’re all flushed cheeks and girly giggles. You might as well be twirling your hair and kicking your feet. It’s pathetic. You can’t stop.
“Nothing?” Bucky pushes a little, and you give him a close-lipped, full smile.
“Nope.”
“You looked like you were thinkin’ about something.”
“I wasn’t.” You look back to the sandwich you’d been working on. Bucky keeps staring at you. He always does. “Nothing going on up here, Barnes.”
Bucky’s lips twitch.
The whole world seems brighter, like he’s just like some holy kind of candle.
“I don’t believe that,” he murmurs, and you shrug.
“You don’t have to.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Good for you.”
“It is, isn’t it,” he chuckles. “I’m gonna love being right.”
You blink, shooting his a sideways look. “Being… Right?”
“I know you’re thinkin’ about something.” He shrugs. “I’ll figure out what.”
Oh. Under no circumstances can he find out what you’re thinking about. “It’s not anything interesting,” you try lamely, and Bucky smirks.
“Ah. So it’s something.”
“I- That’s-“ You sputter. “Why do you even care-“
“I like knowin’ what you’re thinking,” he shrug. “It’s always interesting.”
You blink at him. For some reason, that makes your throat close up, your eyes burning with embarrassing tears. Your knees are wobbling, and you’re sitting down. You grunt and look back to your sandwich, and Bucky chuckles.
“C’mon. Tell me.” He leans closer. There’s a gravity, from his heat, and it makes you want to just collapse over his chest.
You look at him from the corner of your eye, and you won’t tell him. That’s against the rules. It defeats the purpose.
But god, he’s looking at you. Really looking at you. You can count each shade of blue in his eyes. If you move just an inch, your noses might bump.
“I’m hungry,” you whisper, and Bucky’s brow knits.
He looks down to your sandwich. Then back to you. Adorable confusion flashes over his face. “You should… Uh- Eat.”
You nod, and he clears his throat, leaning back. You wish you could grab the collar of his shirt, and drag him back.
“You ever seen this thing called the Princess Bride?” He asks, not touching any food himself.
Just sitting there. With you. You try not to think about it too much.
You nod, chewing on your sandwich with puffed out cheeks. “’S a really good movie-“
“Chew then swallow, doll.” Bucky’s lips twitch, and you flush and obey.
“It’s a good movie,” you mumble, giving him a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”
Bucky shrugs, his gaze dropping to your mouth. Your breath hitches. You go perfectly still, afraid that if you shift, he’ll look away.
His tongue darts over his lips. He tips his head, his forearm flexes as he curls his fingers, and your breathing gets shallow. Something electric has shifted in the air, and it’s making you dizzy. Bucky reaches up slowly, and if you weren’t rooting in place, you think you’d fall out of your chair.
His thumb wipes the spot right above your lips, and a shock rushes through your body. His nostrils flare, his eyes lock onto yours, and his touch lingers.
When he pulls back, the movement is slow. Controlled. Your tongue flicks out, to lick where his thumb had been. Bucky’s nostrils flare.
There’s something on his thumb. Tiny little breadcrumbs that must’ve been stuck to your cheek from the sauce. Bucky brings the finger up to his mouth, holding your gaze, and sucks the crumbs away. Heat pools in your tummy, and your thighs press together.
Bucky stares at you. You grab the edge of your seat with white knuckles, trying to keep yourself from falling off.
“Crumbs,” he mutters, and you nod.
“Yeah.”
“I- Uh-“ He coughs, and looks away. Disappointment sinks like a boulder into your stomach.
You don’t know what you expected. Hell, you’ve told yourself what to expect. You’re not allowed to be disappointed by him. You’re not allowed to want anything from him, except for what your head can offer.
“Sam’s been tryin’ to make me watch it,” he mutters, and you blink.
“What?”
“Princess Bride.”
“Oh.” You’re still a little drunk on his proximity. He smells like something rich and spicy, and it’s fogging up your brain. “Cool.”
Bucky nods. “We’re gonna watch it next Friday. In that common room, where Stark makes us do game nights.” He gives you a sideways look. “I never see you at those.”
You shrug. “I’m not an Avenger.”
“Stark says you get invited.”
You do. But that would be a night of drinking and laughing and being closer to Bucky than you can handle, so you usually lock yourself in your room and pretend he’s fucking you stupid.
“You’re invited to movie night, too.” He adds casually, and you swallow.
Movie night. Where Bucky would be near you. In the dark. You can’t go there. You’ll lose your mind.
But he’s looking at you with such dim, cautious light in his eyes. There’s no expectations. Just hope. And it pulls the words out of you before you can stop them.
“Oh- Okay.”
Bucky beams, and that makes it worth it. The risk, that he might brush your hand in the dark and you’ll moan loud enough for everyone to hear.
He reaches up, and wipes a few more breadcrumbs from your cheeks. Time seems to stop, when he touches you. It’s dangerous, and you barely manage not to fall all over him before he pulls away.
“You get messy,” he mutters, and oh, God.
You shouldn’t have said yes. Why the fuck did you say yes. Now you’re going to have to sit next to him, after that.
You get messy. He has no idea.
That night, you end up back in your bed with a vibrator pressed over your panties. It makes the feeling stronger, with the friction of the fabric, and you toss your head back. It’s easier and easier to get lost in the fantasy, lately. The better you know him, the clearer it gets.
You can almost feel his hands, mapping over the curves and soft dips of your body. You can almost smell him.
He mouths at your breast, pinching and rolls your nipple between metal fingers. You make a broken, pathetic sound, and he smirks.
“I know, doll. Too much, isn’t it?”
You whimper, pressing the vibrator down. Bucky hums, his hand wrapping around yours, and your hips jerk when he angles it to shove right against your clit.
“Too much,” he coos, making out with the softness of your breast. “I’m barely even touchin’, and you’re already about to fuckin’ fall apart for me.”
Your eyes roll back, as Bucky starts to guide the vibrator up and down. Your mouth falls open in a long moan, as he grabs your hips and pushes them higher, further exposing your pussy. He bites at your nipple, then turns his attention to the neglected one. You writhe in the sheets, gasping his name, and he smiles.
“Dirty girl.” He pushes your hand back, just enough for him to rip away your panties, exposing your cunt to the cold air. “Look at that, pretty little pussy fuckin’ shining for me.”
You grind down, trying to find friction on the sheets. Bucky pushes the vibrator against your bare pussy, and your eyes roll back in your head. He starts kissing all over your chest, pawing at your breasts and swirling his tongue around you nipples, sending electric shock through your body. He licks the sensitive buds the same way he licked his thumb. Your hips start to roll mindlessly, as the coil in your stomach threatens to snap.
When you cum, it’s with a cry of his name. The coil snaps, and heat floods out of your pussy, all over the vibrator and your hand. Your body convulses with the sheer force of it, and Bucky kisses down. Over your abdomen, your hips, your inner thighs.
“What a mess, baby.” He mocks, before pressing the sweetest kiss to your clit.
You sob, trembling in the sheets, and grab at his hair.
But your hand finds nothing.
Because it’s just another fantasy, kept in the confines of your mind.
Movie night was a bigger mistake than you could’ve ever imagined.
You show up, and it’s just Bucky and Sam. Sitting on opposite ends of the couch, because men are strange creatures.
“Stevie’s on a mission,” Bucky says, staring at you like he’s seeing an angel. Like he didn’t invite you.
There’s an odd rasp to his voice, too. Maybe he’s just tired.
Sam says your name, that signature, I know something that everyone else doesn’t smirk on his face. You don’t think much if it. He always has it, even when he doesn’t know shit.
“Buck told me you’d be comin’. I didn’t believe him.”
“Sam.” Bucky grunts, and Sam shrugs.
“What? I didn’t.” He grins at you. “You never leave your lab-“
“She leaves her lab.” Bucky gives you an apologetic look, but you just laugh.
“No, he’s right. I really don’t.”
Bucky sighs, rolls his eyes, and pats the seat next to him. You smile to yourself, taking a long breath before you move. You’re going to be normal about this. Very, incredibly normal. So normal, they’ll think something’s wrong, because no one’s ever been this normal in history.
You last ten minutes.
The movie starts. You’ve seen it before, but you try to pay attention to every, tiny detail. The only other option is paying attention to Bucky. To the weight of him at your side, the way his knee brushes against yours and his arm is slung over the back of the couch. You’ve never seen him so relaxed and tense, all at once. He’s sunken into the cushions, but whenever you look over, his jaw is tight.
You could swear you catch his gaze, once or twice. If you do, he looks away immediately. And you feel it, that buzzing heat over your skin. But you’re supposed to be watching the movie. He’s supposed to be watching the movie. So you really, really try not to look over.
Bucky’s knee pushes against yours, and you swallow. His fingers trail near your shoulder, and you wrap your arms around your stomach to suppress the shiver. He’s warm. So fucking warm you can feel it, blooming in your core. You shift in your seat, and you’re already wet.
The movie isn’t even a third of the way done.
Bucky’s fingers rest on your shoulder. It’s so light, so casual, you’re not even sure he knows he’s doing it. You take the risk, and turn to fully look at him. He’s gotten even more relaxed, the knit of his brows loosened, pretty pink lips parted as he watches the TV. You want to reach up, and trace the stubble of his jaw. Maybe kiss up the column of his throat, dig your nails into his pecs and make out with that full, perfect mouth.
You let out a tiny sigh. Bucky doesn’t react to it. Too lost in the movie. Not paying you any mind.
And you should look away. You’re not here to Bucky watch.
You turn your head for three whole seconds, before your eyes start to ache. As if they can’t stand not to look at him. You try to resist it, but it plays over and over, on a loop in your brain. The image of him in the dark. The heat from him, almost penetrating under your skin and making you rise up like a balloon. Your head is in the clouds. You have to look at him.
You close your eyes, trying to fight it. Bucky’s hand drops from your shoulder, down to your upper arm, and your breath hitches.
Your eyes shoot open, and Bucky’s right there. Staring at you, with the same intense, focused need that’s clawing at your ribs and up your throat.
He grabs your chin, between strong but gentle fingers. You swallow, letting your gaze trail down his body. His massive chest, torso that looks perfect to hook your legs around, his thick thighs and his crotch.
The bulge, pushing through his sweats. It looks thick. Long and thick, demanding some attention. You look back to Bucky with your best, doe-eyed pout. He smirks, and leans down to kiss you. It’s slow and deep, his tongue swiping over your lower lip before pushing into your mouth. You moan, and Bucky weaves his hair through your hair, tugging slightly. Your second moan is downright pathetic. You grab his thigh, letting your nails brush against the outline of his cock.
Bucky hisses against your lips, and pulls back. You bat your lashes at him, and his lips twitch.
“Messy girl,” he mutters, before pressing a sweeter, mocking kiss to your lips.
He pulls away too quickly, but before you can give chase, you’re lost in a daze. Bucky’s pulling down his pants, taking his boxers with him. His cock springs free, thick and veiny, massive even in his own hand. He strokes himself slowly, giving you a prompting, amused look. You swallow, licking your lips.
“C’mon, doll,” he beckons. “Show me what you can do.”
Almost in a trance, you nod. Bucky’s eyes darken, as you crawl over his lap. You move his hand away, and fist his cock in one hand. He grabs the back of your neck, not to push, but for balance. A low, guttural sound rolls through his chest as you start to pump him, and you smile to yourself.
He really is perfect. A heavy, certain weight in your hand, jumping slightly whenever you squeeze him near the base. You shift back on your knees, using your other hand to massage his balls. He hisses, his grip tightening on your neck, and you smile.
When you look at him, there’s nothing but pure devotion in his gaze. You squeeze again, then pick up your pace, and he groans out your name.
You kiss him, pushing his head back against the couch cushions. He grunts, but lets you guide him. As if he knows that it’s all just a show, before you let him fuck your face like an animal.
“Relax, baby,” you breathe against his lips.
Bucky lets out a deep, rough laugh. “Little hard to do that right now.”
You giggle, swiping your thumb over the slit of his cock. “Is it? Hard?”
Bucky groans, and deepens the kiss. You slide off of him, before he can just grab your hips, pick you up, and sit you on his dick.
You move back, lowering down to your stomach so you’re eye level with his dick. He’s pulsing in your hands, trying to hold himself back. You don’t want him to. You want him to cum everywhere. Down your throat and over your face and tits, claiming you in one of the most primal ways possible.
“Doll…” Bucky rasps, and you look up at him under hooded eyes. He’s a wrecked. Bulging muscles and sweat, slicking on his brow. “Don’t tease- Jesus-“
You wrap your mouth around him, and take him as deep as you can go. He bumps against the back of your throat, but you suppress your gag reflex, relaxing to try and get even more. Your nose brushes against the hair at base of him. Your tongue presses flat against Bucky’s shaft, your fingers still working his balls, and he fists his hand in your hair.
“So- So fuckin’ warm-“ He chokes out. “Holy- You’re somethin’, sweetheart- God-“
You hum, and Bucky’s hips jerk up. He stutters out an apology, but you just moan again. He tries to pull you off, muttering more apologies, and you dig your nails into his thigh. You want it. You want him to use you.
He gets it, after a moment. His grip on your hair tightens. He starts slow, jerking his hips up as he pushes you a little further down, before yanking you back. You moan around his cock, drool falling from your swallow lips. Your eyes roll back. He’s using you, god, he’s using you, and it’s the best fucking thing in the world.
Bucky fucks your face like a fleshlight, and you grind your ass up against nothing. He hits the back of your throat, over and over, salty and heavy on your tongue. The sounds he makes are beautiful and sinful, and-
“Something on my face, doll?”
You blink, and Bucky’s cock isn’t in your mouth anymore. You smack your lips, trying to find it. Bucky frowns at you, the light of the movie making him even more, impossibly handsome. Sam ignores you both, popcorn stuffed in his mouth.
Bucky looks worried. He said something.
“Hm?”
“You were, you were- Uh-“ He clears his throat, then shakes his head. “Never mind.”
He looks back to the TV, and your face burns. His thigh is pressed right against yours. You can swear, when you lick your lips, you can still taste his dick.
You’re so, so fucked.
It only gets worse.
Eating breakfast becomes a trial, because Bucky is always there, and you’re always thinking about his fingers while he eats. How they’d feel stuffed down your throat, gripping your hips, scissoring deep inside of you. He wipes cream cheese off your cheek, and you almost moan.
“You feelin’ alright?” Bucky says, always so caring and worried, and you nod weakly.
“Yeah. Just- Just tired.”
He looks at you like he doesn’t believe you, but lets it go. If you were smarter, you’d be avoiding him. But you’re not. And you still have to work with him, anyway. It makes avoiding him rather impossible.
For a while you cling onto the idea that work would be sacred. That while Bucky’s in your office and you’re examining his arm, it’s purely professional. Not a single dirty thought.
You last about a week, with that one. Bucky startles you walking in. You trip, and he catches you around your waist.
“Careful,” he smiles down at you, all handsome and stupid.
“Uh huh,” you breathe out, and you could’ve sworn a flood gushed out between your legs.
Bucky’s nostrils had flared, and he’d helped you up to your seat. You’d already had the new fantasy, blooming in your mind like the little fucking pervert that you were. You’d tried to shove it down, swaying in the middle of the room, but then you’d looked at him. Sitting with his legs spread in your chair. And you’d been lost.
You imagined climbing into his lap. His arm wrapping around you as you sat down on his cock, grinding slowly, lashes flutters as he kneaded and pulled at your hips and breasts. He’d stand up, taking you with him like you weighed nothing, and pin you to the wall. One arm would stay around you, holding you in place as his mouth started to explore your dripping cunt.
His tongue would work you open, pushing in and out of your pussy. He would’ve already cum inside of you, and every stroke of his tongue would send a wave of your mixed arousals over his beard. You’d watch him, moaning his name, and his thumb would bully and flick and tease your clit, until your were dazed and gasping for air and-
Bucky says your name, and you could slap yourself. This is getting out of hand.
“Sorry,” you mumble, sitting next to him. He smiles at you, so kind.
Always so kind.
“You’ve been kinda out of it, lately.” His words are casual. You still daydream about shooting yourself and running away.
“Just getting lost in thought,” you murmur, and he hums.
“Anything I can help with?”
You shake your head, because if you speak you’ll start begging. Please, please, please, he’s the only one who can help you, you’re going insane with how much you need him, and he could save you, he could really save you-
“Movin’ usually helps me.” He offers softly. You almost don’t hear him. “Y’know. Using my body. Remembering that it’s mine.”
“Yeah?” You say softly, cleaning the panel near his shoulder. He looks at you, and you risk looking back.
You can’t read that expression. You’re not sure you want to.
“Yeah,” he mutters. His gaze might flick down to your lips, but you don’t trust your own mind anymore. “You wanna try it with me? I head to that gym in the basement every night. It ain’t bad.”
And you should say no, but you can’t help it. You nod, and Bucky’s lips twitch, and God, what you won’t do just so he smiles.
You will torture yourself, apparently. Bucky’s too hot to be allowed in a gym. Wearing a tank top that shows off his massive arms, smiling at you all lazy, in the way that’s more of a guard than the slip that you always crave, but a smile all the same.
First, you try walking on the treadmill and just watching him the mirror. He’s lifting weights, and his arms, they should be classified as weapons. You want those biceps keeping you in a head lock, against his chest or at his side. Keeping you still, while his cock pounds relentlessly into your pussy.
Bucky meets your gaze in the mirror. His lips twitch, and you look away, face burning.
You feel him, more than you see him coming over. The gravity of his presence, you think you’d be able to feel him blindfolded and dropped in a crowd of a million people.
“Come on,” he offers you a hand. “Lemme show you something.”
And you can’t say no to him. You really should learn how.
Because the something is training. Wrestling. Throwing fucking punches and trying to get the other down.
“Bucky, I can’t-“
“Yeah, you can.” He raises his fists, nodding to your own. “Up, doll.”
You sigh, raising them slowly. “You’re going to kick my ass-“
“I am. And then you’re going to get better.”
You scoff—he’s ridiculous—but listen. Bucky smirks, and lunges. You yelp and try to scramble away, but he’s too fast. You’re pinned under him in seconds, whacking at his arms and wiggling.
“Bucky- Get off-“
He laughs, standing up with a proud grin. You’ve never seen him so relaxed, so confident. It makes you hornier than you ever could’ve imagined.
He’d been over you. Everywhere over you. Pinning you down and manhandling you, and- Oh God-‘
“Up,” he beckons, and you swallow.
“I- I don’t know-“
“Yeah, you do.” He gives you a playful smile. “Get up.”
You sigh, and scramble to your feet. Bucky raises his fists again. You narrow your eyes, and match.
He chuckles. “Getting competitive?”
You shrug. “You wanted me to.”
Something flashes in his eyes. You’re not sure how to read into it.
“Damn right I do,” his voice is lower. You’re not imagining that.
You don’t get time to think about it, before he’s moving again. You hold your own exactly a second longer than before, but it ends the exact same way. You, pinned under Bucky’s broad, strong body. His face is pressed near your breasts, his fingers digging into your hips, his legs shoving yours apart to stop you from flailing around.
It goes on longer than it shoulder. This strange game that you like playing more than you should. Bucky starts trying to properly get you to throw a punch, but he gives up fast. Soon you’re more play wrestling than doing anything else. You’re giggly and dazed, charging at him like a bull, and he acts as bored and collected as always, but you can see the amusement dancing in his eyes, every time you try to climb him like a tree.
Then something shifts.
He gets you beneath him, and you try to shove at his chest. He catches your wrists and pins them up over your head. Your breath hitches, and he blinks. His hips drop against yours, and you can feel it. The bulge of his cock, pressing into your core.
He’s hard.
Not fully, but enough. Enough that you can imagine every ridged and curve of him, sliding between the puffy lips of your pussy. Your thighs clench, and Bucky grunts, rutting forward.
You both freeze, and your eyes lock. It’s one of those seconds, where you just stare hopelessly at each other. You almost apologize, but your tongue is limp. Bucky’s face is redder than you’ve ever seen it. His cock twitches in his pants.
And this isn’t a dream or fantasy. Bucky mutters your name, and it’s so real you think your heart might pound of your chest.
Bucky moves first. He clears his throat and moves to his feet.
“Better.” He offers you a hand. “That was…”
He trails off. You stare at each other, lost for words.
Bucky turns, and leaves without another word. You sway in the center of the room, breathing shallow, head spinning.
What the fuck just happened.
Bucky kisses up your spine, his mouth hot and possessive. His tongue flicks against your neck, and his fingers dig into your hips. He drags your ass up in the air and you mewl, pressing your face into the sheets.
“Ah,” he scolds, slapping your soaked, swollen pussy. “Lemme hear you, doll.”
You turn your head, moaning loud and shamelessly. Bucky chuckles, kissing a soft spot on your neck.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, notching his cock against your entrance. “Good girl.”
You coo like a baby bird, flushed and dazed. He’s big, so big that it almost hurts. He doubles over you with a groan, pressing his face into your shoulder as he slowly pushes every inch inside of you. The stretch burns in the best way, and you clench down around him.
“No,” Bucky leans down, kissing the corner of your mouth. “Nothin’ to apologize for. Just gotta relax, babydoll. Lemme do the rest.”
You hum, and take a deep breath. You’re grounded, in the feeling of Bucky everywhere. His warmer arm wraps around your neck, forcing you up enough for his lips to trail open kisses over your face.
“That’s my girl,” he mutters against your ear, bottoming fully out. “That’s it. Just take it for me, just like that.”
You mewl, pushing your ass back up, then crying out with delight as Bucky pulls out, and slams back in. He’s met with no resistance, from how your pussy is gushing out with every thrust, every touch, every hot kiss.
But there’s nothing else to be expected. Not with how Bucky’s using you, how worshipful his every touch and kiss is, all while he fucks into you so hard you think the bed is going to break. His breath is hot on your back, the head of his cock drill against that one, gooey spot deep inside you. His cold arm locks around your middle, and his fingers tease and graze over your clit. Rubbing in tight little circles, making your eyes roll back in your head.
Bucky grunts, hauling you up so you’re pressed against his chest. You’re pinned down on his cock now, wet and warm and tight. So fucking tight that it pulls a low, rumbling moan from his chest. His hips slam up in a barely controlled rhythm, chasing more of your heat. You’re limp in his arms. Dazed and smiling like you’re drunk. Bucky uses his arm around your neck to push your head further back, and you have the nerve to fucking giggle.
You’re so beautiful like this that he almost cums right there. Fluttering lashes and the sweetest sounds, you pussy milking him like a machine. He kisses you because he can’t help it, and you hum happily, grinding your ass down into him.
He needs you to cum first. He gropes at your clit, letting his fingers fumble for a second to work you up into a teased, messy frenzy, before he pushes down and rubs in a steady, unyielding rhythm. You cry out his name, squeezing down so hard on his cock, and Bucky buries his face in your neck.
He cums, so hard that his vision goes white. Thick ropes of cum spurt over his hand, squeezing hard at the base of his cock.
It’s not as warm as you’d be, he thinks.
And he thinks. All the time, Bucky just thinks about you. About how you’d feel, molding around him. About how you’d sound right in his ear, how you’d get smiley and drool, and he’s feed you his fingers just so you have something to do with that pretty mouth. You’d moan around them, and he’d thrust up into you so hard he’d knock the damn worries out of your head.
It’s his favorite time of the day, this. Your rooms are closer than you seem to think, or you just forget how good his hearing is.
And every night, right before bed, he gets to settle into the mattress and beat his cock into his hand, listening to you moan and call his name. He’d never tell you. You deserve better, than a broken robot like him. He counts himself lucky he even gets to be your friend, because he’s a man well practiced at restraint. At not getting what he wants.
But this space, where no one can see, he allows himself things. He allows himself you.
But only ever in his head.
✦End note: this might be one of my fave bucky fics i just got to be soooo horny with it✦
✦If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3✦
✦Bucky Masterlist - Main Masterlist - Read on aO3!✦
✦summary: you and Bucky hate each other, so it's not unusual for him to act cold around you. but this is differant. this is... feral. and you're starting to wonder what's wrong✦
✦warnings/tags: bucky barnes x female!reader, enemies to lovers, ragebating Bucky Barnes, emotional angst, everyone's bad at feelings, fluff, sex pollen, sex pollen level smut, a little plot for the porn (dry humping, manhandling, bucky's feral, emotional sex, dry orgasm, truly foul dirty talk, hyperspermia, pussy eating like crazy, fingering, dumbification, dirty talk, sensitive reader, finger sucking, bucky gets nasty, body worship, overstimulation, sex pollen stamnia, mean!bucky, oral f!recieving, begging, praise kink, monster dick bucky, he fucks like a machine, breeding kink), no use of y/n, no descrption of reader✦
✦wc: 11.1k✦
✦Author's Note: i'm so normal about sex pollen✦
It doesn’t bother you. If you tell yourself enough, you’re really going to believe that it doesn’t bother you.
But he’s everywhere.
There isn’t a corner of the damn building without Bucky Barnes. You go to the kitchen and he’s there making a sandwich, watching you move around the counter like he thinks you’re going to bite him. In the gym he’s at the weights and the punching bags, and you try to ignore him but he grunts and moans and you think he’s doing it on purpose. the living area he takes over the TV and watches whatever he wants to catch up with the times. No matter how politely you ask him to switch to something else, he always tells you to just wait. Then you try, but he’s spread out on the couch until your knees have to bump, and your face gets all hot, and you have to stomp away before you start acting on all your stupid thoughts.
Because it’s not just Bucky’s eternal presence and stubbornness and smirking that burrows under your skin. It’s that you like it.
That when you’re next to him on the couch, all you can think about is that place where your body’s connect. He’s warm. Tall and warm. Your skin tingles at the contact point, and whenever he shifts it’s like you’re being shot up with a drug.
“You’re squirmy.” He grumbles, glaring at you in the dark. “No one ever teach you to sit still?”
You stick your tongue out. “No one ever teach you to mind your own business?”
“Hard to mind my business when you’re movin’ all the cushions, doll-“
“Then go sit somewhere else, robot man.”
Bucky’s jaw twitches. “I’m not a robot.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m not-“
“You act like one.” You snap, and Bucky closes his eyes. Like he’s fucking praying.
“I was here first.” He mutters. You don’t balk.
“Congratulations.”
You hold his glare, and Bucky lets out a heavy breath through his nose. He narrows his eyes, tongue flicking over his lips. His full lips. Pretty and chapped, but in the perfect, soft way-
Get a fucking grip.
“There’s a chair over there.” You point across the room, sinking back into the cushions. “Go sit in it, if I’m so squirmy.”
Bucky scowls, and opens his mouth, but whatever jab he’s got for you, you don’t want to hear it. You reach over and unpause the movie—probably another one of Sam’s this is what you gotta catch up on, Barnes suggestions, because there’s no way Bucky picked out the Goonies himself—and fix your glower on the TV screen. You hate this movie. You’re going to watch it all the way through, just to show Bucky that he doesn’t bother you.
You spread your own legs wide, too. If men are allowed to do it, so are you. Bucky grunts as your knee pushes over his thigh, and you smirk at the TV.
It has nothing to do with the thick muscle you can feel under his sweatpants, that you keep your legs like that for the rest of the night. Bucky’s fingers flex a few times, and brush over the inner curve of your knee and the top of your thigh, like he’s thinking about just shoving you away. At one point, you hear him grunt, and look over with mockingly raised brows.
“Everything okay?” You almost simper, and he grunts and nods.
That’s all you get. Bucky fixes his anger on the movie, you win this round, and you get to be close to him without thinking about it.
You’ll think about it later. In the comfort of your own bedroom, you’ll think about it and think about it and think about it all night. You’ll think about it until your wrist hurts. But Bucky doesn’t get to know that.
As far as he needs to be concerned, you never spare him a second thought. It’s all he spares you. And you’re not going to be the pathetic girl who falls for someone who only thinks of her as a buzzing gnat around his head. Who worships the ground of a man who would step on her like a flower into concrete, not because he was seeking to hurt, but just because he didn’t notice you were there at all.
Although Bucky does seem to notice where you are.
The farmer does like to keep track of pests in his crops.
“You skipped the mission briefing.” Bucky grunts in the morning, glaring at you over a cup of coffee.
Something soft in you swells like a prodded bruise. He noticed where you were.
You ignore it in favor of flipping him off.
“I was busy.”
“Too busy for your job?”
“It’s not my job-“
“Your name was on the roster.” Bucky slams the folder down on the table, and your lips twitch.
“Have you been carrying that around all day?”
“That doesn’t matter-“
“Yes, it really does-“
Bucky hisses your name. There’s a fury under his tone, that makes your mouth snap shut. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything.
“You need to be there, Steve was talkin’ about safety shit, and if you don’t know it you could get killed-“
“I know how mission briefing work, I’ve been here longer than you have-“
“Really? ‘Cause you don’t act like it-“
“I don’t act like it?” You snort. “Last I checked I’m ranked higher than you, Sargent.” You raise your chin, letting your lips curl. “Which is why I’m allowed to defer missions, and you’re not.”
“I’m skipping.” You shrug, grabbing an apple from the counter. “And if I’m skipping, I don’t need to be at the briefing. But thanks for checking on me, dad.”
Bucky’s eyes narrow. You expect him to snap something about experience and you not being responsible enough or needing to care more.
But instead his fists curl and uncurl at his side. His nostrils flare. He grabs the counter, his scowl burning right through you. You take a large bite of your apple, and his gaze darts down. Juice drips down your chin, and you wipe it off with light fingers. That only seems to make him angrier.
“Why’re you skipping.”
You shrug. You should say none of your business. But part of you is childish. A very big, loud part that wants him to react to something you know he isn’t actually going to care about.
“I have a date.”
“A what.” It’s not a full reaction. He’s mostly staring at you like he didn’t understand the word. Maybe they called it something different in the 40s.
“A date?” You roll your eyes, a little meaner than you mean to be. He always bring that out in you, though.
Bucky always brings everything out in you. It’s incredibly annoying.
“You know.” You push mockingly. “Where you go out with someone. And flirt like people, instead of robots.”
“Robots flirt.” Bucky grunts, and you snort.
“Yeah, but they don’t have sex-“
The counter cracks. It’s loud, echoing through the kitchen. You start and twitch, and Bucky blinks at his metal hand, like he’s just as surprised as you are. He looks back to you, shakes his head, and takes a large step back.
“What’s-“
“Steve’s callin’ me.” He mutters, and you blink.
“No, he’s not-“
“Have fun.” Bucky ignores you. His words sound pushed through his teeth. “On your human date.”
Then he’s gone.
And you’re left in the kitchen with your apple and a cracked counter, staring at where he’d vanished through the door. You don’t care about the date.
You just need to know what the fuck that was.
There’s a part of you that feels bad, for the man Natasha set you up with. She’d picked him out specifically because he had a vague resemblance to Bucky—because you’ve never told her your secret, but you didn’t need to, she’s Natasha—but it wasn’t enough.
He didn’t have the underlying accent, or the gleam in his eyes. You made a sharper edged joke, and he just laughed. He didn’t spar. He didn’t push your buttons in a way that made you light up. He just smiled at you all night—wrong smile, too—and then didn’t pay. Bucky would’ve paid.
You have no evidence of that. It’s just a feeling, that comes from how he still opens doors for you, even when you’re at each other’s throats. All polite and handsome and insufferable. You hate him.
And there’s not a single point during the night, where you’re not thinking about him.
“We should do this again.” The Date—you’ve forgotten his name, and it’s certainly not a good time to ask—says at the end of the night.
You’re shivering. Bucky would’ve offered you his jacket. He did once, on a mission in the Andes. You got all cold and he rolled his eyes and muttered that he told you to bring another layer, but still gave you his jacket all the same. This man is just grinning at you after not calling you a cab and saying he wanted to stand outside in the misty, chilly night. He said he wanted fresh air, and now your freezing, and he thinks he’s getting a second date.
At the very least, you feel a little less guilty about only thinking of Bucky and the mission the whole time. He deserved it.
“Sure.” You smile, because even with superstrength, it’s easier to tell a man yes and then vanish than it is to deny them to their face. “Have a good night.”
He tries to hug you. Your phone buzzes, and you duck away to check it.
The mission is over.
Two days early.
Your jaw tightens.
Most people would think that a job being done early is a good thing. That it means the team was just so focused and coordinated that they sped through every single step, and ended in a total victory. But you’ve been on this job too long. Early mission conclusions only ever happen for one reason.
Something went wrong, and they have to come back.
You rush back to the compound with barely a goodnight to the Date. It’s mostly because you forget, in the blur of worry. You’d skimmed the mission files before they left, just to make sure it wasn’t anything too dangerous. Bucky had been mad about you not going with them. Maybe he’d thought they’d need the hands, but it had just looked like a retrieval mission. Old Hydra facility with some data Tony wanted. Nothing too hard.
But they’re back early.
And if someone’s hurt, you could’ve stopped it. You could’ve been there, instead of on that stupid fucking date. Which also means that Bucky was right, and that’s incredibly annoying. He’s going to weild it over your head, and the mocking is going to turn you on more, and you’ll have earned it which isn’t going to help anything at all.
You get back to the compound, and it’s not in lockdown. There aren’t med staff flooding the grounds or emergency sirens blaring. You go right to the hanger, and find that it’s already been cleared out. The jet isn’t being quarantined.
Maybe they really did just… Finish early.
You’re heading back to your room when you slam right into them.
Steve and Bucky, standing in the middle of the hall, arguing in hushed voices.
“You need to go, Buck-“
“I’m fine-“
“No, you’re not. You can lie to the docs, don’t lie to me-“
“I ain’t lyin’, I’m fine-“
Your too lost in your own head, barely even hearing what they’re saying. You barrel straight into Bucky’s back.
He goes rigid. You stumble a little, and he grabs your upper arm.
His hand is hot.
Not sexy hot—although it’s also that—but literally, physically hot. Almost searing, against your shivering skin. You look up at him, and swallow.
He’s flushed. There’s sweat clinging to his brow, and an exhausted shadow over his features. His eyes are so blown out they’re almost fully black. You blink at him, and his mouth falls open in a ragged pant.
“Hi.” You whisper.
His throat bobs. “You’re back.”
“I- I got the alert.” You glance over to Steve, who’s gone oddly pale. “Did the mission go okay? It was fine that I wasn’t there, right-“
“Yep!” Steve almost shouts, and you blink. “I mean- We were all good. Wish you were there, we all missed you, but- We were fine. Right, Buck?” Steve grabs Bucky’s shoulder. “We were all good.”
Bucky doesn’t look away from you for a single second. He grunts, and his grip tightens on your arm.
“Let go.” Steve mutters, and Bucky shoots him a glare.
He releases you like you burned him, then wipes his hand on his pants. You scowl. He was the one touching you.
“I was gonna.” He grumbles, and Steve sighs.
“I know, but-“ You get a weary look. Like Steve doesn’t want you to hear their conversation. “I think- You know what I think-“
“Steve-“ Bucky cuts himself off with a groan, running a hand over his face.
He still hasn’t looked away from you. Or moved that far out of your proximity.
“I’m fine.” He says, low and under his breath. You’re rooted to the ground under his gaze, unsure what you could even think of to say. “It’s- I’m fine.”
Steve’s lips press in a thin line. Bucky takes a large, jerking step back. Like he’s dragging himself away.
“How was your date?” He grunts.
“Bucky-“
“I’m just askin’ a question.” He snaps, still not sparing Steve a look.
The attention is getting to be too much. Bucky is looking at you like he wants to eat you alive, and it’s making your body almost buzz in anticipation. You want to jump on him and feel those hot hands all over your body. His nostrils flare like he can smell your arousal. If he can, you might jump off a bridge.
You hope he’d catch you, then fuck you until your can’t even walk.
Get a fucking grip.
“Bad.” You cross your arms over your chest, trying to keep your heart from bursting out of your chest. “He sucked.”
And that’s the kind of thing Bucky would usually mock you for. Skipping a mission just for a bad date.
But a low, rumbling growl falls from his chest. His tongue darts over his lips. He takes a half-step forward, and you lean in to the gravity of his stare.
“We have debriefing!” Steve shouts, grabbing the collar of Bucky’s suit. “Bye!”
Before you can even register it, Steve’s dragging Bucky down the hall. You swear you hear another feral noise, and a crash after they turn the corner.
Something had to have happened on the mission. You just have no fucking clue what.
Bucky’s only been acting stranger. You’d pretend it didn’t bother you, if you could get away from it for a single fucking second.
You walk through the compound, and he’s somehow more everywhere than he was before. Around every corner, in the library, on the grounds, even in the control room while you’re going through the mission files.
“What’re you doin’.” He grunts, and you sigh.
You’re not surprised he’s there. It’s the fifth time today that he’s snuck up on you.
“I’m going through the reports on the mission.” You drawl. “Don’t you have better things to do than follow me around?”
Bucky grunts. It seems to be a no. You roll your eyes and go back to poking through the system. It’s hard to pretend that you can’t feel his presence behind you. There’s heat almost rolling from his body, and thick, spicy and musky scent that’s filling the room. It’s making you a little dizzy. It’s all you can do, not to look back at him.
That would be dangerous. He probably still looks feverish and animalistic. You might moan.
You find the files for the mission, and try to open them. Big, read access denied, contact your handler for permission to these files flashes over your screen. Your mouth falls open, and you whip back to glare at Bucky before you can think about it.
Mistake. Just like you’d thought, big mistake.
He looks even worse and better than you thought. He’s wearing just a t-shirt and sweats, and they’re clinging to his sweaty body. His eyes are hooded and his lips are parted. His attention is so wholly fixed on you that it almost makes you fall out of your chair. You almost forget you’re annoyed with him. Every single nerve in your body is alight, and your fingers are itching to comb through his sweaty hair.
You somehow—just barely—fight it.
“Why can’t I access these files.”
Bucky leans over you, his nostrils flaring. If you reach up, you could trace the stubbled line of his jaw. It’s hard to maintain your glare.
“Barnes-“
“You weren’t on the mission.” He mutters. “Not your files to see.”
You scowl. “I can access the files of every other mission I was on-“
“Steve should change that.”
God, you wish he wasn’t so pretty. It would be easier to think about punching him.
“I know something happened out there.” You hiss, sitting up a little taller. “You can’t hide it from me. I’ll figure it out.”
Bucky chuckles. It’s a low, raspy sound that runs through your body, making you shiver.
“Sure, doll. Have fun with that.”
You shoot to your feet, and Bucky lurches back. Another one of those deep, rumbling growls rolls from his chest, and for a second you think he’s going to pounce on you.
And then you blink, and he’s gone. Leaving you with only that hazy smell, and desire rolling through your veins.
You wish that was the extent of it, but it’s barely the start. And it only gets worse.
Bucky doesn’t do his movie nights anymore, which means you get the TV all to yourself. You watch what you want, and try not to look at the spot next to you. Where your body feels like he’s supposed to be. You stretch out your legs, but they ache strangely without his touch. You get more restless without him. Around midnight, you shuffle to the kitchen, hoping one of those soothingherb thingys that Wanda says help with her nightmares will be there.
Instead, you find Bucky.
He’s drinking a glass of ice, with a little bit of water. He freezes when he sees you, and moves further behind the counter.
You sigh. You’re too tired to fight him.
“Can’t sleep?” You mumble.
He just nods.
You sigh, and walk over the cupboard.
“You want hot chocolate?”
A grunt. Better than silence. You make two mugs, one for you, one for Bucky.
And maybe it’s just that you’re really starting to worry, but you don’t bother pretending to hate him. Your fingers brush when you pass him his mug, and his body seizes like you shocked him, but you just offer a tiny smile.
His mouth falls open. He stares at you like he’s spent years only looking at the muddier reflection of stars in the water, and has finally thought just to tilt his head up. You let out a small, shaking breath. He’s still burning up. You can feel it from your place a foot away. But you don’t dare to push it.
Not when he’s looking at you like this. The way you’d always, secretly and shamefully, dreamed he would.
“I’m watching Star Wars.” You mumble. “You wanna…”
You trail off, and Bucky’s throat bobs.
He nods again. A new tendril of worry blooms, overlapping with the growing tangle of them in your gut. He might not be able to speak.
But he follows you to the living area, and takes his place on the couch. His knee pushes against yours. He’s breathing awfully shallow, but you’re a selfish coward that wants him close, so you don’t mention it.
You barely pay attention to the movie. All you can focus on is Bucky at your side. How he doesn’t even seem to be sparing the TV a glance. He’s not really touching you, save for that place where your thighs are always pushed together, but every time you shift he grabs your knee. You blink at him, and his throat just bobs. He still hasn’t said a word. You’re afraid that when he does, it will break this fragile illusion.
That he wants to be here.
Near you.
He passes out near the end of the movie. His head falls against your shoulder and his body goes limp, almost a blanket over yours. You don’t move, just staring at a lit up, black screen. He looks more peaceful than you’ve ever seen. His fever isn’t breaking, but it does seem to be easing. You run your fingers through his hair, and he makes a low sound like a purr.
Then he takes a deep inhale, right against the crook of your neck, and a different noise leaves him.
It’s almost a moan.
You swallow. Suddenly you need to move. You don’t know what’s going on with him, but this can’t be what he actually wants. To be asleep almost in your arms, purring and moaning. That’s not a part of him you get to have.
But when you try to move, his grip around you tightens.
You feel almost sick.
It takes almost an hour, to roll off the couch without him pulling you back. When you’re free, you still cover him in a blanket and press a hand to his brow. Just to check. You can’t really help it.
His fever is building again.
You wish he would just tell you what was wrong. Even if he thinks you hate him, he can’t think you wouldn’t care enough to help.
When you start to walk away, he moans again. You could swear it sounded a little like your name.
You force yourself to go to bed. You’re not sure if you want him to remember in the morning.
If anything, you just pray he gets better. It’s hard to hide your undying care for him, when he’s in pain. Impossible to ignore how much it bothers you, that he’s hurting. ‘
But it is Bucky.
And he’s never going to make anything that easy.
You walk out of your room in the morning, and he’s right there. Lingering in the hallway, staring at you with those blown-out eyes, working his jaw like he’s trying to bite his own tongue off.
“Hi.” You say lamely.
He stumbles back like you punched him. “You- You’re-“
“Bucky, are you-“
“’M fine.” He says it mostly to himself again. There’s sweat gathering on his brow and bags under his eyes.
You’re not going to tell him, but you’re getting worried. This is the third morning in a row you’ve found him here. The first night you asked if he’d slept there, and he’d scowled and stomped away.
But from the look of him, you don’t think he’s been sleeping at all.
“Do you need something?” You ask. You sound soft, but you can’t help it. The worse he looks, the more your heart tightens. “I can call Steve-“
“Don’t get Steve.” He steps back. The same jerked movement from the first night. It’s the only way he’s been moving around you, lately. “I’m fine.”
You give him a doubtful look. His tongue flicks over his lips. You take a step forward, and he takes another step back. Like you’ve got a polarity field around you. Like he can’t even stand to breathe the same air.
And yet he’s here. Outside your door, and breathing through his mouth like an animal.
“Bucky-“
“Don’t.” He shakes his head, stumbling another step back. “Just- Don’t.”
You swallow, and don’t give chase when he walks away. Jogs away. He yanks himself away, then runs like he thinks you’re going to catch him and drag him back. You won’t.
But you do go right to Steve.
“What happened on the mission.”
Steve flinches, gagging on his sandwich. You’re glaring down at him with your hands on your hips, and you think he knows his little charming smile isn’t going to work on you here. That doesn’t seem to stop him from trying anyway.
“Hey, um- Do you want a cookie-“
“Steven.” You hiss, and he swallows. “What happened.”
Steve winces, avoiding your gaze. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”’
“What do you mean you’re not supposed to tell me-“
“I mean I- I can.” He mutters. “But then Bucky will kill me. And I don’t want Bucky to kill me.”
You scowl. “Tough shit, because guess who’s going to kill you if you don’t tell me?”
Steve sighs. “Is it you?”
“Yep.”
He stares at his sandwich, like it’s somehow going to get him out of this situation. You wait for him to realize it won’t. You have plenty of time.
“I’m really not supposed to tell you-“
“I really don’t care.”
“Well- You will.” Steve looks up with a sad little puppy eyes.
You don’t have the same reservations about punching him in the face, that you have with Bucky. He’s basically asking for it right now.
“Steven, I swear to fucking God-“
“I can’t tell you.” He cuts you off with a shake of his head, and you scoff.
“No, you just won’t tell me-“
“That’s not- I can’t, okay? Please stop asking me to-“
“Why, because Bucky doesn’t want you to?” You leer. “Because last I checked, you’re the Captain. And if Bucky is your friend, you should be telling his teammates he’s in danger so they can help-“
“That’s the problem!” Steve shouts, and you blink. “You- Look, you’re going to want to help, and I can’t let you.”
“You can’t let me help?” You echo, and Steve winces.
“I know how it sounds-“
“Do you? Because what I’m fucking hearing that your best friend is in danger, and you won’t let me fucking help-“
“Why do you even want to help?” Steve fixes you with a pointed look. “All you ever do is complain about Bucky and how he’s annoying you. I would’ve thought you didn’t care.”
You narrow your eyes, and Steve raises his brows. You know what he’s doing. Smug fucking asshole.
“That won’t work on me.” You grunt, and he shrugs.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Steve-“
“But,” he says causally. “If I did, I’d say that’s why I can’t tell you. And you know that.”
You hate it when he speaks in riddles. Like you’re just supposed to read between the lines when your brain is fogged with worry about Bucky.
“I- I don’t-“ You let out a slow breath, looking down to your shoes. Heat is flooding your cheeks. It’s annoying. “It’s not- I’m just- Please.”
Your voice cracks suddenly. You’ve been losing more sleep over this than you’re ever going to tell anyone. You almost feel ill with it—like the worry is an infection, knotting up your stomach and making your heart pick up—but that might just literal exhaustion. Something happened. No one will tell you what. It’s making you feel useless and hopeless and torn up to tiny, useless shreds.
“Bucky.” You say slowly. “Is- He’s not okay. I know he’s not okay.” You force yourself to meet Steve’s gaze. “Just- Lie to me and say he’s fine, and fix it, or tell me and let me help. But I- I can’t just-“
You don’t even know how to finish the sentence. There’s a burning feeling behind your eyes and a lump in your throat. You’re so worried. Worried this is something that’s going to kill him, and you’re going to lose him forever.
And there’s pity, in Steve’s gaze. It’s enough to make him break, his voice softening completely.
“Alright.” He murmurs. “But- You can’t tell him I told you.”
You nod quickly. “I’ll say I just got into the files, or- Something- Please.”
Steve sighs. “Okay. Okay.” He shakes his head. “It was on the mission. Bucky was distracted the whole time, and when we got jumped he wasn’t being controlled with his punches. He swag to hard on an Hydra agent. Knocked them back into some vials, and- Well they burst. All over both of them. We put the agent in containment, but he was displaying worse symptoms. Bucky- I think it’s the serum, or just… Bucky. But he’s been controlling it better.” Steve grimaces. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not still knocked up with stuff.”
You nod slowly. That’s not that bad.
But Steve didn’t want you to know for a reason.
“What are the symptoms?”
Steve won’t meet your gaze. “Fever. Nausea. Hormone flares. Um- Increased… libido.”
Your eyes widen, your mouth falling open. “What.”
“Hydra makes some weird stuff. Tony thinks this was, um- A breeding drug. We don’t know why they were developing it, but- There’s no other name.” Steve’s nose wrinkles. “The agent- His cell is disgusting.”
“But- Bucky-“
“I told you, he says he’s got it under control.” Steve shrugs, but doesn’t really sound like he’s convinced himself. “The agent has been, ah… begging for anyone. Bucky doesn’t have the same liberty with what will help. He says it’s going to pass, and he’ll be fine.”
“And will it?” You breathe. “Pass?”
Steve shrugs. “It did for the agent.”
“Before or after the mating?”
Steve’s silence is an answer. You swear under your breath.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me this, Steve? We- We need to get him to someone, this could fucking kill him-“
“I know that!” Steve snaps. “I know that just as well as you do! As he does! But- Jesus.” He shakes his head. “He won’t take anyone. He’ll only- Well- You know.”
“I know? I don’t fucking know, none of you have been telling me shit-“
Steve says your name plainly. You blink.
“What-“
“Nothing. Just- Why do you think he’s been lingering around you?”
You stare at him. He raises his brows, and you swallow.
“Steve-“
“I didn’t say anything-“
“Yes, you did-“
“Nope.”
You press your lips in a tight line. He can’t mean what you think he means. That would be to easy. Too good. “Bucky- He doesn’t- That’s not how he feels about me.”
Please don’t say it is. It’s not fair if you’re lying.
“Funny.” Steve shrugs. “He says the same thing about you.”
This is a bad idea.
Bucky hasn’t left his room in a day. You’d spent all of last night replaying your conversation with Steve, trying to pick it apart for a single reason he didn’t mean what you thought he did. What you hoped he did. What you’d always hoped for, only in the dead of night where no one would ever find out.
But it didn’t matter how you turned or picked at Steve’s words. There was only one conclusion. The beautiful, horrible one that you can’t even fully wrap your head around. It would mean you spent years hating him for no reason. Year thinking about kissing his stupid face, when you could’ve been actually kissing him. If Steve’s right, you’re going to kill Bucky.
After you fix this for him.
If Steve means what you think, you can fix this for him. He just has to let you.
Which is why this is a horrible idea. If Bucky turns you down, you’re going to have to quit your job and change your name and move to Indonesia.
But if he doesn’t turn you down…
You steel yourself and knock on Bucky’s door. It’s worth the risk, just for him. Always just for him.
“Fuck off, Stevie-“
“I’m not Steve!” You call, and for a second there’s no response.
Then there’s a muffled banging, and you almost fall forward when Bucky yanks the door open.
He looks even worse than before. And better. And hotter, and oh God, your knees are already weak.
His shirt is gone, and his broad, muscled chest is shining with sweat. His hair flops over his eyes, mussed up and soft looking. He’s breathing through his nose, even as his swollen mouth hangs open. His metal fist is curled against the door, making the wood crack under his fingers. Standing through his sweatpants is the long, proud outline of his cock.
You swallow, your mouth watering. Bucky says your name, and you can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a plea or a prayer.
“You shouldn’t be here-“
“Steve said you need me.”
You stare at each other. Bucky’s tongue flicks out, and you chew on your lower lip. This is it. If he turns you down, you’ll walk away and live. A new life, across the world. You’ve never been to Indonesia, but you hear they have good food and community, and you’re sure you’ll be able to fit right in over time, and if you don’t at least Bucky will never find you to make you relive this humiliation, because it’s been almost two full minutes and he hasn’t said anything, so you should probably pull out your phone and start researching Indonesian names-
“Steve shouldn’t have told you anything.” Bucky growls, and you swallow.
“I- I made him.”
He sighs. You could swear his dick twitches. “Of course you did.”
“I was worried about you-“
“You don’t have to be, doll. I’m-“
“If you say I’m fine, I’m going to fucking punch you.”
Bucky scowls. You scowl harder. You have a feeling neither of you are going to back down.
“You’re sick.” You say plainly, and Bucky lets out a sharp exhale through his nose.
“Maybe. But it’s not the kinda sick you can help with-“
“Steve says it’s the kind of sick only I can help with.”
He’s silent again. You risk a tiny step forward, and he takes one back, muttering your name. It’s a warning. A plea.
“Don’t do this.” He mutters, fists balled at his side. “Not outta pity, not for me-“
“It’s not pity.” You stop in his doorway, making your voice soft. “I want to help, Bucky. Let me help.”
He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “No, you- You just- You don’t feel like that for me-“
“You don’t feel like that for me.” You breathe, and Bucky’s body locks up.
“Who says?”
“You’re an ass to me-“
“You’re an ass to me.”
“I don’t mean to be.” You whisper. “I- I don’t- I’m not good at… You know.”
Bucky’s throat bobs. He still doesn’t move.
“Me neither.”
You nod. “But…”
“Yeah.” He swallows. “Yeah. I do.”
You take a deep breath. His whole room is filled with that musky, spicy smell. The heat is almost rolling off his body.
“Please ask me to help.” You don’t bother to hide the desperation in your voice. He needs to know that you mean it. “I- I want to, Bucky, I want you so bad-“
Bucky muffles your pleas, crashing forward and pressing his mouth over yours.
It’s not the soft, loving kiss of your fantasies. It’s rough and desperate, the kiss of a man finally letting his leash snap. He grabs your neck and scrunches his fingers in your hair, dragging a moan from the back of your throat. It turns into a hungry cry, when he pushes his tongue between your lips. Your knees wobble from the bruising force of it. You grab his shirt for balance, scrunching the fabric between your fingers.
Bucky grunts, pressing further over you. One arm drops to wrap around your waist, and the other slide up to cradle the back of your head. The touch his shockingly gentle, for the demanding way he’s almost eating your kisses. You’re standing nowhere near a wall, but he’s caged you all the same. There’s nothing to do but feel the way his cool, metal fingers dig into your hips, and the unrelenting heat of his mouth.
You kiss until your breathing is ragged. He tastes like mint and salt, and it’s a little addictive. Even after you’re light-headed and whimpering, Bucky sucks on your lower lip and takes just a little more. You whimper, gasping for air that he doesn’t seem to need. He tugs on your hair, forcing you to tip your neck back, and he plants open, hungry kisses over every place he can reach.
“You gotta be sure.” He murmurs against your skin. “Tell me you’re sure, doll, ‘cause- I don’t think I can go easy.”
And oh God, isn’t that lovey thought. Bucky not going easy. Combined with his tongue flicking over a pulse point, you almost fall over from the pure thought of it.
But he’s asking real permission. His hold on your hip is getting tighter, and his shoulders are squared and tense. He’s keeping himself from taking what he really wants, until you give him total permission.
You didn’t know you could want him more.
“I- Oh-“ Your eyes flutter, as he nips on sensitive skin under your jaw before kissing away the hurt. “I’m sure, Bucky, I- I don’t want you to go easy.”
For some reason, that only makes him more tense. He takes an uneven breath, pressing his brow against your head and almost pulling you off your feet as he hugs you tighter. You wait, slowly wrapping your arms around him and dragging your nails soothingly over the nape of his neck.
Bucky draws himself back, his expression unreadable as he scans over your face. You offer him a tiny, nervous smile, and he lets out a shaky laugh.
“You- You got no idea, do you?”
Your face falls to a pout. “I have a lot of ideas-“
“No, you don’t.” He drops his brow over yours. “You got no fuckin’ clue, what you do to me.”
And your brain stalls. It gets all gooey and soft, as you just blink up at him. You’re already on unsteady legs. You never thought he’d catch you if you fell, but with the way Bucky’s looking at you right now, you think he’d dive off a cliff to be at your side.
“Bucky…” You breathe, and he drops his forehead against yours. Your noses bump. His gaze darts between your lips and eyes, and you think you might be burning alive.
“You smell so good.” He mutters, before leaning down to press a soft, sweet kiss to your lips. “Taste better than I imagined.”
“You-“ You almost whimper, when he pulls away. “You imagined?”
He chuckles, kissing just your upper lip. You’re already putty under his hands, and you might turn to just a steam of desire if he doesn’t stop kissing you so softly.
“Didn’t you?”
You nod, and Bucky’s lips twitch.
“Bet I imagined more.”
And you doubt that, but Bucky’s kissing you again before you can tell him that you imagined so much it scared you sometimes. The way you were sure that you’d never be able to recover, from an addiction to a drug you’d never even taken.
You’re certainly never going to recover now. Kissing Bucky is even better than you’d let yourself dream about. His lips are just as soft as you thought. Even with the way he’s holding himself back, his touch is possessive. He traces your sides like he’s trying to memorize them, and kisses you the same way.
“Got no idea what I’m gonna do to, either.” He rasps against your lips. “If you let me, doll… You shouldn’t- But-“ He groans, pushing his nose into your cheek, kissing over the slope of your jaw. “Fuck, I want you to.”
You want him to. You want to feel those sloppy, devout kisses everywhere, to get that infernal tongue between your legs. His cock is almost bursting through his sweats, protruding into your thigh. He’d be heavy on your tongue, and split you better than the toys that you’ve used in his place before. The ache in your core throbs from just the idea, and you can feel your heart trying to burst all out of your throat with confession of desire and adoration. But you’re not sure if he’s going to believe them.
“Tell me.” You whisper. “Tell me what you’ve dreamed about doing to me.”
Bucky pulls back, and you worry you’ve stepped on an invisible landmine. That you’re going to be shoved out of the room, the door slammed in your face instead of behind you, locking you out of the room you’ve longer to be in since you met him. Bucky stares at you. You open your mouth to apologize and take it back, but he loves to move faster than your lustdrunk mind can understand.
You squeal as he walks you backward, but not out of the room. He kicks his door shut as you pass it. It slams, right as Bucky pins you between against the wall. He kisses you before you can protest or ask questions, and keeps going until you’re squirming against him and unsure if you should pull him closer or push him away. His kisses wander your cheeks, over your nose and hairline and back down to your ear.
“I wanted you just like this.” He chokes out, and your swallow. He sounds wrecked, and you’re not even kissing anymore. “Wanted you everywhere. Would see you in a meetin’ and think about bending you over the table. You’d get under me on the training mats and I’d wanna get in a headlock between your legs. Bet you taste so good.”
He shudders, pressing his face into the crook of your neck. His dick has shifted to push right near your core, and it’s almost too much pressure, while not being nearly enough.
“Would sit next to you on the plane and think about gettin’ on my knees.” He rasps, beard ticking against your skin. “Worshipping your pussy like it deserves. Makin’ you- Fuck- Call my name-“
Bucky moans, his hips jerking forward. A tiny moan escapes your lips, and Bucky almost whines and does it again. You don’t think he can help it.
“Wanted to stuff your pretty little lips with my cock.” He thrusts again, his whole weight almost collapses over your body. “You’d get all mouthy and I- I jerk off to the idea of puttin’ you over my knee or gettin’ you lying in my bed. I’d- I’d fuck you so nice, doll, I swear I’d be good, but- Fuuuck-“
He’s rutting between your thighs, and seems to forget the story he’s supposed to be telling you in favor of sucking on your neck. You whimper, pushing your hand between your bodies. Not to stop him—never to stop him—but to wrap your fingers around his cock through his sweats.
Bucky moans, his voice breaking with raw, starved relief. You try to pull him back to kiss him, but he just wraps closer around you. He’s almost shaking. You think he’s trying not to fuck your hand.
You can’t have that.
“It’s okay.” You drag your fingers over the line of his cock, and he whimpers against your neck. “I- I’ve thought about it too.”
Bucky slams forward, and you smile at the air.
“Wanted you to shove me down and fuck me stupid. Wanted to ride you until I passed out. I bought a dildo, baby, just to pretend it was you.”
You use your free hand to pet the back of his head, slowly sliding his sweats down to give yourself better access. Bucky’s thick and heavy in your hand. Your fingers don’t even come close to wrapping fully around, and whenever your nails graze his balls, he bucks forward with a strangled moan.
“Wasn’t as big.” You breathe, stroking his dick in long, tight motion. “You’re so big, Bucky, I don’t think it’s gonna fit.”
He grunts, his teeth grazing your neck. “Gonna- Fuck-“
You squeeze him at the base, and he doubles over. He’s almost fully collapsed against you. You want to feel him come apart.
“Gonna make it fit.” He hisses in your ear, and you hum.
“How?”
“Open you up.” He mutters, words slurred like he’s drunk. “Get you all over me, doll- Wanna watch you cum over and over and- God-“
His dick is twitching, and you giggle. He’s working himself up.
“You think this is funny?” He rasps.
You smile, swiping your thumb over the weeping slit of his dick. “A little. You wanna make me cum but you won’t even touch me.”
He makes an annoyed sound, and tries to push off of you. You tug his cock a little harder, and he falls back over with a moan. You giggle again.
“You- You’re a fuckin’ brat-“
“I’m helping you, Barnes.” You whisper in his ear.
He chuckles, and the sound rolls through your body. “Helpin’ me would be sitting on my face- Fuck-“
Bucky’s whole body shakes, when you squeeze him one last time, and his control slip. You pet him through his orgasm, unsure if you want him to notice how you press your legs tighter to try and get more stains of his cum. He pants and groans against your skin, his lips latching back around that one bruise he seems to be obsessed with.
There’s so much cum. Bucky grinds into your fist, and it just keeps coming and coming and coming until your fingers are sticky and drenched. The idea of him doing that inside you is almost a little terrifying. You’ve never wanted anything more.
A choked sound like your name comes out, muffled against your skin. You smile, leaning back to try and meet his gaze.
Bucky seems to need a second. You hope you didn’t already wear him out.
“You okay?” You whisper, and he tenses.
Bucky pulls back, and your pulse picks up into a drum.
Whatever he’d been before, it had been tame compared to this. His jaw is clenched, his attention fixed on you like a predator. His chest heaves, his hands limp at his side. You swallow, feeling a lot smaller than you did a second ago.
You can’t stop yourself from looking down. It only makes things worse.
He’s bigger than he felt. His cum is dripping down his thigh, and it’s barely been a minute, but he’s already getting hard again. You drag your eyes up the expanse of his chest—all flushed skin and muscle—and realize he hasn’t stopped staring at you. You lick your lips. He mimics the movement.
“It won’t fit.” You says again, but your tone has lost all the teasing mockery of before.
And Bucky’s smirk is dangerous. A thrill rushes through you at the sight of it. You’ve gotten exactly what you wanted.
“Gonna make it fit.” He growls.
You yelp, as he grabs your wrist and yanks you forward. You don’t even slam into his chest before he’s lifting you off the ground with another mind numbing kiss. It’s a distraction. You know that. You don’t really care, though, returning it in a second.
Bucky carries you like you’re a doll, your knees bent like some princess and his warmer arm locked around your waist. He leans over, lowering you to the mattress with a shocking care. For a second you’re fully lost in him. The gentle motion of his lips over yours, the way his hands wander and map your body as he settles you into the mattress.
“So soft.” He mutters. “All that bite, doll, but I knew you’d be so fuckin’ soft for me.”
You’d like to protest, and say that you’re not soft. But Bucky’s kisses are making your head spin, and no single, clear word can make it out of the daze. All you manage is a high, long whine.
Bucky chuckles. His hand pushes under your shirt, almost tickling over your sides.
“You like that?” He tease, his knuckles tracing over the underside of your boobs. “You like bein’ my sweet girl?”
You are not sweet. You try to snap that, but it mostly just comes out a feral grumble. You don’t know how he’s the one with a sound mind right now. You’re not under a sex drug.
You’re just under Bucky. Where it’s very, very warm, and sticky, and nice. His cum is dripping over your clothed core and midriff. You shiver as it hits bare skin, and Bucky smirks against your lips.
“Say it and I give you more.” He rasps. “Say you like it.”
And it’s a game. You know that you like it. He does too. But he’s poking and teasing you, trying to get you spar with him. To get you to play.
So you glare at him when he leans back, spreading your legs wider at the same time. You keep your mouth stubbornly shut.
Bucky grins. He traces the curve of your hips with massive hands, his thumb angling to smear his cum over your navel.
“Look at you.” He mocks. “Beggin’ for me and then can’t even admit she likes it.”
You wrinkle your nose, turning up your chin. Bucky smacks your inner thigh, then rubs his metal palm right over your pussy. The sudden sting then harsh pleasure make your hips push off the bed with a cry. Bucky takes his hand away to splay it on your abdomen, shoving you back down.
“You like gettin’ tossed around, too?” He laughs, and heat floods right to your core. “I’ll toss you around, baby. Make you into a nice little cockslut for me, even let you put my in that pretty mouth.”
He grabs your jaw, and you part your lips in a second. Bucky groans, his cock getting impossibly harder.
“Already listen so well.” He mutters, teasing his two forefingers over your mouth. “Just can admit you fuckin’ love it, do you? Can’t be a good girl and tell the truth.”
You narrow your eyes in defiance, and pretend to bite down on his fingers. It’s not a real bite. Just teeth grazing knuckles. But Bucky understands what it means.
Permission to go further.
His eyes gleam. His cock is already leaking with pre-cum.
“Alright, babydoll.” He rubs your thighs, a dangerous smile playing on his lips. “Have it your way.”
In a single second, Bucky rips off your clothing like it’s paper. You barely have time to feel the cold of the air before he’s grabbing your waist, flipping you onto your stomach, and dragging your ass up in the air. You yelp, fisting your hands in the sheets, and try to twist and see where he is.
A dazed part of your brain that doesn’t remember his hands on your hips sees no one behind you, and almost freaks out.
Then the first stroke of Bucky’s tongue hits your pussy, and you collapse fully into the sheets.
“Oh my-“ Your eyes roll back, as he teases the very tip of his tongue around your clit before dragging it through your folds. “Oh my God-“
“Sensitive fuckin’ pussy.” Bucky muses, and you feel the stubble of his cheek pressing against you thigh. “Barely even touching it. Wonder if I-“
His thumb drags circles just around your clit, and you squeak. He kisses the curve of your ass, going a little fast. You whine trying to drag your own ass in circles to match his motions. You can’t see him. Can’t know if you’re doing well outside of his lips tracing your thigh, and the pleased hums against your skin.
Bucky jerks his thumb suddenly to the side, pushing directly over your clit. You scream, your knees sliding back. Bucky grabs them and pushes them back up, fully exposing your pussy to the air.
“Look at you.” His breath is warm, over that most sensitive spot. “Bet I don’t even need to fuckin’ prep you. You’re so wet, you’d just…”
He makes a deep, rumbling sound, and you almost sob as he drags his tongue right back between your puffed pussy lips. You clench around nothing, his stubbled scraping your clit. Bucky angles his face, letting his tongue flick over your clit. It goes back and forth and back and forth, toying with it before pressing flat. He sucks, hard like a lollipop, and you almost sob into the mattress.
“Sweet.” Bucky whispers, his metal arm wrapping around your legs. “So fuckin’ sweet.”
“Bu- Bucky-“
“Shhh.” He kisses right over your pussy. “Wanna taste, pretty girl. I gotta fuckin’-“ He moans, and the vibration shoots right up your spine. “Gotta taste-“
Bucky presses his face fully into your cunt, and the sound that leaves you almost isn’t human.
He’s good at this. So good at this. It’s a little unfair. Your mouth can’t do anything but hang uselessly open, as Bucky works his jaw against you. He eats you like he’s starved for it. Like he’s a man that wants to drown of an insatiable thirst.
Two hands hold you up in the air, as his tongue plunges ruthlessly in and out of your cunt. You keen, trying to push further back, and the warmer hand wraps up to your spine and shoves your stomach down. It’s a tighter fit like this. Bucky drags his tongue around, and it hits every sensitive area. His beard tickles and scratches, and cold fingers tease your skin.
You get more and more sensitive, with every flick and suck and groan. You’re so wet it’s almost drooling down your legs, mixing with the stains of cum he’d gathered from your midriff and smeared over your legs. The dual heat with his cold hand makes all your nerves stand on end. You pussy clenches again, and Bucky chuckles.
“That’s right.” He mutters, making out with your clit as you gasp for air into the bed. “That’s it, baby, you’re already lettin’ go, aren’t you.”
You whine, and Bucky nips at your ass.
“Aren’t you?”
“Ye- Yes.” You mumble. “’S good, Bucky- So good-“
“I know.” He grunts, pressing his cold, metal thumb down into your clit. “Fuck, baby, I know.”
You whimper, and Bucky starts up on your dripping pussy again. He’s lapping at it, pushing his tongue into your tight hole as he plays with your clit, and white lines your vision.
“I- I’m gonna- Fuck- Bucky-“ You scratch at the sheets. “I’m gonna- Oh God-“
He smacks your clit, spits onto your pussy, and resumes with double the effort. You cry his name, as your orgasm wracks your body. You can feel yourself seizing around him, twitching and writhing in his tight grip as your vision lines with white.
And Bucky doesn’t stop. You’re making a mess all over his face, and he’s rising up, but it’s just pushing you further into the mattress. You whimper, your cunt too sensitive, but he doesn’t even come up for air.
“Shit- Bucky- Oh- Ohhhhh-“
The ache quickly fades into pleasure again. Blinging pleasure that’s just on the wrong side of too much, but pleasure all the same. You squeal, and Bucky just moans against your cunt.
Then you hear it. The slam of his fist against his cock.
He’s jerking off while he eats you out. He’s fucking himself so hard you can hear it, hear the slap of skin, feel all his little moans and grunts right against your pussy, and the thought sends you right over the edge again.
Bucky moans louder, as you cum on his tongue. Just like before, it seems to make him more and more feral. You have a feeling what lucidity that let him tease you before is gone. He’s eating you out the same way he’s kissed you, with rough lips and a fervor that’s almost animalistic. You’re boneless and whimpering into the sheets, taking it over and over as Bucky just keeps working his mouth against your cunt, and fucking his hand.
Then, suddenly, he’s gone. You whine from the lose, trying to roll over and look at him, but he just shoves you back down with a growl. The sound of his hand is getting faster and faster, and a hot weight drops over your back. Bucky presses his face into your neck, and takes a deep breath. You whimper, and he groans. His hips must be rocking, with how the bed is shaking.
“Smells good.” He rasps. “Gonna- Fuck-“
Bucky snaps back up, and you feel him cum more than you even hear it. Hot ropes spurt over your ass and back, seeping down the back off your thighs and into your pussy. You moan at the sensation, pushing back on trembling hands. There’s always just more of it, until you’re so marked up with him you’re sure you’ll never be able to wash it off.
You don’t want to.
With how Bucky grabs your hips and spreads the stain over your skin, you don’t think he does either.
“Shit.” He breathes out, and you hum in agreement. “Gotta- Flip for me, c’mon-“
Bucky helps you roll over. His touches are gentle again, but the gleam in his eyes hasn’t faded. You blink at him, flat on your back with your legs spread. Bucky traces the lips of your cunt, then slowly pushes two fingers inside you. Fucking his cum back into your tight hole. You mewl, eyes fluttering. Your head tosses back, and Bucky smiles
“Good girl.” He coos.
You try not get all gooey and weak just from the praise. Bucky laughs, and you think you might’ve failed.
“Strangling my fingers, doll.” He teases, pulling them right out.
You whimper. You’re too wet and ready not to take something. It’s really not fair to make you wait.
“I know.” He kisses your brow, voice rough. “Trust me, I fuckin’ know. You just gotta tell me you like it, then-“ His cock drags between your folds, and you keen. “All yours.”
You blink at him, opening your mouth to comply.
But you’re at an advantage.
Bucky’s hard again. His body is wound so tight above you, and his every word is thick. Like it’s an effort to speak. He’s still trying to fight against the drug running through his veins.
You want him to give in.
So you close your mouth, and give him a defiant glare.
Bucky growls again, and there’s no more teasing.
His mouth pushes over yours, and it’s not a loving kiss. It’s rough and quick, stealing your breath in seconds and distracting you as Bucky grabs your knees and shoves them back. You try to chase his lips, when he pulls away, but he shoves you back down with a grunt.
“Wanna be a brat.” He grunts. “Gonna get fucked like a brat.”
You almost beam. Yes, please.
Bucky folds you under him, your knees pressed to your chest and your cum-stained pussy on full display. He doesn’t waste time, tapping the head of his cock against your clit before slamming right inside. You’re so soaked you take it with only a hitched breath, but that doesn’t mean your eyes don’t roll back.
He hits right against you pelvis, when he bottoms out. His heavy balls sit on your ass, and the stretch of him is just enough pain to heighten the pleasure. Bucky kisses all over your face as he lets you adjust, but your pussy is greedy. He’d prepared you too well. You’re more than ready within seconds.
“Bu- Bucky-“ You gaps out, and he growls against your neck. “Move.”
If he’d told you to wait, you wouldn’t have been surprised.
But the drug seems to have overtaken him again, and all you get is a noise like a snarl against your throat before Bucky draws almost all the way out, and slams back in.
The air is knocked clean from your lungs. This time, he hit right against your g-spot, and your whole body seizes up. Bucky makes a low, deep noise, and repeats the motion. Again, he drives right into that gooey spot deep inside of you. You clench around him, and he doubles over, rutting deep inside of you.
“The- There-“ You whimper, fingers scrambling in the sheets. “Fuck, baby, right there-“
Bucky grunts an agreement, and starts to fuck you into the mattress. The angle is so deep you’re worried he’s going to permanently rearrange your guts. Every slam of his cock into your makes you see heaven, and Bucky pants over your, his eyes locked onto yours as your face contorts with pleasure.
He’s not even fucking you like a brat. He’s fucking you like a doll. He grabs at your limbs and moves them below him like you’re just a sleeve for his dick, and he needs you into just the right spot. One hand fists in your hair, forcing your neck a little up so you can watching your arousal gleam on his cock every time he pulls out. He moans every time he pushes back in, and you watch your cunt swallow his dick whole. A wet, smacking sound filling the room as he drills into you. He bends you even further to kiss over your neck and breasts, his tongue dragging in rhythm with his dick.
You try to clench around him every time he bottoms out, but your head is sort of empty, and now you’re just a drooling pussy around his massive cock, moaning his name and happily milking every bit of pleasure.
“Oh- Oooooh-“ You mewl, smiling like a cockdrunk idiot at the air. “Buuuucky-“
His mouth presses back over yours, and the kiss is strangely soft. His fucking hasn’t slowed or relented, but there’s a care with how his lips move over yours that makes you feel worshipped.
That’s what he’d said he’d do. Worship you. And you can really feel it here.
Bucky draws back, and the hand that had been fisted in your hair moves to your jaw. He squeezes again. You open for him easily, and his lips twitch.
“Good girl.” He coos, even if the words are tighter than before.
He spits into your mouth. You swallow obediantly, and open again when he squeezes your cheeks. Bucky slams forward with a groan, looking like a man wrecked.
“You fuckin’ like it, don’t you-“
“Love it.” You gasp, unable to even think to deny him again. “Love you, Bucky- Oh- Oh my god-“
Bucky makes a ragged, choked sound, and cums almost without warning. Your mouth falls open in a silent scream, as he pumps you full of his release. It feels like even more than before. Like you’re going to burst with how full you are, spurts of it still being forced out as Bucky fucks you through. You’ve never felt so totally claimed, with him all over every inch of your skin. He kisses you and you giggle, dazed and almost high on the feeling.
And he’s not even done.
The period of lucidity between orgasms gets shorter before it gets longer. Bucky’s ability to control himself almost vanishes all together. You get a kiss and broken mumble of your name before you’re being flipped back onto your stomach and fucked from behind. There will be handprints on your ass and thighs in the morning, and the sheets are stained with your drool from how Bucky railed you from behind.
You’re dragged into his lap right after, and he pushes his thumb into your mouth, then ruts up into your gaping cunt. You’re all moans and ditzy smiles by that point. When rolls you back onto your stomach and sits up on his knees, you just take it with moans and giggles and cries of delight.
He hasn’t just ruined you. He’s pulled you apart a million times over, until you’re just a puddle that sings his name.
You don’t even fully realize he’s done, when he kisses pulls out that last time. You whine, and clench around nothing, but expect to get filled right back up.
Then Bucky kisses you, and it’s slow. Savoring and sweet. Romantic. His voice is hoarse, but it’s lost the strained quality. He’s fully teasing again, smiling against your lips.
“So soft.” He coos, rubbing your thoroughly abused pussy with his warm hand.
You writhe, trying to get further and closer at the same time. Bucky chuckles, and kisses the corner of your mouth.
“Jesus, doll. You’d think you were the one that got sex drugged.”
You try to glare at him, but forget why the moment you see his pretty eyes, shining on yours.
They’re blue again.
“You’re back?” You breathe, and Bucky grins.
He ducks down, and presses another quick kiss over your lips.
“I’m back.”
You’re ordered not to move, while he cleans up. You don’t think you could if you tried. Your body is jelly, everything is sore in the best way, and your head is spinning with too many thoughts of what the fuck happened.
You told Bucky you love him. You told Bucky you love him. You’d never even fully admitted it in your head and he just fucked it right out of you. You said it fast, too fast, he thought you hated him four hours ago and now he must think you’re some kind of freak for just saying you love him.
He makes you drink water and go to the bathroom. Draws you a bath and brings you a snack and changes the sheets. You manage to find the strength to stand out of the tub and dry yourself off, wrapping the towel around your body before shuffling out in the center of his room.
God, he’s so handsome. All tan muscles and scars you want to trace with your tongue. Too bad you fucking blew it, and now you’re never going to get to touch him again-
Bucky turns, and smiles when he sees you. You swallow, bracing for the worst as he crosses the room.
He takes your face between his hands and kisses you. Deep and gentle and maybe he just forgot-
“Love you too.” He says against your lips. “Just- Uh- While we’re saying it.”
Oh.
Or that. That’s nice.
You throw everything you have into kissing him back, but end up tackling him down onto the bed with the sudden surge of strength. Bucky chokes out a laugh in surprise, wrestling you over onto your back with kiss and wandering hands. You giggle, trying to push back, and he nips at the tip of your nose.
Then he pauses, and pulls up with a small, worried frown.
“You’re stayin’ the night, right?”
You almost snort. There’s no getting rid of you now. You’re going to stay forever, and as long as he’ll allow after that.
“Yeah. I’m staying.”
✦End note: this was longer than my college thesis btw. and i. put more effort into it.✦
✦If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3✦
warnings ۶ৎ 18+ mdni. modern au. explicit smut, body insecurity/body image thoughts, jealousy, miscommunication, pool party tension, wet swimsuit, oral sex, fingering, multiple orgasms, protected piv, dirty talk, praise, possessive bucky, semi-public tension, soft aftercare.
synopsis ۶ৎ bucky spends the whole pool party trying not to stare. you spend the whole pool party thinking he can barely stand to look at you.
a slippery pool step, one bitter comment, and tony stark’s guest room fix that problem rather loudly.
evie’s input ۶ৎ not beta read. tumblr is a bitch for making my format go to shit. but please enjoy folks. dividers by @/cursed-carmine
you bought the swimsuit out of pure delusion. pure, bright, sun-drunk delusion, the sort that made sense at two in the morning with your laptop glowing against your face and natasha sitting beside you on the bed, eating chips directly from the bag while telling you that black one-pieces were for women hiding from federal charges or their own thighs. she had said that with such calm authority, such casual violence, that you had clicked away from the perfectly safe black one-piece and ended up on a page full of colors that made you feel personally attacked. cherry red. powder blue. white, which felt like an invitation for god to humiliate you. green, which nat said would look pretty on your skin and you said would make you look like a decorative salad, and then she had hit you with a pillow hard enough to send two chips flying into your blanket.
so you picked the dark blue one.
dark blue seemed mature. forgiving. almost responsible, if swimwear could be responsible. it had a low back that made you sit up straighter just looking at the model, and the top had little gold rings at the straps, small enough to pretend they were classy instead of slutty. the bottoms sat high on the hips, which nat called flattering and you called invasive. still, you ordered it. you even paid for express shipping, which felt like signing a contract with your own downfall.
now, standing in tony stark’s guest bathroom with the swimsuit cutting into places you had never invited fabric to develop an opinion about, the delusion had fully left your body. “this is a hate crime,” you mutter at your reflection, tugging the side higher, then lower, then higher again, like one of those positions will suddenly unlock a new body. “against me, specifically.”
the mirror gives you no sympathy. it just shows you exactly what you are trying very hard to survive. thighs. hips. stomach. skin. actual human flesh, very rude of it. you turn slightly, regret it, turn back, regret that too. the swimsuit is pretty. that may be the worst part. if it were ugly, you could blame the swimsuit. but it is pretty and soft and fitted, which means the problem is clearly you, and that feels legally actionable.
natasha knocks twice, then opens the door like locks are a decorative suggestion. she is wearing a black bikini and a loose white shirt, hair braided back, sunglasses resting on her head. she looks like she has never feared a changing room mirror in her life. maybe she killed that fear at sixteen and buried it in a forest. “if you’re dead in there, say something,” she says, leaning against the doorframe with a drink already in hand.
you glare at her through the mirror. “i’m suing you.”
“for making you look hot?”
“for elder abuse.”
“you’re younger than me.”
“for emotional elder abuse.”
her mouth twitches. she steps inside, closes the door with her heel, and turns you by the shoulders before you can protest. the inspection is quick and blunt, clinical in the scariest possible way, then her brows lift. “yeah. you’re wearing it.”
“you didn’t even pretend to think.”
“i did think. silently. very sexy of me.”
you pull at the bottom again, mostly so your hands have a job. it feels safer when your hands have a job. otherwise they might wander up and cover your stomach or your chest or your face, and then nat would make one of those sounds. a small sound, barely a sound, the kind that says she loves you and also wants to shake you until your bones make music. “it’s too much,” you say, quieter.
“it’s a pool party.”
“exactly. people will be near pools. with eyes.”
“tragic.” nat takes another sip. “people might also have necks. horrifying world.”
you make a face at her, but your fingers have started twisting the hem of the towel around your shoulders. the towel is the only thing keeping you from turning around, putting your shorts back on, and telling everyone you’ve developed a sudden aquatic allergy. chlorine intolerance. water-related moral conflict. any excuse with a medical-sounding word might work on steve. sam would ask questions. tony would ask if the water offended you personally, then offer to replace it with imported glacier melt.
bucky would look at you. that thought is the whole disease. bucky barnes looking at you in this swimsuit is either going to kill you outright or make you wish it had. he is already too much in normal clothes. jeans, shirts, those stupid henleys that cling to his shoulders with religious devotion. shirts in general seem desperate around him. fabric has never looked more underpaid. and now there is a very real chance that you will walk outside and find him shirtless by the pool, all broad chest and sun-warmed skin and dark hair falling around his face, and you’ll have to behave like someone who pays taxes and owns a toothbrush. impossible.
even worse, he may look at you and then look away. the thought is small. mean. familiar. he does that sometimes. looks away when you enter the room like your presence is a lamp turned directly into his eyes. you’ve built a whole religion around it. bucky finds you irritating. bucky tolerates you for nat’s sake. bucky can flirt with cashiers, grandmothers, dogs, possibly dangerous machinery, but when it comes to you, he either teases until you want to bite him or turns cold like you spilled something on his favorite memory.
“he’s already here,” nat says.
you blink at her. horrible woman. witch. spy. roommate. “who?”
“the pool boy.”
“tony has a pool boy?”
“no, but if he did, i’d respect his commitment to the theme.” nat watches you through the mirror. “barnes. he’s outside with steve and sam.”
your mouth goes dry. very mature reaction. very dignified. you deserve an award for remaining upright. “thrilling.”
“he asked where you were.”
“to insult me?”
“probably to write a poem.”
you snort despite yourself, then hate the sound for being too fond. bucky inspires many feelings in you, most of them medically confusing. rage, attraction, pettiness, fondness, the strange urge to press your face into his chest and stand there until society collapses. you used to think crushes were supposed to be fun. light. giggly. yours feels like chewing glass while a beautiful man laughs in another room. “i’m putting clothes on,” you announce, turning toward the pile you abandoned on the sink.
natasha catches the towel before you can turn it into armor. her face softens, which is alarming. she is much easier to handle when she is threatening people or calling men idiots. tenderness from nat tends to make you confess things. “you can wear whatever you want. but if you’re changing because barnes might see you, i’m going to be annoying.”
“you’re already annoying.”
“i have levels.” her hand squeezes your shoulder once. “he’s one guy.”
“he’s a large guy.”
“still one.”
“that’s debatable. he has the surface area of three men.”
she smiles into her glass. “come outside.”
you stare at yourself again. the gold rings at your shoulders glint under the bathroom lights. a soft breath leaves you, slow and unwilling. the girl in the mirror looks terrified, which is rude, because you were aiming for bored. maybe indifferent. possibly mysterious. something with less of a wet-cat energy.
bucky is one guy. one guy with eyes. one guy who probably won’t even look long enough to form an opinion. that is worse. “fine,” you say, grabbing the towel and wrapping it around your shoulders instead of your body. “but if i cry, i’m pushing you into the pool.”
nat opens the door, smug and fond. “deal. i swim beautifully.” you hate her. you follow her anyway.
sunlight hits you like a personal accusation. tony’s summer house is all glass, white stone, obnoxious wealth, and views so good they make you suspicious. the pool stretches across the back patio in a ridiculous blue sheet, bright enough to look fake, with lounge chairs lined along one side and a shaded outdoor kitchen on the other. music plays from speakers hidden somewhere in the landscaping, low and expensive. the air smells like sunscreen, grilled pineapple, chlorine, and the rosemary bushes tony probably paid someone to make look effortless.
everyone is already there. wanda is stretched on a lounger with sunglasses over her eyes, red hair spilling over one shoulder. vision sits beside her reading a book in the sun like a man who has never sweated once in his life. steve is by the grill, wearing swim trunks and a white shirt he left open, looking like a recruitment poster for sunscreen safety. sam is in the pool, arguing with clint over a foam football. tony is wearing sunglasses indoors, technically outdoors, but under the shaded bar, so spiritually indoors. bruce is speaking to pepper near a bowl of fruit like he has been assigned fruit diplomacy.
and bucky. bucky is near the far side of the pool, one foot up on the lower rung of a lounger, laughing at something steve says across the patio. shirtless, obviously. cruelly. swim trunks low on his hips, hair tied back in a loose half-bun, a pair of sunglasses hanging from the collar of the shirt he has abandoned on a chair. his skin is already touched by sun, golden at the shoulders, marked with faint scars and old history, and your brain takes one look at him and files for retirement.
of course. of course he gets to look like that near water. like some mythological punishment. like a sailor’s bad decision. like if marble got warm and developed a bad personality.
you stop near the sliding door. nat keeps walking. traitor. sam sees you first. “hey, finally! we were about to send a search party.”
“i was in the bathroom for seven minutes,” you call back, which is mostly true if you ignore the years spent negotiating with your own reflection.
“seven minutes in woman time,” tony says, lifting his drink. “so either twelve seconds or a fiscal quarter.”
“rich men shouldn’t speak,” you say, and tony points at you like you’ve wounded him.
“see, this is why i invite you. keeps the ego limber.”
that gets a few laughs, easy and warm. you can handle them. most of them. everyone here has seen you in pajamas, sick, angry, half asleep, and once crying over a video of a dog getting prosthetic legs. skin should be nothing. thighs should be nothing. a stomach should be nothing. human bodies have been happening for ages. terribly common things.
then bucky turns. it is fast. too fast. his smile is still there from whatever steve said, wide and relaxed, and then his eyes find you and the smile fades in pieces.
you go so still the towel slips down one shoulder.
he looks at your face first, then lower. hardly a second, maybe less, barely enough to count, but your body counts it. the line of his gaze touches your swimsuit, the bare places around it, the curve you have spent twenty minutes trying to negotiate with, and then he looks away.
just like that. his jaw tightens. his hand curls around the back of the lounger. his attention swings back to steve with such sudden force that you almost laugh. there it is. there it fucking is.
you knew this would happen. stupid, stupid girl. standing in a bathroom telling yourself he was only one guy when that one guy apparently needs to look anywhere else the second you show too much skin. amazing. beautiful. maybe you can walk straight into the pool and keep going until you reach a new continent. the patio sounds louder now. sam’s laughter, clint yelling about cheating, ice clinking in tony’s glass. everything keeps moving around you with obscene casualness. no one else saw it. no one else felt the tiny, sharp slice of it. bucky looked at you and looked away, and everyone else gets to continue eating fruit.
natasha glances back. you arrange your face into something flat and vaguely hostile. a familiar costume. better than the swimsuit.“drink?” she asks.
“yes.”
“alcoholic?”
“aggressively.”
tony hears that and brightens. “finally, someone with taste.”
you make your way toward the bar, aware of every step. the swimsuit feels too tight and too revealing and somehow too loud. bucky is across the patio, speaking to steve. he does not look again. that is fine. excellent. merciful, even. you hope he develops hiccups. tony slides a drink toward you. “for the lady with the aggressive liver.”
“thank you. sorry about your personality.”
“accepted. i bought another one.”
sam hoists himself out of the pool with a dramatic groan, water streaming down his shoulders. He grabs a towel, wiping his face, and his gaze flicks over your swimsuit without the weirdness men can sometimes bring to it. Just appreciative, warm, and easy. “Damn. Look at you.”
your fingers tighten around the glass. for one stupid second, praise lands in a place that has been sitting empty for too long. you lift your brows, aiming for casual. “is that surprise?”
“that’s respect,” sam says, pointing at the gold ring on your strap. “little fancy thing going on. i see you.”
“it’s swimsuit technology.”
“no, that’s a whole look. hey, buck.” sam turns his head before you can stop him. “you seeing this?”
murder becomes briefly understandable.
bucky’s shoulders go rigid. Steve looks between sam and bucky with the pained expression of a man witnessing a grenade roll under a picnic table. the second stretches. maybe two. your drink sweats against your palm. bucky does turn, but his eyes barely make it to your shoulder before skating away again. “yeah,” he says, voice rough enough that it sounds dragged from his throat. “i see it.”
that is worse than silence. you swallow. “fantastic. all votes counted.”
sam squints, sensing something in the air with the survival instincts of a man who has chosen chaos as a hobby. “you okay over there, terminator?”
bucky’s mouth moves into something that could pass for a smile in poor lighting. “fine.”
“sounds painful.”
“sam.”
“what? i’m checking on my friend.”
“check quieter.”
you take a long sip. It is sweet, cold, and strong enough to make your teeth feel clean. Wonderful. Tony Stark may be a public hazard, but the man stocks good alcohol. You let the burn settle on your tongue and decide, with the private little click of a door closing, that this is fine. Bucky can avoid looking at you. Great. Wonderful. Plenty of people have eyes.
Sam, for instance. Sam is grinning at you, towel around his neck, eyebrows lifted. He is handsome and safe and not Bucky, which immediately lowers his value in the ugliest part of your brain. But he complimented you. He looked at you without flinching. That counts for something. “you getting in?” sam asks, jerking his chin toward the pool. “or did you dress up to intimidate the tiles?”
“both can be true.”
“come on. clint’s cheating and i need a witness.”
you glance toward the water, then toward nat, who has settled beside wanda. Then, against all better judgment, toward bucky. He is looking at his drink. Very invested in it. Possibly falling in love with it. Good for them. your drink goes onto the counter. the towel slides off your shoulders and onto a chair before you can give yourself time to become normal again. Cool air brushes over your bare back. Too many places. Too much skin. Your arms fight the urge to cross over your middle.
Bucky’s head turns a fraction. You see it. You hate that you see it. The movement is so tiny anyone else would miss it, but you have a tragic little doctorate in James Barnes pretending indifference. His eyes make it to your legs this time. Then his mouth presses flat, and he turns away again.
Fine. Your chin lifts. “i’m a terrible witness,” you tell sam, stepping toward the pool. “i lie under pressure.”
Sam laughs and offers his hand from the water like he is helping royalty down from a carriage. “perfect. we’ll frame clint together.”
The pool is cold at first, a shock around your calves as you sit on the edge and lower yourself in. You bite back the sound that tries to escape, mostly out of pride. The water closes around your waist, then your ribs, and for a second the swimsuit stops feeling like a spotlight. Underwater, everything blurs kinder. Your hips, stomach, thighs. The body becomes a body again. Less evidence. Less argument. Sam tosses you the foam football. You catch it against your chest with both hands, splashing yourself in the face. “very athletic,” clint calls.
you wipe water from your eyes. “i’m preserving my mystery.”
“your mystery is that you suck at catch.”
“my mystery is that i haven’t drowned you.”
That gets a laugh from wanda. Nat smiles behind her sunglasses, proud and terrible. You start to loosen after that. The water helps. The drink helps. Sam helps too, in his loud, easy way, making you feel included without making you feel studied. He shouts fake strategies, accuses clint of crimes against recreational sport, and once spins you by the shoulders to aim your throw while you laugh so hard pool water gets in your mouth.
It should be enough. It almost is. Then you glance over and see Bucky watching. He is no longer pretending to listen to Steve. His sunglasses are on now, hiding his eyes, but his head is angled toward you. His arms are crossed over his chest, one shoulder leaning against a patio pillar, sun catching along the metal of his left hand where it grips his own bicep. There is nothing soft in his posture. Nothing open. He looks carved into place.
Caught, he turns his head slightly. Of course. Your laugh thins. Sam says something, but you miss it. Maybe your name. Maybe a joke. The pool sounds muffle, slipping in and out around your ears. Bucky can look from far away, apparently. From behind sunglasses. From a place where you cannot look back properly. The second you are close enough for him to have to acknowledge you as a body with feelings, he finds the nearest wall or drink or horizon.
There’s a special sort of humiliation in wanting someone who seems vaguely offended by the evidence of you. “you alive?” sam asks, splashing water near your arm.
You blink back to him. “unfortunately.”
“you looked like you were plotting.”
“I plot as cardio.”
“that explains the stamina.”
Bucky’s jaw moves across the patio. You see that too. Tiny. Annoying. Delicious, if you were a healthier person. A reckless little thing uncurls in your chest. It is petty and hot and stupid, so naturally it feels almost holy. You turn back to sam with a brighter smile, the sort that probably looks normal to everyone else and insane to Nat. Sam raises his eyebrows. Brave man. “teach me to throw better,” you say.
He narrows his eyes. “this a trick?”
“i’m asking for athletic help. cherish the moment.”
Sam laughs, then shifts behind you in the water, hands hovering over your elbows before settling lightly when you nod. It is friendly. It is nothing. It is two people in a pool with a foam football and a crowd of friends around them. But you feel Bucky before you see him. His attention has weight. A dark little weather system rolling over the patio. Sam adjusts your arm. “okay, elbow up. no, less like you’re threatening the ball’s family.”
“I am threatening its family.”
“gentle. release here.” His hand taps your wrist.
Across the patio, Steve says something to Bucky. Bucky does not answer. You throw. The ball arcs beautifully for half a second, then smacks clint square in the forehead. The silence is immediate. Then clint sinks under the water like a betrayed submarine. You clap both hands over your mouth. Sam loses his mind laughing, one hand braced on your shoulder as he folds forward. Wanda sits up. Tony lowers his sunglasses. Steve looks concerned. Nat looks delighted. Clint resurfaces, hair plastered over his face. “attempted murder.”
“self-defense,” you gasp, still half laughing, half horrified. “you had criminal energy.”
“You hit me in my innocent head.”
“no jury would convict her,” sam says, wiping his eyes. “that was art.”
A sound comes from the patio. Low. Short. You look before you can stop yourself.
Bucky is laughing. Not loud. Not like sam. Barely more than a breath, but his mouth has curved despite whatever terrible thing he has been doing with his face all afternoon. He is looking at you now. Fully. Sunglasses pushed up into his hair, blue eyes narrowed against the sun, and for one ridiculous moment, all the air in the day seems to gather in your throat.
Then he catches himself. The smile fades. His gaze drops to the water near your waist, moves away, and he reaches for his drink. It is a slap with no hand.
Your smile goes with it. The water suddenly feels too cold. “i need another drink,” you announce, heading for the stairs before anyone can see your face arrange itself badly.
Sam calls after you, still laughing about clint’s tragic head injury. Nat’s sunglasses follow you from the lounger. Bucky stays by the pillar, but the closer you get to the edge, the more you feel him there. A terrible awareness. Like walking past a stove you know is on. Your hands grip the metal rail as you climb the pool steps. Water streams down your body, cooler where the breeze hits. The swimsuit clings hard now, slick to your skin, making every curve more obvious instead of less. Wonderful design choice. Truly innovative cruelty. You reach for the towel on the chair, but it is farther than you thought, and the stone under your wet feet is slippery.
Your heel slides. For one bright, stupid second, you are suspended in pure indignity. Then a hand clamps around your upper arm. Not sam. Not nat. Not anyone safe enough to survive.
Bucky. His other hand catches your waist, broad palm spreading over wet skin, fingers pressing into the soft give above your hip. The contact goes straight through you with such force that your brain empties. Chlorine, sun, his skin, the faint spice of whatever soap he uses, all of it crowds too close. Your hand lands on his chest to steady yourself, and he is warm. Warm and solid and right there, which is deeply unfair for a man who has spent the afternoon treating eye contact like a hostage negotiation.
“careful,” he says.
One word. Low. Rough. Stupid. Your embarrassment catches fire. You laugh. It comes out bitter, thin at the edges, nothing like the easy laugh you gave sam. Bucky’s fingers tighten once at your waist, and that little pressure makes the whole thing worse. “relax, barnes.” You pull your hand from his chest, hating the wet print your palm leaves behind. “you don’t have to touch me longer than necessary.”
The whole patio seems to keep making noise, but in your little corner, the sentence has teeth. Bucky goes still. His hand stays on your waist for half a second too long, then leaves like he has been burned. The absence is immediate and awful. You hate him for touching you. You hate him more for stopping. His face has changed, though you refuse to name the change. His brows draw together, mouth parting slightly as if he has lost the next line. Good. Let him lose something. “What?” he says, quiet.
You grab the towel and pull it around yourself, too late to feel covered. “Nothing.”
His eyes narrow at that, and for once he does not look away. “That didn’t sound like nothing.”
“You’re very observant.”
“Don’t do that.”
A laugh tries to crawl out of you and dies ugly. “Do what?”
“Act like I did something to you when all I did was catch you.”
You look at him then. Really, probably too much. Big mistake. His skin is still damp at the temples from sweat or the pool water someone splashed earlier, and the sun catches the blue of his eyes so sharply you want to be mad at nature. His chest rises under your gaze. Your palm still remembers him, every warm inch. A handprint in reverse. “you looked away,” you say, and the words escape before pride can shoot them down.
Bucky’s face tightens. “When?”
You hate him. You hate him so much you could kiss him until both of you forget language. “Forget it.”
You turn away, but he catches the edge of the towel. Not enough to pull you back, only enough to stop the escape from being clean. “When?” he repeats, and the softness in his voice is so much worse than anger.
You should have kept your mouth shut. You should have stayed in the bathroom and sued Natasha from there. Instead you’re wet, half naked, humiliated, and Bucky Barnes is holding your towel like it matters. “When I came out,” you say, staring hard at the bar instead of him. “When sam called you. When I got in the pool. Pick one, you’ve been consistent.”
His grip loosens. For a second you think he will explain. He might laugh. He might say you’re imagining things. He might finally cut the whole sickness open and tell you he does not want to look, and then maybe you can be free through the healing power of public devastation. But he says nothing. Of course he says nothing.
Your eyes sting, which is unacceptable. Chlorine. Obviously chlorine. You pull the towel free and walk toward the bar with as much dignity as a woman can manage while dripping on expensive stone. Behind you, Steve says Bucky’s name. Low. Warning. Or concerned. You do not turn around. Tony is pretending very hard to examine a lime. “Drink,” you say, dropping onto a stool.
He pushes one over without commentary for maybe the first time in his life. “Hydration adjacent.”
“your discretion is unsettling.”
“i’m multifaceted.”
You take the glass. Your hand shakes once, barely. You curl it tighter until it stops.
Across the patio, Bucky remains near the pool steps, one hand low on his hip, the other rubbing over his mouth. Steve stands near him now, speaking quietly. Bucky shakes his head. His eyes cut toward you. This time, you look away first.
Pool parties become less fun once you have emotionally exposed yourself near a wet staircase. A tragic discovery. Someone should tell the youth. The afternoon drags onward with the mean persistence of a song you cannot skip. People eat. People drink. Sam retells the clint football incident with increasing betrayal of facts, making himself sound like a coach and you sound like a trained assassin. Clint claims he can see sounds now. Wanda orders him to stop making it tempting to hit him again. Tony brings out enough food for a wedding and calls it “light snacks,” which makes you wonder if billionaires understand hunger as a concept or merely as a branding opportunity. You sit with nat under the shade, towel around your shoulders, swimsuit drying tight against your skin. The drink has made you warmer, loose at the edges, but not enough to soften the place Bucky opened and then abandoned. He has stayed away. Not dramatically. Not in a way anyone could call obvious. He helps Steve with the grill, talks to Sam, lets Tony make jokes at his expense. He is normal.
That might be the ugliest part. You are sitting here with your nerves scraped raw, and he gets to hold a plate of grilled chicken. Do you want to talk about it?” nat asks.
“No.”
She hums, sipping from her straw. “Do you want to lie about it?”
“Desperately.”
“Go ahead.”
You stare at the water. Sam is trying to shove clint off a float. Clint has accepted death with more grace than expected. “I’m having a nice time.”
“Terrible lie. Try again.”
“I enjoy sunlight.”
“Worse.”
“Bucky Barnes is a normal man whose opinion does nothing to my blood pressure.”
Natasha’s mouth curves. “Almost funny enough to pass.”
You pick at a loose thread on the towel. The fibers are soft, expensive, probably worth more than half your closet. Tony’s towels have better career prospects than you. “He looked at me like he wished I’d worn a tarp.”
Nat says nothing for a second. Her silence is rarely empty. It moves around, checks exits, evaluates weak spots. “That’s what you saw?”
You glance at her, defensive already. “I have eyes.”
“Unfortunately, yes. Dramatic ones.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” She turns her head a little, and you follow her gaze against your will.
Bucky is standing at the grill beside Steve. His posture is casual enough for a stranger. Not for you. You know his casual. This is held too tight at the edges. His shoulders are set, left hand curled around a bottle of beer he has barely touched, eyes trained on the pool with such grim commitment that the pool may owe him money. “He’s been weird all day,” nat says.
“He’s always weird.”
“With you, yes.”
“That’s very comforting.”
She nudges your knee with hers. “You two are exhausting.”
“There is no two. There’s me, suffering heroically, and him, being confusing and broad.”
“Broad?”
“Don’t make me defend my vocabulary. I’m injured.”
“You slipped.”
“Emotionally.”
Natasha laughs softly, then reaches over and plucks the drink from your hand. “Slow down.”
You glare. “This is theft.”
“This is friendship.”
“Friendship would let me make poor choices.”
“I let you buy the swimsuit.”
“That was attempted murder.”
Her hand squeezes your knee once. “He’s looking again.”
Your entire body betrays you. It wants to turn. It wants to pretend it has not been starving for that exact sentence. You hold still with the grim focus of someone defusing a bomb under poor lighting. “Good for him,” you say.
Nat’s smile turns small and unbearable. “You’re allowed to like being looked at.”
“By normal people, maybe.”
“Barnes is many things.”
“Normal does seem optimistic.” The words come out light enough. The thought under them sits heavy. Bucky looking at you feels dangerous because you cannot tell what he sees. All day, you have been trapped between wanting his attention and being wounded by how he spends it. Too quick, too hidden, too late. You want him to look in a way that lets you rest, which is insane. A person should not need another person’s eyes to feel real in their own skin. There are self-help books about that, probably. You have not read them because they would tell you to journal and you would rather eat sand.
Tony calls everyone for food, and the shift saves you from Nat’s terrifying accuracy. Chairs scrape. People gather around the long outdoor table. You end up between wanda and sam, safe enough, with nat across from you and Bucky diagonally down the table beside Steve. Diagonally is awful. Diagonally means accidental glances. Diagonally means you can pretend to look at the salad and still see his hands. Diagonally means his knee might bump yours if the table were smaller, which it is not, thank God, or no thanks to God, depending on where you are in your moral development.
Food helps. A little. Grilled corn, charred sweet at the edges. Watermelon with feta. Skewers. Tony’s obscene little sliders made with buns so soft you briefly understand wealth. You eat more than you expected, mostly to give your mouth a reason to stay busy. Sam leans closer while reaching for the corn. “You ever think about joining a league?”
You stare at him. “For what, pool homicide?”
“Foam football. You’ve got raw talent.”
“I injured one man.”
“That’s how legends start.”
You laugh, easier this time. Sam is lovely. Sam is safe. Sam has never once made you feel like a bug under glass or a prayer no one taught you how to say. His attention is warm and uncomplicated, and maybe that is why it fails to do the thing you wish it would. You want it to. That would be convenient. You could turn your head and smile at the man making you laugh, and your body could decide to be sensible for once. Across the table, Bucky’s fork scrapes softly against his plate.
You glance up. His eyes are on Sam’s shoulder, where it nearly touches yours. His mouth has gone flat again. When his gaze shifts to yours, it stays. No sunglasses now. No immediate retreat. You should feel triumphant. You feel pinned and furious and too warm under the towel.
Sam keeps talking. You answer. Probably. Words happen from your side of the table. Bucky looks away first, but slower this time, and that almost makes you angrier.
After food, Tony declares a mandatory sunset swim like a man whose money has left him unfamiliar with the word optional. Wanda declines by pretending to sleep. Vision declines with such politeness that Tony thanks him. Steve gets dragged in by Sam. Clint goes willingly after shouting that the water may heal his head trauma. Natasha sheds her shirt and dives so cleanly that half the patio claps.
You mean to stay on the lounger. You really do. Then Bucky sits on the chair two spaces away with a beer and no intention of swimming.
You stand.
“Coming in?” sam calls from the pool.
“Apparently.”
Bucky’s head lifts. There. There it is again. That first startled drag of his eyes as your towel drops onto the lounger. This time you catch all of it. He looks at your shoulders, your chest, your waist, the high cut at your hips, the damp lines where the swimsuit still clings from earlier. His throat moves. His fingers tighten around the beer bottle.
Then he looks away. Again. The hurt comes faster now, less sharp and more tired. You have run out of ways to be surprised by it. “You coming?” you ask before you can stop yourself.
Bucky looks back. “What?”
“In the pool.” You gesture toward everyone else, voice mild enough to deserve applause. “That large wet rectangle behind you.”
Sam laughs from the water. Steve watches Bucky with the concerned patience of someone looking at a friend about to step on a rake. Bucky’s eyes flick toward the pool, then to you. “I’m fine here.”
“Tragic. We’ll notify the rectangle.”
That gets a laugh from Tony. Even Bucky’s mouth twitches, but it dies before it becomes anything useful. “You scared?” you ask.
The words are easy. The ache under them is less so. You want him to rise. You want him to refuse. You want him to look. You want him to leave. You want so many impossible things at once that your own skin feels crowded. Bucky leans back in the chair, jaw set. “Of you?”
“Of fun.”
“Terrified.”
“Figures.” You turn before he can answer, stepping into the pool with all the dignity you can scrape together. The water feels warmer now after the heat of the day, soft around your knees, your waist, your ribs. Sam splashes near you, and you splash him back half-heartedly. The game restarts in some altered form. Someone throws a beach ball. Tony judges from the side with a drink, claiming he is “morally participating.” The sky slowly bruises pink and gold over the trees.
You laugh again. You even mean some of it. But Bucky stays on the chair. He stays dry and distant, one elbow on the armrest, beer untouched, gaze roaming everywhere except you until it does not. Then you feel it between your shoulder blades, across the back of your neck, sliding down where the swimsuit reveals more than it hides. If he is disgusted, he has a strange way of torturing himself with it.
Maybe he is bored. Maybe he is judging. Maybe he is thinking about someone else. Maybe you are pathetic. That last thought arrives with such calm familiarity that you almost miss the ball flying toward your face.
“Duck!” Sam shouts.
You duck too late. The beach ball clips the side of your head, harmless but startling, and you stumble back with a laugh that turns into a yelp when your foot misses the pool step under the water. This time, you do not fall. This time, Bucky is already there.
The splash of him entering the pool sends water up over your arms. You barely process the movement before his hand catches your waist under the water, bare palm meeting bare skin, fingers firm enough to halt every thought you were trying to have. His other hand closes around your wrist, anchoring you while your toes find the step.
The whole pool erupts around you. Sam says something. Tony whistles. Clint declares another murder attempt. None of it matters.
Bucky is in the water. Bucky is touching you.
Bucky’s hair is wet now, loose strands clinging near his jaw. His chest is inches from yours, water beading on his collarbones, eyes fixed on your face with the sort of focus that makes you feel both held and dissected. The metal hand around your wrist is cool. The flesh hand at your waist is warm even underwater. Your body, treacherous little idiot, forgets every insult it has been rehearsing and leans a fraction closer. “Careful,” he says again.
The same word. Same roughness. Less distance. Your laugh barely works this time. It leaves your mouth thin and tired. “You need a new line.”
His eyes drop to your mouth. Stay there. Move back up. “You need to stop slipping.”
“I’m sure the tiles are honored you blame me.”
“Wasn’t blaming you.”
“No, you’re just leaping into pools now. Very casual.”
His hand slides half an inch on your waist as someone’s wave rolls against you both. The movement is tiny and devastating. Your stomach pulls in under his palm before you can control it, and his fingers flex like he felt the reaction and had to restrain his own. Sam clears his throat loudly. “Everybody alive?”
Bucky does not look away from you. “Yeah.”
“You sure? That looked like a rescue.”
“Wilson,” Steve says, warning plain in his voice.
“What? I’m just asking. Man moved like a torpedo.”
Your face heats, and that saves you. Embarrassment brings language back. “I’m fine,” you say, trying to step back.
Bucky lets go of your wrist. His hand at your waist lingers. You glance down at it. He follows your gaze and releases you, slow enough to feel intentional, quick enough to hurt. “Fine,” he repeats, almost to himself.
You step away, wrapping your arms around your middle under the water. The swimsuit feels nonexistent now, yet somehow everyone can see the exact place his hand had been. Maybe there is a mark. Maybe your skin has announced it to the patio in bright letters. “I’m getting out,” you say, mostly to the water.
Bucky’s brows pull together. “Again?”
“Try to survive it.”
Sam says your name softly as you pass him, but you keep moving. The pool steps are kinder this time. You grip the rail, climb carefully, and grab your towel with wet hands. The sky has gone warmer, streaked with orange, and the air makes goosebumps rise along your arms. You head toward the house before anyone can ask.
The sliding door is blessedly close. The kitchen inside is cooler, dimmer, quiet except for the hum of Tony’s expensive refrigerator and the muted thump of music through glass. You leave wet footprints across the tile and feel guilty for half a second before remembering Tony could probably buy new tile by blinking. The towel goes tighter around you. Your face feels too hot. Your chest feels worse. Everything is tangled. Bucky looked away. Bucky watched. Bucky refused to get in. Bucky jumped in without thinking. Bucky touched you like instinct. Bucky let go like regret.
A normal person would accept complexity. You prefer suffering. The kitchen island has a bowl of cut limes, a bottle of tequila, and a tray of tiny desserts covered in plastic wrap. You peel one back and take a mini tart just to have something to destroy. It tastes like lemon and butter and wealth. You chew angrily. “stealing dessert before dinner’s fully over?”
You close your eyes. No. Absolutely no. The universe can go bother someone else.
Bucky’s voice comes from the doorway behind you, lower after the pool, rougher around the edges. You keep chewing. Swallow. Pick up another tart because dignity left hours ago and dessert is here now.
“Tell tony,” you say. “He’ll have me arrested by the pastry police.”
Wet footsteps cross the tile. He has followed you in dripping too, which should make him less intimidating. It does not. The room fills with him, chlorine and sun and that clean masculine smell under it, the one that has ruined many evenings and one perfectly decent pillow you once pressed your face into after he left it on your couch. He stops on the other side of the island. You look at the tart tray instead of him.
“I was checking on you.”
“Very heroic. I’m eating a tart.”
“So I see.”
“Then your work here is done.”
The old rhythm tries to come back. Snap, deflect, survive. Usually he takes the bait. Usually he smiles or scoffs or says something that makes you want to throw a household object. This time he stays quiet, and the quiet crawls right under your towel. You reach for a third tart. His hand covers the tray.
You stare at his fingers. Human hand. Calloused. Thick. The same hand that had been on your waist in the pool, warm through the water, possessive for one second before he remembered he did not want to be. Your own hand hovers uselessly near his. Lemon sugar sticks to your thumb. “Move,” you say.
“Talk to me.”
Your laugh is small and mean. “About dessert?”
“About what you said outside.”
“I’ve said many beautiful things today.”
His fingers press lightly against the plastic wrap, making it crinkle. “At the pool steps.”
The room cools further. Somewhere outside, Sam laughs. The sound reaches the kitchen thin and far away, like it belongs to another life where people can swim and flirt and enjoy fruit without turning into an open wound near a marble island. “I said you didn’t have to touch me.” You lift one shoulder. The towel slips a little. His eyes move to fix on your face with almost painful discipline. “Seems clear.”
“No.” His jaw tightens around the word. “It doesn’t.”
“It really does.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?”
There it is. Softer than you expected. Worse, somehow. He sounds angry, but the anger has nowhere clean to go. It sits between you, wet-haired and broad-shouldered and too close. You pick at the sugar on your thumb. “Standing in a kitchen?”
“Trying to stop touching you.”
A humorless sound leaves you. “Aren’t you?”
Bucky’s hand slowly leaves the tray. He comes around the island, and you hate yourself for how fast your body registers each step. Wet tile under his bare feet. The shift of muscle in his thighs. Water slipping from his hair to his neck. He stops beside you, close enough that you can see tiny droplets on his lashes. “You think that’s why I looked away?”
Your fingers curl into the towel at your chest. “I’m very tired of talking about where your eyes go.”
“I’m not.”
“Congratulations.”
His voice lowers. “Look at me.”
“No.”
He breathes out through his nose. A patient sound. Not gentle. Not quite. “Please.”
That word does the damage anger could never do. You look up, furious with him for asking nicely. His face is tense, mouth set, eyes darker in the dim kitchen. He looks too serious for a pool party. Too serious for you standing here in a damp swimsuit and a towel, lemon sugar on your thumb, embarrassment turning your throat tight. “Happy?” you ask.
His gaze moves over your face like he is trying to read something written under your skin. “No.”
That almost gets you. Simple answer. No joke. No little smirk to save either of you. Your own mouth opens, then closes again.
Bucky glances toward the patio doors. Outside, the others are loud and bright and drunk on summer. In here, the air holds still around the refrigerator hum and your wet footprints. “I looked away,” he says, each word measured like it costs him, “because if I kept looking, everybody out there was gonna know.”
You stare at him. It takes a second. Maybe more. Your brain receives the sentence, turns it over, rejects it, picks it up again, then shakes it until meaning falls out. “Know what?”
His laugh is almost silent, rough at the bottom. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m asking.”
“You know what.”
“I really don’t.”
His hand lifts, then stops before touching you. That restraint again. Always that. A hand held back like your skin has rules written over it. You hate it more than anything, and maybe you have loved it too, which is inconvenient and humiliating. His fingers curl into his palm. “That I wanted you.”
The fridge hums. Music thuds through glass. Someone outside yells for Tony to stop cheating at whatever stupid rich-man game he has invented. Your towel slips another inch down your shoulder. Bucky notices. This time, he does not look away fast enough.
Wanted. Past tense? Present tense? A cruel grammar question at the worst possible time.
“You’ve been acting like looking at me causes physical pain,” you say, and it comes out less sharp than you need. More wounded. Awful.
His eyes cut back to yours. “It does.”
You blink. Bucky looks almost mad at himself now, which is satisfying for one brief second before it becomes sad. “You walked out in that thing and I had two choices. Look away, or sit there with everyone watching me stare at you like I’d lost my damn mind.”
“That thing?”
His gaze dips. Brief. Hungry. No disgust in it. None. The realization makes your stomach hollow out and fill at once. “The swimsuit.”
“You hate it.”
His mouth parts, then closes. His brows draw down. “I hate that Sam got to tell you first.”
That sentence finds a deep, stupid place in you and presses there. You hate that place. It has no pride. “He was being nice,” you say.
“I know.” in his mouth, right now, it is not reassurance. It is surrender. It is a man admitting something he does not want to resent and resenting it anyway.
“He looked at you like a friend,” Bucky says. “That made it worse.”
You set the tart down slowly, afraid any sudden movement might shatter the room. “Why?”
His eyes come back to yours. “Because I didn’t.”
The answer moves through you like a slow spill. Outside, someone opens the patio door. You both turn your heads at once. Tony leans in halfway, sunglasses still on though the sun is dying. His gaze takes in the water on the floor, your towel, Bucky’s expression, the tray of tarts, and he immediately lifts both hands.
“Fantastic. Haunted kitchen. Love that for us.” He reaches blindly for a bottle near the door. “Pretend I’m rich furniture.”
“Tony,” Bucky says, voice tight.
“Gone. Emotionally, spiritually, legally.” Tony backs out with the bottle and slides the door shut.
The interruption should break the tension. It does not. It makes it worse. Now the world has peeked in and retreated. Now privacy feels chosen. You wipe your sticky thumb against the towel, then regret it. “People are going to come looking.”
“Let them.”
Your eyes flick to his. “That’s a bad idea.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re agreeing?”
“Trying something new.”
Despite everything, a tiny laugh escapes you. Bucky’s face shifts at the sound. Not a smile, exactly. More dangerous than that. Like the laugh handed him proof he had been starving for and now he is trying to keep from grabbing.
“I thought you were embarrassed,” you say, quieter. The words scrape more than they should. “Of looking. Of me.”
His whole body seems to pull toward you without moving. “Jesus.”
You flinch at the roughness, and he sees it.
“Hey.” His hand finally touches your arm, just above the towel’s edge. Warm, careful, barely there. Still enough to ruin you. “No. I’m angry at myself. Not you.”
“You keep looking away.”
“I was trying to be decent.”
“That felt awful.”
His thumb moves once over your damp skin. You wish it did less. You wish it did more. “I see that now.”
“Great. Character development.”
He huffs, but there’s no real humor in it. His eyes have gone to the place his thumb touches your arm. “I’m sorry.”
You blink again. Bucky apologizes sometimes. To other people. Usually with grumbles and half-smiles and enough charm to make forgiveness feel inevitable. With you, apologies are rarer. Maybe because both of you prefer biting to bleeding. Maybe because he never seems to understand where the wound is.
This one is plain. You have no idea what to do with it. “I don’t want your pity apology,” you say.
His thumb stops. “Pity?”
“Yes.”
“You think I’m standing here half naked in Stark’s kitchen, dripping on a floor that costs more than my first apartment, apologizing out of pity?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds stupid.”
“It sounded stupid before.”
You glare up at him, relieved by the spark of irritation because anger is easier to hold. “Careful.”
That word. His word. It changes something in his face, turns his attention heavier. Your mouth goes dry. Bucky’s hand slides down your arm, slow enough that you could move away. You do not. His fingers find your wrist, then your hand, lifting it between you. Lemon sugar still clings faintly near your thumb. His eyes meet yours, asking nothing aloud, and maybe you nod. Maybe your hand simply gives up and lets him.
He brings your thumb to his mouth. The first touch of his tongue is warm and wet and obscene in its quietness. He licks the sugar from your skin like he has all the time in the world, lips closing around the tip of your thumb for half a second before he lets it go. Your knees forget their duties. The island is behind you, so you lean back against it before your body can embarrass you further.
Bucky watches the movement. “There,” he says, voice rougher. “No pity.”
You breathe through your nose, which is impressive since your lungs appear to have resigned. “That was unsanitary.”
“Pool water’s worse.”
“Comforting.”
His hand stays around yours. “You always do that.”
“What?”
“Make a joke when you’re shaking.”
You glance down. Your fingers are trembling in his grip. Treacherous little things. You consider cutting them off. Too messy for tony’s floor.
“I’m cold,” you say.
Bucky’s eyes drop to the towel, the damp swimsuit, the little bumps risen along your arms. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Want me to get you dry?”
There is nothing clean in that question. Maybe there could have been, from someone else. From him, with his mouth still wet from your thumb and his hand around yours, the words turn thick. You pull your hand back, mostly so you can breathe. “I can manage a towel.”
“I saw.”
“You saw me almost fall.”
“I saw a lot today.”
A pulse starts low in your body, slow and hot and deeply inconvenient. “You looked away for most of it.”
“I looked back.”
That shuts you up. His hand goes to the edge of the towel. He does not pull. Just touches the cotton near your collarbone, where it has started to sag from water and poor decision-making. “I looked back all damn day.”
You try to swallow. It takes effort. “Bucky…”
The patio door opens again. This time it is Nat. She takes one look at you, one look at Bucky, then at the wet floor. Her face gives away nothing, which means she has figured out everything.
“People are asking about dessert,” she says.
You stare at her helplessly. Bucky’s hand drops from the towel. He turns his head, expression suddenly murderous in a very contained, socially inconvenient way. “They can wait.”
Natasha’s brows rise. “Can they?”
“Yes,” he says.
Something about that single word, the calm certainty of it, makes your thighs press together under the towel. Nat’s eyes flick down for barely a second, then back up. You want the tile to open and swallow you. Preferably gently. With snacks. “Right,” she says. “I’ll tell them the kitchen is occupied.”
“Nat,” you hiss.
Her mouth curves. “What? By wet people.”
Bucky sighs like he is in physical pain. “Romanoff.”
“Relax, Barnes. I’m leaving.” She reaches for the tray of tarts, slides it away from you both, and pauses at the door. “Use one of the guest rooms. Tony has cameras in weird places.”
Your soul leaves your body. “What?” you choke.
Tony’s voice carries from outside. “I do not have cameras in weird places. I have cameras in strategic places.”
Natasha closes the door again. The silence after that is different. Less fragile. More aware of its own stupidity. You cover your face with one hand. “I’m moving.”
Bucky makes a sound that might be a laugh if he were less ruined. “Where?”
“Into the ocean.”
“Pool’s closer.”
“Too many witnesses.”
His hand returns to your waist, over the towel this time, and the casual possession of it melts the last few scraps of your brain. “Guest room’s closer too.”
You lower your hand. He is looking at you now. No retreat. No disgust. No careful sideways glance. He looks exactly how you had feared wishing for. Hungry and unsure and trying to make himself stand still. “This is a terrible idea,” you whisper.
“Probably.”
“People are outside.”
“Yep.”
“You were ignoring me two hours ago.”
His mouth tightens. “I was trying to keep my hands off you two hours ago.”
“And now?”
His fingers press into your waist, pulling you one inch closer. Not enough. Enough to make you greedy. “Now I heard what you thought.”
Your chest aches. “And?”
He leans in, slow. Gives you time. Too much time. Your eyes dip to his mouth, and he sees that too. Of course he sees that, the bastard. His lips brush the corner of yours, barely a touch, more breath than kiss, and your entire body answers like it has been waiting years for a command. “And I’m done letting you think it.”
The first kiss is almost gentle. Almost. That is what ruins it. Bucky’s mouth touches yours with restraint at first, warm and careful, and you stand there stupidly with your hand hovering near his chest. It has taken so long to get here that your body does not trust it. He kisses you once, then draws back just enough to look at your face, and something in that tiny pause makes you angry. “No,” you breathe, grabbing the wet hair at the nape of his neck.
His eyes darken. “No?”
“You don’t get to kiss me like I’m fragile after making me feel insane all day.”
The words are barely out before his hand slides behind your head and his mouth comes back harder. This kiss has teeth in it. Not cruel, not careless, but hungry enough to make your fingers tighten in his hair. He tastes like beer and lemon sugar from your skin. His other arm wraps around your waist, pulling you in until the towel is crushed between you and his damp chest, and you make a sound into his mouth that you would deny in court. Bucky answers with a low groan, and the sound breaks something open. The kiss turns messy fast. Your feet slip a little on the wet tile, and he catches you without breaking away, almost lifting you onto your toes. The island edge presses into your back. His hand spreads wide between your shoulder blades, then drags down over the towel, as if he hates every layer between his palm and the body he kept refusing to look at.
Outside, laughter rises. You jerk back. “Guest room.”
Bucky’s forehead touches yours for one second. His breathing is rough, uneven, gratifyingly ruined. “Yeah.”
He takes your hand. That simple thing nearly undoes you. His fingers lace through yours, warm and firm, and he leads you through Tony’s absurd house with far more purpose than a man dripping pool water should have. The hallway is cool and dim, lined with art that probably costs enough to rescue a small nation. You barely see it. You see his back, the muscles shifting under wet skin, the dark hair curling at his neck, your hand held in his like something he does not plan to misplace. A laugh bursts from the patio behind you, then the sound dulls as the hallway turns. Your pulse beats everywhere. Mouth, wrists, thighs, the places the swimsuit rubs too tight. You have spent hours wishing he would look, and now he is taking you somewhere private to do more than that, which means panic arrives right on schedule, prim little nightmare clipboard in hand.
What if he changes his mind when the door closes? What if this is heat and misunderstanding and chlorine? What if he touches you and finds every soft place you spent the day trying to hide? Bucky stops at the first guest room and opens the door. The room is airy, pale, ridiculous, with a king bed dressed in white and a view of the trees beyond the windows. Too pretty. Too clean. A room for people who have sex beautifully, probably, with matching underwear and no body anxiety.
You hover at the threshold. Bucky turns. His gaze drops to your face, then your hand still in his. “What?”
You hate the gentleness. You might start wanting it everywhere. “Nothing.”
He steps closer, slowly enough to make the hallway feel narrower. “Try again.”
Your fingers tighten around his. “I’m wet.”
His brows lift a fraction. “From the pool,” you snap, heat flooding your face. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“My face is having a day.”
Despite yourself, a laugh slips out, small and anxious. His thumb strokes over your knuckles, and the laugh fades into something softer. God, this is bad. This is tender now, and tender is much more dangerous than horny. Horny you understand. Horny has a beginning and an end and terrible decision-making in the middle. Tender grows roots. Bucky steps into the room and draws you with him.
The door closes behind you with a quiet click. For one second, neither of you speaks. The silence fills with water dripping from both of you onto the floor, distant music, your own uneven breathing. His hand leaves yours. You miss it immediately, which is humiliating.
Then he reaches for the towel. “Can I?”
You want to say something sharp. Something clever. Something that protects the swollen, nervous thing in your chest. Instead, you nod.
He unwraps you slowly. Not theatrically. Not like some polished movie scene. His fingers fumble once at the tucked corner, and that fumble does more to you than smooth confidence ever could. The towel loosens, slipping from your shoulders, down your arms, catching at your elbows before he pulls it free and drops it onto a chair.
Cool air touches your damp skin. Your hands twitch toward your stomach. Bucky catches them. The movement is fast, but his hold is gentle. Both wrists in his hands, lifted slightly away from your body. His eyes stay on yours. “Don’t hide from me.” The words are low, quiet, and absolutely devastating.
You try to laugh. It barely forms. “That’s ambitious.”
“I can be patient.”
“You? Since when?”
His mouth twitches. “Since about three seconds ago.”
You breathe out, shaky but almost amused. He lifts your hands and kisses the inside of one wrist. Then the other. Your throat tightens. It is so stupid, how much that gets to you. A kiss there. Not your mouth. Not your chest. Just the soft skin where your pulse is making an idiot of itself. “I’m going to look at you,” he says.
Your face burns. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s a warning.” His thumb moves over your wrist. “A fair one.”
“Very gentlemanly.”
“Trying.”
You swallow. “Don’t try too hard.”
His eyes darken. The shift is immediate, and you feel it under your skin. The little softness remains, but something hotter moves through it, something less careful. His hands lower yours to your sides. He waits. Gives you the chance to lift them again.
You don’t. Bucky looks. This time, he lets himself. His gaze starts at your face, maybe for mercy, then slips down your throat, over the thin straps, the gold rings, the wet fabric clinging to your breasts. You feel each inch like touch. He looks at the curve of your waist, the high cut at your hips, the soft places you wanted to fold away. His jaw sets hard. A slow breath leaves him, and the sound is not disgust. Not even close. It is almost anger, but turned inward, like he cannot believe he denied himself this all afternoon.
Your eyes sting again. “Oh,” you whisper, then immediately want to slap a hand over your mouth. Not a standalone reaction, you tell yourself absurdly. Put it in a sentence, idiot. “You actually…”
Bucky’s gaze snaps back to your face. “Yeah.”
“You looked away.”
“I was an idiot.”
“That’s established.”
His smile is brief and strained. “Fair.”
His hands come to your hips, bare now, no towel, no water softening the contact. Skin to skin. You inhale too sharply and his grip steadies, thumbs pressing near the swimsuit’s edge. “You thought I didn’t like this?” he asks, voice dragging lower.
Your eyes drop to his chest, safer than his face by maybe half a degree. “You looked like you were suffering.”
“I was.” His fingers slide along the high curve of your hip, then stop there, squeezing once. “Sweetheart, I saw you come out in this and forgot what language I spoke.”
That sounds impossible. It also sounds like him. Rough, a little annoyed, painfully sincere under all that heat. “You recovered fast.”
“I didn’t recover. I panicked.”
The laugh that leaves you is shaky and wet at the edges. “That was panic?”
“Steve asked if I was having a stroke.”
Your mouth opens. “He did not.”
“He did.”
“Was he concerned?”
“Very.”
You laugh fully this time, and Bucky’s hands tighten like he wants to hold the sound against you. The laugh fades when he steps closer. His wet chest brushes the front of your swimsuit. Barely. Your nipples tighten under the damp fabric, and his eyes drop just long enough to notice before returning to your face. The restraint almost kills you. “Sam complimented you,” he says.
You blink, following the turn. “Yes.”
“You smiled.”
“He was nice.”
“I know.”
There it is again. Acknowledgment. His thumbs move, small circles over your hips that turn thought into warm static. “You hated that?”
“I hated how easy it was for him.” Bucky’s voice goes rougher. “He could just say it. Stand there in front of everyone and tell you that you looked good. I stood ten feet away acting like looking at you too long was gonna put me in the ground.”
You study him, the damp hair, the tense mouth, the eyes that keep trying to fall and climb back up. “Would it?”
“Yeah,” he says, and this time he does smile. Small, wrecked, honest enough to hurt. “Maybe.”
That does something worse than praise. Makes you ache. Makes you stupid. Makes you lift your hand to his chest, pressing your fingers over the warm skin where your palm had landed earlier. He looks down at your hand like he wants to thank it. “You could’ve said something,” you murmur.
“I thought I had time to figure out how.”
“Figure out how to say you liked a swimsuit?”
“How to say I wanted to peel it off with my teeth without getting slapped in front of Steve.”
Your fingers curl against his chest. He watches your face. “Too much?”
The question is sincere, but barely. Mostly he is reading you now, and whatever he sees in your expression pulls his mouth into something darker. “No,” you say, and your voice sounds smaller than you want. “Continue.”
His laugh is quiet. “Continue?”
“You heard me.”
“I did.” One hand leaves your hip and comes up to your jaw, thumb brushing near the corner of your mouth. “Trying to decide if I wanna continue with my mouth or my hands.”
Your knees feel untrustworthy. “You’re taking suggestions?”
“From you?” He leans in, lips grazing your cheek, not quite kissing. “Always.”
The word slides down your body and settles low, hot, awful. You press your thighs together, barely, but he is too close to miss it. “Yeah?” His lips brush your ear now. “That where it goes when I say that?”
“Shut up.”
“Been trying all day.”
“To shut up?”
“To keep from saying worse.”
His mouth touches your neck. Your eyes close before you can pretend dignity. It is only one kiss at first, warm and damp from pool water, placed under your jaw with almost unbearable care. Then another, lower. His fingers at your jaw angle your face up, and the little stretch of your throat makes the room tilt through your body without the phrase in your head. You grip his shoulder, nails pressing into skin.
“Bucky,” you whisper.
He hums against your neck. “That sounded nice.”
“Don’t get smug.”
“Too late.”
You would scold him, but his teeth scrape lightly over your pulse and the scolding falls apart into a weak sound. He hears it. Of course he hears it. His hand on your hip slides around to the small of your back, pressing you closer, and the hard line of him through his swim trunks meets your lower stomach.
Your entire body pauses.
Bucky goes still too, but only to let you register it.
“Oh,” you breathe, then rush to fix it, face flaming. “That’s, um. That’s there.”
He pulls back enough to look at you. His eyes are nearly black. “Yeah. It’s been there.”
Your mouth parts.
“All day,” he adds, almost cruel now, and the hand at your jaw keeps your face tipped up. “You want the truth? I had to sit down after you got in the pool.”
A tiny, helpless sound leaves you.
His thumb strokes your cheek. “No. Look at me.”
You do, barely.
“I’m gonna say things,” he says, voice softer but dirtier somehow, stripped of performance. “And you’re gonna believe me this time.”
Your throat works around nothing. “That’s demanding.”
“Yeah.”
“Usually people ask.”
“I spent all day asking myself if I was allowed to want you.” His hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck, fingers sinking into damp hair. “I’m done asking me.”
That should terrify you. It does, maybe. But it terrifies the part of you that has been begging for exactly this.
His mouth comes back to yours, and this time neither of you pretend at gentleness for long. You open for him almost immediately, and he groans into the kiss, the sound vibrating through his chest under your hand. His tongue slides against yours, slow at first, then deeper when your fingers dig into his shoulders. The kiss turns wet, hungry, breathing ruined between mouths. He walks you backward without breaking it, guiding rather than pushing, until your calves hit the bed.
The bed. White sheets. Guest room. Pool party outside. Bucky’s hands on you.
Your brain tries one last heroic effort at thought.
What if someone comes in?
Bucky’s hands move to your hips.
What if the door isn’t locked?
He turns you, sits on the edge of the bed, and pulls you between his thighs.
What if this changes everything?
His mouth leaves yours and moves down your throat, and your remaining thoughts scatter like birds.
He is sitting now, which makes him lower, makes your body the thing above him for once. It should help. It does not. His hands spread over your thighs, thumbs running along the place where the swimsuit cuts high, and he looks up at you with damp hair falling around his face. He looks wrecked. Actually wrecked. Like the sight of you standing between his legs has finished what the swimsuit started.
“You were hiding under that towel,” he murmurs, tracing the edge of the fabric at your hip.
You swallow. “It was cold.”
“Liar.”
Your face heats, but his mouth presses to your stomach before you can answer. Right over the swimsuit. Soft. Deliberate. You freeze.
He does it again.
Lower this time.
Your hands hover over his shoulders. You do not know what to do with them. Push him away? Pull him closer? Applaud? Cry? Move to Romania?
“Bucky…”
His eyes lift. His lips remain near your stomach. “Yeah?”
You hate the question. Hate how much room it gives you to stop him. Hate how badly you want him to keep going without making you beg for it. “That’s…”
“What?”
You glance away. “You don’t have to…”
He sits back so fast you regret speaking. His hands remain on your thighs, but the warmth of his mouth is gone. “Don’t.”
The single word is sharp enough to bring your eyes back.
His expression is serious again. “Don’t say I don’t have to. I know I don’t have to.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I want to.” His fingers press into your thighs, almost too tight, then ease as he notices. “I have wanted to put my mouth on you since you walked outside.”
Your body responds so hard it feels unfair.
His eyes lower, following the tiny shift of your thighs. His jaw tightens. “Since before that.”
The room has become too warm. Your swimsuit is drying in patches, damp fabric clinging between your legs, and every tiny movement makes you aware of how wet you are under the pool water. Not just pool water anymore. Maybe not for a while. Horrible. Amazing. You may need medical attention. Or less medical attention and more of his mouth.
Bucky’s thumb slides along your inner thigh.
“You thought I didn’t wanna look.” He says it quietly, but the words carry a rough little bite. “You thought I looked away because I didn’t like your body.”
Your fingers curl into his hair. You do not answer.
He leans forward and kisses the inside of your thigh, just below the swimsuit’s edge.
Your breath leaves in a broken little rush.
His mouth lingers there. “I looked away because I wanted to do this in front of everybody.”
“Bucky,” you whisper, scandalized and so turned on you can barely feel your feet.
His lips move higher, still over skin, slow and warm. “Wanted to drag you out of that pool when Wilson had his hands on you.”
“He was helping.”
“I know.” His teeth graze your thigh. “Still wanted to.”
“You’re terrible.”
“Today?” His eyes flick up. “Yeah.”
His fingers hook under the swimsuit at your hips, then stop. The pause makes your skin prickle. He is waiting. Again. That careful, maddening decency under all the dirty want.
You nod, too fast.
His mouth curves, but it is not teasing. More relief than anything. “Words, baby.”
That name hits deep. Worse after the whole day of being looked away from. Baby means wanted. Baby means chosen. Baby means the towel can stay on the chair and the body you were trying to hide is now the only thing he seems able to focus on.
“Take it off,” you say.
Bucky closes his eyes for a second.
You almost laugh. Almost. Instead your fingers tighten in his hair, and that ruins him faster. His eyes open, and the polite thread in him snaps.
The swimsuit comes down slowly at first, peeled over your hips with such careful attention that you want to crawl out of your skin. The damp fabric resists, clinging where it can, and Bucky seems almost personally offended by it. He leans forward, mouth brushing your hip as he works it lower, then your lower stomach, then the soft skin above your mound. Every kiss makes the wait worse. Every inch exposed feels like a confession.
You expect him to look up at your face once you are bare.
He does not.
His gaze fixes between your thighs, and the sound he makes is quiet, dragged deep from his chest, almost pained. You try to close your legs on instinct, but his hands are already there, spreading warm over your thighs.
“Don’t hide,” he says again, rougher now.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“You’re staring.”
“Yeah.” His thumbs slide higher. “I missed a lot today.”
Your face burns so hot it almost hurts. “You can’t just say that.”
“I can.” He kisses the crease of your thigh, eyes still on you. “I am.”
The swimsuit slips lower, down your thighs, then to your knees. You lift one foot, then the other, and he drops the ruined damp thing somewhere on the floor. A wildly expensive room, white sheets, your swimsuit abandoned in a wet little heap. It should feel humiliating.
It does.
It also makes you throb.
Bucky’s hands return to your thighs. He sits there on the bed, still in his wet trunks, and looks at you like this is the first quiet moment he has had all day and he plans to spend it badly. Your arms cross over your chest, but he catches the movement at once.
“Hey.”
You glare, but there is no force behind it. “What?”
His hands slide around to the backs of your thighs. “Come here.”
“I am here.”
“Closer.”
“There is physically no closer unless I climb you.”
His expression changes.
Ah. Idiot mouth. Treacherous mouth. Mouth with no survival instincts.
Bucky leans back slightly, spreading his thighs more. “Then climb.”
Your body gives an almost embarrassing pulse at the command. “You’re very comfortable giving orders for someone who spent half the day staring at landscaping.”
“I had a hard day.”
“You had a chair.”
“I had you in that swimsuit ten feet away from me.”
“That must have been so difficult.”
He pulls you forward by the backs of your thighs, and the sudden movement makes your hands land on his shoulders. “It was.”
There is no joke in his voice now.
Your knees go onto the mattress on either side of him before you fully decide to move. Straddling his lap like this, bare while he is still partly clothed, feels obscene in a way full nudity might not have. His trunks are wet beneath you. The hard length of him presses up between your thighs, thick and hot even through fabric. Your hips jerk before you can stop them, and his hands clamp around you with a groan.
“Shit.” His forehead drops to your collarbone. “Do that again and I’m gonna embarrass myself.”
That should make you smug. Powerful. Instead it makes you needy in a way you did not agree to. You roll your hips again, smaller this time, dragging your bare pussy over the soaked fabric of his trunks. The friction is rough enough to make your mouth fall open. His hands grip your ass, helping and stopping at once, torn between instincts.
“Baby,” he says, warning and pleading in the same breath.
The word feeds something awful in you. You do it again.
Bucky’s head tips back, throat working, eyes squeezed shut for half a second. This beautiful, irritating man who looked away all day now looks as if your body might actually kill him. Good. Maybe balance exists.
“You like this?” you ask, and your voice is shaky, but the question still has a little bite. “Or are you going to look at the curtains?”
His eyes open.
You may have gone too far.
His hand comes up and catches your jaw, not hard, but certain enough that your hips still. “Say it again.”
Your lips part. “What?”
“What you said outside.”
The pool steps return all at once. Wet stone. His hand at your waist. Your own stupid voice, bitter and wounded.
“You don’t have to touch me longer than necessary,” you murmur, quieter now.
Bucky’s jaw flexes. His thumb strokes once along your lower lip, and the tenderness of it makes the shame worse somehow. “That.” His other hand presses at your lower back, bringing you down against him again. “Every time you thought that today, I want it back.”
You have no idea what that means until he kisses you.
It is not careful now. It is deep, claiming, his tongue sliding into your mouth as his hand guides your hips over him. The wet fabric drags against your clit, and you whimper into the kiss, the sound swallowed by him immediately. He does it again, rolls you down, grinds you over the hard shape of his cock, and the pleasure is dirty and sharp, mixed with the faint scratch of his trunks and the slickness between your thighs.
“Long enough?” he mutters against your mouth.
You clutch at him, face burning. “Shut up.”
His hand slips between your bodies, fingers finding your clit with such sudden precision that your whole body jerks. He rubs slow, tight circles, using your wetness and the water still on your skin, watching your face from inches away.
“Answer me.”
You shake your head, pride making a brave final appearance before dying in combat. “No.”
“No?” His mouth brushes yours, and his fingers press a little harder. Your hips chase the touch, humiliating you on contact. “Still not long enough?”
You hate him. You love him. You want to bite his shoulder until he says your name wrong. “Bucky…”
“That’s not an answer.”
His fingers dip lower, sliding through your folds, and his eyes go heavy at what he finds. “Fuck, sweetheart.” His voice drops into something rough and almost disbelieving. “You’re soaked.”
“Pool,” you manage, immediately ashamed of yourself.
He laughs then, a low sound against your mouth. “Yeah? Pool did this?”
His fingers push inside you, two at once, thick enough that your head drops forward to his shoulder. The stretch steals whatever joke you had left. Your hands claw at his back, and he groans like that hurts in the best possible way.
“Guess I owe the pool an apology,” he murmurs, pumping his fingers slowly. “Been mad at it all day for touching you more than I got to.”
Your laugh breaks into a moan. The sound is embarrassing, open, too needy, and he reacts to it with a thrust of his hips up against your bare thigh, his cock hard and trapped in wet fabric.
“Bucky,” you whimper, turning your face into his neck.
His fingers curl.
Your body goes liquid.
“There,” he breathes, and then seems to remember himself. “Yeah, right there?”
You nod into his skin, too far gone to be difficult.
“Use words.”
A sharp little pulse goes through you. He feels it. His laugh is quieter this time, almost awed.
“Oh, you like that.” His fingers press the same spot again, slow and deliberate, and his thumb finds your clit. “All that mouth at the pool, and now look at you.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” His mouth moves to your ear, breath hot over wet skin. “You hated thinking I didn’t want you.”
That one splits you open more than his fingers.
You try to lift your head, but he holds you where you are, face tucked into his neck, body in his lap, nowhere to go but the truth.
“You hated me looking away,” he continues, quieter, filthy and tender in equal measure. “Hated Wilson saying you looked good because you wanted it from me. Hated that I sat there like an idiot when all you wanted was for me to come over and put my hands on you.”
Your thighs shake around his. The pleasure is building faster than you expected, pulled tighter by every word. He is too accurate. Too close. Too deep, and it is only his fingers, which makes you dizzy with terror over what the rest of him will do.
“I didn’t…” You try. Fail. “I didn’t want…”
He kisses under your ear. “Liar.”
“Bucky.”
“You did.” His hand around your waist slides up your back, holding you as his fingers fuck into you a little harder. “You wanted me jealous. You wanted me to see you. You wanted me to stop acting like a saint and do something about it.”
Your nails dig into him.
“There,” he says, sounding pleased and ruined all at once. “That one.”
You are close. Horribly close. Hips rocking into his hand now, your body making choices your pride would never sign off on. His thumb rubs your clit steadily, and his fingers hit that same spot until your vision goes soft at the edges. You bite down on his shoulder to keep from being too loud, and he makes a strangled sound, hips bucking under you.
“God, do that again.”
You do. Harder.
His fingers slip out of rhythm for one second, and that small loss almost makes you sob. “No, no, no, don’t stop.”
Bucky’s hand tightens at your back. “I’ve got you.”
“You keep saying things like that,” you gasp, words breaking as he finds the rhythm again.
“Yeah?”
“It’s annoying.”
He kisses your temple, and the sweetness of it almost tips you over. “Cum, then complain.”
That should not work.
It works.
The orgasm rolls through you hard enough to make your mouth open against his shoulder without sound at first. Then the sound comes, muffled into his skin, high and wrecked. Your hips grind down on his fingers, chasing every last pull of it, and Bucky talks you through it in a rough whisper that barely sounds like him anymore.
“That’s it, baby. Fuck, there you go. Just needed someone to touch you right, huh? Needed me to stop being stupid and put my hands on you.”
Your body shakes in his lap, every muscle loose and trembling. His fingers slow but do not leave right away. He lets you ride the last of it, forehead pressed to the side of your head, breath rough in your ear. The patio music is still going somewhere far away. Someone outside cheers. Maybe a game. Maybe a toast. The world is criminally unaware that you have just collapsed into a man you were pretending to hate this morning.
Then Bucky starts to pull his fingers free.
You whine.
The sound is pathetic. Immediate. You wish to file a complaint against yourself.
Bucky freezes, then laughs under his breath. “Greedy.”
“Shut up.”
His fingers slide out fully, wet and obscene between you. You mean to look away. You fail. He watches your face as he brings them to his mouth, licking them clean with a slow, dirty satisfaction that makes your cunt clench around nothing.
His eyes darken. “Saw that.”
“You see too much.”
“Not enough.” His hands go to your hips again, turning you carefully and laying you back on the bed before you can protest. The white sheets are instantly doomed, damp under your body, but Tony’s laundry issues are not your ministry. Bucky kneels between your thighs, still in his trunks, cock straining hard beneath the clinging fabric. “I’m making up for it.”
A nervous laugh leaves you as your head sinks into the pillows. “By staring at my vagina?”
His brows lift.
Your face burns. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face again.”
“My face likes you.”
“Your face is an idiot.”
“Yeah.” He presses a kiss to your knee, then lower, then lower again, hands sliding under your thighs to open you wider. “It’s got company.”
The first touch of his mouth between your legs almost makes you levitate.
He does not ease in. Not really. Maybe he means to, maybe he has some beautiful plan involving patience, but the second his tongue parts you, his control seems to go with it. His hands hook around your thighs, dragging you closer to his mouth, and the sound he makes against your pussy is so filthy you cover your mouth with one hand.
Bucky stops.
Your eyes fly open.
He lifts his head, mouth wet, eyes furious in the best way. “Move your hand.”
Your fingers loosen over your lips. “They’ll hear.”
“Let them hear the pool wasn’t the reason you left.”
Your whole body clenches. He sees that too. Obviously. Curse him and his newly unleashed observational skills.
“Bucky,” you whisper, scandalized.
He kisses your inner thigh, close enough to make you twitch. “Move it, baby.”
Slowly, your hand drops to the sheets.
He smiles against your skin. “Thank you.”
Then his mouth is back on you, and gratitude becomes a weapon. He licks into you with slow, messy strokes at first, tasting you like he has been denied water and blames you personally. His tongue drags from your entrance to your clit, lingering there until your thighs tense around his head. Then he does it again. Again. Learning with horrifying speed what makes your hips jerk, what makes your fingers twist in the sheets, what makes your mouth form his name without quite saying it.
You understand, distantly, that he is good at this.
Of course he is. Of course Bucky Barnes eats pussy like he has a vendetta against sanity. Of course the man who looked away all afternoon now has his face buried between your thighs with a concentration that feels almost insulting. Like he is determined to win an argument you did not realize your body had started.
His metal hand slides up your stomach, cool against heated skin, holding you down when your hips lift. The contrast makes you moan. His eyes flick up. He does it again, palm pressing lightly between your ribs as his tongue circles your clit.
“Please,” you breathe, though you have no idea what you are asking for.
Bucky hums into you.
Your back arches. The hum vibrates through every over-sensitive nerve he has already ruined, and your hands shoot to his hair. He lets you pull. Encourages it, maybe, with another wet, open-mouthed suck that makes your thighs clamp around his ears.
“Sorry,” you gasp, trying to loosen your grip.
He pulls back just enough to speak, lips shining. “Do it again.”
“What?”
His teeth scrape your thigh. “Pull my hair again.”
You stare at him, then obey with trembling fingers.
His eyes close for a second, and the expression on his face is so openly pleased that something inside you folds. This is him. Not the cold look-away version from the patio. Not the teasing version with everyone watching. This man, wet-haired and greedy, kneeling between your legs like he has found religion and plans to be terrible about it.
He lowers his mouth again, and this time you pull when his tongue presses inside you.
Bucky groans into your cunt.
The sound is enough to make your hips jerk up against his mouth. He holds you down, but barely. Like he wants the fight. Like every needy movement makes him worse. His tongue fucks into you, then slips back to your clit, alternating until you cannot predict anything except pleasure. It grows too quickly. Your last orgasm has left you sensitive, swollen, every touch brighter than it should be.
“Bucky, I can’t,” you gasp, then hate yourself because you absolutely can and probably will.
He lifts his head, but keeps his thumb moving over your clit in lazy, devastating circles. “Can’t what?”
“Again. I can’t…”
His mouth curves, wet and wicked. “You can.”
“You have too much confidence.”
“I have evidence.” His thumb presses a little harder, and your legs shake. “Look at you.”
“No.”
“Yeah.” He leans up over you, thumb still moving, mouth hovering above yours. You can smell yourself on him. The realization makes you clench so hard his eyes drop. “You gonna get shy now? After soaking my fingers? After grinding all over me like you were trying to ruin my life?”
“I was making a point.”
“You made it.” His lips brush yours. “Very persuasive.”
You mean to roll your eyes. He kisses you before you can, pushing the taste of yourself into your mouth while his thumb keeps working your clit. The kiss makes it dirtier. More intimate. Your hand wraps around his wrist, but you don’t pull him away. You hold him there, grinding up in tiny helpless motions as the pressure builds again.
Bucky’s mouth leaves yours only to speak against it. “You’re gonna cum on my hand, then I’m gonna fuck you. If that’s what you want.”
If. Somehow that word remains. A door, not a trap. It makes your eyes sting again, which is so deeply inconvenient while naked with a man’s hand between your legs.
“I want it,” you say, voice shaking.
His forehead touches yours. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” Your grip tightens around his wrist. “I want you. I wanted you all day. I wanted you before today, and you were horrible and confusing and shirtless, which was unnecessary, and I hate that you looked away, and I hate that I cared, and I want you to fuck me so badly I can’t think about any of it.”
Bucky stares at you.
For a moment you regret speaking. Then his mouth crashes into yours, and regret becomes impractical.
His fingers replace his thumb, sliding down and pushing into you again, three this time, the stretch sharper after his mouth. You gasp into the kiss. He swallows it, pumps his fingers deep, heel of his hand grinding against your clit. The pleasure turns immediate and rough, your body already primed by his mouth and his words and the unbearable fact of being wanted after hours of believing the opposite.
“That’s it,” he mutters against your cheek. “There’s my mean girl. Thought I lost you under all that pouting.”
You whimper and slap weakly at his shoulder. “I was wounded.”
“You were jealous.”
“You were avoidant.”
“I was hard enough to see God.”
A shocked laugh bursts out of you, then breaks as his fingers curl. “That’s vulgar.”
“You asked for honesty.”
“I did not ask for theology.”
He laughs into your neck, and somehow the warm sound mixed with the filthy rhythm of his hand tips you closer. You clutch at his shoulders, then his hair, then the sheets. Nothing helps. The orgasm comes slower this time, dragged out of you with cruel patience. Your thighs tense, stomach pulling tight, and Bucky feels the change before you can warn him.
“Yeah, baby. Give me that one too.” His mouth presses near your ear, voice a wrecked whisper. “Need it. Need to feel you cum before I get inside you.”
Need. From him. Bucky Barnes needing anything from you.
Your body gives in.
The second orgasm is messier, wetter, less contained. You cry out before you can bite it back, hips bucking into his hand, and Bucky groans like the sound goes straight through him. His fingers keep moving, slower but deep, dragging the pleasure until you are shaking and trying to push at his wrist.
“Too much,” you gasp.
He stops at once.
The loss makes you whine again, and he laughs softly, kissing your cheek, then your jaw, then your mouth with absurd sweetness for someone who just fingered you into temporary stupidity.
“You’re impossible,” he murmurs.
“Your fault.”
“Yeah.” His hand smooths over your thigh, gentle now. “I’m starting to like that answer.”
You open your eyes. He is above you, wet hair falling forward, mouth swollen from kissing and eating you, eyes on your face with such naked affection that it scares you more than the hunger did.
Affection is hard. Desire has a script. Affection looks at you afterward.
Your hand lifts before you can stop it, touching his cheek. He turns slightly into your palm. That tiny movement ruins you.
“You really wanted me?” you ask, hating the softness in your voice.
His expression tightens. “All day.”
“Before today?”
He presses a kiss to your palm. “Yeah.”
“How long?”
A pause.
The room becomes too quiet again, but this silence is not empty. It is full of him deciding whether to lie. He does not.
“Long enough to act stupid about it.”
“That could be any amount of time.”
“Months.”
Your chest squeezes. “Months?”
“Maybe longer.”
“You’re terrible at flirting.”
“I panicked,” he says again, like that explains the whole tragedy of him. Maybe it does.
You laugh softly. He smiles this time, real and quick, then kisses you. The kiss starts gentle, then deepens when your legs wrap around his waist. His cock presses against you through his trunks, and the teasing drag makes both of you go still.
He looks down between your bodies. “I need these off.”
“Finally, a smart idea.”
His hands go to the waistband, then pause. “Condom?”
Reality returns in a less catastrophic way. Important. Practical. You gesture vaguely toward the side table, then remember this is Tony’s guest room, not a hotel minibar for sex supplies. “Unless Tony keeps them next to the complimentary existential dread, I don’t…”
Bucky drops his forehead to your shoulder with a pained groan.
A laugh bubbles out of you, helpless and mean. “Very prepared seduction, Barnes.”
“I was supposed to be ignoring you by the pool.”
“You did great.”
He bites your shoulder lightly. You yelp, then laugh harder. His own laugh shakes against you, warm and frustrated, and the absurdity of it makes the room feel human again.
Then he lifts his head. “I have one in my wallet.”
You stop laughing.
His brows draw together. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re judging.”
“I am judging.”
“I’m a grown man.”
“With pool-party condoms?”
“One condom. Singular. Emergency.”
“What emergency did you anticipate?”
He gives you a look. “Apparently this one.”
You should make another joke. You truly should. But the thought of him having one, of this actually happening, drains humor out of you and leaves want in its place. “Wallet,” you say.
Bucky’s eyes darken again.
He climbs off the bed, and the loss of his body makes you cold for exactly three seconds before he turns toward the chair where his discarded shirt must be absent, then remembers his wallet is out by the pool with his things. His face changes into genuine despair.
You clap a hand over your mouth.
“Don’t,” he warns.
“You left your emergency outside?”
“I didn’t plan to need it indoors.”
You dissolve into laughter. It is quiet, desperate, half muffled, but laughter all the same. Bucky stares at you, then shakes his head, smiling despite himself. He looks younger like this. Less impossible. Still shirtless and wet and hard in his swim trunks, which does complicate the innocence.
“I’ll go,” he says.
“You are not going outside like that.”
His gaze drops to the obvious tent in his trunks. “Fair.”
You look around the room and spot a folded robe near the bathroom door, white and plush. Perfectly Tony. “Robe.”
“I’m not wearing Stark’s sex robe.”
“Guest robe.”
“Same thing.”
“You want the condom or a philosophical debate?”
Bucky points at you. “Stay there.”
You sink back into the pillows, naked and grinning like an idiot. “Where would I go?”
“Knowing you? Window.”
“Only if things get worse.”
He grabs the robe, pulls it on with visible resentment, and the sight of Bucky Barnes in a plush white guest robe with wet hair and a furious erection is so absurdly beautiful that you almost cry. He catches your face and pauses at the door.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He narrows his eyes. “That smile says something.”
“It says hurry.”
That works. He leaves, closing the door behind him.
The second he is gone, you become aware of yourself again. Naked on white sheets. Swimsuit on the floor. Body cooling, thighs damp, mouth swollen. The laughter fades slowly, leaving a trembling little silence behind it.
This is real.
Bucky wanted you. Bucky is coming back. Bucky went to fetch a condom wearing Tony’s guest robe like some obscene, damp ghost of poor planning.
Your hand presses over your stomach. Not hiding now. Just grounding. It feels different under your own palm after his mouth, his hands, his eyes. Still yours. Still soft in places. Still carrying every insecurity from the bathroom mirror. But his wanting has touched it now, and you hate how much that helps. Hate how badly you needed someone else’s hunger to quiet the awful little voice in your head. Maybe you can work on that later. Maybe growth can wait until after orgasms.
Voices rise in the hall.
You freeze.
Sam: “Barnes, why the hell are you wearing a robe?”
Bucky, low and deadly: “Move.”
Tony, delighted somewhere farther away: “That is Egyptian cotton, by the way.”
Natasha laughs. “Let him live.”
Sam again, audibly grinning: “Is there a fire?”
Bucky says something too low to hear.
A beat of silence.
Then Sam barks out, “Oh my god.”
Your soul exits again, does a lap, returns out of morbid curiosity.
The door opens. Bucky steps in, face red, jaw tight, wallet in hand, robe still tied around him. He closes the door and locks it this time.
You stare.
He points at you again. “Don’t.”
“I said nothing.”
“You’re laughing with your whole face.”
“I would never.”
He stalks back toward the bed, tugging at the robe tie with enough aggression to threaten the cotton’s lineage. “Wilson knows.”
“Oh no.”
“Tony knows.”
“Tony knew before we did.”
“Steve looked proud.”
That breaks you. You roll onto your side, laughing into the pillow. Bucky tosses the wallet onto the bed and grabs your ankle, pulling you back toward him. The movement turns your laughter into a gasp. The robe falls open as he kneels on the mattress, and there he is, absurdity gone in a single second, his body over yours again, desire returning like a hand around your throat.
“Laughing at me?” he asks.
“Yes.”
His hand slides up your calf, over your knee, spreading your leg aside. “That’s brave.”
“I’m very brave.”
“You slipped twice today.”
“Physically brave and spatially cursed.”
His mouth twitches. He bends down and kisses the inside of your knee, then the thigh, and the laughter fades into a softer sound. “You okay?”
The question is quiet. It stops the teasing better than any command could. You look down at him, fingers resting in his wet hair.
“Yes,” you say. Then, more honest, “Nervous.”
His hand stills on your thigh. “About me?”
“About you seeing me.”
His face changes again, but he does not use any of the easy lines. No polished praise. No smooth answer. He moves up your body instead, covering you with his warmth, bracing one arm beside your head. His other hand cups your cheek, thumb damp against your skin.
“I see you,” he says. “I want you. Same sentence.”
Your throat tightens. “That’s unfairly effective.”
“Trying to be clear.”
“Terrible habit.”
His mouth brushes yours. “Can I keep seeing you?”
You nod. “Yeah.”
His lips press to your cheek, your jaw, your neck. “Can I keep touching you?”
Your legs part wider around him. “Yeah.”
His hand slides down between your bodies, and your hips lift when his fingers stroke through your folds again, gentle now, checking. Teasing. Both. “Can I fuck you?”
The bluntness sends a hot pulse through you. Your fingers tighten on his shoulders.
“Yes,” you breathe. “Please.”
Bucky’s eyes close for a beat, and when they open, patience is hanging by a thread.
The robe is shoved away. His trunks follow, dragged down his hips with a wet, clinging sound that would be funny if you had enough brain left. You do not. You are too busy staring. He is thick, heavy in his hand, flushed at the tip, and your mouth goes dry so fast it is almost comic.
Bucky notices. Naturally.
“Still judging my emergency condom?” he asks, tearing the foil with his teeth.
You look up at him. “Less now.”
“Thought so.”
The condom rolls on. His hand pumps once, twice, and your thighs press together around empty air. He sees that too, then settles between your legs and guides them open again. The head of his cock drags through your wetness, and both of you go quiet.
The first press against your entrance is almost too much.
He pauses there, forehead lowering to yours. “Tell me if you need slow.”
You hate that. You love that. You want to ruin him for it.
“I need you to stop talking like a responsible adult,” you whisper.
A short laugh leaves him, strained. “Sweetheart, I am hanging on by a thread.”
“Then stop hanging.”
His hips push forward.
The stretch is slow and full and immediate enough to make your mouth fall open. Bucky watches your face as he enters you, jaw clenched, breath breaking through his nose. He gives you the first inch, then another, then stops when your nails dig into his arms.
“Okay?”
You nod too quickly, body caught between ache and hunger. “More.”
His control slips for half a second. His hips roll deeper, and the sound that leaves both of you is ugly and perfect. He is bigger than his fingers, thicker than your imagination had kindly prepared you for, filling you in a way that makes thought stagger. Your legs wrap around his waist. His hand grips the sheet beside your head.
“Fuck,” he breathes, almost helpless. “You feel…”
You wait for the line. Pretty. Tight. Perfect. Something dirty and easy.
He lowers his face to your neck. “I’m gonna lose my mind.”
That is better.
You clench around him, and his hips jerk. His teeth press into your shoulder. “Do that again and this ends fast.”
“Maybe I want that.”
He lifts his head, eyes dark. “No, you don’t.”
Your body gives you away, warmth spreading under your skin. “Annoying.”
“You want me to take my time now.” He pulls out slightly, then pushes back in, slow enough that you feel every inch. “You wanted me to look, right? Wanted me to stop looking away?”
Your hands twist in the sheets.
He does it again, dragging the pleasure into something deep and almost unbearable. “I’m looking.”
You cannot answer. There is no room. He fills too much of you, his body heavy over yours, wet hair brushing your cheek, the scent of chlorine and him wrapped around every breath. His eyes hold your face as he starts a slow rhythm, each thrust smooth and deep, his mouth parting when you tighten around him.
“Bucky,” you moan, and his name sounds ruined.
His hand slips under your knee, hitching your leg higher. The angle changes, and his next thrust hits so deep your back bows off the bed. He groans, dropping his head to your shoulder.
“There?” he asks, already doing it again.
You nod, frantic. “There, please, there.”
“Yeah, baby.” His pace picks up, still controlled but rougher now, bed shifting under both of you. “Knew you’d sound pretty begging.”
Your face burns. “I’m not begging.”
He thrusts harder.
The words vanish.
“That sounded like begging.” His mouth presses to your cheek, deceptively sweet while his hips drive into you with enough force to make your fingers claw at his back. “Pool made you mouthy. My cock’s fixing it.”
The filth of it makes you clench.
Bucky laughs, but it breaks halfway into a groan. “Shit, you like that.”
“You’re so smug.”
“I’m inside you,” he says, breath hot against your mouth. “I earned a little.”
You would argue, but his hand slides between you and finds your clit. The first touch makes you jolt. After his mouth and his fingers, you are too sensitive, every nerve overfed and greedy. He rubs tight circles as he fucks you, watching your expression collapse.
“Oh, that’s it.” His voice turns thick, affectionate in the dirtiest possible way. “There’s my girl.”
My girl.
You fall apart a little just hearing it.
His eyes sharpen. “Yeah? That one?”
“Bucky…”
“My girl,” he repeats, and his hips hit deeper, harder. “Mine to look at. Mine to touch. Mine to pull out of the pool when she’s trying to make me jealous.”
You shake your head, but your body is a liar and both of you know it.
“No?” His thumb presses harder on your clit. “You didn’t like me jumping in after you?”
“You looked ridiculous,” you gasp.
“Yeah, well. You looked wet and half naked and mad at me. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
A laugh escapes you, then turns into a moan when he rolls his hips. He smiles against your mouth, kissing the sound away, and for a few seconds the rhythm becomes messy. Kissing, thrusting, breathing into each other, his hand working between you, your nails leaving half-moon marks in his shoulders. No clean choreography. No grace. Just damp skin, white sheets, the slap of his hips against yours growing louder, the ridiculous fear that someone outside might hear and the worse realization that you want them to know he came after you.
You turn your face into the pillow to muffle yourself.
Bucky catches your jaw and pulls you back. “No.”
“They’ll hear.”
“Good.”
“Bucky.”
His eyes are dark, almost feverish. “Spent all day watching you think I didn’t want you. Let them hear me prove it.”
Your orgasm rises so fast it scares you. It starts low, tightening through your stomach, then spreads until your thighs tremble around his waist. He feels it. His thrusts lose some smoothness, turning heavier, more desperate.
“You close?”
You nod, helpless.
“Say it.”
“I’m close.”
His mouth brushes yours. “Ask me.”
Your eyes open. “What?”
“Ask me to make you cum.”
The request should annoy you. It does. It also sends pleasure twisting sharply through your body, so your irritation lacks credibility.
“You’re impossible,” you whimper.
“Ask.”
His hips slow.
That is evil.
You grab at his shoulders. “Don’t slow down.”
“Ask me, baby.”
A second passes, filled with the obscene pressure of him buried deep and almost still, his thumb barely moving over your clit. You glare at him with whatever strength remains.
“Please,” you say, hating how breathless it is. Loving how his face changes. “Please make me cum.”
Bucky groans, and the restraint goes.
His hips drive into you hard enough to shove you up the bed, one arm hooking under your back to keep you close. His thumb works your clit faster, and his mouth moves over your jaw, your cheek, your lips, wherever he can reach while he fucks you. He is talking now, rough and uneven, less like performance and more like words escaping under pressure.
“Wanted this so bad. Wanted you so bad, sweetheart. Sitting out there in that fucking swimsuit, looking at me like you wanted to scratch my eyes out. Thought I was gonna snap when you smiled at Sam. Thought I was gonna drag you inside when you said I didn’t have to touch you. Stupid thing to say to me. Like I haven’t been thinking about putting my hands on you for months.”
Months. Again. The word breaks over you with the thrusts, with the pressure, with the hard heat of him inside you.
Your orgasm hits with his name in your mouth.
It is bigger this time, deeper, pulled from every place he touched and every place he looked. You cry out, hips lifting into him, cunt clenching around his cock so hard his rhythm stutters. Bucky curses against your throat, fucking you through it with short, rough thrusts that make the pleasure keep sparking long after the first wave should have ended.
“That’s it,” he groans. “That’s it, baby. Fuck, you feel so good when you cum.”
You cannot answer. Your body is trembling too hard, arms wrapped around him, face pressed into his neck as he loses the last of his rhythm. His thrusts turn desperate, deeper and less controlled, and something about that undoes you almost as much as your own release. Bucky, who spent all day looking away, is now buried inside you and shaking apart over it.
“Where?” he rasps.
The condom. Practicality. Again, somehow.
“Inside,” you breathe. “You have the condom, inside, please.”
He makes a sound against your skin, broken and almost grateful. His hips slam once, twice, then bury deep as he comes. His whole body tenses over yours, breath caught against your shoulder, hands gripping you like he needs somewhere to put the force of it. You feel the pulse of him through the condom, feel the weight of him, the shudder that runs across his back under your hands.
Then he softens by degrees.
His forehead rests against your shoulder. His breathing is rough, warm, damp over your skin. Your own body feels boneless, wrung out and too sensitive, thighs still locked around his waist like they have not received news of the ending.
Outside, someone cheers again.
Bucky huffs a laugh into your neck. “If that’s about us, I’m moving to Siberia.”
You laugh weakly, fingers combing through the wet hair at his nape. “That was my plan.”
“We can carpool.”
“After you get off me. You’re heavy.”
He lifts his head, affronted and beautiful. “You wound me.”
“You crushed me.”
“You wrapped around me.”
“You were available.”
His smile comes slowly this time, soft and disbelieving, and the sight hurts in a new way. Not bad. Just big. Too big for a guest room during a pool party. Too big for a body still buzzing from sex.
He kisses you once, gentle and quick. “I’m gonna move.”
You make a deeply embarrassing sound of protest before you can stop it.
Bucky pauses. The smugness returns in miniature. “Yeah?”
“Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face is speaking.”
“My face has been through a lot today.”
He eases out carefully, and even that makes you wince. His hand strokes your thigh in apology, and the tenderness of it makes you look away. He handles the condom, ties it off, finds a trash bin in the bathroom, washes his hands. Normal things. Human things. Meanwhile you lie in Tony Stark’s guest bed naked, damp, and fucked so thoroughly that your bones feel rearranged.
When Bucky returns, he grabs the towel from the chair and wipes gently at the wetness on your thighs. The care makes your throat tighten.
“You don’t have to do that,” you murmur, then immediately regret the phrasing.
His eyes lift.
Right.
You both hear the echo.
This time, he does not get angry. He leans down and kisses the inside of your knee. “I want to.”
The answer settles over the old wound quietly.
You nod, unable to make a joke fast enough.
He cleans you with warm water from the bathroom after that, careful between your legs while you try not to squirm from sensitivity. Then he finds another towel, pats the sheets around you with the resigned air of a man who knows Tony will make comments for the rest of his life. Your swimsuit remains on the floor. He picks it up, holds it between two fingers, and gives it an unreadable look.
You lift your head. “Don’t insult it. We’ve all grown.”
Bucky’s mouth twitches. “I owe it an apology.”
“You owe me an apology.”
“I gave you one.”
“I want another.”
He climbs back onto the bed beside you, still naked, shameless in a way that should be illegal. The mattress dips under his weight. “For what?”
“For being weird at the pool.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For looking away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For making me think you hated it.”
His face softens in that unbearable way again. He reaches for you, then pauses until you shift closer yourself. Once you do, his arm slides around you, pulling you against his chest. His skin is warm now, less wet, still smelling faintly of chlorine. “I’m sorry.”
You rest your cheek against him, listening to his heart. It is beating fast. Not hammering. You refuse to give it dramatic language. Just fast enough to comfort you.
“And for making me feel like I needed sam to tell me I looked nice,” you add, quieter.
His arm tightens.
A few seconds pass. Not empty. Not awkward. Full of that sentence sitting between you and breathing.
“You looked beautiful,” he says, voice low. “You looked so good I forgot how to act like a person. And that’s on me, not you.”
Your eyes sting again, which is becoming repetitive and rude. “You need to stop saying decent things after sex. It’s confusing.”
His lips press to your hair. “Would it help if I said something indecent?”
“Yes.”
“Your thighs almost killed me.”
A laugh bursts out of you, wet and startled. “Bucky.”
“I’m serious. National threat.”
“You’re so stupid.”
He kisses your forehead, smiling against your skin. “Yeah, but you like me.”
You go still for half a second.
He feels it.
The words sit there, too close to another word neither of you has touched yet. Like. Want. Months. My girl. All safer than the one with teeth. Bucky’s hand moves slowly over your back, giving you somewhere to put the panic.
“You like me too,” he says, softer, almost cautious beneath the tease.
You close your eyes. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Don’t get greedy.”
His chest moves under your cheek with a quiet laugh. “Too late.”
A knock hits the door.
Both of you freeze.
Tony’s voice comes through the wood, bright with theatrical politeness. “As the owner of this house, its Egyptian cotton robe, and several traumatized guests, I would like to announce that dinner part two is happening in twenty minutes. Clothing encouraged. Applause optional.”
You bury your face in Bucky’s chest.
Bucky sighs. “Go away, Stark.”
“Gladly. Also, Wilson owes me fifty dollars. Carry on.”
Footsteps retreat.
Your face is burning so badly it may light the bed on fire. “I hate everyone.”
Bucky’s hand slides possessively over your hip. “Want me to get your clothes?”
The thought of walking back outside in the swimsuit after everything makes you want to dissolve. But then again, the old shame does not bite quite the same now. The swimsuit is still a damp heap on the floor. Your body is still your body. Your friends are still awful. Bucky is still a confusing, broad disaster.
Only now he has seen you. Touched you. Wanted you. Said it clearly enough that even your mean little brain has to work harder to ruin it.
“Eventually,” you say.
He hums. “Eventually sounds good.”
“You can’t keep me in Tony’s guest room forever.”
“No,” he agrees, hand moving lazily over your side. “But I can try for another ten minutes.”
“That’s ambitious.”
His mouth finds your neck, and the smile against your skin is warm enough to melt whatever was left of you. “I can be patient.”
“You said that before.”
“I lied.”
You laugh, and he kisses the sound before it can get away.
warnings ۶ৎ 18+ mdni. modern au. explicit smut, body insecurity/body image thoughts, jealousy, miscommunication, pool party tension, wet swimsuit, oral sex, fingering, multiple orgasms, protected piv, dirty talk, praise, possessive bucky, semi-public tension, soft aftercare.
synopsis ۶ৎ bucky spends the whole pool party trying not to stare. you spend the whole pool party thinking he can barely stand to look at you.
a slippery pool step, one bitter comment, and tony stark’s guest room fix that problem rather loudly.
evie’s input ۶ৎ not beta read. tumblr is a bitch for making my format go to shit. but please enjoy folks. dividers by @/cursed-carmine
you bought the swimsuit out of pure delusion. pure, bright, sun-drunk delusion, the sort that made sense at two in the morning with your laptop glowing against your face and natasha sitting beside you on the bed, eating chips directly from the bag while telling you that black one-pieces were for women hiding from federal charges or their own thighs. she had said that with such calm authority, such casual violence, that you had clicked away from the perfectly safe black one-piece and ended up on a page full of colors that made you feel personally attacked. cherry red. powder blue. white, which felt like an invitation for god to humiliate you. green, which nat said would look pretty on your skin and you said would make you look like a decorative salad, and then she had hit you with a pillow hard enough to send two chips flying into your blanket.
so you picked the dark blue one.
dark blue seemed mature. forgiving. almost responsible, if swimwear could be responsible. it had a low back that made you sit up straighter just looking at the model, and the top had little gold rings at the straps, small enough to pretend they were classy instead of slutty. the bottoms sat high on the hips, which nat called flattering and you called invasive. still, you ordered it. you even paid for express shipping, which felt like signing a contract with your own downfall.
now, standing in tony stark’s guest bathroom with the swimsuit cutting into places you had never invited fabric to develop an opinion about, the delusion had fully left your body. “this is a hate crime,” you mutter at your reflection, tugging the side higher, then lower, then higher again, like one of those positions will suddenly unlock a new body. “against me, specifically.”
the mirror gives you no sympathy. it just shows you exactly what you are trying very hard to survive. thighs. hips. stomach. skin. actual human flesh, very rude of it. you turn slightly, regret it, turn back, regret that too. the swimsuit is pretty. that may be the worst part. if it were ugly, you could blame the swimsuit. but it is pretty and soft and fitted, which means the problem is clearly you, and that feels legally actionable.
natasha knocks twice, then opens the door like locks are a decorative suggestion. she is wearing a black bikini and a loose white shirt, hair braided back, sunglasses resting on her head. she looks like she has never feared a changing room mirror in her life. maybe she killed that fear at sixteen and buried it in a forest. “if you’re dead in there, say something,” she says, leaning against the doorframe with a drink already in hand.
you glare at her through the mirror. “i’m suing you.”
“for making you look hot?”
“for elder abuse.”
“you’re younger than me.”
“for emotional elder abuse.”
her mouth twitches. she steps inside, closes the door with her heel, and turns you by the shoulders before you can protest. the inspection is quick and blunt, clinical in the scariest possible way, then her brows lift. “yeah. you’re wearing it.”
“you didn’t even pretend to think.”
“i did think. silently. very sexy of me.”
you pull at the bottom again, mostly so your hands have a job. it feels safer when your hands have a job. otherwise they might wander up and cover your stomach or your chest or your face, and then nat would make one of those sounds. a small sound, barely a sound, the kind that says she loves you and also wants to shake you until your bones make music. “it’s too much,” you say, quieter.
“it’s a pool party.”
“exactly. people will be near pools. with eyes.”
“tragic.” nat takes another sip. “people might also have necks. horrifying world.”
you make a face at her, but your fingers have started twisting the hem of the towel around your shoulders. the towel is the only thing keeping you from turning around, putting your shorts back on, and telling everyone you’ve developed a sudden aquatic allergy. chlorine intolerance. water-related moral conflict. any excuse with a medical-sounding word might work on steve. sam would ask questions. tony would ask if the water offended you personally, then offer to replace it with imported glacier melt.
bucky would look at you. that thought is the whole disease. bucky barnes looking at you in this swimsuit is either going to kill you outright or make you wish it had. he is already too much in normal clothes. jeans, shirts, those stupid henleys that cling to his shoulders with religious devotion. shirts in general seem desperate around him. fabric has never looked more underpaid. and now there is a very real chance that you will walk outside and find him shirtless by the pool, all broad chest and sun-warmed skin and dark hair falling around his face, and you’ll have to behave like someone who pays taxes and owns a toothbrush. impossible.
even worse, he may look at you and then look away. the thought is small. mean. familiar. he does that sometimes. looks away when you enter the room like your presence is a lamp turned directly into his eyes. you’ve built a whole religion around it. bucky finds you irritating. bucky tolerates you for nat’s sake. bucky can flirt with cashiers, grandmothers, dogs, possibly dangerous machinery, but when it comes to you, he either teases until you want to bite him or turns cold like you spilled something on his favorite memory.
“he’s already here,” nat says.
you blink at her. horrible woman. witch. spy. roommate. “who?”
“the pool boy.”
“tony has a pool boy?”
“no, but if he did, i’d respect his commitment to the theme.” nat watches you through the mirror. “barnes. he’s outside with steve and sam.”
your mouth goes dry. very mature reaction. very dignified. you deserve an award for remaining upright. “thrilling.”
“he asked where you were.”
“to insult me?”
“probably to write a poem.”
you snort despite yourself, then hate the sound for being too fond. bucky inspires many feelings in you, most of them medically confusing. rage, attraction, pettiness, fondness, the strange urge to press your face into his chest and stand there until society collapses. you used to think crushes were supposed to be fun. light. giggly. yours feels like chewing glass while a beautiful man laughs in another room. “i’m putting clothes on,” you announce, turning toward the pile you abandoned on the sink.
natasha catches the towel before you can turn it into armor. her face softens, which is alarming. she is much easier to handle when she is threatening people or calling men idiots. tenderness from nat tends to make you confess things. “you can wear whatever you want. but if you’re changing because barnes might see you, i’m going to be annoying.”
“you’re already annoying.”
“i have levels.” her hand squeezes your shoulder once. “he’s one guy.”
“he’s a large guy.”
“still one.”
“that’s debatable. he has the surface area of three men.”
she smiles into her glass. “come outside.”
you stare at yourself again. the gold rings at your shoulders glint under the bathroom lights. a soft breath leaves you, slow and unwilling. the girl in the mirror looks terrified, which is rude, because you were aiming for bored. maybe indifferent. possibly mysterious. something with less of a wet-cat energy.
bucky is one guy. one guy with eyes. one guy who probably won’t even look long enough to form an opinion. that is worse. “fine,” you say, grabbing the towel and wrapping it around your shoulders instead of your body. “but if i cry, i’m pushing you into the pool.”
nat opens the door, smug and fond. “deal. i swim beautifully.” you hate her. you follow her anyway.
sunlight hits you like a personal accusation. tony’s summer house is all glass, white stone, obnoxious wealth, and views so good they make you suspicious. the pool stretches across the back patio in a ridiculous blue sheet, bright enough to look fake, with lounge chairs lined along one side and a shaded outdoor kitchen on the other. music plays from speakers hidden somewhere in the landscaping, low and expensive. the air smells like sunscreen, grilled pineapple, chlorine, and the rosemary bushes tony probably paid someone to make look effortless.
everyone is already there. wanda is stretched on a lounger with sunglasses over her eyes, red hair spilling over one shoulder. vision sits beside her reading a book in the sun like a man who has never sweated once in his life. steve is by the grill, wearing swim trunks and a white shirt he left open, looking like a recruitment poster for sunscreen safety. sam is in the pool, arguing with clint over a foam football. tony is wearing sunglasses indoors, technically outdoors, but under the shaded bar, so spiritually indoors. bruce is speaking to pepper near a bowl of fruit like he has been assigned fruit diplomacy.
and bucky. bucky is near the far side of the pool, one foot up on the lower rung of a lounger, laughing at something steve says across the patio. shirtless, obviously. cruelly. swim trunks low on his hips, hair tied back in a loose half-bun, a pair of sunglasses hanging from the collar of the shirt he has abandoned on a chair. his skin is already touched by sun, golden at the shoulders, marked with faint scars and old history, and your brain takes one look at him and files for retirement.
of course. of course he gets to look like that near water. like some mythological punishment. like a sailor’s bad decision. like if marble got warm and developed a bad personality.
you stop near the sliding door. nat keeps walking. traitor. sam sees you first. “hey, finally! we were about to send a search party.”
“i was in the bathroom for seven minutes,” you call back, which is mostly true if you ignore the years spent negotiating with your own reflection.
“seven minutes in woman time,” tony says, lifting his drink. “so either twelve seconds or a fiscal quarter.”
“rich men shouldn’t speak,” you say, and tony points at you like you’ve wounded him.
“see, this is why i invite you. keeps the ego limber.”
that gets a few laughs, easy and warm. you can handle them. most of them. everyone here has seen you in pajamas, sick, angry, half asleep, and once crying over a video of a dog getting prosthetic legs. skin should be nothing. thighs should be nothing. a stomach should be nothing. human bodies have been happening for ages. terribly common things.
then bucky turns. it is fast. too fast. his smile is still there from whatever steve said, wide and relaxed, and then his eyes find you and the smile fades in pieces.
you go so still the towel slips down one shoulder.
he looks at your face first, then lower. hardly a second, maybe less, barely enough to count, but your body counts it. the line of his gaze touches your swimsuit, the bare places around it, the curve you have spent twenty minutes trying to negotiate with, and then he looks away.
just like that. his jaw tightens. his hand curls around the back of the lounger. his attention swings back to steve with such sudden force that you almost laugh. there it is. there it fucking is.
you knew this would happen. stupid, stupid girl. standing in a bathroom telling yourself he was only one guy when that one guy apparently needs to look anywhere else the second you show too much skin. amazing. beautiful. maybe you can walk straight into the pool and keep going until you reach a new continent. the patio sounds louder now. sam’s laughter, clint yelling about cheating, ice clinking in tony’s glass. everything keeps moving around you with obscene casualness. no one else saw it. no one else felt the tiny, sharp slice of it. bucky looked at you and looked away, and everyone else gets to continue eating fruit.
natasha glances back. you arrange your face into something flat and vaguely hostile. a familiar costume. better than the swimsuit.“drink?” she asks.
“yes.”
“alcoholic?”
“aggressively.”
tony hears that and brightens. “finally, someone with taste.”
you make your way toward the bar, aware of every step. the swimsuit feels too tight and too revealing and somehow too loud. bucky is across the patio, speaking to steve. he does not look again. that is fine. excellent. merciful, even. you hope he develops hiccups. tony slides a drink toward you. “for the lady with the aggressive liver.”
“thank you. sorry about your personality.”
“accepted. i bought another one.”
sam hoists himself out of the pool with a dramatic groan, water streaming down his shoulders. He grabs a towel, wiping his face, and his gaze flicks over your swimsuit without the weirdness men can sometimes bring to it. Just appreciative, warm, and easy. “Damn. Look at you.”
your fingers tighten around the glass. for one stupid second, praise lands in a place that has been sitting empty for too long. you lift your brows, aiming for casual. “is that surprise?”
“that’s respect,” sam says, pointing at the gold ring on your strap. “little fancy thing going on. i see you.”
“it’s swimsuit technology.”
“no, that’s a whole look. hey, buck.” sam turns his head before you can stop him. “you seeing this?”
murder becomes briefly understandable.
bucky’s shoulders go rigid. Steve looks between sam and bucky with the pained expression of a man witnessing a grenade roll under a picnic table. the second stretches. maybe two. your drink sweats against your palm. bucky does turn, but his eyes barely make it to your shoulder before skating away again. “yeah,” he says, voice rough enough that it sounds dragged from his throat. “i see it.”
that is worse than silence. you swallow. “fantastic. all votes counted.”
sam squints, sensing something in the air with the survival instincts of a man who has chosen chaos as a hobby. “you okay over there, terminator?”
bucky’s mouth moves into something that could pass for a smile in poor lighting. “fine.”
“sounds painful.”
“sam.”
“what? i’m checking on my friend.”
“check quieter.”
you take a long sip. It is sweet, cold, and strong enough to make your teeth feel clean. Wonderful. Tony Stark may be a public hazard, but the man stocks good alcohol. You let the burn settle on your tongue and decide, with the private little click of a door closing, that this is fine. Bucky can avoid looking at you. Great. Wonderful. Plenty of people have eyes.
Sam, for instance. Sam is grinning at you, towel around his neck, eyebrows lifted. He is handsome and safe and not Bucky, which immediately lowers his value in the ugliest part of your brain. But he complimented you. He looked at you without flinching. That counts for something. “you getting in?” sam asks, jerking his chin toward the pool. “or did you dress up to intimidate the tiles?”
“both can be true.”
“come on. clint’s cheating and i need a witness.”
you glance toward the water, then toward nat, who has settled beside wanda. Then, against all better judgment, toward bucky. He is looking at his drink. Very invested in it. Possibly falling in love with it. Good for them. your drink goes onto the counter. the towel slides off your shoulders and onto a chair before you can give yourself time to become normal again. Cool air brushes over your bare back. Too many places. Too much skin. Your arms fight the urge to cross over your middle.
Bucky’s head turns a fraction. You see it. You hate that you see it. The movement is so tiny anyone else would miss it, but you have a tragic little doctorate in James Barnes pretending indifference. His eyes make it to your legs this time. Then his mouth presses flat, and he turns away again.
Fine. Your chin lifts. “i’m a terrible witness,” you tell sam, stepping toward the pool. “i lie under pressure.”
Sam laughs and offers his hand from the water like he is helping royalty down from a carriage. “perfect. we’ll frame clint together.”
The pool is cold at first, a shock around your calves as you sit on the edge and lower yourself in. You bite back the sound that tries to escape, mostly out of pride. The water closes around your waist, then your ribs, and for a second the swimsuit stops feeling like a spotlight. Underwater, everything blurs kinder. Your hips, stomach, thighs. The body becomes a body again. Less evidence. Less argument. Sam tosses you the foam football. You catch it against your chest with both hands, splashing yourself in the face. “very athletic,” clint calls.
you wipe water from your eyes. “i’m preserving my mystery.”
“your mystery is that you suck at catch.”
“my mystery is that i haven’t drowned you.”
That gets a laugh from wanda. Nat smiles behind her sunglasses, proud and terrible. You start to loosen after that. The water helps. The drink helps. Sam helps too, in his loud, easy way, making you feel included without making you feel studied. He shouts fake strategies, accuses clint of crimes against recreational sport, and once spins you by the shoulders to aim your throw while you laugh so hard pool water gets in your mouth.
It should be enough. It almost is. Then you glance over and see Bucky watching. He is no longer pretending to listen to Steve. His sunglasses are on now, hiding his eyes, but his head is angled toward you. His arms are crossed over his chest, one shoulder leaning against a patio pillar, sun catching along the metal of his left hand where it grips his own bicep. There is nothing soft in his posture. Nothing open. He looks carved into place.
Caught, he turns his head slightly. Of course. Your laugh thins. Sam says something, but you miss it. Maybe your name. Maybe a joke. The pool sounds muffle, slipping in and out around your ears. Bucky can look from far away, apparently. From behind sunglasses. From a place where you cannot look back properly. The second you are close enough for him to have to acknowledge you as a body with feelings, he finds the nearest wall or drink or horizon.
There’s a special sort of humiliation in wanting someone who seems vaguely offended by the evidence of you. “you alive?” sam asks, splashing water near your arm.
You blink back to him. “unfortunately.”
“you looked like you were plotting.”
“I plot as cardio.”
“that explains the stamina.”
Bucky’s jaw moves across the patio. You see that too. Tiny. Annoying. Delicious, if you were a healthier person. A reckless little thing uncurls in your chest. It is petty and hot and stupid, so naturally it feels almost holy. You turn back to sam with a brighter smile, the sort that probably looks normal to everyone else and insane to Nat. Sam raises his eyebrows. Brave man. “teach me to throw better,” you say.
He narrows his eyes. “this a trick?”
“i’m asking for athletic help. cherish the moment.”
Sam laughs, then shifts behind you in the water, hands hovering over your elbows before settling lightly when you nod. It is friendly. It is nothing. It is two people in a pool with a foam football and a crowd of friends around them. But you feel Bucky before you see him. His attention has weight. A dark little weather system rolling over the patio. Sam adjusts your arm. “okay, elbow up. no, less like you’re threatening the ball’s family.”
“I am threatening its family.”
“gentle. release here.” His hand taps your wrist.
Across the patio, Steve says something to Bucky. Bucky does not answer. You throw. The ball arcs beautifully for half a second, then smacks clint square in the forehead. The silence is immediate. Then clint sinks under the water like a betrayed submarine. You clap both hands over your mouth. Sam loses his mind laughing, one hand braced on your shoulder as he folds forward. Wanda sits up. Tony lowers his sunglasses. Steve looks concerned. Nat looks delighted. Clint resurfaces, hair plastered over his face. “attempted murder.”
“self-defense,” you gasp, still half laughing, half horrified. “you had criminal energy.”
“You hit me in my innocent head.”
“no jury would convict her,” sam says, wiping his eyes. “that was art.”
A sound comes from the patio. Low. Short. You look before you can stop yourself.
Bucky is laughing. Not loud. Not like sam. Barely more than a breath, but his mouth has curved despite whatever terrible thing he has been doing with his face all afternoon. He is looking at you now. Fully. Sunglasses pushed up into his hair, blue eyes narrowed against the sun, and for one ridiculous moment, all the air in the day seems to gather in your throat.
Then he catches himself. The smile fades. His gaze drops to the water near your waist, moves away, and he reaches for his drink. It is a slap with no hand.
Your smile goes with it. The water suddenly feels too cold. “i need another drink,” you announce, heading for the stairs before anyone can see your face arrange itself badly.
Sam calls after you, still laughing about clint’s tragic head injury. Nat’s sunglasses follow you from the lounger. Bucky stays by the pillar, but the closer you get to the edge, the more you feel him there. A terrible awareness. Like walking past a stove you know is on. Your hands grip the metal rail as you climb the pool steps. Water streams down your body, cooler where the breeze hits. The swimsuit clings hard now, slick to your skin, making every curve more obvious instead of less. Wonderful design choice. Truly innovative cruelty. You reach for the towel on the chair, but it is farther than you thought, and the stone under your wet feet is slippery.
Your heel slides. For one bright, stupid second, you are suspended in pure indignity. Then a hand clamps around your upper arm. Not sam. Not nat. Not anyone safe enough to survive.
Bucky. His other hand catches your waist, broad palm spreading over wet skin, fingers pressing into the soft give above your hip. The contact goes straight through you with such force that your brain empties. Chlorine, sun, his skin, the faint spice of whatever soap he uses, all of it crowds too close. Your hand lands on his chest to steady yourself, and he is warm. Warm and solid and right there, which is deeply unfair for a man who has spent the afternoon treating eye contact like a hostage negotiation.
“careful,” he says.
One word. Low. Rough. Stupid. Your embarrassment catches fire. You laugh. It comes out bitter, thin at the edges, nothing like the easy laugh you gave sam. Bucky’s fingers tighten once at your waist, and that little pressure makes the whole thing worse. “relax, barnes.” You pull your hand from his chest, hating the wet print your palm leaves behind. “you don’t have to touch me longer than necessary.”
The whole patio seems to keep making noise, but in your little corner, the sentence has teeth. Bucky goes still. His hand stays on your waist for half a second too long, then leaves like he has been burned. The absence is immediate and awful. You hate him for touching you. You hate him more for stopping. His face has changed, though you refuse to name the change. His brows draw together, mouth parting slightly as if he has lost the next line. Good. Let him lose something. “What?” he says, quiet.
You grab the towel and pull it around yourself, too late to feel covered. “Nothing.”
His eyes narrow at that, and for once he does not look away. “That didn’t sound like nothing.”
“You’re very observant.”
“Don’t do that.”
A laugh tries to crawl out of you and dies ugly. “Do what?”
“Act like I did something to you when all I did was catch you.”
You look at him then. Really, probably too much. Big mistake. His skin is still damp at the temples from sweat or the pool water someone splashed earlier, and the sun catches the blue of his eyes so sharply you want to be mad at nature. His chest rises under your gaze. Your palm still remembers him, every warm inch. A handprint in reverse. “you looked away,” you say, and the words escape before pride can shoot them down.
Bucky’s face tightens. “When?”
You hate him. You hate him so much you could kiss him until both of you forget language. “Forget it.”
You turn away, but he catches the edge of the towel. Not enough to pull you back, only enough to stop the escape from being clean. “When?” he repeats, and the softness in his voice is so much worse than anger.
You should have kept your mouth shut. You should have stayed in the bathroom and sued Natasha from there. Instead you’re wet, half naked, humiliated, and Bucky Barnes is holding your towel like it matters. “When I came out,” you say, staring hard at the bar instead of him. “When sam called you. When I got in the pool. Pick one, you’ve been consistent.”
His grip loosens. For a second you think he will explain. He might laugh. He might say you’re imagining things. He might finally cut the whole sickness open and tell you he does not want to look, and then maybe you can be free through the healing power of public devastation. But he says nothing. Of course he says nothing.
Your eyes sting, which is unacceptable. Chlorine. Obviously chlorine. You pull the towel free and walk toward the bar with as much dignity as a woman can manage while dripping on expensive stone. Behind you, Steve says Bucky’s name. Low. Warning. Or concerned. You do not turn around. Tony is pretending very hard to examine a lime. “Drink,” you say, dropping onto a stool.
He pushes one over without commentary for maybe the first time in his life. “Hydration adjacent.”
“your discretion is unsettling.”
“i’m multifaceted.”
You take the glass. Your hand shakes once, barely. You curl it tighter until it stops.
Across the patio, Bucky remains near the pool steps, one hand low on his hip, the other rubbing over his mouth. Steve stands near him now, speaking quietly. Bucky shakes his head. His eyes cut toward you. This time, you look away first.
Pool parties become less fun once you have emotionally exposed yourself near a wet staircase. A tragic discovery. Someone should tell the youth. The afternoon drags onward with the mean persistence of a song you cannot skip. People eat. People drink. Sam retells the clint football incident with increasing betrayal of facts, making himself sound like a coach and you sound like a trained assassin. Clint claims he can see sounds now. Wanda orders him to stop making it tempting to hit him again. Tony brings out enough food for a wedding and calls it “light snacks,” which makes you wonder if billionaires understand hunger as a concept or merely as a branding opportunity. You sit with nat under the shade, towel around your shoulders, swimsuit drying tight against your skin. The drink has made you warmer, loose at the edges, but not enough to soften the place Bucky opened and then abandoned. He has stayed away. Not dramatically. Not in a way anyone could call obvious. He helps Steve with the grill, talks to Sam, lets Tony make jokes at his expense. He is normal.
That might be the ugliest part. You are sitting here with your nerves scraped raw, and he gets to hold a plate of grilled chicken. Do you want to talk about it?” nat asks.
“No.”
She hums, sipping from her straw. “Do you want to lie about it?”
“Desperately.”
“Go ahead.”
You stare at the water. Sam is trying to shove clint off a float. Clint has accepted death with more grace than expected. “I’m having a nice time.”
“Terrible lie. Try again.”
“I enjoy sunlight.”
“Worse.”
“Bucky Barnes is a normal man whose opinion does nothing to my blood pressure.”
Natasha’s mouth curves. “Almost funny enough to pass.”
You pick at a loose thread on the towel. The fibers are soft, expensive, probably worth more than half your closet. Tony’s towels have better career prospects than you. “He looked at me like he wished I’d worn a tarp.”
Nat says nothing for a second. Her silence is rarely empty. It moves around, checks exits, evaluates weak spots. “That’s what you saw?”
You glance at her, defensive already. “I have eyes.”
“Unfortunately, yes. Dramatic ones.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” She turns her head a little, and you follow her gaze against your will.
Bucky is standing at the grill beside Steve. His posture is casual enough for a stranger. Not for you. You know his casual. This is held too tight at the edges. His shoulders are set, left hand curled around a bottle of beer he has barely touched, eyes trained on the pool with such grim commitment that the pool may owe him money. “He’s been weird all day,” nat says.
“He’s always weird.”
“With you, yes.”
“That’s very comforting.”
She nudges your knee with hers. “You two are exhausting.”
“There is no two. There’s me, suffering heroically, and him, being confusing and broad.”
“Broad?”
“Don’t make me defend my vocabulary. I’m injured.”
“You slipped.”
“Emotionally.”
Natasha laughs softly, then reaches over and plucks the drink from your hand. “Slow down.”
You glare. “This is theft.”
“This is friendship.”
“Friendship would let me make poor choices.”
“I let you buy the swimsuit.”
“That was attempted murder.”
Her hand squeezes your knee once. “He’s looking again.”
Your entire body betrays you. It wants to turn. It wants to pretend it has not been starving for that exact sentence. You hold still with the grim focus of someone defusing a bomb under poor lighting. “Good for him,” you say.
Nat’s smile turns small and unbearable. “You’re allowed to like being looked at.”
“By normal people, maybe.”
“Barnes is many things.”
“Normal does seem optimistic.” The words come out light enough. The thought under them sits heavy. Bucky looking at you feels dangerous because you cannot tell what he sees. All day, you have been trapped between wanting his attention and being wounded by how he spends it. Too quick, too hidden, too late. You want him to look in a way that lets you rest, which is insane. A person should not need another person’s eyes to feel real in their own skin. There are self-help books about that, probably. You have not read them because they would tell you to journal and you would rather eat sand.
Tony calls everyone for food, and the shift saves you from Nat’s terrifying accuracy. Chairs scrape. People gather around the long outdoor table. You end up between wanda and sam, safe enough, with nat across from you and Bucky diagonally down the table beside Steve. Diagonally is awful. Diagonally means accidental glances. Diagonally means you can pretend to look at the salad and still see his hands. Diagonally means his knee might bump yours if the table were smaller, which it is not, thank God, or no thanks to God, depending on where you are in your moral development.
Food helps. A little. Grilled corn, charred sweet at the edges. Watermelon with feta. Skewers. Tony’s obscene little sliders made with buns so soft you briefly understand wealth. You eat more than you expected, mostly to give your mouth a reason to stay busy. Sam leans closer while reaching for the corn. “You ever think about joining a league?”
You stare at him. “For what, pool homicide?”
“Foam football. You’ve got raw talent.”
“I injured one man.”
“That’s how legends start.”
You laugh, easier this time. Sam is lovely. Sam is safe. Sam has never once made you feel like a bug under glass or a prayer no one taught you how to say. His attention is warm and uncomplicated, and maybe that is why it fails to do the thing you wish it would. You want it to. That would be convenient. You could turn your head and smile at the man making you laugh, and your body could decide to be sensible for once. Across the table, Bucky’s fork scrapes softly against his plate.
You glance up. His eyes are on Sam’s shoulder, where it nearly touches yours. His mouth has gone flat again. When his gaze shifts to yours, it stays. No sunglasses now. No immediate retreat. You should feel triumphant. You feel pinned and furious and too warm under the towel.
Sam keeps talking. You answer. Probably. Words happen from your side of the table. Bucky looks away first, but slower this time, and that almost makes you angrier.
After food, Tony declares a mandatory sunset swim like a man whose money has left him unfamiliar with the word optional. Wanda declines by pretending to sleep. Vision declines with such politeness that Tony thanks him. Steve gets dragged in by Sam. Clint goes willingly after shouting that the water may heal his head trauma. Natasha sheds her shirt and dives so cleanly that half the patio claps.
You mean to stay on the lounger. You really do. Then Bucky sits on the chair two spaces away with a beer and no intention of swimming.
You stand.
“Coming in?” sam calls from the pool.
“Apparently.”
Bucky’s head lifts. There. There it is again. That first startled drag of his eyes as your towel drops onto the lounger. This time you catch all of it. He looks at your shoulders, your chest, your waist, the high cut at your hips, the damp lines where the swimsuit still clings from earlier. His throat moves. His fingers tighten around the beer bottle.
Then he looks away. Again. The hurt comes faster now, less sharp and more tired. You have run out of ways to be surprised by it. “You coming?” you ask before you can stop yourself.
Bucky looks back. “What?”
“In the pool.” You gesture toward everyone else, voice mild enough to deserve applause. “That large wet rectangle behind you.”
Sam laughs from the water. Steve watches Bucky with the concerned patience of someone looking at a friend about to step on a rake. Bucky’s eyes flick toward the pool, then to you. “I’m fine here.”
“Tragic. We’ll notify the rectangle.”
That gets a laugh from Tony. Even Bucky’s mouth twitches, but it dies before it becomes anything useful. “You scared?” you ask.
The words are easy. The ache under them is less so. You want him to rise. You want him to refuse. You want him to look. You want him to leave. You want so many impossible things at once that your own skin feels crowded. Bucky leans back in the chair, jaw set. “Of you?”
“Of fun.”
“Terrified.”
“Figures.” You turn before he can answer, stepping into the pool with all the dignity you can scrape together. The water feels warmer now after the heat of the day, soft around your knees, your waist, your ribs. Sam splashes near you, and you splash him back half-heartedly. The game restarts in some altered form. Someone throws a beach ball. Tony judges from the side with a drink, claiming he is “morally participating.” The sky slowly bruises pink and gold over the trees.
You laugh again. You even mean some of it. But Bucky stays on the chair. He stays dry and distant, one elbow on the armrest, beer untouched, gaze roaming everywhere except you until it does not. Then you feel it between your shoulder blades, across the back of your neck, sliding down where the swimsuit reveals more than it hides. If he is disgusted, he has a strange way of torturing himself with it.
Maybe he is bored. Maybe he is judging. Maybe he is thinking about someone else. Maybe you are pathetic. That last thought arrives with such calm familiarity that you almost miss the ball flying toward your face.
“Duck!” Sam shouts.
You duck too late. The beach ball clips the side of your head, harmless but startling, and you stumble back with a laugh that turns into a yelp when your foot misses the pool step under the water. This time, you do not fall. This time, Bucky is already there.
The splash of him entering the pool sends water up over your arms. You barely process the movement before his hand catches your waist under the water, bare palm meeting bare skin, fingers firm enough to halt every thought you were trying to have. His other hand closes around your wrist, anchoring you while your toes find the step.
The whole pool erupts around you. Sam says something. Tony whistles. Clint declares another murder attempt. None of it matters.
Bucky is in the water. Bucky is touching you.
Bucky’s hair is wet now, loose strands clinging near his jaw. His chest is inches from yours, water beading on his collarbones, eyes fixed on your face with the sort of focus that makes you feel both held and dissected. The metal hand around your wrist is cool. The flesh hand at your waist is warm even underwater. Your body, treacherous little idiot, forgets every insult it has been rehearsing and leans a fraction closer. “Careful,” he says again.
The same word. Same roughness. Less distance. Your laugh barely works this time. It leaves your mouth thin and tired. “You need a new line.”
His eyes drop to your mouth. Stay there. Move back up. “You need to stop slipping.”
“I’m sure the tiles are honored you blame me.”
“Wasn’t blaming you.”
“No, you’re just leaping into pools now. Very casual.”
His hand slides half an inch on your waist as someone’s wave rolls against you both. The movement is tiny and devastating. Your stomach pulls in under his palm before you can control it, and his fingers flex like he felt the reaction and had to restrain his own. Sam clears his throat loudly. “Everybody alive?”
Bucky does not look away from you. “Yeah.”
“You sure? That looked like a rescue.”
“Wilson,” Steve says, warning plain in his voice.
“What? I’m just asking. Man moved like a torpedo.”
Your face heats, and that saves you. Embarrassment brings language back. “I’m fine,” you say, trying to step back.
Bucky lets go of your wrist. His hand at your waist lingers. You glance down at it. He follows your gaze and releases you, slow enough to feel intentional, quick enough to hurt. “Fine,” he repeats, almost to himself.
You step away, wrapping your arms around your middle under the water. The swimsuit feels nonexistent now, yet somehow everyone can see the exact place his hand had been. Maybe there is a mark. Maybe your skin has announced it to the patio in bright letters. “I’m getting out,” you say, mostly to the water.
Bucky’s brows pull together. “Again?”
“Try to survive it.”
Sam says your name softly as you pass him, but you keep moving. The pool steps are kinder this time. You grip the rail, climb carefully, and grab your towel with wet hands. The sky has gone warmer, streaked with orange, and the air makes goosebumps rise along your arms. You head toward the house before anyone can ask.
The sliding door is blessedly close. The kitchen inside is cooler, dimmer, quiet except for the hum of Tony’s expensive refrigerator and the muted thump of music through glass. You leave wet footprints across the tile and feel guilty for half a second before remembering Tony could probably buy new tile by blinking. The towel goes tighter around you. Your face feels too hot. Your chest feels worse. Everything is tangled. Bucky looked away. Bucky watched. Bucky refused to get in. Bucky jumped in without thinking. Bucky touched you like instinct. Bucky let go like regret.
A normal person would accept complexity. You prefer suffering. The kitchen island has a bowl of cut limes, a bottle of tequila, and a tray of tiny desserts covered in plastic wrap. You peel one back and take a mini tart just to have something to destroy. It tastes like lemon and butter and wealth. You chew angrily. “stealing dessert before dinner’s fully over?”
You close your eyes. No. Absolutely no. The universe can go bother someone else.
Bucky’s voice comes from the doorway behind you, lower after the pool, rougher around the edges. You keep chewing. Swallow. Pick up another tart because dignity left hours ago and dessert is here now.
“Tell tony,” you say. “He’ll have me arrested by the pastry police.”
Wet footsteps cross the tile. He has followed you in dripping too, which should make him less intimidating. It does not. The room fills with him, chlorine and sun and that clean masculine smell under it, the one that has ruined many evenings and one perfectly decent pillow you once pressed your face into after he left it on your couch. He stops on the other side of the island. You look at the tart tray instead of him.
“I was checking on you.”
“Very heroic. I’m eating a tart.”
“So I see.”
“Then your work here is done.”
The old rhythm tries to come back. Snap, deflect, survive. Usually he takes the bait. Usually he smiles or scoffs or says something that makes you want to throw a household object. This time he stays quiet, and the quiet crawls right under your towel. You reach for a third tart. His hand covers the tray.
You stare at his fingers. Human hand. Calloused. Thick. The same hand that had been on your waist in the pool, warm through the water, possessive for one second before he remembered he did not want to be. Your own hand hovers uselessly near his. Lemon sugar sticks to your thumb. “Move,” you say.
“Talk to me.”
Your laugh is small and mean. “About dessert?”
“About what you said outside.”
“I’ve said many beautiful things today.”
His fingers press lightly against the plastic wrap, making it crinkle. “At the pool steps.”
The room cools further. Somewhere outside, Sam laughs. The sound reaches the kitchen thin and far away, like it belongs to another life where people can swim and flirt and enjoy fruit without turning into an open wound near a marble island. “I said you didn’t have to touch me.” You lift one shoulder. The towel slips a little. His eyes move to fix on your face with almost painful discipline. “Seems clear.”
“No.” His jaw tightens around the word. “It doesn’t.”
“It really does.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?”
There it is. Softer than you expected. Worse, somehow. He sounds angry, but the anger has nowhere clean to go. It sits between you, wet-haired and broad-shouldered and too close. You pick at the sugar on your thumb. “Standing in a kitchen?”
“Trying to stop touching you.”
A humorless sound leaves you. “Aren’t you?”
Bucky’s hand slowly leaves the tray. He comes around the island, and you hate yourself for how fast your body registers each step. Wet tile under his bare feet. The shift of muscle in his thighs. Water slipping from his hair to his neck. He stops beside you, close enough that you can see tiny droplets on his lashes. “You think that’s why I looked away?”
Your fingers curl into the towel at your chest. “I’m very tired of talking about where your eyes go.”
“I’m not.”
“Congratulations.”
His voice lowers. “Look at me.”
“No.”
He breathes out through his nose. A patient sound. Not gentle. Not quite. “Please.”
That word does the damage anger could never do. You look up, furious with him for asking nicely. His face is tense, mouth set, eyes darker in the dim kitchen. He looks too serious for a pool party. Too serious for you standing here in a damp swimsuit and a towel, lemon sugar on your thumb, embarrassment turning your throat tight. “Happy?” you ask.
His gaze moves over your face like he is trying to read something written under your skin. “No.”
That almost gets you. Simple answer. No joke. No little smirk to save either of you. Your own mouth opens, then closes again.
Bucky glances toward the patio doors. Outside, the others are loud and bright and drunk on summer. In here, the air holds still around the refrigerator hum and your wet footprints. “I looked away,” he says, each word measured like it costs him, “because if I kept looking, everybody out there was gonna know.”
You stare at him. It takes a second. Maybe more. Your brain receives the sentence, turns it over, rejects it, picks it up again, then shakes it until meaning falls out. “Know what?”
His laugh is almost silent, rough at the bottom. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m asking.”
“You know what.”
“I really don’t.”
His hand lifts, then stops before touching you. That restraint again. Always that. A hand held back like your skin has rules written over it. You hate it more than anything, and maybe you have loved it too, which is inconvenient and humiliating. His fingers curl into his palm. “That I wanted you.”
The fridge hums. Music thuds through glass. Someone outside yells for Tony to stop cheating at whatever stupid rich-man game he has invented. Your towel slips another inch down your shoulder. Bucky notices. This time, he does not look away fast enough.
Wanted. Past tense? Present tense? A cruel grammar question at the worst possible time.
“You’ve been acting like looking at me causes physical pain,” you say, and it comes out less sharp than you need. More wounded. Awful.
His eyes cut back to yours. “It does.”
You blink. Bucky looks almost mad at himself now, which is satisfying for one brief second before it becomes sad. “You walked out in that thing and I had two choices. Look away, or sit there with everyone watching me stare at you like I’d lost my damn mind.”
“That thing?”
His gaze dips. Brief. Hungry. No disgust in it. None. The realization makes your stomach hollow out and fill at once. “The swimsuit.”
“You hate it.”
His mouth parts, then closes. His brows draw down. “I hate that Sam got to tell you first.”
That sentence finds a deep, stupid place in you and presses there. You hate that place. It has no pride. “He was being nice,” you say.
“I know.” in his mouth, right now, it is not reassurance. It is surrender. It is a man admitting something he does not want to resent and resenting it anyway.
“He looked at you like a friend,” Bucky says. “That made it worse.”
You set the tart down slowly, afraid any sudden movement might shatter the room. “Why?”
His eyes come back to yours. “Because I didn’t.”
The answer moves through you like a slow spill. Outside, someone opens the patio door. You both turn your heads at once. Tony leans in halfway, sunglasses still on though the sun is dying. His gaze takes in the water on the floor, your towel, Bucky’s expression, the tray of tarts, and he immediately lifts both hands.
“Fantastic. Haunted kitchen. Love that for us.” He reaches blindly for a bottle near the door. “Pretend I’m rich furniture.”
“Tony,” Bucky says, voice tight.
“Gone. Emotionally, spiritually, legally.” Tony backs out with the bottle and slides the door shut.
The interruption should break the tension. It does not. It makes it worse. Now the world has peeked in and retreated. Now privacy feels chosen. You wipe your sticky thumb against the towel, then regret it. “People are going to come looking.”
“Let them.”
Your eyes flick to his. “That’s a bad idea.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re agreeing?”
“Trying something new.”
Despite everything, a tiny laugh escapes you. Bucky’s face shifts at the sound. Not a smile, exactly. More dangerous than that. Like the laugh handed him proof he had been starving for and now he is trying to keep from grabbing.
“I thought you were embarrassed,” you say, quieter. The words scrape more than they should. “Of looking. Of me.”
His whole body seems to pull toward you without moving. “Jesus.”
You flinch at the roughness, and he sees it.
“Hey.” His hand finally touches your arm, just above the towel’s edge. Warm, careful, barely there. Still enough to ruin you. “No. I’m angry at myself. Not you.”
“You keep looking away.”
“I was trying to be decent.”
“That felt awful.”
His thumb moves once over your damp skin. You wish it did less. You wish it did more. “I see that now.”
“Great. Character development.”
He huffs, but there’s no real humor in it. His eyes have gone to the place his thumb touches your arm. “I’m sorry.”
You blink again. Bucky apologizes sometimes. To other people. Usually with grumbles and half-smiles and enough charm to make forgiveness feel inevitable. With you, apologies are rarer. Maybe because both of you prefer biting to bleeding. Maybe because he never seems to understand where the wound is.
This one is plain. You have no idea what to do with it. “I don’t want your pity apology,” you say.
His thumb stops. “Pity?”
“Yes.”
“You think I’m standing here half naked in Stark’s kitchen, dripping on a floor that costs more than my first apartment, apologizing out of pity?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds stupid.”
“It sounded stupid before.”
You glare up at him, relieved by the spark of irritation because anger is easier to hold. “Careful.”
That word. His word. It changes something in his face, turns his attention heavier. Your mouth goes dry. Bucky’s hand slides down your arm, slow enough that you could move away. You do not. His fingers find your wrist, then your hand, lifting it between you. Lemon sugar still clings faintly near your thumb. His eyes meet yours, asking nothing aloud, and maybe you nod. Maybe your hand simply gives up and lets him.
He brings your thumb to his mouth. The first touch of his tongue is warm and wet and obscene in its quietness. He licks the sugar from your skin like he has all the time in the world, lips closing around the tip of your thumb for half a second before he lets it go. Your knees forget their duties. The island is behind you, so you lean back against it before your body can embarrass you further.
Bucky watches the movement. “There,” he says, voice rougher. “No pity.”
You breathe through your nose, which is impressive since your lungs appear to have resigned. “That was unsanitary.”
“Pool water’s worse.”
“Comforting.”
His hand stays around yours. “You always do that.”
“What?”
“Make a joke when you’re shaking.”
You glance down. Your fingers are trembling in his grip. Treacherous little things. You consider cutting them off. Too messy for tony’s floor.
“I’m cold,” you say.
Bucky’s eyes drop to the towel, the damp swimsuit, the little bumps risen along your arms. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Want me to get you dry?”
There is nothing clean in that question. Maybe there could have been, from someone else. From him, with his mouth still wet from your thumb and his hand around yours, the words turn thick. You pull your hand back, mostly so you can breathe. “I can manage a towel.”
“I saw.”
“You saw me almost fall.”
“I saw a lot today.”
A pulse starts low in your body, slow and hot and deeply inconvenient. “You looked away for most of it.”
“I looked back.”
That shuts you up. His hand goes to the edge of the towel. He does not pull. Just touches the cotton near your collarbone, where it has started to sag from water and poor decision-making. “I looked back all damn day.”
You try to swallow. It takes effort. “Bucky…”
The patio door opens again. This time it is Nat. She takes one look at you, one look at Bucky, then at the wet floor. Her face gives away nothing, which means she has figured out everything.
“People are asking about dessert,” she says.
You stare at her helplessly. Bucky’s hand drops from the towel. He turns his head, expression suddenly murderous in a very contained, socially inconvenient way. “They can wait.”
Natasha’s brows rise. “Can they?”
“Yes,” he says.
Something about that single word, the calm certainty of it, makes your thighs press together under the towel. Nat’s eyes flick down for barely a second, then back up. You want the tile to open and swallow you. Preferably gently. With snacks. “Right,” she says. “I’ll tell them the kitchen is occupied.”
“Nat,” you hiss.
Her mouth curves. “What? By wet people.”
Bucky sighs like he is in physical pain. “Romanoff.”
“Relax, Barnes. I’m leaving.” She reaches for the tray of tarts, slides it away from you both, and pauses at the door. “Use one of the guest rooms. Tony has cameras in weird places.”
Your soul leaves your body. “What?” you choke.
Tony’s voice carries from outside. “I do not have cameras in weird places. I have cameras in strategic places.”
Natasha closes the door again. The silence after that is different. Less fragile. More aware of its own stupidity. You cover your face with one hand. “I’m moving.”
Bucky makes a sound that might be a laugh if he were less ruined. “Where?”
“Into the ocean.”
“Pool’s closer.”
“Too many witnesses.”
His hand returns to your waist, over the towel this time, and the casual possession of it melts the last few scraps of your brain. “Guest room’s closer too.”
You lower your hand. He is looking at you now. No retreat. No disgust. No careful sideways glance. He looks exactly how you had feared wishing for. Hungry and unsure and trying to make himself stand still. “This is a terrible idea,” you whisper.
“Probably.”
“People are outside.”
“Yep.”
“You were ignoring me two hours ago.”
His mouth tightens. “I was trying to keep my hands off you two hours ago.”
“And now?”
His fingers press into your waist, pulling you one inch closer. Not enough. Enough to make you greedy. “Now I heard what you thought.”
Your chest aches. “And?”
He leans in, slow. Gives you time. Too much time. Your eyes dip to his mouth, and he sees that too. Of course he sees that, the bastard. His lips brush the corner of yours, barely a touch, more breath than kiss, and your entire body answers like it has been waiting years for a command. “And I’m done letting you think it.”
The first kiss is almost gentle. Almost. That is what ruins it. Bucky’s mouth touches yours with restraint at first, warm and careful, and you stand there stupidly with your hand hovering near his chest. It has taken so long to get here that your body does not trust it. He kisses you once, then draws back just enough to look at your face, and something in that tiny pause makes you angry. “No,” you breathe, grabbing the wet hair at the nape of his neck.
His eyes darken. “No?”
“You don’t get to kiss me like I’m fragile after making me feel insane all day.”
The words are barely out before his hand slides behind your head and his mouth comes back harder. This kiss has teeth in it. Not cruel, not careless, but hungry enough to make your fingers tighten in his hair. He tastes like beer and lemon sugar from your skin. His other arm wraps around your waist, pulling you in until the towel is crushed between you and his damp chest, and you make a sound into his mouth that you would deny in court. Bucky answers with a low groan, and the sound breaks something open. The kiss turns messy fast. Your feet slip a little on the wet tile, and he catches you without breaking away, almost lifting you onto your toes. The island edge presses into your back. His hand spreads wide between your shoulder blades, then drags down over the towel, as if he hates every layer between his palm and the body he kept refusing to look at.
Outside, laughter rises. You jerk back. “Guest room.”
Bucky’s forehead touches yours for one second. His breathing is rough, uneven, gratifyingly ruined. “Yeah.”
He takes your hand. That simple thing nearly undoes you. His fingers lace through yours, warm and firm, and he leads you through Tony’s absurd house with far more purpose than a man dripping pool water should have. The hallway is cool and dim, lined with art that probably costs enough to rescue a small nation. You barely see it. You see his back, the muscles shifting under wet skin, the dark hair curling at his neck, your hand held in his like something he does not plan to misplace. A laugh bursts from the patio behind you, then the sound dulls as the hallway turns. Your pulse beats everywhere. Mouth, wrists, thighs, the places the swimsuit rubs too tight. You have spent hours wishing he would look, and now he is taking you somewhere private to do more than that, which means panic arrives right on schedule, prim little nightmare clipboard in hand.
What if he changes his mind when the door closes? What if this is heat and misunderstanding and chlorine? What if he touches you and finds every soft place you spent the day trying to hide? Bucky stops at the first guest room and opens the door. The room is airy, pale, ridiculous, with a king bed dressed in white and a view of the trees beyond the windows. Too pretty. Too clean. A room for people who have sex beautifully, probably, with matching underwear and no body anxiety.
You hover at the threshold. Bucky turns. His gaze drops to your face, then your hand still in his. “What?”
You hate the gentleness. You might start wanting it everywhere. “Nothing.”
He steps closer, slowly enough to make the hallway feel narrower. “Try again.”
Your fingers tighten around his. “I’m wet.”
His brows lift a fraction. “From the pool,” you snap, heat flooding your face. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“My face is having a day.”
Despite yourself, a laugh slips out, small and anxious. His thumb strokes over your knuckles, and the laugh fades into something softer. God, this is bad. This is tender now, and tender is much more dangerous than horny. Horny you understand. Horny has a beginning and an end and terrible decision-making in the middle. Tender grows roots. Bucky steps into the room and draws you with him.
The door closes behind you with a quiet click. For one second, neither of you speaks. The silence fills with water dripping from both of you onto the floor, distant music, your own uneven breathing. His hand leaves yours. You miss it immediately, which is humiliating.
Then he reaches for the towel. “Can I?”
You want to say something sharp. Something clever. Something that protects the swollen, nervous thing in your chest. Instead, you nod.
He unwraps you slowly. Not theatrically. Not like some polished movie scene. His fingers fumble once at the tucked corner, and that fumble does more to you than smooth confidence ever could. The towel loosens, slipping from your shoulders, down your arms, catching at your elbows before he pulls it free and drops it onto a chair.
Cool air touches your damp skin. Your hands twitch toward your stomach. Bucky catches them. The movement is fast, but his hold is gentle. Both wrists in his hands, lifted slightly away from your body. His eyes stay on yours. “Don’t hide from me.” The words are low, quiet, and absolutely devastating.
You try to laugh. It barely forms. “That’s ambitious.”
“I can be patient.”
“You? Since when?”
His mouth twitches. “Since about three seconds ago.”
You breathe out, shaky but almost amused. He lifts your hands and kisses the inside of one wrist. Then the other. Your throat tightens. It is so stupid, how much that gets to you. A kiss there. Not your mouth. Not your chest. Just the soft skin where your pulse is making an idiot of itself. “I’m going to look at you,” he says.
Your face burns. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s a warning.” His thumb moves over your wrist. “A fair one.”
“Very gentlemanly.”
“Trying.”
You swallow. “Don’t try too hard.”
His eyes darken. The shift is immediate, and you feel it under your skin. The little softness remains, but something hotter moves through it, something less careful. His hands lower yours to your sides. He waits. Gives you the chance to lift them again.
You don’t. Bucky looks. This time, he lets himself. His gaze starts at your face, maybe for mercy, then slips down your throat, over the thin straps, the gold rings, the wet fabric clinging to your breasts. You feel each inch like touch. He looks at the curve of your waist, the high cut at your hips, the soft places you wanted to fold away. His jaw sets hard. A slow breath leaves him, and the sound is not disgust. Not even close. It is almost anger, but turned inward, like he cannot believe he denied himself this all afternoon.
Your eyes sting again. “Oh,” you whisper, then immediately want to slap a hand over your mouth. Not a standalone reaction, you tell yourself absurdly. Put it in a sentence, idiot. “You actually…”
Bucky’s gaze snaps back to your face. “Yeah.”
“You looked away.”
“I was an idiot.”
“That’s established.”
His smile is brief and strained. “Fair.”
His hands come to your hips, bare now, no towel, no water softening the contact. Skin to skin. You inhale too sharply and his grip steadies, thumbs pressing near the swimsuit’s edge. “You thought I didn’t like this?” he asks, voice dragging lower.
Your eyes drop to his chest, safer than his face by maybe half a degree. “You looked like you were suffering.”
“I was.” His fingers slide along the high curve of your hip, then stop there, squeezing once. “Sweetheart, I saw you come out in this and forgot what language I spoke.”
That sounds impossible. It also sounds like him. Rough, a little annoyed, painfully sincere under all that heat. “You recovered fast.”
“I didn’t recover. I panicked.”
The laugh that leaves you is shaky and wet at the edges. “That was panic?”
“Steve asked if I was having a stroke.”
Your mouth opens. “He did not.”
“He did.”
“Was he concerned?”
“Very.”
You laugh fully this time, and Bucky’s hands tighten like he wants to hold the sound against you. The laugh fades when he steps closer. His wet chest brushes the front of your swimsuit. Barely. Your nipples tighten under the damp fabric, and his eyes drop just long enough to notice before returning to your face. The restraint almost kills you. “Sam complimented you,” he says.
You blink, following the turn. “Yes.”
“You smiled.”
“He was nice.”
“I know.”
There it is again. Acknowledgment. His thumbs move, small circles over your hips that turn thought into warm static. “You hated that?”
“I hated how easy it was for him.” Bucky’s voice goes rougher. “He could just say it. Stand there in front of everyone and tell you that you looked good. I stood ten feet away acting like looking at you too long was gonna put me in the ground.”
You study him, the damp hair, the tense mouth, the eyes that keep trying to fall and climb back up. “Would it?”
“Yeah,” he says, and this time he does smile. Small, wrecked, honest enough to hurt. “Maybe.”
That does something worse than praise. Makes you ache. Makes you stupid. Makes you lift your hand to his chest, pressing your fingers over the warm skin where your palm had landed earlier. He looks down at your hand like he wants to thank it. “You could’ve said something,” you murmur.
“I thought I had time to figure out how.”
“Figure out how to say you liked a swimsuit?”
“How to say I wanted to peel it off with my teeth without getting slapped in front of Steve.”
Your fingers curl against his chest. He watches your face. “Too much?”
The question is sincere, but barely. Mostly he is reading you now, and whatever he sees in your expression pulls his mouth into something darker. “No,” you say, and your voice sounds smaller than you want. “Continue.”
His laugh is quiet. “Continue?”
“You heard me.”
“I did.” One hand leaves your hip and comes up to your jaw, thumb brushing near the corner of your mouth. “Trying to decide if I wanna continue with my mouth or my hands.”
Your knees feel untrustworthy. “You’re taking suggestions?”
“From you?” He leans in, lips grazing your cheek, not quite kissing. “Always.”
The word slides down your body and settles low, hot, awful. You press your thighs together, barely, but he is too close to miss it. “Yeah?” His lips brush your ear now. “That where it goes when I say that?”
“Shut up.”
“Been trying all day.”
“To shut up?”
“To keep from saying worse.”
His mouth touches your neck. Your eyes close before you can pretend dignity. It is only one kiss at first, warm and damp from pool water, placed under your jaw with almost unbearable care. Then another, lower. His fingers at your jaw angle your face up, and the little stretch of your throat makes the room tilt through your body without the phrase in your head. You grip his shoulder, nails pressing into skin.
“Bucky,” you whisper.
He hums against your neck. “That sounded nice.”
“Don’t get smug.”
“Too late.”
You would scold him, but his teeth scrape lightly over your pulse and the scolding falls apart into a weak sound. He hears it. Of course he hears it. His hand on your hip slides around to the small of your back, pressing you closer, and the hard line of him through his swim trunks meets your lower stomach.
Your entire body pauses.
Bucky goes still too, but only to let you register it.
“Oh,” you breathe, then rush to fix it, face flaming. “That’s, um. That’s there.”
He pulls back enough to look at you. His eyes are nearly black. “Yeah. It’s been there.”
Your mouth parts.
“All day,” he adds, almost cruel now, and the hand at your jaw keeps your face tipped up. “You want the truth? I had to sit down after you got in the pool.”
A tiny, helpless sound leaves you.
His thumb strokes your cheek. “No. Look at me.”
You do, barely.
“I’m gonna say things,” he says, voice softer but dirtier somehow, stripped of performance. “And you’re gonna believe me this time.”
Your throat works around nothing. “That’s demanding.”
“Yeah.”
“Usually people ask.”
“I spent all day asking myself if I was allowed to want you.” His hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck, fingers sinking into damp hair. “I’m done asking me.”
That should terrify you. It does, maybe. But it terrifies the part of you that has been begging for exactly this.
His mouth comes back to yours, and this time neither of you pretend at gentleness for long. You open for him almost immediately, and he groans into the kiss, the sound vibrating through his chest under your hand. His tongue slides against yours, slow at first, then deeper when your fingers dig into his shoulders. The kiss turns wet, hungry, breathing ruined between mouths. He walks you backward without breaking it, guiding rather than pushing, until your calves hit the bed.
The bed. White sheets. Guest room. Pool party outside. Bucky’s hands on you.
Your brain tries one last heroic effort at thought.
What if someone comes in?
Bucky’s hands move to your hips.
What if the door isn’t locked?
He turns you, sits on the edge of the bed, and pulls you between his thighs.
What if this changes everything?
His mouth leaves yours and moves down your throat, and your remaining thoughts scatter like birds.
He is sitting now, which makes him lower, makes your body the thing above him for once. It should help. It does not. His hands spread over your thighs, thumbs running along the place where the swimsuit cuts high, and he looks up at you with damp hair falling around his face. He looks wrecked. Actually wrecked. Like the sight of you standing between his legs has finished what the swimsuit started.
“You were hiding under that towel,” he murmurs, tracing the edge of the fabric at your hip.
You swallow. “It was cold.”
“Liar.”
Your face heats, but his mouth presses to your stomach before you can answer. Right over the swimsuit. Soft. Deliberate. You freeze.
He does it again.
Lower this time.
Your hands hover over his shoulders. You do not know what to do with them. Push him away? Pull him closer? Applaud? Cry? Move to Romania?
“Bucky…”
His eyes lift. His lips remain near your stomach. “Yeah?”
You hate the question. Hate how much room it gives you to stop him. Hate how badly you want him to keep going without making you beg for it. “That’s…”
“What?”
You glance away. “You don’t have to…”
He sits back so fast you regret speaking. His hands remain on your thighs, but the warmth of his mouth is gone. “Don’t.”
The single word is sharp enough to bring your eyes back.
His expression is serious again. “Don’t say I don’t have to. I know I don’t have to.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I want to.” His fingers press into your thighs, almost too tight, then ease as he notices. “I have wanted to put my mouth on you since you walked outside.”
Your body responds so hard it feels unfair.
His eyes lower, following the tiny shift of your thighs. His jaw tightens. “Since before that.”
The room has become too warm. Your swimsuit is drying in patches, damp fabric clinging between your legs, and every tiny movement makes you aware of how wet you are under the pool water. Not just pool water anymore. Maybe not for a while. Horrible. Amazing. You may need medical attention. Or less medical attention and more of his mouth.
Bucky’s thumb slides along your inner thigh.
“You thought I didn’t wanna look.” He says it quietly, but the words carry a rough little bite. “You thought I looked away because I didn’t like your body.”
Your fingers curl into his hair. You do not answer.
He leans forward and kisses the inside of your thigh, just below the swimsuit’s edge.
Your breath leaves in a broken little rush.
His mouth lingers there. “I looked away because I wanted to do this in front of everybody.”
“Bucky,” you whisper, scandalized and so turned on you can barely feel your feet.
His lips move higher, still over skin, slow and warm. “Wanted to drag you out of that pool when Wilson had his hands on you.”
“He was helping.”
“I know.” His teeth graze your thigh. “Still wanted to.”
“You’re terrible.”
“Today?” His eyes flick up. “Yeah.”
His fingers hook under the swimsuit at your hips, then stop. The pause makes your skin prickle. He is waiting. Again. That careful, maddening decency under all the dirty want.
You nod, too fast.
His mouth curves, but it is not teasing. More relief than anything. “Words, baby.”
That name hits deep. Worse after the whole day of being looked away from. Baby means wanted. Baby means chosen. Baby means the towel can stay on the chair and the body you were trying to hide is now the only thing he seems able to focus on.
“Take it off,” you say.
Bucky closes his eyes for a second.
You almost laugh. Almost. Instead your fingers tighten in his hair, and that ruins him faster. His eyes open, and the polite thread in him snaps.
The swimsuit comes down slowly at first, peeled over your hips with such careful attention that you want to crawl out of your skin. The damp fabric resists, clinging where it can, and Bucky seems almost personally offended by it. He leans forward, mouth brushing your hip as he works it lower, then your lower stomach, then the soft skin above your mound. Every kiss makes the wait worse. Every inch exposed feels like a confession.
You expect him to look up at your face once you are bare.
He does not.
His gaze fixes between your thighs, and the sound he makes is quiet, dragged deep from his chest, almost pained. You try to close your legs on instinct, but his hands are already there, spreading warm over your thighs.
“Don’t hide,” he says again, rougher now.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“You’re staring.”
“Yeah.” His thumbs slide higher. “I missed a lot today.”
Your face burns so hot it almost hurts. “You can’t just say that.”
“I can.” He kisses the crease of your thigh, eyes still on you. “I am.”
The swimsuit slips lower, down your thighs, then to your knees. You lift one foot, then the other, and he drops the ruined damp thing somewhere on the floor. A wildly expensive room, white sheets, your swimsuit abandoned in a wet little heap. It should feel humiliating.
It does.
It also makes you throb.
Bucky’s hands return to your thighs. He sits there on the bed, still in his wet trunks, and looks at you like this is the first quiet moment he has had all day and he plans to spend it badly. Your arms cross over your chest, but he catches the movement at once.
“Hey.”
You glare, but there is no force behind it. “What?”
His hands slide around to the backs of your thighs. “Come here.”
“I am here.”
“Closer.”
“There is physically no closer unless I climb you.”
His expression changes.
Ah. Idiot mouth. Treacherous mouth. Mouth with no survival instincts.
Bucky leans back slightly, spreading his thighs more. “Then climb.”
Your body gives an almost embarrassing pulse at the command. “You’re very comfortable giving orders for someone who spent half the day staring at landscaping.”
“I had a hard day.”
“You had a chair.”
“I had you in that swimsuit ten feet away from me.”
“That must have been so difficult.”
He pulls you forward by the backs of your thighs, and the sudden movement makes your hands land on his shoulders. “It was.”
There is no joke in his voice now.
Your knees go onto the mattress on either side of him before you fully decide to move. Straddling his lap like this, bare while he is still partly clothed, feels obscene in a way full nudity might not have. His trunks are wet beneath you. The hard length of him presses up between your thighs, thick and hot even through fabric. Your hips jerk before you can stop them, and his hands clamp around you with a groan.
“Shit.” His forehead drops to your collarbone. “Do that again and I’m gonna embarrass myself.”
That should make you smug. Powerful. Instead it makes you needy in a way you did not agree to. You roll your hips again, smaller this time, dragging your bare pussy over the soaked fabric of his trunks. The friction is rough enough to make your mouth fall open. His hands grip your ass, helping and stopping at once, torn between instincts.
“Baby,” he says, warning and pleading in the same breath.
The word feeds something awful in you. You do it again.
Bucky’s head tips back, throat working, eyes squeezed shut for half a second. This beautiful, irritating man who looked away all day now looks as if your body might actually kill him. Good. Maybe balance exists.
“You like this?” you ask, and your voice is shaky, but the question still has a little bite. “Or are you going to look at the curtains?”
His eyes open.
You may have gone too far.
His hand comes up and catches your jaw, not hard, but certain enough that your hips still. “Say it again.”
Your lips part. “What?”
“What you said outside.”
The pool steps return all at once. Wet stone. His hand at your waist. Your own stupid voice, bitter and wounded.
“You don’t have to touch me longer than necessary,” you murmur, quieter now.
Bucky’s jaw flexes. His thumb strokes once along your lower lip, and the tenderness of it makes the shame worse somehow. “That.” His other hand presses at your lower back, bringing you down against him again. “Every time you thought that today, I want it back.”
You have no idea what that means until he kisses you.
It is not careful now. It is deep, claiming, his tongue sliding into your mouth as his hand guides your hips over him. The wet fabric drags against your clit, and you whimper into the kiss, the sound swallowed by him immediately. He does it again, rolls you down, grinds you over the hard shape of his cock, and the pleasure is dirty and sharp, mixed with the faint scratch of his trunks and the slickness between your thighs.
“Long enough?” he mutters against your mouth.
You clutch at him, face burning. “Shut up.”
His hand slips between your bodies, fingers finding your clit with such sudden precision that your whole body jerks. He rubs slow, tight circles, using your wetness and the water still on your skin, watching your face from inches away.
“Answer me.”
You shake your head, pride making a brave final appearance before dying in combat. “No.”
“No?” His mouth brushes yours, and his fingers press a little harder. Your hips chase the touch, humiliating you on contact. “Still not long enough?”
You hate him. You love him. You want to bite his shoulder until he says your name wrong. “Bucky…”
“That’s not an answer.”
His fingers dip lower, sliding through your folds, and his eyes go heavy at what he finds. “Fuck, sweetheart.” His voice drops into something rough and almost disbelieving. “You’re soaked.”
“Pool,” you manage, immediately ashamed of yourself.
He laughs then, a low sound against your mouth. “Yeah? Pool did this?”
His fingers push inside you, two at once, thick enough that your head drops forward to his shoulder. The stretch steals whatever joke you had left. Your hands claw at his back, and he groans like that hurts in the best possible way.
“Guess I owe the pool an apology,” he murmurs, pumping his fingers slowly. “Been mad at it all day for touching you more than I got to.”
Your laugh breaks into a moan. The sound is embarrassing, open, too needy, and he reacts to it with a thrust of his hips up against your bare thigh, his cock hard and trapped in wet fabric.
“Bucky,” you whimper, turning your face into his neck.
His fingers curl.
Your body goes liquid.
“There,” he breathes, and then seems to remember himself. “Yeah, right there?”
You nod into his skin, too far gone to be difficult.
“Use words.”
A sharp little pulse goes through you. He feels it. His laugh is quieter this time, almost awed.
“Oh, you like that.” His fingers press the same spot again, slow and deliberate, and his thumb finds your clit. “All that mouth at the pool, and now look at you.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” His mouth moves to your ear, breath hot over wet skin. “You hated thinking I didn’t want you.”
That one splits you open more than his fingers.
You try to lift your head, but he holds you where you are, face tucked into his neck, body in his lap, nowhere to go but the truth.
“You hated me looking away,” he continues, quieter, filthy and tender in equal measure. “Hated Wilson saying you looked good because you wanted it from me. Hated that I sat there like an idiot when all you wanted was for me to come over and put my hands on you.”
Your thighs shake around his. The pleasure is building faster than you expected, pulled tighter by every word. He is too accurate. Too close. Too deep, and it is only his fingers, which makes you dizzy with terror over what the rest of him will do.
“I didn’t…” You try. Fail. “I didn’t want…”
He kisses under your ear. “Liar.”
“Bucky.”
“You did.” His hand around your waist slides up your back, holding you as his fingers fuck into you a little harder. “You wanted me jealous. You wanted me to see you. You wanted me to stop acting like a saint and do something about it.”
Your nails dig into him.
“There,” he says, sounding pleased and ruined all at once. “That one.”
You are close. Horribly close. Hips rocking into his hand now, your body making choices your pride would never sign off on. His thumb rubs your clit steadily, and his fingers hit that same spot until your vision goes soft at the edges. You bite down on his shoulder to keep from being too loud, and he makes a strangled sound, hips bucking under you.
“God, do that again.”
You do. Harder.
His fingers slip out of rhythm for one second, and that small loss almost makes you sob. “No, no, no, don’t stop.”
Bucky’s hand tightens at your back. “I’ve got you.”
“You keep saying things like that,” you gasp, words breaking as he finds the rhythm again.
“Yeah?”
“It’s annoying.”
He kisses your temple, and the sweetness of it almost tips you over. “Cum, then complain.”
That should not work.
It works.
The orgasm rolls through you hard enough to make your mouth open against his shoulder without sound at first. Then the sound comes, muffled into his skin, high and wrecked. Your hips grind down on his fingers, chasing every last pull of it, and Bucky talks you through it in a rough whisper that barely sounds like him anymore.
“That’s it, baby. Fuck, there you go. Just needed someone to touch you right, huh? Needed me to stop being stupid and put my hands on you.”
Your body shakes in his lap, every muscle loose and trembling. His fingers slow but do not leave right away. He lets you ride the last of it, forehead pressed to the side of your head, breath rough in your ear. The patio music is still going somewhere far away. Someone outside cheers. Maybe a game. Maybe a toast. The world is criminally unaware that you have just collapsed into a man you were pretending to hate this morning.
Then Bucky starts to pull his fingers free.
You whine.
The sound is pathetic. Immediate. You wish to file a complaint against yourself.
Bucky freezes, then laughs under his breath. “Greedy.”
“Shut up.”
His fingers slide out fully, wet and obscene between you. You mean to look away. You fail. He watches your face as he brings them to his mouth, licking them clean with a slow, dirty satisfaction that makes your cunt clench around nothing.
His eyes darken. “Saw that.”
“You see too much.”
“Not enough.” His hands go to your hips again, turning you carefully and laying you back on the bed before you can protest. The white sheets are instantly doomed, damp under your body, but Tony’s laundry issues are not your ministry. Bucky kneels between your thighs, still in his trunks, cock straining hard beneath the clinging fabric. “I’m making up for it.”
A nervous laugh leaves you as your head sinks into the pillows. “By staring at my vagina?”
His brows lift.
Your face burns. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face again.”
“My face likes you.”
“Your face is an idiot.”
“Yeah.” He presses a kiss to your knee, then lower, then lower again, hands sliding under your thighs to open you wider. “It’s got company.”
The first touch of his mouth between your legs almost makes you levitate.
He does not ease in. Not really. Maybe he means to, maybe he has some beautiful plan involving patience, but the second his tongue parts you, his control seems to go with it. His hands hook around your thighs, dragging you closer to his mouth, and the sound he makes against your pussy is so filthy you cover your mouth with one hand.
Bucky stops.
Your eyes fly open.
He lifts his head, mouth wet, eyes furious in the best way. “Move your hand.”
Your fingers loosen over your lips. “They’ll hear.”
“Let them hear the pool wasn’t the reason you left.”
Your whole body clenches. He sees that too. Obviously. Curse him and his newly unleashed observational skills.
“Bucky,” you whisper, scandalized.
He kisses your inner thigh, close enough to make you twitch. “Move it, baby.”
Slowly, your hand drops to the sheets.
He smiles against your skin. “Thank you.”
Then his mouth is back on you, and gratitude becomes a weapon. He licks into you with slow, messy strokes at first, tasting you like he has been denied water and blames you personally. His tongue drags from your entrance to your clit, lingering there until your thighs tense around his head. Then he does it again. Again. Learning with horrifying speed what makes your hips jerk, what makes your fingers twist in the sheets, what makes your mouth form his name without quite saying it.
You understand, distantly, that he is good at this.
Of course he is. Of course Bucky Barnes eats pussy like he has a vendetta against sanity. Of course the man who looked away all afternoon now has his face buried between your thighs with a concentration that feels almost insulting. Like he is determined to win an argument you did not realize your body had started.
His metal hand slides up your stomach, cool against heated skin, holding you down when your hips lift. The contrast makes you moan. His eyes flick up. He does it again, palm pressing lightly between your ribs as his tongue circles your clit.
“Please,” you breathe, though you have no idea what you are asking for.
Bucky hums into you.
Your back arches. The hum vibrates through every over-sensitive nerve he has already ruined, and your hands shoot to his hair. He lets you pull. Encourages it, maybe, with another wet, open-mouthed suck that makes your thighs clamp around his ears.
“Sorry,” you gasp, trying to loosen your grip.
He pulls back just enough to speak, lips shining. “Do it again.”
“What?”
His teeth scrape your thigh. “Pull my hair again.”
You stare at him, then obey with trembling fingers.
His eyes close for a second, and the expression on his face is so openly pleased that something inside you folds. This is him. Not the cold look-away version from the patio. Not the teasing version with everyone watching. This man, wet-haired and greedy, kneeling between your legs like he has found religion and plans to be terrible about it.
He lowers his mouth again, and this time you pull when his tongue presses inside you.
Bucky groans into your cunt.
The sound is enough to make your hips jerk up against his mouth. He holds you down, but barely. Like he wants the fight. Like every needy movement makes him worse. His tongue fucks into you, then slips back to your clit, alternating until you cannot predict anything except pleasure. It grows too quickly. Your last orgasm has left you sensitive, swollen, every touch brighter than it should be.
“Bucky, I can’t,” you gasp, then hate yourself because you absolutely can and probably will.
He lifts his head, but keeps his thumb moving over your clit in lazy, devastating circles. “Can’t what?”
“Again. I can’t…”
His mouth curves, wet and wicked. “You can.”
“You have too much confidence.”
“I have evidence.” His thumb presses a little harder, and your legs shake. “Look at you.”
“No.”
“Yeah.” He leans up over you, thumb still moving, mouth hovering above yours. You can smell yourself on him. The realization makes you clench so hard his eyes drop. “You gonna get shy now? After soaking my fingers? After grinding all over me like you were trying to ruin my life?”
“I was making a point.”
“You made it.” His lips brush yours. “Very persuasive.”
You mean to roll your eyes. He kisses you before you can, pushing the taste of yourself into your mouth while his thumb keeps working your clit. The kiss makes it dirtier. More intimate. Your hand wraps around his wrist, but you don’t pull him away. You hold him there, grinding up in tiny helpless motions as the pressure builds again.
Bucky’s mouth leaves yours only to speak against it. “You’re gonna cum on my hand, then I’m gonna fuck you. If that’s what you want.”
If. Somehow that word remains. A door, not a trap. It makes your eyes sting again, which is so deeply inconvenient while naked with a man’s hand between your legs.
“I want it,” you say, voice shaking.
His forehead touches yours. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” Your grip tightens around his wrist. “I want you. I wanted you all day. I wanted you before today, and you were horrible and confusing and shirtless, which was unnecessary, and I hate that you looked away, and I hate that I cared, and I want you to fuck me so badly I can’t think about any of it.”
Bucky stares at you.
For a moment you regret speaking. Then his mouth crashes into yours, and regret becomes impractical.
His fingers replace his thumb, sliding down and pushing into you again, three this time, the stretch sharper after his mouth. You gasp into the kiss. He swallows it, pumps his fingers deep, heel of his hand grinding against your clit. The pleasure turns immediate and rough, your body already primed by his mouth and his words and the unbearable fact of being wanted after hours of believing the opposite.
“That’s it,” he mutters against your cheek. “There’s my mean girl. Thought I lost you under all that pouting.”
You whimper and slap weakly at his shoulder. “I was wounded.”
“You were jealous.”
“You were avoidant.”
“I was hard enough to see God.”
A shocked laugh bursts out of you, then breaks as his fingers curl. “That’s vulgar.”
“You asked for honesty.”
“I did not ask for theology.”
He laughs into your neck, and somehow the warm sound mixed with the filthy rhythm of his hand tips you closer. You clutch at his shoulders, then his hair, then the sheets. Nothing helps. The orgasm comes slower this time, dragged out of you with cruel patience. Your thighs tense, stomach pulling tight, and Bucky feels the change before you can warn him.
“Yeah, baby. Give me that one too.” His mouth presses near your ear, voice a wrecked whisper. “Need it. Need to feel you cum before I get inside you.”
Need. From him. Bucky Barnes needing anything from you.
Your body gives in.
The second orgasm is messier, wetter, less contained. You cry out before you can bite it back, hips bucking into his hand, and Bucky groans like the sound goes straight through him. His fingers keep moving, slower but deep, dragging the pleasure until you are shaking and trying to push at his wrist.
“Too much,” you gasp.
He stops at once.
The loss makes you whine again, and he laughs softly, kissing your cheek, then your jaw, then your mouth with absurd sweetness for someone who just fingered you into temporary stupidity.
“You’re impossible,” he murmurs.
“Your fault.”
“Yeah.” His hand smooths over your thigh, gentle now. “I’m starting to like that answer.”
You open your eyes. He is above you, wet hair falling forward, mouth swollen from kissing and eating you, eyes on your face with such naked affection that it scares you more than the hunger did.
Affection is hard. Desire has a script. Affection looks at you afterward.
Your hand lifts before you can stop it, touching his cheek. He turns slightly into your palm. That tiny movement ruins you.
“You really wanted me?” you ask, hating the softness in your voice.
His expression tightens. “All day.”
“Before today?”
He presses a kiss to your palm. “Yeah.”
“How long?”
A pause.
The room becomes too quiet again, but this silence is not empty. It is full of him deciding whether to lie. He does not.
“Long enough to act stupid about it.”
“That could be any amount of time.”
“Months.”
Your chest squeezes. “Months?”
“Maybe longer.”
“You’re terrible at flirting.”
“I panicked,” he says again, like that explains the whole tragedy of him. Maybe it does.
You laugh softly. He smiles this time, real and quick, then kisses you. The kiss starts gentle, then deepens when your legs wrap around his waist. His cock presses against you through his trunks, and the teasing drag makes both of you go still.
He looks down between your bodies. “I need these off.”
“Finally, a smart idea.”
His hands go to the waistband, then pause. “Condom?”
Reality returns in a less catastrophic way. Important. Practical. You gesture vaguely toward the side table, then remember this is Tony’s guest room, not a hotel minibar for sex supplies. “Unless Tony keeps them next to the complimentary existential dread, I don’t…”
Bucky drops his forehead to your shoulder with a pained groan.
A laugh bubbles out of you, helpless and mean. “Very prepared seduction, Barnes.”
“I was supposed to be ignoring you by the pool.”
“You did great.”
He bites your shoulder lightly. You yelp, then laugh harder. His own laugh shakes against you, warm and frustrated, and the absurdity of it makes the room feel human again.
Then he lifts his head. “I have one in my wallet.”
You stop laughing.
His brows draw together. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re judging.”
“I am judging.”
“I’m a grown man.”
“With pool-party condoms?”
“One condom. Singular. Emergency.”
“What emergency did you anticipate?”
He gives you a look. “Apparently this one.”
You should make another joke. You truly should. But the thought of him having one, of this actually happening, drains humor out of you and leaves want in its place. “Wallet,” you say.
Bucky’s eyes darken again.
He climbs off the bed, and the loss of his body makes you cold for exactly three seconds before he turns toward the chair where his discarded shirt must be absent, then remembers his wallet is out by the pool with his things. His face changes into genuine despair.
You clap a hand over your mouth.
“Don’t,” he warns.
“You left your emergency outside?”
“I didn’t plan to need it indoors.”
You dissolve into laughter. It is quiet, desperate, half muffled, but laughter all the same. Bucky stares at you, then shakes his head, smiling despite himself. He looks younger like this. Less impossible. Still shirtless and wet and hard in his swim trunks, which does complicate the innocence.
“I’ll go,” he says.
“You are not going outside like that.”
His gaze drops to the obvious tent in his trunks. “Fair.”
You look around the room and spot a folded robe near the bathroom door, white and plush. Perfectly Tony. “Robe.”
“I’m not wearing Stark’s sex robe.”
“Guest robe.”
“Same thing.”
“You want the condom or a philosophical debate?”
Bucky points at you. “Stay there.”
You sink back into the pillows, naked and grinning like an idiot. “Where would I go?”
“Knowing you? Window.”
“Only if things get worse.”
He grabs the robe, pulls it on with visible resentment, and the sight of Bucky Barnes in a plush white guest robe with wet hair and a furious erection is so absurdly beautiful that you almost cry. He catches your face and pauses at the door.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He narrows his eyes. “That smile says something.”
“It says hurry.”
That works. He leaves, closing the door behind him.
The second he is gone, you become aware of yourself again. Naked on white sheets. Swimsuit on the floor. Body cooling, thighs damp, mouth swollen. The laughter fades slowly, leaving a trembling little silence behind it.
This is real.
Bucky wanted you. Bucky is coming back. Bucky went to fetch a condom wearing Tony’s guest robe like some obscene, damp ghost of poor planning.
Your hand presses over your stomach. Not hiding now. Just grounding. It feels different under your own palm after his mouth, his hands, his eyes. Still yours. Still soft in places. Still carrying every insecurity from the bathroom mirror. But his wanting has touched it now, and you hate how much that helps. Hate how badly you needed someone else’s hunger to quiet the awful little voice in your head. Maybe you can work on that later. Maybe growth can wait until after orgasms.
Voices rise in the hall.
You freeze.
Sam: “Barnes, why the hell are you wearing a robe?”
Bucky, low and deadly: “Move.”
Tony, delighted somewhere farther away: “That is Egyptian cotton, by the way.”
Natasha laughs. “Let him live.”
Sam again, audibly grinning: “Is there a fire?”
Bucky says something too low to hear.
A beat of silence.
Then Sam barks out, “Oh my god.”
Your soul exits again, does a lap, returns out of morbid curiosity.
The door opens. Bucky steps in, face red, jaw tight, wallet in hand, robe still tied around him. He closes the door and locks it this time.
You stare.
He points at you again. “Don’t.”
“I said nothing.”
“You’re laughing with your whole face.”
“I would never.”
He stalks back toward the bed, tugging at the robe tie with enough aggression to threaten the cotton’s lineage. “Wilson knows.”
“Oh no.”
“Tony knows.”
“Tony knew before we did.”
“Steve looked proud.”
That breaks you. You roll onto your side, laughing into the pillow. Bucky tosses the wallet onto the bed and grabs your ankle, pulling you back toward him. The movement turns your laughter into a gasp. The robe falls open as he kneels on the mattress, and there he is, absurdity gone in a single second, his body over yours again, desire returning like a hand around your throat.
“Laughing at me?” he asks.
“Yes.”
His hand slides up your calf, over your knee, spreading your leg aside. “That’s brave.”
“I’m very brave.”
“You slipped twice today.”
“Physically brave and spatially cursed.”
His mouth twitches. He bends down and kisses the inside of your knee, then the thigh, and the laughter fades into a softer sound. “You okay?”
The question is quiet. It stops the teasing better than any command could. You look down at him, fingers resting in his wet hair.
“Yes,” you say. Then, more honest, “Nervous.”
His hand stills on your thigh. “About me?”
“About you seeing me.”
His face changes again, but he does not use any of the easy lines. No polished praise. No smooth answer. He moves up your body instead, covering you with his warmth, bracing one arm beside your head. His other hand cups your cheek, thumb damp against your skin.
“I see you,” he says. “I want you. Same sentence.”
Your throat tightens. “That’s unfairly effective.”
“Trying to be clear.”
“Terrible habit.”
His mouth brushes yours. “Can I keep seeing you?”
You nod. “Yeah.”
His lips press to your cheek, your jaw, your neck. “Can I keep touching you?”
Your legs part wider around him. “Yeah.”
His hand slides down between your bodies, and your hips lift when his fingers stroke through your folds again, gentle now, checking. Teasing. Both. “Can I fuck you?”
The bluntness sends a hot pulse through you. Your fingers tighten on his shoulders.
“Yes,” you breathe. “Please.”
Bucky’s eyes close for a beat, and when they open, patience is hanging by a thread.
The robe is shoved away. His trunks follow, dragged down his hips with a wet, clinging sound that would be funny if you had enough brain left. You do not. You are too busy staring. He is thick, heavy in his hand, flushed at the tip, and your mouth goes dry so fast it is almost comic.
Bucky notices. Naturally.
“Still judging my emergency condom?” he asks, tearing the foil with his teeth.
You look up at him. “Less now.”
“Thought so.”
The condom rolls on. His hand pumps once, twice, and your thighs press together around empty air. He sees that too, then settles between your legs and guides them open again. The head of his cock drags through your wetness, and both of you go quiet.
The first press against your entrance is almost too much.
He pauses there, forehead lowering to yours. “Tell me if you need slow.”
You hate that. You love that. You want to ruin him for it.
“I need you to stop talking like a responsible adult,” you whisper.
A short laugh leaves him, strained. “Sweetheart, I am hanging on by a thread.”
“Then stop hanging.”
His hips push forward.
The stretch is slow and full and immediate enough to make your mouth fall open. Bucky watches your face as he enters you, jaw clenched, breath breaking through his nose. He gives you the first inch, then another, then stops when your nails dig into his arms.
“Okay?”
You nod too quickly, body caught between ache and hunger. “More.”
His control slips for half a second. His hips roll deeper, and the sound that leaves both of you is ugly and perfect. He is bigger than his fingers, thicker than your imagination had kindly prepared you for, filling you in a way that makes thought stagger. Your legs wrap around his waist. His hand grips the sheet beside your head.
“Fuck,” he breathes, almost helpless. “You feel…”
You wait for the line. Pretty. Tight. Perfect. Something dirty and easy.
He lowers his face to your neck. “I’m gonna lose my mind.”
That is better.
You clench around him, and his hips jerk. His teeth press into your shoulder. “Do that again and this ends fast.”
“Maybe I want that.”
He lifts his head, eyes dark. “No, you don’t.”
Your body gives you away, warmth spreading under your skin. “Annoying.”
“You want me to take my time now.” He pulls out slightly, then pushes back in, slow enough that you feel every inch. “You wanted me to look, right? Wanted me to stop looking away?”
Your hands twist in the sheets.
He does it again, dragging the pleasure into something deep and almost unbearable. “I’m looking.”
You cannot answer. There is no room. He fills too much of you, his body heavy over yours, wet hair brushing your cheek, the scent of chlorine and him wrapped around every breath. His eyes hold your face as he starts a slow rhythm, each thrust smooth and deep, his mouth parting when you tighten around him.
“Bucky,” you moan, and his name sounds ruined.
His hand slips under your knee, hitching your leg higher. The angle changes, and his next thrust hits so deep your back bows off the bed. He groans, dropping his head to your shoulder.
“There?” he asks, already doing it again.
You nod, frantic. “There, please, there.”
“Yeah, baby.” His pace picks up, still controlled but rougher now, bed shifting under both of you. “Knew you’d sound pretty begging.”
Your face burns. “I’m not begging.”
He thrusts harder.
The words vanish.
“That sounded like begging.” His mouth presses to your cheek, deceptively sweet while his hips drive into you with enough force to make your fingers claw at his back. “Pool made you mouthy. My cock’s fixing it.”
The filth of it makes you clench.
Bucky laughs, but it breaks halfway into a groan. “Shit, you like that.”
“You’re so smug.”
“I’m inside you,” he says, breath hot against your mouth. “I earned a little.”
You would argue, but his hand slides between you and finds your clit. The first touch makes you jolt. After his mouth and his fingers, you are too sensitive, every nerve overfed and greedy. He rubs tight circles as he fucks you, watching your expression collapse.
“Oh, that’s it.” His voice turns thick, affectionate in the dirtiest possible way. “There’s my girl.”
My girl.
You fall apart a little just hearing it.
His eyes sharpen. “Yeah? That one?”
“Bucky…”
“My girl,” he repeats, and his hips hit deeper, harder. “Mine to look at. Mine to touch. Mine to pull out of the pool when she’s trying to make me jealous.”
You shake your head, but your body is a liar and both of you know it.
“No?” His thumb presses harder on your clit. “You didn’t like me jumping in after you?”
“You looked ridiculous,” you gasp.
“Yeah, well. You looked wet and half naked and mad at me. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
A laugh escapes you, then turns into a moan when he rolls his hips. He smiles against your mouth, kissing the sound away, and for a few seconds the rhythm becomes messy. Kissing, thrusting, breathing into each other, his hand working between you, your nails leaving half-moon marks in his shoulders. No clean choreography. No grace. Just damp skin, white sheets, the slap of his hips against yours growing louder, the ridiculous fear that someone outside might hear and the worse realization that you want them to know he came after you.
You turn your face into the pillow to muffle yourself.
Bucky catches your jaw and pulls you back. “No.”
“They’ll hear.”
“Good.”
“Bucky.”
His eyes are dark, almost feverish. “Spent all day watching you think I didn’t want you. Let them hear me prove it.”
Your orgasm rises so fast it scares you. It starts low, tightening through your stomach, then spreads until your thighs tremble around his waist. He feels it. His thrusts lose some smoothness, turning heavier, more desperate.
“You close?”
You nod, helpless.
“Say it.”
“I’m close.”
His mouth brushes yours. “Ask me.”
Your eyes open. “What?”
“Ask me to make you cum.”
The request should annoy you. It does. It also sends pleasure twisting sharply through your body, so your irritation lacks credibility.
“You’re impossible,” you whimper.
“Ask.”
His hips slow.
That is evil.
You grab at his shoulders. “Don’t slow down.”
“Ask me, baby.”
A second passes, filled with the obscene pressure of him buried deep and almost still, his thumb barely moving over your clit. You glare at him with whatever strength remains.
“Please,” you say, hating how breathless it is. Loving how his face changes. “Please make me cum.”
Bucky groans, and the restraint goes.
His hips drive into you hard enough to shove you up the bed, one arm hooking under your back to keep you close. His thumb works your clit faster, and his mouth moves over your jaw, your cheek, your lips, wherever he can reach while he fucks you. He is talking now, rough and uneven, less like performance and more like words escaping under pressure.
“Wanted this so bad. Wanted you so bad, sweetheart. Sitting out there in that fucking swimsuit, looking at me like you wanted to scratch my eyes out. Thought I was gonna snap when you smiled at Sam. Thought I was gonna drag you inside when you said I didn’t have to touch you. Stupid thing to say to me. Like I haven’t been thinking about putting my hands on you for months.”
Months. Again. The word breaks over you with the thrusts, with the pressure, with the hard heat of him inside you.
Your orgasm hits with his name in your mouth.
It is bigger this time, deeper, pulled from every place he touched and every place he looked. You cry out, hips lifting into him, cunt clenching around his cock so hard his rhythm stutters. Bucky curses against your throat, fucking you through it with short, rough thrusts that make the pleasure keep sparking long after the first wave should have ended.
“That’s it,” he groans. “That’s it, baby. Fuck, you feel so good when you cum.”
You cannot answer. Your body is trembling too hard, arms wrapped around him, face pressed into his neck as he loses the last of his rhythm. His thrusts turn desperate, deeper and less controlled, and something about that undoes you almost as much as your own release. Bucky, who spent all day looking away, is now buried inside you and shaking apart over it.
“Where?” he rasps.
The condom. Practicality. Again, somehow.
“Inside,” you breathe. “You have the condom, inside, please.”
He makes a sound against your skin, broken and almost grateful. His hips slam once, twice, then bury deep as he comes. His whole body tenses over yours, breath caught against your shoulder, hands gripping you like he needs somewhere to put the force of it. You feel the pulse of him through the condom, feel the weight of him, the shudder that runs across his back under your hands.
Then he softens by degrees.
His forehead rests against your shoulder. His breathing is rough, warm, damp over your skin. Your own body feels boneless, wrung out and too sensitive, thighs still locked around his waist like they have not received news of the ending.
Outside, someone cheers again.
Bucky huffs a laugh into your neck. “If that’s about us, I’m moving to Siberia.”
You laugh weakly, fingers combing through the wet hair at his nape. “That was my plan.”
“We can carpool.”
“After you get off me. You’re heavy.”
He lifts his head, affronted and beautiful. “You wound me.”
“You crushed me.”
“You wrapped around me.”
“You were available.”
His smile comes slowly this time, soft and disbelieving, and the sight hurts in a new way. Not bad. Just big. Too big for a guest room during a pool party. Too big for a body still buzzing from sex.
He kisses you once, gentle and quick. “I’m gonna move.”
You make a deeply embarrassing sound of protest before you can stop it.
Bucky pauses. The smugness returns in miniature. “Yeah?”
“Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face is speaking.”
“My face has been through a lot today.”
He eases out carefully, and even that makes you wince. His hand strokes your thigh in apology, and the tenderness of it makes you look away. He handles the condom, ties it off, finds a trash bin in the bathroom, washes his hands. Normal things. Human things. Meanwhile you lie in Tony Stark’s guest bed naked, damp, and fucked so thoroughly that your bones feel rearranged.
When Bucky returns, he grabs the towel from the chair and wipes gently at the wetness on your thighs. The care makes your throat tighten.
“You don’t have to do that,” you murmur, then immediately regret the phrasing.
His eyes lift.
Right.
You both hear the echo.
This time, he does not get angry. He leans down and kisses the inside of your knee. “I want to.”
The answer settles over the old wound quietly.
You nod, unable to make a joke fast enough.
He cleans you with warm water from the bathroom after that, careful between your legs while you try not to squirm from sensitivity. Then he finds another towel, pats the sheets around you with the resigned air of a man who knows Tony will make comments for the rest of his life. Your swimsuit remains on the floor. He picks it up, holds it between two fingers, and gives it an unreadable look.
You lift your head. “Don’t insult it. We’ve all grown.”
Bucky’s mouth twitches. “I owe it an apology.”
“You owe me an apology.”
“I gave you one.”
“I want another.”
He climbs back onto the bed beside you, still naked, shameless in a way that should be illegal. The mattress dips under his weight. “For what?”
“For being weird at the pool.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For looking away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For making me think you hated it.”
His face softens in that unbearable way again. He reaches for you, then pauses until you shift closer yourself. Once you do, his arm slides around you, pulling you against his chest. His skin is warm now, less wet, still smelling faintly of chlorine. “I’m sorry.”
You rest your cheek against him, listening to his heart. It is beating fast. Not hammering. You refuse to give it dramatic language. Just fast enough to comfort you.
“And for making me feel like I needed sam to tell me I looked nice,” you add, quieter.
His arm tightens.
A few seconds pass. Not empty. Not awkward. Full of that sentence sitting between you and breathing.
“You looked beautiful,” he says, voice low. “You looked so good I forgot how to act like a person. And that’s on me, not you.”
Your eyes sting again, which is becoming repetitive and rude. “You need to stop saying decent things after sex. It’s confusing.”
His lips press to your hair. “Would it help if I said something indecent?”
“Yes.”
“Your thighs almost killed me.”
A laugh bursts out of you, wet and startled. “Bucky.”
“I’m serious. National threat.”
“You’re so stupid.”
He kisses your forehead, smiling against your skin. “Yeah, but you like me.”
You go still for half a second.
He feels it.
The words sit there, too close to another word neither of you has touched yet. Like. Want. Months. My girl. All safer than the one with teeth. Bucky’s hand moves slowly over your back, giving you somewhere to put the panic.
“You like me too,” he says, softer, almost cautious beneath the tease.
You close your eyes. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Don’t get greedy.”
His chest moves under your cheek with a quiet laugh. “Too late.”
A knock hits the door.
Both of you freeze.
Tony’s voice comes through the wood, bright with theatrical politeness. “As the owner of this house, its Egyptian cotton robe, and several traumatized guests, I would like to announce that dinner part two is happening in twenty minutes. Clothing encouraged. Applause optional.”
You bury your face in Bucky’s chest.
Bucky sighs. “Go away, Stark.”
“Gladly. Also, Wilson owes me fifty dollars. Carry on.”
Footsteps retreat.
Your face is burning so badly it may light the bed on fire. “I hate everyone.”
Bucky’s hand slides possessively over your hip. “Want me to get your clothes?”
The thought of walking back outside in the swimsuit after everything makes you want to dissolve. But then again, the old shame does not bite quite the same now. The swimsuit is still a damp heap on the floor. Your body is still your body. Your friends are still awful. Bucky is still a confusing, broad disaster.
Only now he has seen you. Touched you. Wanted you. Said it clearly enough that even your mean little brain has to work harder to ruin it.
“Eventually,” you say.
He hums. “Eventually sounds good.”
“You can’t keep me in Tony’s guest room forever.”
“No,” he agrees, hand moving lazily over your side. “But I can try for another ten minutes.”
“That’s ambitious.”
His mouth finds your neck, and the smile against your skin is warm enough to melt whatever was left of you. “I can be patient.”
“You said that before.”
“I lied.”
You laugh, and he kisses the sound before it can get away.
Summary : Mr. Charles assigns Benjamin Poindexter a new partner: a super soldier who may not be over her ex. Too bad Dex has never been good at sharing, and he’s determined to make her forget anyone ever touched her before him.
Pairing : DDBA! Benjamin Poindexter x Supersoldier! reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : Slow Burn. Friends with benefits to lovers. Mostly hurt/comfort, jealous! Dex, sexual themes, sex in a church, praise/worship kink, religious imagery during sex, obsessive/possesive love, morally ambiguous reader, Bucky Barnes is mentioned to be your ex but you do not have feelings for him anymore (he doesn't physically show up in this either). graphic violence, blood and injury, Hydra trauma, mention of brainwashing and programming, PTSD/nightmares, dissociation, Hydra torture references, unhealthy coping mechanisms, reader is mentioned to be smaller, but stronger than Dex (Let me know if I miss anything!) set after the ending of DDBA Season 2.
Word Count : 20.8k
Requested by : Anons! This is a combination these requests: X X X
Notes : I think this is the longest fic I’ve ever written? Inspired by God Must Hate me by Catie Turner and Take me to Church by Hozier. Enjoy!
Keeping Benjamin Poindexter alive had never been the hard part. He had always been very good at staying alive, even when he didn’t want to be. He survived gunfire, broken bones, spinal trauma, institutional failure, and even the kind of loneliness that hollowed a man out. Survival was familiar to him. Survival had rules: Keep breathing, keep moving, find the exit.
Keeping him employed, however, was a different matter entirely. That was where Mr. Charles came in.
He didn't come to Dex with pity, which was wise. He didn't sit across from him in some cold room and talk about redemption or recovery or all the other fluffy words people used when they wanted a dangerous man to feel grateful for being tolerated. Dex had heard those words before, and they always meant the same thing: behave, be useful, don’t make us regret leaving you alive.
Charles, at least, had the decency not to pretend otherwise. He wore a plaid shirt under a vest (questionable fashion, but who was Dex to judge?), carried a leather folder, and looked at him like he wasn't a tragedy, nor a project, nor a rabid dog somebody had been foolish enough to feed. Instead, he looked at him as an asset with very specific applications.
Dex respected that, because the humiliating truth was that he needed a job.
Not a freelance gun-for-hire thing he got going on to fund his crusade against Fisk’s task force. He needed an actual, stable job. He needed money that came in regularly enough to pay rent. He needed a place with working locks, decent heating, and a refrigerator that contained more than condiments, protein bars, and eggs. He needed prescriptions filled before the bottles were empty. He needed ammunition that didn't come from old caches, stolen evidence rooms, or men who sold illegal ordnance out of storage units and thought calling him “buddy” was a good idea.
He needed structure.
Dex had spent so much of his life being pointed at things that he didn't entirely know what to do when no one was pointing. Freedom sounded good in theory, but freedom also meant waking up in a silent apartment with too many hours in the day and nowhere to put the violent itch crawling under his skin. It meant no orders, no parameters, no approved targets, no neat little box where the worst parts of him could be made useful. It meant his own mind, unattended, circling the same dark rooms until he started looking for a window to break.
Charles offered him work instead.
He said it was black ops, but clean enough. Government-adjacent, but deniable. There were forms, salaries, coded assignments, medical access, housing arrangements, travel papers, and weapons clearances. It was ugly in all the ways Dex understood, but it had a shape. It had a beginning, a middle, and, theoretically, an end.
Dex missed that.
Maybe.
He sat across from Charles in a windowless conference room. The table between them reflected the overhead lights in long white strips. There was coffee untouched near Dex’s elbow and a pen placed exactly parallel to the folder.
“So what?” Dex asked eventually, his voice flat. “I’m one of the good guys now?”
Charles chuckled. “You’re useful,” he shrugged. “Let’s start there.”
Dex stared at him for a second. Then, against his better judgment, he smiled.
It wasn't a friendly smile, but it was the closest thing to approval Charles was likely to get. There was something almost refreshing about not being lied to. At least one was asking him to hold hands with his past or apologize to a circle of strangers under fluorescent lights. Charles wanted him because Dex could do damage with precision, and after all this time, there was comfort in that kind of honesty.
After all, in Dex’s book, Charles might not be a good person, but he wasn’t a horrible one either. Unlike Wilson Fisk. Unlike Vanessa Fisk.
He knew that because he saw who was funding the mission: Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
Charles tapped the edge of the file once with two fingers. “She also bankrolls the Avengers.”
Dex’s expression didn't change.
“The new team,” Charles clarified.
“Yeah,” Dex said flatly. “I know who the New Avengers are.”
“Then you understand the nature of this operation.”
Dex looked back down at the file.
Sure, he understood enough. If Val was paying for Avengers, that meant she was funding heroism. If Charles worked for her, then Charles cannot possibly be that bad, can he?
The logic was stupidly simple, so simple a child could have made it. Dex knew that. He knew goodness didn't transfer through payroll.
He liked it anyway. He liked clean lines. He liked being told where to stand.
He looked down again before Charles could read too much on his face. The next few pages were maps, photographs, shipment records, old Hydra symbols carved into walls and stamped onto yellowing documents. Europe had been marked in red: Germany, Romania, Austria, Italy, Poland, Norway.
When he flipped through, he found photos of safehouses, labs and weapons caches. The next page had details of facilities hidden under abandoned factories and bank accounts buried beneath shell companies and dead men’s signatures. There were names in multiple languages, some with photographs attached, some already crossed out.
Hydra, apparently, was like black mold. You could burn the house down and still find it growing behind the walls.
“They’re just remnants,” Charles said. “Y’know, splinter groups who aren’t really Hydra anymore, they’re just borrowing the name and the branding. Opportunists, mostly. Scientists who kept copies of files they were meant to destroy. Brokers moving old weapons systems through private channels. Buyers interested in serum research, cryogenic technology, asset conditioning protocols, enhanced human restraints, anything that survived the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the years afterward.”
Dex turned a page.
“This would be a seven-month assignment,” Charles continued. “Possibly longer, depending on what you recover. You’ll move through Europe, locate the caches, secure the weapons, and retrieve as much intel as possible before it disappears into the black market. You’ll have safehouses, false identities, medical support, and extraction options when necessary.”
“When necessary,” Dex repeated.
Charles’s mouth twitched. “You understand the kind of work this is.”
Dex did. He understood it so well that a now-ancient part of him had already begun arranging itself around the mission, routes, and sight lines. He wasn't a spy, but he would try his hand at a language he didn't speak but could fake long enough to get through a checkpoint. He would map the distance between cover and exit in every photograph. He would process the likely angle of fire through the windows of a Croatian warehouse shown on page six.
His mind liked having something to do.
“And the priority?” Dex asked.
“Weapons first. Intel second. People third.”
“Dead or alive?”
“Alive if possible,” Charles said, adjusting his glasses.
Dex glanced up, raising an eyebrow. Charles sighed, almost imperceptibly. “If practical,” he amended.
That was better.
Dex leaned back, the chair creaking softly beneath him. He turned another page, then froze.
The photograph clipped to the next sheet wasn't of a weapons cache, a scientist, or some grey-faced man in a tactical vest.
It was you.
Dex stared for a moment longer than he meant to.
The picture looked like it had been taken without your permission from a street corner. You were wearing a winter coat, one hand tucked into your pocket, the other holding a paper coffee cup like you were just another pretty socialite in another expensive European city, not something pulled out of Hydra’s worst nightmares.
Pretty was the wrong word, Dex realised. Pretty was too soft.
You were… intense in a way Dex didn't immediately trust. Your posture was careful, your stride was disciplined. Dex knew a little of what that’s like; he had seen it in mirrors.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
Charles’s eyes flicked down to the file. “Your partner.”
Dex’s smile disappeared. “No.”
“You haven’t heard the rest.”
“I don’t do partners anymore.”
“You do now.”
Disappointment moved through Dex’s eyes, but Charles didn't retreat from it. That made Dex dislike him again. Or respect him. Sometimes the two were close enough to be irritating.
“I work better alone,” Dex said.
“Uh uh. You survive alone,” Charles replied. “There’s a difference.”
For a second, he considered standing up and walking out, just to prove no one in that room could decide anything for him. He could go back to whatever came before this. Cheap rent, unclear income. Too much time. Too many thoughts. His talents were left without purpose, especially after Task Force agents were being rounded up and locked up one by one.
Dex tapped one finger against the edge of the photograph. “What is she?”
The question was rude. Charles seemed unsurprised by that, too.
But Dex knew that a man like him would not be put to a mission with some other average agent. She must be equipped to handle him in some way, and he needed to know how.
“She is a super soldier,” he said. “From the Siberian program. She might be smaller than you, but she is faster than you. Stronger than you. More durable than you.”
Dex’s knuckles flexed. Charles, annoyingly, looked amused by that. “Don’t take it personally. You're here because she’s strictly close quarters only. Her aim is dogshit. She can’t pin the tail to the donkey if it was the size of an elephant.”
Dex looked back down. The photograph changed with the information, though nothing in it moved. The pretty coat became a costume. The coffee became a cover. He knew enough of the infamous Siberian Program to know what it meant: cryo, programming, asset conditioning, and brutal compliance. You were a war crime with a pulse.
“Zemo killed them,” Dex said. Or so he’s heard.
“He missed one,” Charles said dismissively.
Dex’s eyes narrowed, but Charles just continued, “She was recovered at the end of the conflict. Barnes and Rogers found her before anyone else did. As far as our records show, Zemo believed the termination was complete.”
“And it wasn’t.”
“No.”
Dex looked at your face again. There you were, alive by accident. A cute little clerical error in the middle of a massacre.
“Is she deprogrammed?” he asked.
“Enough.”
Dex gave Charles a dry look. “She’s stable, then?”
Charles tilted his head. “Are you?”
Dex huffed a laugh, short and humorless.Fair.
Dex knew this made sense: you probably knew Hydra architecture, internal coding systems, and old asset routes. For this assignment, there was probably no one more useful, save for the Winter Soldier himself. But then again, he was too busy pretending to be a public facing hero, which meant this probably read too much like grunt work to him.
“When do I meet her?” he asked.
Charles’s eyes shifted by the smallest amount, just enough for Dex to understand that he had given the answer Charles had been waiting for.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Dex shut the folder, though he kept the photograph on top. Then, he agreed to the mission.
—
As promised, Dex met you the next day on a rain-slick air base that didn't officially exist.
You were already waiting by the plane when Charles led him across the tarmac, hands in your jacket pockets, hair tugged loose by the wind, looking entirely too calm for someone being sent across Europe to clean up an evil organisation’s leftovers.
Charles stopped between you like a middle school teacher introducing two students he already knew would become a disciplinary issue.
“Benjamin Poindexter,” Charles said. “This is your partner.”
“Dex,” he corrected.
You tilted your head. “Do you correct everyone that fast?”
“Usually faster.”
Your mouth twitched, but it wasn’t quite a smile. You gave him your name, and he recognized it from the file. You took a sip from your cup, still watching Dex over the rim. “So. You’re the knife throwing miracle worker.”
“That what he called me?”
“No,” you rolled your eyes. “That’s me being generous.”
Dex felt the corner of his mouth lift before he could stop it.
He folded his arms. “And you’re the super soldier.”
Your face stayed mild. “Allegedly.”
“Allegedly?”
“I don’t like confirming things for strange men on runways.”
“Smart.”
“I try.”
Charles glanced between you like he had already decided this was as good as civility was going to get. “You’ve both read the operational brief.”
“Yes,” you said.
Dex said nothing when Charles looked at him.
Dex eventually said, “Enough.” He said it with a smile a little too charming for your peace of mind.
You scoffed and Dex’s gaze dipped over you once, interested. You noticed, because you were trained to notice changes in breathing, pupil dilation, heart rate, weight distribution. Instead of calling him on it, you gave him your sweetest, most harmless smile.
Dex stared at it like he wanted to peel it off you with a knife just to see what was underneath.
Charles cleared his throat and handed you both slim black folders. The paper inside was minimal, most of the real information tucked away behind encrypted devices and dead drops. You flipped yours open anyway, mostly to give your hands something to do.
“The two of you will have limited external support,” Charles continued. “You’ll have a plethora of assumed identities. You’ll share safehouses when necessary.”
Dex said, “When necessary?”
“Frequently,” Charles said.
You looked up. Dex looked at you.“I don’t snore,” you said.
Dex’s eyes narrowed. “Congratulations.”
“I do steal blankets.”
Charles pinched the bridge of his nose. “Any objections before departure?”
Dex opened his mouth. You interrupted before he could say something predictably unpleasant. “Nope. Bucky talked me into it, so technically if this goes badly, we can blame him.”
Charles looked amused; Dex’s flicked to you.
You kept looking at the file, not because you missed the reaction, but because you didn't entirely want to deal with it yet.
“Barnes?” Dex asked. His voice had not changed much. The word came out casual, almost indifferent, but his eyes widened, if only a little
You lifted your head. “Yes.”
“As in James Barnes.”
“Do you know another famous Buckys?”
“No.”
“Then yes.”
Dex studied you.
You had expected curiosity. Most people got curious about Bucky. Some got reverent, others got afraid. Some got that awful pitying look, that suggested they thought they knew Hydra to imagine they understood anything at all. Dex did none of that.
“What did he talk you into?” he asked.
You shrugged, tucking the folder beneath your arm. “Working. Y’know. Doing something useful.”
Charles didn't interrupt. Coward.
You glanced toward the aircraft, watching two ground crew members load another case into the hold. “He said I couldn’t just sit around waiting for someone to piss me off.”
Dex’s mouth twitched.
“What did Barnes say?” Charles asked, tilting his head.
You sighed, and without meaning to, your voice shifted into an imitation of Bucky’s low, exasperated drawl. “‘You can’t keep breaking people’s bones and making me explain to the cops why they shouldn’t press charges.’”
Dex stared at you.
You smiled faintly, fond despite yourself. “He had a point. Apparently regular civilians get upset when you dislocate someone’s shoulder in a grocery store parking lot.”
“What did they do?” Dex asked.
“They touched me.”
Dex only shrugged, as if it was a reasonable thing to do.
“Well,” Charles said, producing a small bag of peanuts from his coat pocket, “try not to kill each other before Germany.”
You looked at Dex. He looked back at you. Then your mouth curved up, entirely too pleased. “Don’t worry,” you said. “I have a feeling we’re going to be just fine.”
—
The first few missions were okay.
Dex had expected friction. He had expected you to get in his way, or slow him down, or make some sentimental speech about doing things cleanly because he’d expected a partner with principles. Instead, you were efficient. You were talkative, but quiet when you needed to be. You were quick in a way that made him understand, very quickly, that Charles had not been exaggerating about the super soldier thing.
Germany was a weapons ledger hidden behind a false wall in a private gallery. You smiled at the owner’s security like you were there to admire post-war sculpture, then put one guard through a locked door with your shoulder when the alarms tripped. Dex handled the cameras and anyone who would eventually get to you. By the time the police arrived, both of you were already three streets away, walking under one umbrella you had stolen from the cloakroom and laughing at how untrained these guys were.
Austria was colder. You had gotten intel of a Hydra courier in a ski town, three dead drops, one safe full of expired serum that didn't do anything except maybe get you high. Dex put a knife through a man’s hand before he could reach the panic button, and you raised a brow at him like you were impressed. Later, in the car, you told him his aim was annoyingly theatrical.
Taking it as a compliment, he told you that your melee skills were not too bad yourself. You smiled at the window and tried your hardest not to deflect it.
By the time you reached Romania, the process had become familiar. You took the left side of a room without being told. Dex took the high angle. You never walked directly in front of his line of fire. He never asked you to move. In safehouses, you cleaned weapons at the kitchen table while he checked exits and pretended he wasn't watching the way your hands worked. You drank terrible coffee. He made comments about it. You ignored him and made him a cup anyway.
You didn't talk much during jobs, but afterward, little pieces of you slipped out.
Unfortunately, a lot of them had Bucky fucking Barnes attached.
“Bucky hated safehouses like this,” you said once, standing in the doorway of a flat in Bucharest with peeling wallpaper and a radiator that knocked all night. “Said they all smelled like wet concrete and black mold.”
Dex looked around. “He sounds poetic.”
“He was mostly complaining.”
Another time outside Salzburg, you watched Dex hotwire a silver sedan and said, “Bucky used to do that one-handed.”
Dex didn't look up. “Congratulations to Bucky.”
You laughed like he had meant to be funny. He had not.
It was annoying, how he kept happening.
It wasn't a constant and definitely not enough for him to call it a problem without sounding insane. It was just often enough that Barnes became a third person in the room even though he had never met the man before, he found him irritating because he was apparently very good at everything.
Bucky had warned you about old Hydra storage locks. Bucky had taught you how to sleep sitting up without waking with a crick in your neck. Bucky had said Romanian winters were worse than Russian ones because at least Russia was honest about trying to kill you. Bucky had this dry little laugh when Steve and Sam got sentimental. Bucky, Bucky, Bucky.
Dex told himself he didn't care. It was obviously a lie, but it was a convenient one.
He didn't care that your voice changed around the name. He didn't care that you said it easily, like muscle memory. He didn't care that Barnes had known you before this, before Charles, before rain-slick bases and seven-month assignments and Dex learning that you hummed under your breath when you were stitching wounds.
He definitely didn't care that Barnes was the reason that you were here, with Bullseye, instead of the picture perfect ex-congressman, now leader of the most high profile superhero team in the world. Emphasis on hero.
The fourth mission was in Hungary, in an old textile factory outside Budapest that had been turned into a weapons relay point by boys too young to remember Hydra properly and too stupid to fear it enough. It went clean until it didn't. Someone burned the files before you could get to them. Dex shot out the sprinklers. You ripped the office door off its hinges. Together, you dragged what you could from the smoke and left six men zip-tied in the loading bay for Charles’s people to collect, not before killing twice as much along the way.
By midnight, you were in a safehouse above a closed bakery, both of you smelling like smoke and wool.
You sat on the floor with your back against the couch, cleaning soot from under your nails with the tip of a knife. Dex stood near the window, watching the street below through a gap in the curtains. For a while, neither of you spoke.
Then you said, “Bucky once set an entire warehouse on fire by accident.”
Dex closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them again, his reflection looked annoyed in the dark glass. “What is he,” Dex added, “your boyfriend?”
He meant it lightly, mostly. It came out almost like a joke.
The room’s air seemed to change at that; but you didn’t flinch. You didn’t look wounded. You only looked back down at your hands, at the knife balanced between your fingers, and for the first time since he had met you, Dex saw the answer arrive before you decided whether to give it.
“He used to be,” you said.
Ah.
He waited for more but gave him nothing.
The knife moved again, scraping soot gray wasn’t there anymore. Your face had closed in that gentle, polite way he was starting to recognize as armor. And it wasn’t the super soldier armor. Not even the Hydra armor. It was more… personal.
Dex should have asked. He wanted to ask: How long? Why did it end? Did you love him? Do you still? Did he touch you? Did he know what to do with you?
He asked none of it, mostly because that would have meant admitting he cared. So he only said, “Huh.”
You looked up. “Huh?” you repeated.
Dex shrugged, turning back toward the window. “Didn’t peg Barnes as your type.”
“And what’s my type?”
Dex seemed to consider it for a second. “Bad decisions.”
That got a small smile from you. “You’re not wrong.”
Dex stared out at the empty street, fist curled tight, his heartbeat skipping stupidly beneath his skin.
He told himself it was just curiosity. Barnes was relevant because Barnes had been Hydra, because Barnes knew the program, because Barnes had known you before Dex did. That was all: information, context, and nothing else.
But behind him, you went quiet again, and Dex could only assume and spiral about what you had not said.
He didn't want to know.
Ha! That was a lie.
He wanted to know so badly it made him angry.
You shifted on the floor, stretching one leg out, your boot nudging his discarded jacket.
“He’s a good man,” you said after a while.
Dex’s fingers tightened against the curtain.
Ugh.
He didn’t know what that shift of note was in your voice. Was it longing? Did you miss him?
“Lucky him,” Dex said through gritted teeth.
You didn’t answer. When he glanced back, you were looking at the knife in your hand like you had forgotten why you were holding it.
—
The next mission went wrong.
At first, it was just another Hydra remnant with more confidence than sense, tucked beneath an old municipal archive in Prague, guarded by men who thought stolen weapons made them important. Dex took the cameras. You took the stairs. It should have been clean.
Then one of them said a name: Vasily Karpov
Dex didn't know who that was at the time, but he would later learn that he was your old handler.
Still, he witnessed hearing it did to you.
He saw the split-second absence in your eyes— the way your face dropped first, almost blank, before an old and brutal version of you came up underneath it. The man laughed like he knew exactly what nerve he had touched.
He didn't laugh for long.
You hit him once and shattered his jaw.
Dex heard the teeth crack inside the man’s mouth before the body even hit the floor. Blood sprayed across the concrete in a hot arc, one of the molars skittering away into the dark like a dropped coin. The man tried to scream through what remained of his face, choking on it instead.
Then you hit him again.
Your fist came down with enough force to cave his nose flat against his skull. Bone gave under your knuckles with an ugly crunch. The back of his head smacked the floor hard enough to leave blood blooming beneath it, but you didn't stop.
The third punch ruptured his eye.
Dex watched as your knuckles sank into ruined flesh already turning unrecognizable, he saw red slick burst across your sleeve. The man’s limbs jerked once beneath you, involuntary, nervous system still firing even as his face stopped looking human. This was when Dex had to remember that you Hydra didn't just make a super soldier out of you; you were once a Winter Soldier, too.
You kept going.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each hit sounded worse than the last. Your breathing had gone frighteningly steady, not angry or frantic, just mechanically brutal, like your humanity had slipped somewhere far away from yourself and left only an asset behind.
Blood coated your hands to the wrist.
One of the punches split the skin over your knuckles open. You didn't notice.
“Hey!” Dex barked, because this was brutal, even for his standards. which was saying a lot.
The body beneath you had stopped moving entirely now. One arm twitched occasionally from the impact, dead weight bouncing under the force of your blows. There was barely a face left.
You hit him again anyway.
Dex grabbed you then, hooking an arm around your waist and hauling you backward with a grunt. “Stop.”
You drove an elbow back hard enough to bruise ribs. Dex barely held on. Your boots scraped through blood as you tried to lunge forward again, eyes empty, locked on the corpse like it could still speak.
“He’s dead,” Dex sneered into your ear.
Your fist clenched again.
For one horrible second, Dex thought you were going to tear free and keep going until there was nothing left on the floor but pulp.
Then your whole body jerked still.
The room went quiet except for your heavy breathing.
Slowly, your eyes dropped to the body. Or what used to be one.
—
In the safehouse that night, you took the bed.
You had made a rule three countries ago that the two of you would alternate between bed and couch because you both had trust issues and didn't want to compromise. Dex didn't argue.
So, tonight, he took the couch.
It was too short. The blanket smelled like dust. His ribs hurt where you had elbowed him. He lay there in the dark, one arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling and listening to the old building settle around him.
He didn't sleep much.
That was why he heard you scream when you did. It was a full, blood-curdling scream that tore through the apartment like a mortician had opened you up.
Dex was on his feet before it ended.
He had a knife in his hand by the time he reached your door. He kicked it open, expecting an enemy.
But there was no one there. Only you.
You were standing beside the bed in the dark, barefoot, shaking, eyes open, and yet, you looked wrong. Your hair was loose around your face. One hand was curled at your side like it expected a weapon. The other was pressed against your own throat, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.
Dex lowered the knife a fraction.
“Hey,” he said, smaller than he meant to. “It’s me.”
You turned toward him.
Then… you attacked.
This was what Dex had imagined Siberian-programmed Winter Soldiers to move like: a nightmare.
Dex barely got his arm up before you struck him, the impact driving him back into the wall. Pain flashed white through his back, but it was fine. His back could take a hit now. He twisted away from the next punch, caught your wrist, lost it when you wrenched free.
“Wake up,” he snapped.
You didn't. Instead, your fist cracked into the plaster beside his head when he ducked. He swept your leg; you went down and came back up too quickly. He had fought trained killers before. He had fought men who wanted him dead. This was worse.
Because he could tell, even now, that you were not trying to win. You were merely trying to survive something that wasn't in the room.
Dex said your name again. That got nothing out of you.
You lunged.
He caught you badly. Your strength drove both of you sideways into the dresser. A lamp shattered. His knife hand came up on instinct, not to strike, just to guard, just to keep space between you.
You twisted, and the blade sank into you in the form of a clean, ugly slice along the outside of your upper arm.
That was enough to wake you up.
Your eyes dropped to the blood welling against your skin. For a heartbeat, you only stared at it.
“Oh,” you whispered.
Dex didn't move.
You blinked once, then again, like the room was assembling itself around you piece by piece. The bed. The broken lamp. The wall. Dex in front of you, breathing hard, knife still in his hand.
“Oh,” you said again, and this time it broke. “Oh.”
He understood before you explained, that this was what Charles had meant when Charles said you were deprogrammed enough.
Enough to pass evaluation. Enough to work. Enough to know your own name in daylight. Enough to sit in cars and drink bad coffee and pretend you were only dangerous by choice.
Not enough to stop a dead man’s name from reaching into your sleep and turning you back into his weapon.
Dex lowered the knife slowly.
Your eyes followed it. “I’m sorry,” you said.
He hated that. “Don’t.”
“I…” you choked, “I didn’t know where I was.”
“I know.”
“I could’ve—”
“You didn’t.”
“I could’ve killed you.”
That almost made him laugh, except nothing about you looked funny. You were standing in the wreckage of the little bedroom, barefoot and bleeding, trying to make yourself smaller when both of you knew you were not small at all.
Dex stepped closer, and you flinched.
For a second, the two of you just stood there with blood between you. Then, he said, “Sit down.”
You looked at him, eyes still adjusting.
His repeated, firmer this. “Sit.”
Maybe it was the tone. Maybe it was the simplicity in the command. Maybe you just needed instruction.
You sat on the edge of the bed.
Dex went to the bathroom, found the medical kit beneath the sink, and came back without looking too long at the broken lamp or the dent in the wall where your fist had landed. He knelt in front of you because the bed was too short and the room was too small and because, apparently, he had decided this was his problem now.
You watched him clean the cut, with hands folded tightly in your lap.
The antiseptic made you hiss through your teeth.
“Hurts?” Dex asked.
“No.”
“Liar.”
That got the smallest breath out of you. Not a laugh, but Dex decided it was enough.
He stitched you up quickly. You watched his hands instead of his face. Dex was grateful for that. He didn't know what his face was doing, and he didn't want you to see it before he figured it out himself.
When he finished, he tied off the last stitch and taped gauze over the wound. Dex sat back on his heels. “Do you know whose name he said?”
Your face went still. “Yes.”
He waited.
You didn't elaborate. He didn't push.
He stood and turned to clean up the kit, but your hand caught his wrist.
It was light and careful and so different from the way you had fought him that it made his chest lock up.
“Stay,” you said.
Dex looked down at your hand, then at you.
Your face was controlled again, but not enough. Your eyes were too bright in the dark, your mouth pressed too tight, your body holding itself together through sheer refusal.
“Please,” you added, a bit more desperate.
He should have said no. Boundaries, professionalism, all of Charles’ stupid rules and all. He should have gone back to the couch and pretended the sound of your scream wasn't still crawling under his skin.
Instead, Dex nodded.
You shifted back on the small bed, making room that didn’t really exist. It was ridiculous: the mattress was narrow and dipped in the middle, the sheets smelled faintly like laundry powder and dust, and there was no way for him to lie beside you without touching.
He did it anyway.
You lay on your side facing him, one arm tucked against your chest, the bandage stark against your skin. Dex settled stiffly beside you.
For a while, neither of you spoke.
Then your forehead lowered, just barely, until it rested against his chest.
Dex stopped breathing.
You whispered, “I thought I was back there.”
His hand hovered above your shoulder. Then he let it settle there. “I know.”
“You don’t,” you insisted.
The words were not cruel, but it was true.
Dex looked at the cracked ceiling.
No. He didn't know Siberia. He didn't know your handler’s voice. He didn't know the cold storage or the chair or whatever else had been dragged into the room with you when you screamed. He didn't know what cryo felt like. He didn't know what being erased felt like.
But he knew what it was to wake up and not feel like a person.
So he said, “Maybe not.”
Your fingers curled in the front of his shirt, and he found himself wanting to hold you a little tighter.
In the dark, in that too-small bed with your blood drying beneath his fingernails and the mission waiting beyond the walls, Dex realized he was jealous of Barnes for something even worse than having been loved by you.
Barnes had known how to comfort you because what was done to you was done to him, too. Dex didn't.
But you had asked him to stay anyway. So, he stayed.
—
After Prague, something changed between you.
The shift wasn’t dramatic, because let’s be real, neither of you were built for dramatic emotional breakthroughs. There was no late-night confession, no sudden honesty, no moment where either of you sat down and admitted that maybe the partnership had stopped being strictly professional somewhere around Austria.
Things just idly softened around the edges.
You stopped pretending the nightmares were rare. Dex stopped pretending he didn’t notice when you paced after missions instead of sleeping. Sometimes he would wake in the middle of the night and find you sitting on the kitchen counter of whatever safehouse you were in, wrapped in one of his hoodies with a mug of coffee gone cold in your hands, staring at nothing.
It was a mutual understanding: he never asked what you were thinking about and you never asked why he always woke up exactly three minutes before dawn.
It worked. Mostly.
And somehow, you became easier around him. You rolled your eyes more openly when he was being difficult. You stole food off his plate. You started sitting too close to him on trains and planes and safehouse couches, like your body had decided he was safe before your brain had caught up.
Dex noticed every little bit of it.
Unfortunately, you still talked about Bucky.
Bucky liked this kind of weather. Bucky hated old countryside safehouses. Bucky once broke three ribs falling through a church roof. Bucky said Eastern European plumbing was cursed. Bucky this, Bucky that.
Dex was beginning to suspect the ancient world war two fossil had opinions on literally everything.
He hated how irrational the jealousy felt. Hated that it existed at all. It was ugly and stupid and embarrassing every time the name left your mouth so casually.
But he swallowed it.
Until Croatia.
The mission itself had been a disaster from the start. Charles had dropped a bad intel in the form of a wrong entry point in a Hydra splinter cell that turned out to be twice the size the files suggested. Dex got separated from you for exactly ninety seconds, which was apparently long enough for someone to nearly put a knife through your throat.
He found you in a collapsed stairwell with blood on your collar and three bodies around your feet. He had managed to cradle your face and slap your cheek twice to get you awake.
When you opened your eyes, though, he looked furious.
—
Dex tried to shoulder the safehouse door open, but the warped wood only groaned stubbornly against the frame, swollen tight from the rain.
Before he could hit it again, you shoved past him, “Move,” grabbed the handle, and yanked hard enough that the lock gave with a dull metallic snap, the door shuddering inward and banging against the wall. Cold air chased both of you inside as rain streaked down the back of his neck. Mud dragged across the floorboards beneath your boots. The cottage smelled like damp stone, stale smoke, and old wood that had spent too many winters rotting.
You stumbled in, one hand pressed briefly to your ribs because the movement annoyed whatever bruise was blooming there.
Dex saw it, refusing to take his mask off because he didn’t want you to see how frightened he had become.
Worse, he saw more that you seemed to understand. He saw the split at your lip. The blood at the side of your neck, dried now, but still there in a dark line where that knife had kissed too close. He saw the way you were favoring your left side even though you were trying not to. He saw the notch in your sleeve where a bullet had passed close enough to cut fabric.
The second the door shut, the whole night caught up with him at once.
For one horrible moment back in that compound, Dex had heard the comm go dead and had thought, with a certainty so violent it had hollowed him out, that he had lost you. Not misplaced or separated. Lost.
Asset unrecoverable kind of lost. Operative deceased kind of lost.
He had not felt that kind of panic in years, and he didn’t like what it had done to him.
So by the time you were both inside the cottage, wet and bleeding and breathing too hard, he had nowhere to put it except anger.
“You broke formation,” he said.
You tossed your ruined gloves onto the kitchen table, one after the other, like you had all the time in the world. “You changed the route.”
“The route was compromised.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“You were off comms.”
“I was busy.”
Dex turned from the door to see that you were standing in the yellow kitchen light, hair damp around your face, jacket hanging open, blood on your throat like some deadly necklace. And you had the audacity to sound bored.
Busy, you had said, like you had missed a call. Like he had not spent the longest thirty seconds of his life tearing through five men and half a corridor to get to you.
“You disappeared.”
You looked at him then. Your stare sharpened, the same way they did before a fight when some poor man realized too late that the pretty woman in front of him had never been harmless.
“Oh my god,” you said, though you looked annoyed, not cruel. In your head, the mission had gone badly but ended fine. You were alive. He was alive. The intel had been recovered and bodies had been left behind. That was success, by every metric either of you had been trained to respect.
So why was he acting like this? You didn’t understand.
“You disappeared,” he repeated, louder this time. “And then I walk into a room and there’s blood all over you—”
“Not mine,” you reminded me.
“I didn’t know that!” The words came thundering out of him before he could stop them. “You’re just so fucking reckless, are you?”
You barked out a small laugh, turning toward him, looking into his dark hazel eyes, the only part of his face not covered by fabric. “Oh, and you’re the picture of stability right now, Benjamin.”
Dex turned so fast you almost walked into him. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why?” Your eyebrows genuinely furrowed. “Do you not like your name?”
Still, there was no malice in your voice. You were being awful, yes, but not with the intention to wound. You didn't realize where the line was because no one had ever given you normal lines to stand behind. You were teasing him the way you tested knives: carefully, curiously, delighted when they were sharp.
Then, because apparently you had no instinct for self-preservation when it came to him, you added, “Bucky liked it when I called him James.”
Dex went still, but you didn’t notice immediately.
Not because you were stupid; you were not. You noticed threat, movement, weakness, exits, lies. You noticed the things that kept you alive. But this was different. This wasn't a gun drawn under a table or a man shifting his weight before a strike.
This was jealousy.
Dex hated how fast it rose in him. He hated that it didn't feel grown-up or controlled or even useful. It felt young, embarrassing, like a hot green pulse where his heart should be.
And you had no idea you had just fed it.
To you, it was a passing comparison. Bucky had been part of your life. James was a name he had let you use. It was a small domestic fact and nothing more.
To Dex, it was a door opening onto all the things he didn't want to picture.
Barnes smiling at you. Barnes letting you call him James. Barnes in your bed—
You caught the change in his eyes a second too late. “Dex?”
“Don’t.” His voice came out rough enough that even he heard the damage in it.
You stopped smiling, but that didn't help.
Because Dex knew you had not meant it. He knew. He could see it in your face now: the faint confusion, the way your mouth parted like you were about to ask what you had done wrong. You were not trying to make him jealous. You were not playing Barnes against him. You were not cruel in that particular way.
You were just carrying another man around inside your memories and forgetting Dex could see the outline.
And the worst part was that this wasn't even really about Barnes. It was about the fact that you were standing there, acting like nothing was wrong after almost dying, telling him you were fine while blood dried on your skin like he had not spent the last hour with terror clawing down his throat. You had almost died tonight, and for a second Dex had not thought of you as his partner, or Charles’s asset, or the super soldier who would probably outlive everyone in the room.
He had thought:
No.
Not you.
And now you were standing there saying another man’s name while Dex was still trying to scrape that terror out of his chest.
Dex stepped towards you before he even realized he was moving.
When he got to where you were standing near the kitchen table, he had you shoved backward to the wall behind you.
Dex planted one hand beside your head, boxing you in. The other grabbed your waist hard enough to pull you flush against him. The impact jolted through both of you. Your body heat hit him instantly through layers of damp clothing.
You looked up at him with wide eyes, not frightened.
You were stronger than him. If you wanted him off you, he would already be across the room. If you wanted space, you would take it. Instead, you stayed exactly where you were pinned against the wall, fingers curling into the front of his tactical suit as he desperately took his mask off.
God.
His grip tightened reflexively against your waist.
“I thought you were dead,” he said again, and this time the words cracked. “Do you understand that? You almost died.” Dex hated himself immediately for letting that much show.
“But I didn’t,” you murmured softly.
Dex looked down at you breathing hard against the wall, rainwater still dripping from your hair, blood drying at your throat, and suddenly the anger stopped feeling red and started becoming want.
Four months of tension crashed through him all at once. Every accidental touch in cramped safehouses. Every late-night conversation over bad coffee. Every time you had smiled at him after violence like the two of you shared some private language no one else understood.
And now you were looking up at him like this.
Your thumb brushed once against the front of his shirt where you still held him.
“You really don’t understand why that isn’t good enough,” he said.
Your eyes flicked over his face, and for half a second, the teasing left you. Then you tried to cover it, because vulnerability made you uncomfortable, too.
“Y’know,” you said, breath still uneven, “Bucky would’ve—”
Oh, fuck that.
“—known what to do with— Hmph!!!”
The kiss came so suddenly you barely had time to make a sound.
One second you were speaking, the next Dex’s mouth was on yours, hard and immediate and furious enough to steal the rest of the sentence clean out of you. His hand tightened at your waist; the other stayed braced against the wall beside your head like he needed to keep himself from doing something worse, or kind, or both.
You froze beneath him for one shocked heartbeat.
Dex felt the hitch in your breath, the way your hand tightened in his shirt without pulling him closer yet, fingers twisting in the wet fabric like your body had reacted before your mind could catch up.
He had kissed you to shut you up. That was the only explanation his brain could hold onto.
Not because he had wanted to do it for months. Not because the sight of blood on your throat felt like he had been skinned alive. Not because every time you said another man’s name, the hunger in him wanted to put his own there instead.
No.
He had kissed you because you would not stop talking.
Sure. That's why.
When you sighed into his lips, his whole body locked up.
The kiss changed in the space of a breath. Your lips began moving against his, tentative for less than a second before the shock burned off and heat rushed in to replace it. Your fingers dragged higher in his shirt, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away.
Dex made a sound low in his throat, and that seemed to snap both of you back to yourselves.
He pulled away, far enough that the kiss broke. For a second, neither of you moved.
You stared at him. He stared back.
Your eyes were wide, Your mouth was parted, damp from his, your breath coming fast.
He should have stepped back. He should have done anything except look at your mouth again.
Your eyes dropped to his lips at the exact same time.
That was all it took.
Dex barely had time to inhale before your mouth was on his again, harder now, more certain now. Your hands fisted in his shirt and dragged him down into you like you were done waiting for him to decide anything on your behalf.
He kissed you back immediately.
His hand slid from your waist to your hip, gripping there, pulling you against him while your back stayed pressed to the wall. The kiss turned rougher, open-mouthed and breathless, all teeth and heat and months of tension finally catching fire. You made a small whine against him when his body curved into yours, and Dex swallowed it whole.
Your hand slid up into his hair, and he nearly lost his mind.
Four months of looking and not touching, and now you were kissing him like it had meant everything.
Dex pressed in closer, chasing your mouth when you tilted your head, the angle changing. You kissed like you fought, he realized distantly: direct, no wasted movement, no mercy once you decided you wanted something.
Then you pushed him away, palm flattening against his chest.
Dex was suddenly stumbling backward like gravity had changed its mind. His back hit the edge of the kitchen table with a dull thud, wood scraping against the floor under the impact.
He stared at you for half a second.
You had not even tried.
You looked at him from against the wall, breathing hard, mouth swollen, eyes dark and bright all at once. You looked amazed now, wicked and dazed and pleased by the realization that you could move him so easily.
Dex knew that already.
He had known from the file, the missions, from watching you tear through men twice your size without breaking a sweat.
But knowing it and feeling it were different things.
Feeling your strength turned casually on him, not to hurt, not to threaten, just to move him where you wanted him, made his brain go haywire.
For one dangerous second, Dex wondered what you would do to him if you were given free rein. The next thing he realized was that he would let you do anything to him.
When you walked up to him, Dex’s hands found your waist again, but this time you were the one pushing into him, trapping him against the table, kissing him like you had decided he had started something and now you were going to finish it on your terms.
He let you.
Fuck, he let you.
Your mouth moved over his, hot and demanding, your fingers sliding into his hair again and tugging just enough to make his breath catch. Dex’s grip tightened on your hips, then loosened, then tightened again, like even his hands could not decide whether to pull you closer or surrender completely.
Dex leaned back against the table as you crowded him, and the old wood creaked under both of you. You had his knee pressed between yours, and even then he could feel the damp heat between your legs even though your trousers. He wanted to tease, but when hands roamed up his chest with a kind of greedy curiosity, he forgot language altogether.
He kissed you harder.
You answered immediately, biting at his lower lip until he groaned into your mouth.
Dex felt your smile against his lips for half a second.
Cruel little thing.
Dex pulled his mouth away for a second. You were about to complain, but whatever whiny words you were about to say was silence when his lips dragged down your neck instead. His lips found the place beneath your ear, then the line of your pulse, then the blood-dark smear where the knife had almost cut too deep, and you had mewled like a kitten in response.
This was fine, he told himself.
Practical, even.
You had both been wound tight for months. Too much blood, too many missions, and not nearly enough release. Wanting you didn't have to mean anything. Wanting to have you didn't have to mean he was already too far gone. This was just mutually beneficial stress relief, right?
Dex almost laughed against your neck at his own reasoning.
It was stupid.
He didn't care.
Your hands slid under the hem of his tactical shirt and dragged upward, impatient and clumsy. Dex pulled back only long enough to tear the fabric over his head and drop it somewhere behind him. He barely had time to breathe before your eyes were on him.
Then, without a word, you followed, fingers catching at the hem of your own shirt, lifting it over your head, tossing it aside.
Dex stared.
Your mouth curved up. “What?”
He stepped back into you.
“Nothing.”
His mouth was on you again before the word had fully settled, kissing you hard, kissing the answer into your skin instead of saying it. His hands moved over your sides, your back, your waist, like he still could not quite believe he was allowed to touch and needed to make up for every second he had wasted pretending he didn't want to.
You made a sound when his lips found your throat again. Your fingers curled around the back of his neck, pulling him closer.
Dex obeyed before he could resent how easily he did.
He kissed lower, then back up, restless, greedy, unable to stay in one place because there was too much of you and he wanted all of it at once. Your hand slid over his shoulder, blunt nails dragging lightly over skin right next to his spinal surgery scar.
Then you shifted your weight, pressing closer, and the table knocked against his back again.
Wrong angle, some still-functioning part of his mind decided.
To fix this problem, Dex’s hands dropped to your thighs.
You barely had time to inhale before he lifted you.
Even knowing you were stronger, even knowing you could have taken control from him without trying, there was something inherently satisfying about the small gasp you gave when he picked you up and turned. Your legs caught around him by instinct, and for one brief second his face was against your shoulder and your breath was in his hair.
Then he set you on the table harshly because he knew you could take it.
The old wood groaned beneath you.
Dex stepped between your knees immediately, one hand braced beside your hip, the other cupping the back of your neck as he kissed you again from the better angle, like he had been right to move you and was very smug about it.
And because you were as desperate as him, you hastily unbuttoned your trousers as he hooked his fingers under your panties and helped you take them off with your spit still dripping from his lips.
He looked at you again, mouth swollen from kissing him. You looked wrecked already, but not ruined. He thought you were beautiful, but he already knew that. Here, you looked less like a weapon with a heartbeat and more like a goddamn miracle pretending she wasn't one.
And then, immediately, his mind supplied Barnes.
Bucky Barnes had seen you like this.
Dex’s jaw tightened.
Barnes had known this version of you. He had known you warm and bare and breathless, too. He had looked at you in private. Had heard the sounds Dex was only beginning to earn.
Dex hated him for that. He hated him with that unreasonable jealousy that made his grip flex against your hips.
Your eyes narrowed slightly. “What?”
Dex didn’t answer.
He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to admit that a man he had never met had crawled into his head again. He didn’t want to give that name space here, not now, not with you in front of him looking holy. So Dex leaned closer instead, eyes dark, mouth brushing your jaw as he laid you down on the wood.
His hand slid along down your body, over your breast and your tummy, exploring and feeling and gripping until they settled on your thighs.
He wasn't a super soldier.
Fine.
He could not match that kind of strength. He could not promise superhuman stamina or metal fingers or whatever mythic thing Barnes had been in your bed and your memory.
Dex had other talents.
Dex had perfect aim.
And he was determined to make his precision matter more than aimless brute strength.
His hand slid closer between your legs, the other keeping it open, watching your face the whole time. Your breath caught before he even did anything.
Your fingers curled into fists.
Dex’s mouth curved, before he peppered kisses on your collarbone, his finger having minds of their own. He touched you like he was mapping a weakness, like every gasp, every shift of your hips, like every sharp little inhale was information he meant to keep and use. You tried to stay composed. Tried to keep the upper hand. It didn’t work.
“Not so mouthy now, huh?” he teased, voice rough.
You glared at him, or tried to.
You wanted to pull him down. You wanted to push him back. You wanted to have him every way the tiny kitchen would allow.
“Tell me what you want.” he said, grabbing your chin with his remaining still-dry hand to make you look at him.
You hated him for asking. You loved him for making you say it.
Your mouth parted, but nothing came out at first except his name.
It didn’t take long after you felt his fingers in your core for Dex to find what ruined you.
“There,” he said under his breath, a newfound glee in his voice.
That was the unbearable thing about him, the infuriating thing, the thing that made you want to curse his name and drag him closer in the same breath. Dex noticed everything. Every hitch in your breathing. Every tremor you tried to hide. Every tiny shift of your body beneath his hands. He had the focus of a sniper and the patience of a man who knew exactly when he had found his mark.
And right now, all of that terrible precision was on you.
Your back was pressed against the old wood, head only slightly lifted, looking at the ceiling as rain battered the cottage windows.
“Dex,” you breathed, and it barely sounded like a warning anymore.
“Pretty,” he murmured more to himself than to you, rough and pleased.
He curled a finger, and your head fell back against the table with a soft thud.
Your mouth was parted, your breathing uneven, your whole body tense with frustration and the awful realization that he knew exactly what he was doing to you.
Then he leaned over you, kissed the corner of your mouth, and whispered, “Again.”
You didn't know whether he meant his name or the sound you had just made.
Either way, you gave it to him.
—
Morning came thin and grey through the curtains.
Dex woke up slowly, which almost never happened.
He was aware of the sheets first, then the ache in his shoulders, then the faint smell of rain still trapped in the cottage walls.
Then he became aware of you.
You were beside him, half-buried in the blanket, hair spread messy over the pillow, one arm tucked under your cheek. Your breathing was calm and even, one knee had slipped out from under the sheet (which you had stolen), bent slightly, and there were bruises already blooming there, dark against your skin.
Dex stared at them for too long.
He knew exactly where they came from.
You had been on your knees for him the night before, looking up like a fucking falling angel crawling up from hell. He barely lasted at all, because no amount of training or discipline could have prepared him for you.
Still, he looked at the bruises, and his chest turned over.
You stirred beside him with a sleepy little sound, blinking into the dull morning light. Your eyes found him, then followed his eyes down to your knee. For a second, you seemed confused, and then your lips curled with amusement.
“Don’t look so worried," you murmured, voice rough from sleep. “It’ll probably heal by sunset.”
Dex looked away. “I was assessing damage.”
You hummed, and for one ridiculous moment he wanted to put his mouth on that smile and keep it there. He wanted to ask if you were sore. He wanted to ask if he had hurt you, even though there was a statistically higher chance of you hurting him in such close quarters. He wanted to ask if you were going to regret it now that the sun was up and the mission was waiting.
He asked none of it.
You stretched under the sheets, lazy and unbothered, then rolled onto your side to face him. There was no panic in you, no awkwardness. No visible regret. If anything, you looked pleased with yourself, far too comfortable with the wreckage you had made of him.
Then you sighed happily and said, “Well. That was a successful evolution of our professional relationship.”
Dex looked back at you.
You were grinning.
“What?”
You propped your head on your hand. “I’m just saying. Good to know my fuck buddy has useful hands.”
For a second, Dex’s entire brain went blank.
Fuck buddy.
Fuck buddy?
You said it lightly, teasingly, like it was a joke between the two of you. Like it was cute.
Fuck buddy.
After that?
After the wall, the table, the bed. After your hands in his hair. After his name in your mouth. After he had woken up beside you and, idiot that he was, felt at peace in his own mind?
Fuck buddy.
He wanted to claw eyes out.
He wanted to laugh. He wanted to ask if that was what he was. He wanted to say the words back to you, cruelly, just to see whether they hurt you, too. He wanted to get out of the bed, get dressed, put a gun in his hand, and see what the barrel felt like in his mouth.
Instead, Dex did nothing.
He did nothing because he understood that if he talked too much, he could lose this before he even knew what this was. If he asked for more, you might run away and give him nothing at all.
You were not trying to hurt him. You were smiling at him, sleepy and satisfied and completely clueless. To you, the arrangement was practical. A category: friends, partners, operatives, fuck buddies.
Ugh.
He wanted to tell you that if you called him that again, he might actually lose whatever was left of his mind.
Instead, he still said nothing, because he wasn't stupid.
Unstable, yes. Jealous, increasingly. Probably emotionally constipated beyond medical repair. But not stupid.
If he pushed too hard, you might make it a thing. And if you made it a thing, you might decide the arrangement was too messy and too complicated to continue.
Dex could not risk that.
“Useful hands,” he repeated eventually. His voice sounded normal. He was proud of that, in a distant, miserable way.
You grinned. “Mmhm.”
He gave you a sanitised look.
You laughed, nudging his leg beneath the sheet with your foot like you had any right to be that casual with him after detonating his life before breakfast. “Don’t be offended. That was a very good review.”
“Great,” he said flatly. “Should I expect a written evaluation?”
“I could make a rubric.”
“Don’t.”
Dex almost smiled.
—
Whatever had happened in the cottage didn't end there. It became a part of the mission, as much as false passports and burner phones were a part of the mission. The first time could have been dismissed as an accident. A one-time detonation after four months of tension neither of you had been handling well. But then there was the safehouse in Slovenia, where you came back from a mission with blood on your cheek and smiled at him across the hallway, and Dex knew that it was going to happen again.
Then Munich, against a bathroom sink in an apartment above a closed pharmacy. Then Warsaw, where you didn't even make it out of your tactical gear before dragging him down onto a mattress. Then a warehouse outside Lyon, because the extraction was delayed and apparently the two of you had lost all sense of professionalism somewhere around the fourth body. Then a supply closet in Milan, where he fucked you after you put his mask over your own face. An alley in Budapest. The back room of an abandoned train depot in Belgium.
And because Dex had the self-preservation instincts of a man chasing a moving target off a roof, he let it continue.
He told himself it was better this way. Casual meant stable. Casual meant you stayed. Casual meant you didn't have to examine anything too closely, and neither did he. It meant he got your mouth, your hands, your body in whatever safehouse Charles had arranged for the week, and all he had to do was not ask for more.
He even convinced himself it was more than he had any right to.
You reached for him. You kissed him first sometimes. You slept beside him when the safehouse only had one bed and, sometimes, even when it had two. You learned the scars on his body with your hands. You stole his shirts. You drank from his coffee. You called him by his name and it made him feel like it belonged to you now.
And then, in the morning, or in the car, or while cleaning a weapon at some tiny desk table in another country, you would say something that reminded him exactly where he stood.
“Don’t look so smug,” you told him once, adjusting the strap of your holster in a cracked mirror. “You’re still just my mission stress relief.”
You meant it as a joke, and Dex knew you did.
You looked over your shoulder at him with that wicked little smile, waiting for him to snap back. You expected him to say something dry, something cruel enough to be funny but not cruel enough to count.
He did.
“Good to know I have a job title,” he said.
You laughed and went back to your holster.
Dex stood behind you and wanted to break the mirror with his bare hand.
He had to remind himself over and fucking over again that you were not cruel, at least not like that. You were ruthless, yes. You were capable of killing a room full of people and then asking what was for dinner. But with him, you were not trying to wound. You were simply clueless.
You didn't understand that he had started listening for the way you called for him. You didn't understand that he noticed which safehouses made you sleep easier, which nightmares made you reach for him, which jokes pulled a real laugh out. You didn't understand that he counted every time you chose to sit beside him instead of across from him like a starving man counting coins.
And you really didn't understand what happened to him when you brought up Bucky.
You did it less now, as if you were just starting to get human customs: do not bring up the guy you used to sleep with to the guy you were currently sleeping with unless you were asked.
But when you did bring him up, it was clear as day that part of you loved being given the chance to talk about him.
See, you were guarded about everything else. You deflected questions about Siberia. You made jokes about getting shot. You went blank whenever Charles asked about your programming over the phone. You could talk for twenty minutes about tactical routes and never reveal one honest thing about yourself.
But if Dex mentioned Barnes, even casually, your face would change.
“Barnes teach you that?” Dex asked once, watching you bypass an old Hydra lock with a bent piece of metal and no visible effort.
You smiled immediately. “He tried.”
Dex should have stopped there, but because he apparently liked suffering, he didn't. “Tried?”
You glanced at him, pleased to have the thread. “He was terrible at explaining things. He’d just do it and then look at me like I was supposed to absorb it through proximity.”
Dex hummed.
You kept going. “He got so annoyed when I got better at it than him. He’d pretend he wasn’t annoyed. He used to do this thing with his jaw when he was trying to be mature about losing.”
You mimicked it without thinking. It was… fond.
Oh. Right.
He watched your hands move over the lock and wondered how many doors Barnes had watched you open. How many safehouses had held the two of you. How many times you had looked over your shoulder at him with that same spark of amusement.
“That sounds annoying,” Dex said.
“He is,” you said. “Very.”
And there was that warmth again.
Sometimes, Dex brought Bucky up on purpose. He hated himself for it, but there was a sickness to his curiosity. He needed to open that wound over and over again to feel something.
“Barnes cook?” he asked one night in Vienna, after you complained about the contents of a safehouse freezer.
You laughed immediately. “Badly.”
Dex regretted the question before you even continued.
“It was tragic. He could survive in the wilderness, dismantle a rifle blindfolded, and break a man’s neck before breakfast, but give him a pan and he can’t make anything that doesn't taste like bland meatloaf.”
Dex stared at the vegetables you were chopping.
You were smiling at the cutting board.
Dex made a noncommittal sound as you talked about it for ten more minutes.
It was unbearable.
It was also the most relaxed he had seen you all day, so he let you.
That was the misery of it all. Dex hated hearing about Barnes, but he loved what talking about him did to you. He loved watching that stiff part of you ease when you remembered being loved by someone who had not used you as a weapon. He loved the sound of your voice when it had history in it. He loved that, for once, you were not pretending to be harmless or terrifying. You were just a person with memories.
He just wished the memories didn't belong to another man. Another man who had been your boyfriend.
Not fuck buddy. Not mission stress relief. Not a bad habit in multiple countries. Boyfriend was a real word. A word that meant Barnes had occupied a place Dex had not even been allowed to ask for.
Bucky fucked you and was a boyfriend. Dex worshipped you and was a fuck buddy?
In what fucking world was that even fair?
He hated that he was jealous of a man who had saved your life. He despised that he could not make himself noble about it. He hated that every time you begged him to touch you, some childish, vicious part of him wanted to ask whether Bucky had touched you there, too.
He never asked, but he imagined plenty.
That was worse, because imagination didn't need evidence. It filled in everything: Barnes’s metal hand on your hip. Barnes’s mouth at your throat. Barnes in all the places Dex had put himself and still somehow felt like the original while Dex became the imitation.
And then you would turn around, clueless and bright-eyed, and ask, “You okay?”
Dex would say, “Fine.”
You would believe him.
That almost made him hate you, in the way a starving man might hate someone for leaving food just out of reach and not understanding why he was shaking.
The arrangement continued because Dex let it. Because he was too greedy to stop. Because having you underneath him, even temporarily, even without the label he wanted, was better than the alternative. Because when you reached for him, he forgot how much it hurt until afterward.
And afterward, there was always a moment that was too tender for his own good. You would button your shirt before going to infiltrate a gala. You would toss him his utility belt with a smirk. You would lean over a map like nothing had changed while Dex stood there with every nerve in his body still aware of the places your hands had been.
He would think, say something. He never did, because what could he say?
Don’t call me that. Don’t call me casual. Don’t talk about him like he still gets the best parts of you. Don’t make me ask for more when we both know you might say no.
So he kept quiet and kept his position, as miserable and humiliating as it was. And every time you called him your fuck buddy, your mission stress relief, your bad decision, Dex smiled like it didn't make him want to drown himself face first in a pool of starving piranhas.
Because for now, you still chose him. Not the way he wanted. Not yet, Maybe not ever.
But Dex had survived on less than scraps before.
So he took what you gave him, swallowed the rest down until it burned, and told himself that temporary was better than nothing.
Even if, some mornings, nothing would have hurt less.
—
Everything imploded during a mission in a church should have been empty.
That was what the file said. An abandoned stone church in a half-empty Italian village had an abandoned Hydra weapons cache beneath the crypt. Supposedly, there was no active civilian presence within a two mile radius, no active guard detail, no complication beyond an old lock.
It was supposed to be a simple recovery: Secure the intel, secure the weapons for extraction, and leave before anyone in the village noticed the old place had been disturbed.
Dex should have known better by then, that nothing involving Hydra stayed dead just because the walls looked old.
The church stood at the edge of the village with its bell tower cracked down the middle, weeds climbing the steps, and cypress trees stood around the graveyard like black-green sentries. The sky had gone a red late-afternoon color, clouds pressing down over the hills. Inside, the air was cold and wet and stale. Broken saints watched from their niches with missing fingers and chipped faces. Light fell through the stained glass in fractured strips, magenta across the pews, blue over the altar, gold bleeding weakly across the floor like the church still remembered how to be holy.
You found the crypt behind the altar.
The stone slab had been disguised well enough for anyone normal to miss it, but you were not normal. You crouched in front of the mechanism with one knee on the floor, pushing aside a false piece of carved stone until the panel beneath exposed.
It was made of steel, and had a keypad. A half-dead little light blinked red right beside it. Hydra, but older than the other caches. Not Soviet standard. Not the Austrian sequence from month two. Not the lock you had cracked in Romania with a hairpin while Dex stood behind you pretending not to be impressed.
This one made you look… confused.
Dex noticed.
You were very good at focusing and most people mistook it for calm. Dex knew better by now. Your stillness was a sign of assessment, memory, and calculation. You were trying to remember a thousand old lessons while your face gave nothing away.
But this time, there was no recognition. You only stared at the lock, teeth clenching once.
“You know it?” he asked.
You didn’t answer.
Dex shifted his gun in his holster and looked toward the nave. The church doors were still shut, but the place had too many broken windows, too many side entries, too many shadows. It was bad news, because Dex knew for a fact that you were being followed on your way here.
“No,” you said finally.
Dex turned back, irritated. “No?”
You shot him a look over your shoulder, annoyed and beautiful enough that he hated himself for noticing in the middle of a church with a possible kill team closing in. “Do you want to try?”
“I shoot things.”
“Yes. I’ve noticed.”
Dex might have smiled if he had not caught movement through the broken stained glass at the far left of the church.
“How long?” you asked, noticing it too.
“Maybe five minutes,” he said, preparing a throwing knife. “Less if they’re competent.”
You went back to the lock, fingers moving over the panel, testing seams, and possible reset catches. Nothing opened. Nothing even flickered. Dex could feel your frustration building like heat in a closed room.
You hated not knowing. You hated needing anything. That was one of the first things he had learned about you in the early weeks when he still thought learning you would help him keep distance instead of making him want to crawl inside your lungs and live there.
Then you sat back on your heels, reached into your jacket, and said, “I have to call someone.”
No. No, no, no.
He knew. Before you said it, before you even looked at the phone, before your thumb found the contact you should not have needed and Dex absolutely didn't want to hear. He knew the way he always knew when the bullet had already left the barrel.
“Who?” he asked, and his voice was too flat.
You didn't look at him. “Someone who might know.”
“Barnes,” he said through gritted teeth, because who else could you possibly know?
You hesitated, not long enough for anyone else to call it guilt. But Dex saw it, because Dex saw everything, because God or the universe or whatever rotten thing had assembled him had given him perfect aim and absolutely no mercy where details were concerned.
“Really?” he said.
“I’m calling someone with Hydra experience,” you insisted.
“Your ex-boyfriend with Hydra experience,” he shook his head.
You scolded him. “Dex.”
“It’s fine.” His smile was brief and horrible. You only caught a glimpse of it before he put his mask over his head. “Actually, it’s great. Let’s bring him into the room. Why not? He’s practically here most days anyway.”
You looked up then, irritation flashing across your face. “This is not the time.”
“It never is.”
“You want the cache?”
“I want you to know literally anyone else.”
“That is not my fault,” you frowned.
“No, I’m sure nothing is.”
Your eyes narrowed. “Barricade the door.”
Dex laughed once under his breath. It had no humor in it. “I don’t need to barricade the door.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No,” he said, voice flat with fury, “I really don’t.”
“Dex,” you said, voice strained, “Please.”
He stepped back from the altar, eyes set ahead, every muscle of his body pulled tight. “I don’t need to barricade the door while you call your ex about a lock.”
You stared at him, phone already dialing. Dex hated that he could hear the line ringing.
One ring. Two. Each little tone felt like a finger tapping the inside of his skull.
Then the call connected, and James Buchanan Barnes spoke through your phone for the first time. “Hey, doll.”
Dex had thought he was prepared for it. He wasn't.
It was just a voice, just a man’s voice through a tiny speaker, softened by distance and familiarity and whatever history lived between the two of you. It should not have done anything. Dex had heard men threaten him, beg him, scream under his hands. He had been praised by superior, insulted by criminals, given orders by bad men. A voice was air. It should be nothing.
But Barnes said doll like he had earned the right to.
And you changed, though not much at all. Your shoulders loosened by the smallest fraction. Your face relaxed before you could stop it. Dex didn’t know if it was still romantic, and Dex could not even decide if that would have been worse or better. It was familiar and lived-in, like a door in you opening because the voice on the other end had knocked in a pattern you still recognized.
Dex felt like he was on the brink of yet another mental collapse.
“Hey,” you said. “Sorry. I need help.”
Barnes answered with immediate concern, gentle as your hand had been on his skin last night. “You okay?”
Dex wanted to shove his head through the nearest stained-glass window.
He wanted to laugh until his throat split open. He wanted to walk outside, stand in the graveyard, and let the incoming kill squad do whatever they wanted just so he didn't have to stand there and listen to Barnes care about you in real time. It was one thing to know the man knew you. It was one thing to know he had loved you, touched you, saved you, left you for reasons Dex didn't know. Knowledge could be abstract. This wasn't abstract.
This was Barnes’s voice filling the church while you crouched over a lock in broken holy light, letting him help you.
This was a man Dex had never met reaching through the phone and occupying space that Dex had been clawing at for months with bloody fingernails.
“She’s fine,” Dex said, too loudly.
Dex knew he should have kept his mouth shut the second Barnes went silent.
It wasn't even a real silence, but Dex heard the shift in it anyway, because he was him, because he caught things no one else caught, because his whole body had become one raw nerve around the sound of that man’s voice.
“Who’s that?” Barnes asked. It wasn't panic, and not even jealousy. It was just a calm assessment.
Dex’s mouth moved before he could stop it. “The guy keeping her alive.”
Your head snapped toward him and Barnes went quiet again. Then, he said, “That right?”
Dex smiled harshly under his mask. “That’s right.”
“Oh my God,” you muttered.
Barnes’s voice stayed low through the speaker. “She usually does a decent job of that herself.”
“She had a gun to the back of the head last week,” Dex said.
“She mention why?”
“Boys,” you snapped, eyes flicking between Dex and the phone like you could physically strangle both ends of the conversation if given the chance. “Can we focus?”
Dex stared at the phone, rage crawling hot under his skin. It should not have hurt, but it did. It hurt because Barnes didn’t sound threatened. He sounded like he knew exactly what you were capable of, exactly how much danger you could survive, exactly where concern ended and respect began. He sounded like someone who didn't need to prove he belonged in the conversation because he had been there first.
You exhaled and looked back down at the lock. “Dex, meet Bucky. Bucky, meet Dex. Don’t worry about it.”
Don’t worry about it.
You clearly didn’t mean anything by it. You were just irritated, distracted, trying to do your job. But the words hurt him.
Don’t worry about it. Not he matters. Not he’s important. Not anything that could stand up against the familiar way that Barnes was calling you an old pet name through the speaker.
Barnes hummed once, unreadable. “Alright.”
Dex wanted to shoot the phone. He wanted to shoot the wall.
He wanted to walk outside and turn the incoming kill squad into a pile of meat just so he would have something to do with his hands besides stand there and feel pathetic in a church.
You pointed sharply at the side door without looking up. “Dex. Door.”
His teeth clenched.
Barnes said, almost mildly, “Might want to listen to her.”
Dex looked at the phone. Then at you.
“You alright?” Bucky asked when he was sure Dex was out of range. Unfortunately, he wasn't.
It was clear that he was going to say something again, but you shot him a glare to stop him. “We’re fine,” you said, “I have a lock.”
“A lock?” Barnes asked, and Dex hated the hint of humor there too, hated that he could hear the little frown in the man’s voice, hated most of all that you probably could picture his face when he made it.
“An older Hydra one,” you said. “It’s an Italian site with crypt entry. It’s not taking any of the sequences I know.”
Barnes went quiet, thinking.
Dex turned away. He could not stand another second of your face while you listened to him. He could not stand the concentration in your eyes, the trust.
You trusted Barnes’s voice. You trusted him enough to call. Enough to ask. Dex didn't want to know what else you had trusted him with.
He stalked down the nave, past rotting pews and the saints’ blind plaster faces, knife, boots grinding dirt and broken glass into the floor. Your voice followed him. “No, I tried the lower sequence.”
Barnes, apparently, was patient and understanding. “Not that one. Check the left side. There should be a false panel under the carved edge.”
Your answer came after, almost pleased. “There is.”
Dex shoved the side door open and stepped into the graveyard.
The first man came over the wall in black tactical gear with his rifle raised. Dex threw his knife, and it sliced him through the throat.
He dropped backward over the stone wall with a wet, choking sound, his weapon clattering against the grave markers. Two more appeared at the corner of the church, moving in formation, disciplined enough to be annoying. Dex didn't give them time to become more than geometry. He put a round through the first man’s knee, watched him collapse mid-stride, then shot the second through the gap between helmet and mask as he turned toward the sound. The first man reached for his sidearm when Dex crossed the grass and drove his boot into the side of his head hard enough to silence him against the base of a weathered angel statue.
Inside, faintly, through the open door and stone walls, Barnes was still talking. “Don’t force it, doll. If it’s the one I think it is, it punishes pressure.”
Dex’s vision narrowed.
He reloaded while moving, hands steady despite the rage making a live wire of his spine. Another four came through the cypress line on the east side, sweeping toward the church doors. Dex moved between headstones, using them the way lesser men used cover and smarter men used angles. He threw an old stone before the man could fire, because he needed him to drop the weapon, then threw a knife into the second’s exposed thigh, deep enough to make him buckle. The third got close. Dex let him, and he caught the man’s rifle barrel, redirected the shot into the stone at his feet, and slammed the butt of his own weapon into the man’s face until the mask cracked and the body limped.
The fourth hesitated, so all Dex had to do was put him down with a shot to the chest, then another to the head before he hit the wet grass.
He could still hear you through the door. “Like this?”
Barnes said something too low for Dex to catch.
You gave a small laugh.
Dex stopped breathing for half a second.
Then a bullet cracked against the stone column beside his head, spraying old dust across his cheek.
He turned toward the shooter and became what he was good at being.
The kill squad came in waves, and Dex dismantled them one by one. Three from the road, two from the lower wall, another pair trying to circle around the sacristy entrance. He moved constantly, cutting through the graveyard, forcing them into bad angles, making the churchyard’s dead stone work for him. A man lunged from behind with a blade; Dex caught the wrist, twisted until the joint failed, and drove the man’s own knife under his jaw. Another tried to retreat toward the road; Dex shot him through the calf, stepped over him, and finished him only after taking his spare magazine. It was definitely meaner than necessary, maybe, but he had Barnes’s voice in his head and no interest in being merciful.
Blood darkened the grass. Rain began again, soft at first, then heavier, ticking over helmets and stone crosses and the bodies Dex left where they fell. He was breathing hard by the time the last five made a push for the front doors, their boots pounding over the church steps. Dex came at them from the side.
He shot the man with the fancy scope first. The second man reached for it. Dex put a round through his wrist, then threw his empty magazine at the third man’s face hard enough to make him flinch at the wrong second. That second was plenty. Dex closed in, drew his sidearm, fired twice, then slammed the barrel into the last man’s throat when he tried to tackle him. The man gagged, stumbled, and Dex drove him backward into the church door with enough force to make the wood boom from the impact.
The man slid down the door, and Dex stood over him, rain dripping from his hair, blood spattered across his face and collar, chest rising and falling.
Through the thick old wood, he heard Barnes again. “That’s it. Good. Now wait for the second light.”
Good.
Dex’s fingers tightened around the gun.
Good.
Barnes was praising you. Barnes was inside, with you without even being inside. Barnes was at your shoulder, in your ear, useful and alive in all the places Dex wanted him dead. Dex had just killed fifteen men in the graveyard and on the church steps, had turned a kill squad into cooling meat, and still he had not managed to get Barnes out of the room.
When he went back inside, the church swallowed him whole. His boots tracked blood and rainwater down the nave. He passed beneath the broken blue glass while your voice drifted from below the altar. “Got it.”
The crypt panel was open now. A cold blue-white light spilled across the stone, illuminating your face from beneath while you crouched by the mechanism, one hand still on the panel, the phone lying on the floor beside you on speaker. You looked relieved and a little flushed from the rush of solving it. Dex hated how beautiful you looked like that. Hated that Barnes got to hear it.
“Good job,” Barnes said.
You smiled, and Dex felt it like a gunshot.
“Thanks,” you said.
Barnes was silent for a moment, and in that silence Dex imagined him somewhere far away, metal hand maybe resting on a kitchen counter, brow furrowed, voice gentle because he knew exactly how to be gentle with you. Because he had practiced. Because he wasn't a fuck buddy in some safehouse bed waiting for permission to matter.
Then Barnes said, “I… good luck, doll. We’ll catch up when you get back, yeah?”
The rage in Dex went utterly still, like a calm before the storm.
You reached for the phone. “Yeah. I’ll—”
Dex walked towards you in three strides and you looked up too late.
“Dex—”
He snatched the phone off the stone before you could touch it.
Barnes’s voice crackled through the speaker, confused now. “What’s—”
Dex smashed it against the floor. It was loud, amplified by the echo of the hall. The plastic cracked and glass burst outward in glittering pieces. The speaker gave a shrill little whine, but not enough. It wasn't dead enough.
Dex hit it again, harder, this time stomping it with his boots, the ruined device bouncing against the stone. A third stomp split the casing open. A fourth sent the battery skidding under the edge of the altar. He would have kept going until it was dust if your voice had not snapped him out of it.
“Dex!”
Dex froze over the pieces. For a second, the whole church held its breath.
Rain tapped against the shattered windows. Outside, one of the men he had left in the graveyard made a weak, wet sound and then stopped forever. The crypt light washed over you from below. Dex stood in front of you with blood on his hands, blood on his jacket, and the shattered remains of your phone between his boots.
You stared at it then at him as he took his mask off.
You were not confused anymore. You were angry.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” you demanded. “We got the cache. The lock is open. We can go!”
Dex laughed. It came out wrong, scraped raw in his throat. “You can go,” he said. “Maybe he can talk you through that too.”
Your eyes narrowed and your mind clicked into place to see just enough.
Not all of it, though. You could never see the full, ugly, pathetic cathedral of feeling he had built around every careless mention of Barnes’s name. Not the months of swallowing down jealousy. Not the way hearing Barnes’s voice had made Dex feel like he was standing outside his own body watching another man touch what he had never been allowed to keep.
Dex looked away because if he kept looking at you, he might say something dumb.
You stood slowly from the crypt steps. “You destroyed our only secure phone because Bucky helped me open a lock?”
“No.” The lie was so bad it was almost insulting.
You stared at him. “No?”
Dex’s teeth clenched once.
He had killed fifteen men outside without hesitation. Had moved through a kill squad like violence was language and he was finally fluent again. But this, standing in front of you while you looked at him like he was unreasonable, like he was the problem, like Barnes had not just reached through a phone and put his stupid vibranium arm around Dex’s throat.
“What, then?” you asked.
He said nothing.
Because if he opened his mouth, all of it would come out.
Because he called you doll and you smiled. Because you trusted his voice. Because he knew the lock and I didn’t. Because he had you first. Because he gets to be James and I’m your fuck buddy. Because I just killed fifteen men in the rain and came back to find you making plans with your ex-boyfriend to "catch up”.
Because I want to matter to you so badly I’m starting to hate you for not noticing.
He could not say any of that.
So he stood there, breathing hard, eyes fixed to a random point over your shoulder while the broken saints watched from the walls and the graveyard outside held the bodies of every man Dex had killed because rage was easier than asking you to choose him over that other man.
You stepped closer, anger burning bright in your face. “Dex.”
He looked back at you, and whatever you saw in his eyes made your own falter for half a second.
Then the mission reasserted itself.
You swallowed, “We need to move.”
Dex nodded once. “Then move.”
—
Turns out, Hydra had hidden enough weapons under the crypt to arm a small war, packed in old military cases and reinforced steel crates stamped with symbols half-scraped away. Some of it was familiar: guns, charges, vials long since gone dark inside cold-storage cylinders, and files sealed in polymer sleeves. Then there were the stranger things, things that made even you go quiet while you put them into inventory: crystalline components, serum stabilizers, old prototype tech sealed inside glass casings with warning labels in Russian and German.
Half of it was water-sensitive, which became a problem when the storm thundered.
It came down hard over the village, wind screaming through the cracked bell tower, rain hammering against the broken stained glass until the whole church seemed to tremble. Water sheeted down the outer walls and leaked through the roof in thin, shining threads.
Extraction was impossible because moving the cache would stupid. Trying to carry it out through that much rain would ruin half of what Charles needed and possibly kill both of you if one of the more unstable components reacted badly.
So you stayed. You and Dex packed what you could, sealed the crates, and wrapped the sensitive cases in altar cloths and plastic sheeting from your field bags. You worked in silence for nearly an hour, both of you moving around each other.
Neither of you mentioned the phone.
By the time everything was secured, Dex was sitting on the altar steps, forearms braced on his knees, hands loosely clasped in front of him. He had washed most of the blood from his fingers in a rain barrel near the side entrance, but some of it still clung beneath his skin. His jacket was damp. His hair was wet from outside. The scar on his cheekbone caught a bit of dirt and he hadn't bothered to clean properly.
You stood in the center of the altar above him, leaning back against the old stone podium with your arms crossed. The blue-white crypt light spilled up from behind you. The stained glass threw broken color over your face. The church was ruined, filthy, half-flooded by rain and full of weapons, and somehow you looked like you belonged at the center of it.
Dex tapped his knee twice, because he hated being silent with you.
Silence gave him time to feel things. Silence let the church fill with everything he was trying not to say. Barnes’s voice. He hated that he still expected to see you after the mission, as if he had the right to imagine your return, as if he had some claim on you after he dumped you.
Dex looked down at his hands and hated them for shaking. He lifted his eyes to look at you. You were staring out into the nave, not looking at him.
He should have apologized for the phone. He should have said something practical about the cache. He should have asked if you were cold.
Instead, because jealousy had been chewing through him for months and had finally eaten its way to bone, Dex asked, “Did you ever fuck Barnes in a church?”
The question should have been crude enough to make you angry. It was crude; Dex meant it to be. He wanted you to be angry at him. He wanted you to roll your eyes or call him a dickhead or throw something at him so the two of you could turn this into an easier emotion.
You didn't answer. You only looked away, and that was answer enough.
His face changed before he could stop it.
“No,” he said.
You stayed quiet.
The rain struck the windows harder, wind dragging it sideways against the glass in long furious sheets. “No,” Dex repeated, as if he said it again the universe might take pity on him and rearrange itself. “No.”
Your arms tightened over your chest. “Once,” you said.
A stake through the heart would have been kinder.
He stared at you from the altar steps, and the whole church seemed to gather to watch a wound open. The broken saints, the pews, the stone columns.He could see it without wanting to. You, in another church, another place, another mission, Barnes with you. Barnes, touching you where Dex had touched you. Barnes, hearing you gasp in a place people were supposed to pray.
Dex’s fingers curled against each other. “Where?” he asked.
He didn't want to know. He needed to know.
You hesitated. That pause was its own kind of mercy and its own kind of murder. “On a pew.”
Dex looked toward the old pews in the nave.
They were rotting, dusty, half-broken, washed in fractured color from the stained glass. Innocent objects, really. Nothing but dead wood. But Dex looked at them and hated every church ever built. He hated every prayer ever said. He hated every saint carved out of stone and every man forgiven by grace he had not earned.
Of course Barnes got to make sin romantic.
Of course Barnes got to be the good man and still have that with you. None who came out of Hydra clean stayed clean all the way through, and yet somehow Barnes had managed to become holy in your memory anyway. Saint James with the metal arm. They should really make him a statue just to give Dex the satisfaction of smashing it into million pieces.
You looked at him in a new light now. “Dex.”
Your voice had changed, like you had finally realized he had gone past ordinary jealousy and arrived somewhere even worse.
He stood, slowly, as if every movement had to be chosen. He climbed the altar steps toward you, hands loose at his sides, eyes fixed on yours, making the space between you feel dangerously thin.
You didn’t move away. You never did when you should have.
He stopped in front of you. You were still leaning against the podium, arms crossed, trying to look unbothered when the pulse at your throat had started to beat harder.
Dex looked down at you for one long second, then lowered himself to his knees.
Oh.
Your breath caught before you could hide it. Your perspective seemed to realign around the sight of Benjamin Leonard Poindexter kneeling in front of you on cold altar stone, not mocking, not joking, not pretending. His hands came to your waist, firm but not rough, as if he were afraid that if he touched you too carefully he might fall apart, and if he touched you too hard you might scare. But no, you didn't scare easy.
“Did he worship you?” Dex asked.
Your eyes darkened. “Dex.”
He hated the warning in your voice. “Did he?”
You swallowed. “That’s not—”
“Don’t.” His fingers flexed against your waist. “You know what I’m asking.”
You looked down at him, anger and affection warring across your face. He had seen you covered in blood, shaking from nightmares, laughing over terrible coffee, bored while fighting men who should have known better. He had seen you naked under safehouse sheets and pretending it didn't mean more than bodies passing time. But he didn't think he had ever seen you like this: trapped by sincerity.
You didn't know what to do with someone kneeling. Especially not him.
Dex leaned forward before you could answer and pressed his mouth to your stomach through your shirt.
The kiss was placed at the center of you like he was making a promise beneath the fabric, beneath the skin, beneath the version of you that knew how to survive but not how to be adored.
You went completely still. Dex closed his eyes. “I would,” he confessed.
Your hand hovered for a second near his shoulder like you didn't know whether to push him away or touch him.
“I would,” he repeated, and his mouth moved lower, another kiss to your hip, then the side of your waist, then just above the place where his hand held you. “If you stopped dragging his ghost into every room we’re in, I would.”
The words should have made you angry again, but all you could feel was endearment.
Dex looked up at you from his knees, and whatever mask he had been wearing was gone. There was no dry comment, no mean smile. Jealousy, yes, but not only jealousy. There was want, devotion, and hurt, tangled together until it looked almost like worship already.
“I don’t think there’s a God,” he whispered, just enough for you to hear.
Thunder rolled over the church roof as if answering.
Dex laughed faintly, eyes still on you. “No, I don’t. I look at the world and I think there can’t be. Not a good one. Not a fair one. Not if your handlers can make places like Siberia. Not if they can put you in that chair. Not if they can take someone like Barnes and hollow him out and then hand him back to the world like the world is supposed to know what to do with him. Not if they can make me and still expect me to be grateful to be alive.”
His thumb dragged slowly over your waist, grounding himself. “Most days, I think if there is something up there, it’s either blind or cruel.”
You should have said something, but you could not.
Dex was looking at you like he had started confessing and didn't know how to stop, like the church had brought out the darkest parts of him, and now all the things he had swallowed for months were spilling out at your feet.
“And then I think of him,” he said, the word bitten off with bitterness. “James Buchanan Barnes. And I hate him. I hate him so much it’s stupid. It’s pathetic. I know that. I know exactly how pathetic it is, and it doesn’t help.”
Your lips parted, but Dex shook his head once, not letting you interrupt.
“He gets to be the good one. The Winter Soldier who became a hero. He gets to have done terrible things and still be looked at like the tragedy belongs to him instead of the people he killed.” His jaw flexed. “And maybe that’s fair. Maybe he suffered enough. Maybe he earned whatever peace he found. I don’t know. I don’t care. I can’t fucking care.”
Your hand lowered onto his shoulder. Dex’s eyes flicked to it, then back up at you.
Your touch was light, but he looked like it nearly undid him.
“But I care that he got you first,” Dex said, and that was the confession beneath all his sorrows. “He got to know you before me. He got the history, the forgiveness. He gets to be James. I get to be Benjamin when you’re mad at me and Dex when you want me and fuck buddy when you’re trying not to think.”
You sighed. He was wrong, and you wanted him to know. He was wrong, but he would not let you talk your way out of this.
“That’s not fair,” he whispered, and he sounded so furious with himself for saying it that it hurt. “That’s the part that makes me think there’s no God. Because what kind of divine hand puts you in the world and lets someone else find you first?”
The storm crashed outside, hard enough to make the stained glass tremble.
Dex leaned in again, pressing another kiss to your stomach, then another along your belt line, then to the top of your thigh through the fabric of your clothes, each one less controlled than the last but still reverent. Then he looked up at you again, eyes dark and fever-bright.
“But then I look at you,” he said, “and I think I’m wrong.”
You stared down at him. “About God?” you asked quietly.
“About there not being one.” Dex’s hands tightened at your waist, not enough to hurt, enough to say he was holding on to the thought with both hands.
“Because you don’t happen by accident,” he said. “You can’t. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe the universe is that careless. I don’t believe a bullet just missed and that’s why you’re here. I don’t believe you survived because Zemo’s aim was off by half an inch. I don’t believe you happened by chance.”
Your eyes darted, tears welling on the corners. He saw the exact moment the words went under your armor and found skin. Because that had been the story, hadn’t it? The only reason you were alive was because someone had failed to kill you correctly. You had built yourself around that fact, maybe without meaning to. You had seen yourself as the surviving mistake, the remaining weapon. Dex looked at you like he wanted to tear that version of the story apart with his teeth.
“No,” he said, as if you had argued with him. “No. Some divine hand must have made you. Something had to. Because you’re too—”
He stopped, jaw working, searching for words and hating that none of them were enough.
“You’re too… perfect,” he said finally, almost angry with how mild it sounded.
A faint, wounded sound escaped you.
Dex rose slightly on his knees, still not standing, still keeping himself below you.
“Hydra tried to turn you into a weapon,” he said. “That’s all they know how to do. But they didn’t make you. They don’t get credit. They don’t get credit for who you are. They don’t get credit for the way you taste like rain after a fight or the way you stand in this ruined church like the whole place was built just to make light fall on you properly.”
Your fingers tightened on his shoulder, and they shifted slower to his neck.
When he looked back up, his voice had gone lower. “You are part of some grand design I don’t understand,” he said. “You must be, because if you’re an accident, then nothing means anything. If you’re just what was left after everyone else died, then the whole world is worse than I thought.”
He put his forehead against your diaphragm just so he could feel you breathe. For a moment, he just stayed there.
You looked down at him, and your hand moved into his hair. Carefully, like he was the dangerous thing and you were the one trying not to startle him.
Dex shuddered.
“You’re not an accident,” he said against you. “You’re not someone’s failed termination. You’re not his second chance story either. You’re not proof Barnes got better. You’re not proof of anything but yourself.”
Your throat tightened.“Dex.”
He lifted his head, and the look on face made your chest ache.
“I would worship you,” he said. “Do you understand that? I don’t mean I’d say pretty things and get on my knees because it looks good in a church. I mean I would build my days around it. I would make a liturgy out of it. I would become unbearable about it. I would be so devoted you’d hate me for it.”
You tried to breathe evenly, but failed.
“I’d worship the weapon too,” he said. “That’s the part you never understand. You think people only get to love one side of you? I want all of it. I’d kiss the knuckles you break skulls with. I’d kiss the bruises that heal before sunset. I’d kiss the scar tissue and the places they put needles and your pretty mouth that keeps saying his name because you don’t realize what it does to me.”
Your hand tightened in his hair, tugging, simply just because you knew he liked it.
He smiled faintly, almost ruined by it.
“There,” he murmured. “See? That. I’d worship that too.”
You looked down at him, eyes dark now, anger and heat and desire moving through them all at once. The storm had swallowed the world outside. The church smelled like rain, stone, old incense, blood, and the cold metal of Hydra crates waiting below. It should have been an ugly place. Maybe it was.
But Dex was on his knees in front of you, talking nonsense about God and design and worship like a man bleeding out through his mouth, and somehow the ruined church felt less like a tomb than a threshold.
“You’re insane,” you whispered.
“Yes,” he said immediately, like it was the easiest confession in the world.
That almost made you laugh, but the sound tangled in your throat and came out uneven.
Dex’s hands slid slowly from your waist to your hips, then back again, like he could not stop reassuring himself that you were close. His mouth brushed the side of your thigh through your clothes, then your hip, then your stomach again, each kiss more desperate than the last because the words had only made the wanting worse.
“I would,” he said again. “I fucking would.”
“Dex,” you called. When he looked up, you said, “Don’t make promises you can’t survive.”
For a second, the devotion turned visibly dangerous. “Oh,” he said certainly. “I’d survive you.”
You should have pushed him away.
Maybe that would have been kinder. Maybe that would have given both of you a chance to step back from the edge of whatever terrible, reverent sacrifice he had just placed at your feet.
Instead, your hand slid from his hair to the side of his face, your thumb brushing over the scar along his cheekbone.
For a second, you only looked at him.
Then you pulled him up.
You caught him by the front of his damp shirt and dragged him to his feet like you had run out of patience with being adored from a distance. Dex came willingly, his hands sliding from your waist to your hips as he rose into your space. He stopped close, eyes dropping to your mouth the second he was level with you.
“You want worship?” you asked, voice barely above the rain.
Dex’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”
Your fingers fisted tighter in his shirt. “Then show me.”
Whatever restraint he had left vanished.
Dex kissed you hard, the force of it driving your back into the cold stone podium. Not like the cottage, not like that first furious interruption. This was worse: It had all the confession in it, all the jealousy. His mouth claimed yours like prayer and punishment at once, desperate enough to make you hiss into him.
Dex swallowed the sound like communion.
His hands gripped your hips, pulling you closer, needing proof that the woman he had just called divine was choosing him. The storm broke over the church in a roar, rain pouring through the cracks in the roof.
Before he could think better of it, he dragged you to the other side of the old stone podium, and your back hit the edge of it with a dull sound swallowed by thunder.
He turned you toward the pews. He knew exactly what you were. He knew that you could have thrown him halfway down the aisle if you wanted.
You didn't.
You let him guide you forward until your palms braced against the cold stone. You let him settle behind you. You grinded against him fully clothed, and he moaned anyway. His chest was your back, his breath hot in your ear. Let his hands move over you like he was both claiming and praying.
The empty seats stretched out before you in dark, rotting rows, facing the altar like an audience waiting for confession. Dex saw them over your shoulder, saw the ruined aisle, the broken glass, the blue glow from the crypt below. His imagination had the whole church watching. Every ghost, every ruined saint, every dead thing in the walls forced to witness the truth of what you had become to him.
His mouth found the side of your neck, then your shoulder, then the place just below your ear that made your fingers curl against the stone.
Before you knew it, fabric shifted and zippers gave out. His touch grew greedier, less patient, dragging away layers of clothing like they offended him.
“You’re perfect,” he said.
You swallowed hard. “Dex.”
“No.” His mouth pressed to your bare shoulder. You were naked now, your tactical trousers pooling at your ankles, while he was still annoyingly clothed. Surprisingly, it didn't feel humiliating. It felt thrilling. “You don’t get to argue with me about this.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You always do.” His voice was low, finally fumbling with his trousers. “You always act like it’s nothing, like you’re less than because you think you were made by them.”
His hands slid to your hips again. “But look at you.”
The storm roared overhead, and the church seemed to breathe around you. You could feel him behind you, all heat and muscle and restraint worn down to nothing.
His hand came up to cover yours on the podium, fingers sliding between yours, pressing your palm harder to the stone. The gesture was grounding and possessive all at once. His other arm wrapped around your waist, holding you back against him, and his mouth found your ear.
“This is what worship feels like,” he whispered before bending you over to fuck you like you were delivering sermon.
—
An hour later, the storm had calmed down
Not stopped; not even close. Rain still sheeted against the broken church windows and slipped through the cracks in the roof in thin silver lines, dripping onto stone, into puddles.
You sat together on the steps of the altar.
After wearing each other out, Dex had found the thermal blanket in your pack. He had pulled it free with hands that were still a little unsteady and wrapped it around both of you like the act of keeping you warm was something he could understand better than whatever had just happened between you.
You were tucked against his side now, shoulder pressed to his ribs, one of his arms around you beneath the blanket. Your clothes were still drying on the makeshift line you had made. Your hair was still a mess, your skin warm where his mouth had been. Dex had his chin tipped slightly downward, pressing his cheek to your temple.
He wasn't talking. This was how you knew he was still bleeding somewhere you could not see.
You shifted beneath the blanket, close enough that your knee brushed his. “Dex.”
His arm tightened slightly around you as a reply
You looked down at your hands, then out toward the ruined church. “You never had to worry about Bucky,” you said.
Dex went very still.
It was almost impressive, how completely he could vanish into his own body without moving at all. His breathing didn't change, but you felt something was off.
“I’m serious,” you added quietly.
He looked down at you then. There was no sarcasm in his face. There was only caution, like if he let himself want to believe you, it would become another way to get hurt.
You hated that a little. You hated that you had helped put it there.
“I don’t love him that way,” you said.
Dex’s brows furrowed.
“Not anymore, and I haven’t for a while. It got complicated towards the end, before either of us knew what to do with it.” You exhaled slowly, trying to make the words come out right. “But I don’t want him like that. I don’t think about him like that. I don’t want to touch him. I don’t want him touching me, not the way I want you.”
Dex blinked once.
I want you.
Did he hear that right?
His fingers tightened very slightly at your waist under the blanket.
You gave him a faint, humorless smile. “I know I talk about him too much.”
Dex looked away.
“I didn’t realize what it sounded like,” you admitted.
The rain filled the silence for a moment.
Then you said, “Bucky was... proof, I think.”
Dex’s eyes moved back to you.
You searched for the right way to say it. It was difficult. Not because you didn't know the truth, but because you had never had to explain it out loud.
“He was Hydra’s weapon,” you said. “And then he wasn’t. He was still damaged, but he was free. He chose things. He chose Steve and Sam, and the Wakandans and me. He chose to fight. He chose to stop being what they made him.” Your throat tightened around the next words. “I needed to know that was possible.”
You saw comprehension take form behind his eyes.
“When Steve was around, he was that to me, too,” you continued. “Not the Hydra part, obviously. But he was a super soldier who could’ve been used as a weapon by anyone with a flag and a speech, and instead he fought for what he believed in. He disobeyed when it mattered. He was made and still stayed his own.”
You looked out at the pews.
“And I never loved Steve like that. He was my friend. My irritating, Nazi-killing, righteous friend.” Your mouth curved softly. “And Bucky is my friend, too. Even now.”
Dex was quiet. You looked up at him again. “I think I talked about him because I didn’t know how else to explain what I wanted to become.”
Oh.
Dex stared at you like something had finally clicked into place.
Inside Dex, the jealousy loosened all at once.
It didn't disappear; he wasn't that kind of man. Jealousy didn't simply leave because it had been reasoned with. It would probably still bare its teeth the next time Barnes called you, because Dex was Dex and wanting made a monster out of him faster than anything else.
But he understood now.
Bucky Barnes had not been a rival in the way Dex had imagined. Barnes had been a direction, a fixed point. He was your fucked up version of a North Star.
Dex knew what that was.
Eileen Mercer, and then Julie Barnes had been that for him once. It was never really romantic, but rather a proof of concept. A person he had turned into a map because he didn't trust himself to know where goodness was unless someone else stood there holding it.
Dex looked at you then, with the blanket tucked around your shoulders and your face softened by the blue gloom from the crypt. You had made Bucky into something similar. Not a lover you were still reaching for, but a symbol. A blueprint.
It made Dex feel better. It also broke his heart a little, because of course you had done that. Of course you had taken a person and turned him into proof you could survive. Of course you had mistaken a man for a conscience because nobody had ever taught you how to trust your own direction.
You were more alike than he had realized.
Not in the neat ways. Not in the ways Charles’s files could measure. In pathetic ways. In starving ways. In the way both of you had looked at someone else and thought, if I stand close enough, maybe it’ll rub off on me. It was almost funny that you had found vastly different people that happened to have the same last name to call a moral compass, and somehow still ended up in each other’s arms.
Maybe that was a confirmation of a higher power, and that they had a sense of humour.
You watched him carefully. “Say something.”
His mouth curved faintly. “You’re asking the wrong man.”
“No, I’m not.”
That got him a little.
His eyes dropped to your mouth, then back to your face. “You really didn’t know?” he asked.
“That it hurt you?”
He looked away, and you felt awful immediately.
“Dex.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, but there was no humor in it. His hand shifted beneath the blanket, fingers finding yours, almost awkwardly. Dex stared at your joined hands.
“You called me your fuck buddy,” he said.
You winced. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I thought...” You swallowed. “I thought making it casual would make it safer.”
He tilted his head. “For who?”
You didn't answer fast enough.
Dex’s expression softened in the smallest, most devastating way. He understood that too. You had not called him casual because he meant nothing. You had called him casual because he had started meaning too much.
Your hand tightened around his.
“I’m sorry,” you said.
Dex looked like he didn't know what to do with that. So you shifted closer, blanket rustling around both of you, and pressed your forehead against his shoulder.
For a moment, he stayed rigid. Then, his arm came around you properly.
“You’re not Bucky,” you said against him.
Dex made a faint, bitter sound. “Yeah, I got that.”
You lifted your head and looked at him. “I don’t want you to be.”
His face, when he looked back at you, was vulnerable the way you had never seen before
“I want you,” you said.
His eyes searched yours, suspicious of mercy, suspicious of happiness. Instead you gave him the truth plainly. “I love you, Dex.”
The words were not loud, but the church heard them anyway.
For a second, he looked almost frightened. Not of you, but of the fact that he now had something to lose.
Your thumb brushed over his knuckles. “Dex.”
His eyes closed, just for a moment
When he opened them again, he leaned in slowly, giving you all the time in the world to pull away, and rested his forehead against yours.
“I love you, too,” he said. It came out almost broken.
You smiled, and Dex looked at it like the storm could take the whole church down around you and he would still be exactly where he wanted to be.
Then he kissed you, not to shut you up or to prove a point.
He kissed you because he loved you, and for once, you had said it first.
All my stories are R18. I write smut, and I may touch sensitive topics or topics that are not intended to be read by minors.
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN CONTENT CONSUMPTIONS.
Masterlist
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader
Warning/Tags: AU, Fluff, Smut.
Word count: ~5k
Summary: Writing fanfictions sounds fun until your muse is aware of what you're writing about him.
Author's Note: I did it, it's here. I love it, and hope you love it too! <3 As always, thank you to my girls @kileyking @herejustforbuckybarnes @w1nter-fairy for betareading and proofreading.
‘Always Anonymous.’
That’s what you told yourself when you opened your first fanfiction writing account. That's how it was supposed to be.
You worked for a very important PR Business Group that would hate the idea of one of its workers being so outspoken about creating fanfictions of a very morally confusing superhero.
The struggles weren't just that you were a fanfiction writer—you were a big one. You’ve seen your username on different platforms being named or your works being recommended as ‘masterpieces’.
Flattering.
So, you divided your time between politicians trying to clear their names, influencers who wanted to rebrand themselves, and—of course—your metal-armed afflatus, Bucky Barnes.
He was now part of the Thunderbolts… New Avengers? They were still trying to discover themselves.
Oh, and that gave you a lot of material to work with—from old ‘Avengers’ Tower’ fanfictions to Thunderbolts’ Watchtower.
People were always sending requests, and you were always working on something new.
Alternative Universes, What If’s, whatever thing your readers asked you to do—you were taking it and doing it.
You had done it for several years with different characters, actors, singers, whoever you liked at the moment. And now it was Bucky Barnes’ turn. You couldn’t catch what it was. It could’ve been his deep background, how he looked rough around the edges, but the way he treated people gave him away as a soft man.
One of your rules was always to leave out Real Person Fanfictions—but he made you break all your rules.
The first time you found yourself writing for him was when he broke loose from HYDRA’s clutches. He was back from Wakanda, and he was now a citizen—or that’s what he told himself.
Then the flag-smashers’ ordeal occurred, and he went all the way to find any sort of solutions with Sam Wilson, the new Captain America.
And after that, he went radio silent.
For about two years, he was nowhere to be seen.
Sometimes he would be spotted in crowds just trying to pass as a normal citizen. That was, until he was announced as a Congressman.
Congressman Barnes.
Oh, the fanfictions you wrote and read with that prompt.
It was already bad having him as a reckless outlaw—now having him with a suit and being a man of the law?
God helped you and all the girls who had a crush on him.
Your mind took you to the most lustful places every time you saw him in the news with that suit and his suitcase.
“You’ve got a new client,” your boss told you, placing a black-and-yellow folder in front of you. “It’s a big one.”
‘Confidential’
You sat at your desk, reading your worst nightmare coming true. Something you’d read and written many, many times.
Your new client was none other than Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
“What am I supposed to do with her?” You remained calm. Really trying not to look anxious or crazy.
“Well, she’s got her own reckless, ruthless ex-assassins, new superheroes that need to be cleared, and you’re the best in that.”
You sighed.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun. They are not hopeless, just… rough around the edges.”
And there you were, sitting at Valentina’s desk while she rambled about how they were the New Avengers, that all of them just needed to be polished, and they were going to be the perfect superheroes in New York.
Your first few weeks were easy; you didn’t have to see them at all. It was just you, Valentina, and Mel figuring out the best way to make them look better.
“You’re going to start with the easiest ones, Bob and Ava. They are not the best either, but it’ll be easier than Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, or the Red Thing.”
You were sitting in front of your laptop, your whole account stared back at you. It made you feel guilty now—this was supposed to be harmless to you and to anyone else.
And now you were working… literally on him.
No one really knew you liked him. So there was no point for you to ask to be removed from the case.
And you were for sure a professional. You knew how to take out your most primal and weird dreams from your workplace.
You’ve worked with real famous people—with famous actors and actresses, influencers, powerful politicians—and now you had the ex-assassin, ex-congressman Bucky Barnes, and it was even more difficult than any of your previous cases.
You had really thought about it before. How could someone like you help him to clean his public image? But it was just in a filthy fanfic.
‘I can change him. No, I can’t. Well, at least I can fuck him.’ You wrote in your author’s note.
Your mom had always told you that words had powers—you never really thought that this was the scenario where that would make sense. You never really thought you would jinx yourself with your writing skills.
“What if he finds out?” June asked, tilting her head.
Your friend, always by your side, was not always of help with her uncensored mouth. You looked back at her with a worried face.
“He will never find out!” She yelled, trying to hurry herself into making you feel better. “It’s impossible, you didn’t even use your name or your e-mail to create the account.
You sighed, knowing she was completely right, but with the kind of luck you were used to having. You could also swear that he would know everything about you as soon as he saw your face in the conference room.
“This is great material,” John laughed while he stared at his phone.
Alexei leaned in to look at it and laughed as hard as his lungs let him.
Yelena was staring at the screen with Bucky on her other side.
“What?” Ava chimed in.
“Just learning that Sergeant Barnes has a fan club.” John teased, showing her the screen.
Bucky furrowed his eyebrows, not quite understanding.
“What’s that, Walker?”
Bucky approached John and finally looked at it.
A website he had never seen—and a long kind of text looking back at him.
‘His hands flowed down your stomach till they reached your most sensitive spot…’
His inner voice read before he could stop himself.
“What the actual fuck is that, Walker?!” Bucky tossed away the phone.
Alexei and John burst out laughing.
“That’s called fanfictions,” John took his phone back and continued scrolling. “Apparently, people nowadays write stories about people they like in scenarios they fancy… and well, you got yours, Barnes.”
“‘m too old for this shit,” he mumbled, walking away.
But that didn’t stop him from lurking around.
He found himself in his room at the Watchtower on his computer, searching for words he had never thought of.
‘Bucky Barnes Fanfiction.’
Hundreds of thousands of results were displayed before his eyes.
He started reading some of them.
Some were… oddly accurate. Others were… oddly out of his imagination. But all of them were jarring.
He found a specific account that had… a great amount of works—all for him? His name all over the place, his face all around the page, but not a face or something about the creator.
‘Always take the risk.’
It was something the girl behind the blog would say in almost all her author’s notes.
How could someone be… this interested in him as to write something this lustful, as to create a whole world where he fell in love with the… reader once and a million times.
He continued reading the whole night—he didn’t want to admit it, but some of the works made him even feel a growing problem in his crotch.
“I don’t have time for this shit,” he said before putting down his phone.
He had a long day the next day with their new publicist, and he needed to show them he was not a lost cause. Not that he really cared, but he needed to show Valentina he didn’t need to be tamed.
He went on with his day until he had to meet the new publicist. She was just about to finish her meeting with Yelena and check what needed to be done with her.
Funny enough, Yelena looked comfortable with her.
That was a good enough sign for him.
“All yours,” Yelena said as she opened the door.
You were typing on the profile you were designing for Yelena Belova until you were taken out of your thoughts.
You had almost forgotten.
“Can I come in?”
His voice was everything you had dreamt about for years. It was deep, concerningly beautiful, respectful; it was every adjective you had used in your works, and now it was in front of you.
“Sergeant Barnes,” You looked up and motioned him to take the seat in front of you. You bit the inside of your cheek as soon as you said that. It was something you had always dreamt of saying. “Or do you prefer Mr. Barnes?”
He nodded and stopped in front of the table, “You can call me Bucky—too professional for someone who’s been hired to change me.”
You chuckled, “I’m not trying to change you, M—Bucky. I’m here to help you all look as you really are. People with different pasts.”
“So, how’s it going to work?”
You gestured to ask him to take a seat.
“Basically, I created a profile of you all by searching on the internet. How people see you, how people would like to see you, what fits in your essence without making you all characters—but to get to it, I need to know you guys first.”
He frowned. He was sure he would be greeted by a pretentious woman, determined to change him completely.
You asked him several questions—about his past, his present, personal things, and not-so-personal things.
He saw you typing on your laptop while you nodded as he responded.
“Can I ask something now?” You tried not to look up from your computer. You were doing it so well without looking up at him, and you wanted to keep it like that for longer.
“Of course, Bucky.” You switched to look at him for a second, just to make him acknowledge.
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Oh, quite a long time by now. I’ve helped several people look better in the public’s eyes.
“And how do you know I’m gonna be a success? Have you seen me?”
‘If you only knew…’ you thought. “I’ve seen you, Bucky. You’re not a lost cause. Rough around the edges at worst.”
“Can I know what your plan is with me?” You widely opened your eyes.
“You’re the first one to ask—I thought maybe Bob would do it, but not you.”
“If I’m going to be controlled again, I’d like to know this time what’s going to be done to me this time.”
You froze.
All the times you had written, researched, and found things about him and his Winter Soldier years were now hitting.
“I—don’t want to control you. Not at all.”
He realized immediately how affected you looked just by his comment.
“No. No. I apologize, I was joking, trying to make this lighter for both of us.”
“I just want to make myself clear. I don’t want to change you, to make you a prince in the skin of an ex-soldier. I want you to feel comfortable with your own person, so that you can show people a better self.”
“And what if I don’t want to be changed?” He crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“Then we won’t. I’m not here to force you all to change. You will be reviewing the plan I’m creating for you, and we will go from there.”
He was taken aback, “Really?”
You nodded—and carefully turned your laptop around. The night before, you had carefully taken out every and each thing that would make him notice that you were drooling over him on the internet—and still with those precautions, your leg was shaking under the table, you were biting the inside of your cheek, and a sweat drop was rolling down the back of your neck.
He started to read under his breath.
“Haircut, stop trying to make him look lobotomized and healthy and more like a real veteran, stop the narrative into politics.” He was mumbling and chuckled as soon as he read the last part.
“What do you think?”
“Well, nothing is too odd for my taste.” He accepted.
You didn’t want to admit it, but it was the first time you had taken other people’s opinions—and even your own—to create a profile for a client.
“I’ll send you the whole program in a few days, Bucky,” You took back your laptop and closed it.
“I thought Alexei was next?”
You shook your head, “That’s a full day's case I need to review on its own…”
He laughed.
Fuck. His laugh.
“A feisty one?” He asked, trying to make you laugh.
“Well, I always say we need to take the risk.” You shrugged and stood up, “I guess I’ll see you soon, Bucky.”
Late at night, Bucky was sitting still on his bed—insomnia was no joke to him. And today was not the exception.
He had already done everything—tea, pills that never really worked on him, staring at the ceiling with no purpose.
“Just jerk yourself off!” Alexei would say to Bucky every time he saw him pacing around at midnight when he couldn’t sleep.
But Bucky hated the idea of masturbating at the sight of other people.
Then, his phone rang with a notification. When he took it, the first thing that came to his mind was that account.
That silly thing John had mentioned earlier, and that somehow made his cock twitch in his pants.
‘It’s no harm.’
He said as he opened the search bar.
‘There’s no real person behind those stories.’
He repeated once and twice.
It was just him and whoever wanted to read those filthy things.
He opened that account again.
The numbers behind those posts were big, and he was astonished at the thought of him being the person they wanted to do all these things with…
He started reading one.
‘His tongue delved on your tongue while his hands gripped your thighs carefully…’
His thumb smeared the pre-cum already leaking from his tip.
He couldn’t stop himself from jerking off while he read it. His mind was as confused as his cock.
The way the author described every movement, every thrust, and sound. He was even questioning himself if he had done this with a stranger, and now she was telling all their business in anonymity.
He even read about the hyperspermia. How the fuck did they all know about it? Was Steve telling everyone around, and they all just assumed he was the same?
Before he could even react, his throbbing cock left all his warm seed on his palm. He was almost falling asleep when he read it again.
‘Always take the risk.’
And then he could remember you telling him that.
‘I always say we need to take the risk.’
It had to be a coincidence.
It couldn’t be something else.
Now his will to go to sleep was gone.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the coincidence.
By the first ray of sunshine, he was already awake and sitting in the kitchen looking at nothingness when his phone rang.
The account had posted something new.
This time, it was not a filthy story.
It was what she had tagged as “Fluff”.
Something completely different from what he had read the night before.
He had spent his whole night trying to catch something else, to see if it was all in his mind, and it was just a similarity—that you were not definitely the person running that account.
He read the author’s note.
‘This is something completely out of my character, but things are happening right now in my life that I can't get myself into writing filthy and insane things.’
Bucky furrowed—what could have happened that took her out of her comfort zone?
“Morning!” You said walking in—he immediately put his phone down. “Sorry, did I scare you?”
“Oh. No, don’t worry. I was immersed in something.”
You smiled and took a bottle of water. “Well, need to get going—Alexei’s a big one.”
He nodded, and you waved goodbye.
He was now sure you weren’t the person behind that blog.
You were so stern, serious, focused, you didn’t even flinch when he talked to you, you didn’t even give him more than a smile the day before.
Bucky kept lurking the next few days, but the account kept posting, sometimes filthy things that made him explode in his own palm. Meanwhile, other times it would post just casual things that seemed like an attempt to keep the account alive.
And you were still trying to figure out how to keep your readers happy while respecting the man you were now helping to become their real and greatest version.
“Did you really stop posting just because you have your literal muse in front of you?” June furrowed her eyebrows.
“Yes. I can’t. He’s so polite and serious that every time I try to write something disgustingly filthy, I can’t.”
“C’mon. It’s now when you bring your writing to real life.”
“June! This is my fuckin’ job. I’m not risking it all just because I was getting horny about someone who turned out to be my client.”
He had noticed something. The account was now ‘on a hiatus.’ The person behind just announced they were dealing with some things and didn’t feel like continuing to write without feeling ‘wrong’.
Not sure if he wanted to admit it, but he didn’t want the person behind the account to leave.
It was not the fact that he kept reading, nor the fact that this decision could make it more difficult to find out who was behind the posted stories.
And he did something he never thought he would.
He created an account and commented under one post.
‘Hope you’re doing fine. Love your writing!’
Just that.
He did it just one hour before he knew you were coming. It was deliberate, and also a test.
He had seen you were a bit down, not completely; you were still smiling, but he could notice you were still tense behind that weary smile.
To his surprise, you were slightly different. You smiled a little bit more, and you looked lighter.
“Good morning, Bucky!” You smiled and set your laptop on a desk.
“You seem different. Good news?”
You remembered that weird and sole message from a stranger. You didn’t really understand why, but you were happy that someone took seconds of their life to leave you a short and maybe meaningless message on their side, but cute to you.
“Just… I had a nice interaction with a stranger today.” You said while pulling up his profile on your computer.
Even when you had asked him to have his hair cut, and he accepted without even flinching, you seemed proud of your job, even happier, more confident. You had explained to him that he seemed more kept and stern with shorter hair. He just assured you that he trusted you enough to make that kind of decision.
The way that comment made you happy made him think of something.
You had been inspired by him just by his mere existence. What would you do if he gave you more than just that?
So, he started things slowly.
He brought you coffee one morning—he had seen you the night before, working late with Alexei, trying to make him understand that not everything had to be a brand deal.
“Brought you some coffee. Hope you don’t mind.” He placed it without waiting for an answer and left.
In the meantime, he was also learning how to interact with you on the blog without seeming like a stalker, more like a very interested reader.
On one hand, Bucky Barnes himself was doing nice things for you, while on the other hand, strangers on the internet were hyping you up to keep your writing blog alive.
And that didn’t help your idea of not writing about him anymore.
On the third day, he brought you dinner. You were checking what changes to do on Yelena to make her look less… intimidating.
“Are you busy?” He looked at you, lifting the take-out in his hand.
“Oh, no… but you didn’t have to do that.”
“I know, I just saw you struggling today with Yelena, and I wanted to bring some moral boost in the form of food.”
“Thank you so much, Bucky.”
His phone rang for the first time in weeks.
A new post.
Very oddly specific situations written between pornographic scenes.
A coffee scene between two coworkers.
Late night dinner when they needed to stay late.
Given compliments without innuendos.
He didn’t need any more confirmation. You were behind those words—and that turned him on even more than the words you wrote.
But he knew better than just to approach and expose himself.
So, he decided to take a step further.
Give you a real-life experience to see if you would put it into words.
He knew it was wrong. Fuck, it was wrong. But he was now immersed in the whole idea.
And, oh, if life gave him the perfect moment.
He was going to take a late-night bike ride when he saw you still in your car dialing a number on your phone. He leaned on your window and knocked twice.
“Hey, do you need some help?” You sighed. You wanted to say no, but you were really longing for your bed that specific day.
“My car’s not working, and I really need to get home.”
He furrowed, “And your insurance is not answering?” You shook your head.
He wanted to see how far he could get.
“So—I was just about to head to have dinner and then head back here. What about we have some dinner, and then I take you home?”
Your cheeks were burning.
“C’mon, just a friendly dinner. Or are you afraid of bikes?”
He had seen plenty of your works where you talked about how you would love to ride… him and his bike too.
You stuttered. The way his words came from his lips made you nervous.
He tilted his head, and you stepped out.
He made you hug him by the waist while he drove to the restaurant.
You were sitting in front of him while you both talked about whatever came to mind.
“So, do you like shorter hair?” He teased.
“Not that I personally like it, but I know…” You furrowed and stopped yourself. You knew your girls liked him with shorter hair. “I know people prefer shorter hair.”
When the night was over, and he took you home, you didn’t really know why you did it, but you asked him to come in.
Just for a drink.
You lied to yourself. You wanted more, you really wanted more. Even when you knew it could be seen as wrong, if someone knew the whole perspective.
The air around felt thick. From time to time, you noticed how he shifted in his place, trying to ease the imaginary weight in his shoulders, while you tried to keep your mind clean—not lustful, not wandering on thoughts that were not meant to be thought while you had him in front of you.
He was standing in front of your kitchen bar while you were bringing some beers from your fridge. You didn’t want to give it more than a thought, but you could notice how he stared at you…
“I—I think it’s getting late,” you stuttered.
He chuckled and placed the beer on the counter. He walked around the bar and placed himself in front of you. His hand found its way to your hip, pulling you closer.
“Can I?” You parted your lips open and granted him access.
His lips found yours faster, and he lifted you on the counter to sit. You could feel him position himself in the middle of your legs, your hands grasped his shirt from the back, making you impossibly closer to him.
If he knew what you liked based solely on what you wrote, he knew exactly what to do now that he had you there.
He had basically studied you.
From what you liked to write the most.
Praising, explicit consent, a talkative man during sex, harsh but sweet at the same time. And he was going to make sure this exceeded your expectations.
He yanked you to the edge of the counter by your jeans just to take them off immediately. He knelt and looked at you from below.
His finger stroked a line from your clit to your entrance. Back and forth. Teasing. Leaving you breathless.
“Fuck, fuck,” you mumbled through your teeth, biting your lips.
He finally leaned over and stripped a line with his tongue, focusing on your clit and fingering you with no shame. His metal hand held you steady while he worked carefully on your core.
“Not here, please.” You husked, he grunted, still latched to your cunt.
He finally distanced himself, and without more warning, he carried you on his shoulder and walked to your bedroom. You were trying to keep your thoughts separated from what you had written for years. But this all seemed so familiar somehow.
Meanwhile, Bucky had learned all your favorite positions, what you loved to write the most, and what you liked to describe in full detail. He took his time taking your clothes off, then he finally knelt to be in the middle of your legs—he pulled down his zipper and took out his length.
It was already leaking, and you were sure you were salivating at the sight of him slowly rubbing his cock with his strong hand. You really tried not to look at it, but he was doing it even slower. He knew you loved the sight, and he loved the way you didn’t even try to hide it.
He didn’t even think twice and slid in. He knew you were already all worked up, almost leaking from your cunt, waiting for him to thrust.
And he did it. Fast, snapping hips against hips. The echo of skin against skin filled your room, and your hands gripped his waist, digging your nails to make him go faster. He proceeded to wrap your neck and body with his arms while he thrusted harder, his still clothed body didn’t help with the heat he was expelling.
“D’you like it?” He mumbled in your ear while he caged your whole body with his broad form. “Tell me if I’m being too harsh.”
“No!” You snapped and wrapped your legs around his waist, “Don’t you dare stop.”
He chuckled and continued his fast and torturous pace, “This is what you always wanted?” He growled.
“Yes, yes. Always.” You cried out.
“Look at me,” he ordered, and you turned your eyes to him, “Good girl.”
You clenched immediately.
Where did this come from?
“Oh, you like it. You like to be called a good girl.”
You nodded and whined.
“It’s good that you are behaving so well, you’re earning it.”
“Don’t stop, Bucky. Don’t stop.” You pleaded—you were sure you sounded pathetic, but you didn’t care at all.
“I can feel you clenching. Do you need to cum?” He asked in your ear, and you nodded, “Come on my cock, make it all wet.”
You came undone immediately, and his throbbing cock started to spill warm ropes in your cunt.
He pulled out and continued spilling on your pelvis and stomach. He jerked himself while the ropes came directly to your skin.
You were still panting and trying to calm down your breathing.
He walked and brought back a towel to help clean your body. “I’m so sorry, I made a mess of you.”
You shook your head; you were still speechless.
“You need a minute?”
“Please.” You cried out again, and he chuckled, sitting next to you in your bed.
When you finally felt better, you looked up at him, who was now stroking your head, trying to calm down his breathing too.
“How are you feeling?”
“Much better.”
He noticed how you were knitting your eyebrows in the middle.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No… not really. It’s just…” You sighed, “I didn’t expect you to want this.”
He chuckled and made you sit on his lap.
“You’re gorgeous, incredible, you helped me a lot these months to feel more comfortable with myself after years. From asking me nicely to cut my hair, to respecting the fact that I’m not a charming prince that would be the love interest in a romcom.”
You furrowed… those words.
‘Well, since we can’t have a real-life Bucky Barnes, we can have a love interest in our romcoms here in our fanfictions.’
You tried not to pay much attention to it.
It was just a mere coincidence.
“Yeah. No. You’re definitely not a charming prince.”
He chuckled at the way you tried to feign that this didn’t take you aback.
“And besides, I think you have the best perspective on me than anyone else. You took your time to know me… to know us all… I don’t know what’s going on with me about you, but I think I need to explore it with you by my side.”
You giggled, “I think we can sort things out after this night.”
He tugged you in his chest and placed his lips on your ear, “Is it here where I put on the request for… reader going on a proper date with Bucky?”
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Summary : Neither you and Bucky were ready for your son’s first day of school.
Pairing : Husband!Bucky Barnes x wife!reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : Fluff!!!! angst-ish(?) established relationships, Jamie is your and Bucky’s son!!!! Domestic!bucky, food, slightly suggestive if you squint (Please let me know if I miss anything!!!)(Let me know if I missed anything!)
Word count : 5.3k
Note : Thank you for the anon who wanted more Bucky and Jamie for motivating me to write this. enjoy!
It was six in the morning.
The sky outside was still dark, faint blue just barely beginning to creep in. The house sat in suspended silence, but only for a second.
Because Bucky was already awake.
He hadn’t meant to be. Sleep had just… slipped away from him sometime in the night, leaving him staring at the ceiling, listening to your breathing, to your adorable snores, to the distant hum of the outside world. Every once in a while, he would focus his super soldier hearing to Jamie, down the hall, still fast asleep.
His arm was wrapped around you, metal hand resting lightly against your side. He shifted slightly when you stirred, your eyes blinking open slowly, unfocused at first.
“You’re awake,” you murmured, still tired.
“Yeah,” he said in a sigh.
You didn’t ask why, because you knew.
It was Jamie’s first day of school.
Your hand slid up to his chest as you tucked yourself closer. He leaned into it, pressing a kiss to your forehead, then your temple, as if he was grounding himself.
Neither of you moved for a while after that.
You stayed there, tangled together under the covers, holding on a little tighter than usual. Bucky’s thumb traced absent patterns along your arm, the rhythm steady but distracted, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.
“You okay?” you asked after a minute, tilting your head back to look at your husband.
He gave a small nod.
“Yeah,” he said. “Just… feels early.”
You huffed, an almost-laugh, glancing at the clock on your nightstand. “It is early.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Your hand came up to his chin, fingers brushing along the stubble there. He leaned into your touch without thinking, eyes closing briefly. Almost instinctively, his lips found yours, pressing into you like he had all the time in the world.
You tipped your head back slightly, giving him more space without saying a word, and his mouth drifted lower, brushing along your jaw, then down the side of your neck.
“Bucky…” you breathed, not really a protest.
His lips lingered there. “He’s still asleep,” he murmured against your skin.
“Mm. Good.”
Your fingers curled into his stained sleep shirt (Jamie got his hands on some markers), pulling him closer. He went easily, like he’d been waiting for the excuse. His hand slid up your side, thumb tracing slow, absent circles just beneath your ribs.
He kissed your collarbone next, gentler than he had been the night before. There were still faint reminders there. There were soft marks, barely visible in low light. His doing. Your doing. Both of you, really.
Your breath caught slightly as he brushed over one of them.
“Easy, soldier,” you whispered, though there was a smile in it.
He huffed quietly against your skin, something almost like a laugh. “You weren’t saying that last night.”
“Last night,” you said, tugging lightly at his hair to bring him back up, “we had nothing to do and nowhere to be.”
Bucky lifted his head just enough to look at you. “We could just stay in bed,” he said.
You raised a brow. “And ignore our son’s first day of school?”
“…Maybe.”
You smiled, leaning in to kiss him again. He melted into it immediately, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of your neck, deepening it just slightly before easing back.
His forehead rested against yours.
“He’s gonna be okay,” you said gently.
Bucky opened his eyes again, searching your face like he needed to see that you believed it.
“I know,” he repeated. This time, it sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
You shifted closer, pressing a kiss to his lips. He responded in kind with one hand sliding up your back, pulling you just a little closer, like if he held on tight enough the morning wouldn’t come so fast.
For a moment, it worked.
It was just you and him. Jamie was still asleep down the hall. No goodbyes yet. No letting go.
“I’m serious.” Bucky rested his forehead against yours. “We could keep him home.”
“James...” you started, almost a scold.
His lips brushed your skin again in an attempt to win you over. “He doesn’t have to go today.”
“Yes, he does,” you smiled sadly, “He has been looking forward to it for a week, my love. His interests barely last five days. Do you know how excited he is?”
Bucky sighed quietly, his nose nudging against yours in a way that was almost reluctant. He knew, because he was the one who watched Jamie pick crayons and colour pencils and his special school bag. He knew, because all week, Bucky had watched him tell everyone— and I mean everyone that will listen— that he was a big boy now because he was going to school, from your parents to neighbours, to cashiers in grocery stores. He knew, because Jamie had asked him to take care of all his stuffed animals when he was gone. “Yeah, I know.”
“I get it,” You traced a line down his arm, over the cool metal of his hand. “You’re allowed to be nervous.”
He let out a deep breath between a laugh and a sigh. To think that he was the one suffering from separation anxiety was almost laughable if it wasn’t so real. “I don’t like it.”
“Yeah,” you huffed. “Me neither.”
That earned you a glance. Even now, you were still full of surprises. “You hide it better.”
“One of us has to be functional,” you said, brushing your thumb along his cheek.
Even if you knew you were going to cry. Even if you knew you were gonna miss your little boy making a mess around the house at 11 AM, when you were trying to meal prep. Even if you were gonna worry if he was gonna make any friends.
Of course he was. He had his dad’s charming attitude, even if it came with his temper sometimes.
Bucky chuckled, some of the tension easing from his shoulders.
Then, all of a sudden, something in his brain clicked into place.
“I’m gonna make him waffles,” he declared.
You blinked. “Right now?”
“It’s his first day,” Bucky said, already starting to get up, like the decision had momentum. “His favorite. I think it might—” he paused, shrugging a little. “Help.”
“Help who? Him?” You smiled, warmth blooming in your chest. “Or you?”
He ran a hand through his hair, cupping your cheeks and peppering kisses on your face. "Mmhmm, smartass.”
You giggled, catching his wrist and pushing him back slightly so you could talk. “Okay, fine. But not too much dairy.”
Bucky frowned.
“No extra cream, no piling on stuff,” you continued, sitting up now, fully awake. “He’s probably nervous, Buck. If his stomach flips, he’s gonna feel sick.”
Bucky nodded. “Right.”
“Last thing we need is him throwing up on his first day.”
“Yeah, no, we’re not doing that,” he agreed quickly, already adjusting the plan in his head.
You slid out of bed after him, grabbing his hand as he moved toward the door. “I’m coming with you.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t have to—”
“I know,” you said, squeezing his fingers. “I want to.”
He looked at you for a second and recognised that look in your eyes— the glassy, darting look. You were anxious, too. Maybe, you needed something to do as much as he did. And no, Bucky was never really good at saying no to his girl. “Okay.”
Together, you slipped out into the quiet hallway, careful not to make too much noise as you passed Jamie’s room.
—
The kitchen light casted the countertops and cabinets in a warm glow.
You leaned back against the counter as Bucky moved around the space, already pulling ingredients out with a focused determination that made you smile.
“You’ve checked the batter three times, dad,” you pointed out, arms loosely folded as you watched him.
“I haven’t,” Bucky insisted, not even looking at you as he adjusted the bowl slightly.
“You have,” you said, pushing off the counter and stepping closer. “And the waffle iron twice.”
He huffed under his breath, reaching for the whisk again. “Just making sure it’s right.”
“It’s waffles, honey. Not rocket science.”
That got you a look.
You sighed, stepping into his space, your hands sliding up his arms, until they rested against his chest, right over his heart.
“…Wow,” you murmured.
Bucky frowned faintly. “What?”
You tilted your head, eyes flicking up to his, a small, knowing smile tugging at your lips. “Your heart’s beating fast.”
“It’s not—”
“It is,” you cut in gently, pressing your palm a little more firmly against him. “Faster than it usually does on missions, actually.”
He paused, listening to his own heartbeat. “That’s not true.”
You raised a brow. “Oh, I think it is.”
Bucky looked down at you, somewhere between defensive and guilty, and you couldn’t help it. You leaned in, kissing his jaw.
“Big, scary super soldier,” you murmured against his skin, teasing. “Terrified of kindergarten.”
His hands settled instinctively at your waist, pulling you closer.
“‘M not scared,” he said, though it lacked conviction.
“Mm,” you hummed, “Sure you’re not.”
His grip tightened just slightly, grounding himself in you, keeping one eye on the waffle iron. His forehead dipped to yours for a moment, his eyes closing briefly as he exhaled.
“He’s so… small,” Bucky said.
There it was.
You leaned into his touch without thinking.
“But he’s ready,” you added gently. “Even if we’re not.”
Bucky gave the smallest shake of his head, but before he could say anything else…
Your alarm went off.
You both froze for half a second before you sighed, pulling back just enough to reach for your phone and silence it.
“That’s our cue,” you put your hand in your face.
Bucky nodded, though his hands lingered at your waist like he wasn’t quite ready to let go.
You leaned in one last time, pressing a quick, warm kiss to the corner of his lips.
“I’ll wake him up and get him all set,” you said. “You keep going.”
He nodded again, shifting back toward the counter, but not before brushing his fingers against yours as you moved away.
“Maybe squeeze some fresh oranges too,” you added over your shoulder.
Bucky glanced back at you, already reaching for the fruit bowl. Jamie did really like juice with breakfast. “Yeah.”
He paused, before adding…
“Vitamin C’s always a good idea.”
You smiled to yourself as you headed down the hall.
—
Jamie wasn’t a difficult kid. But, just like any other child, he was a challenge to raise.
It didn’t help that his attention drifted sometimes.
A lot of times.
He was one of those sock on, one sock missing kids. Shirt halfway over his head before he got distracted by something outside the window. You’d ask him to brush his teeth and find him five minutes later sitting on the floor, telling a very serious story to one of his toys.
It was just Jamie.
But today was different.
You barely had to say his name before he was already awake, sitting up in bed with wide, bright eyes like he’d been waiting for this exact moment.
“It’s school day, mommy!” he announced, as if you might’ve forgotten.
“I know,” you smiled, ruffling his brown locks. “Big day, huh?”
“I have to get ready.”
There was no dragging, no bargaining, no wandering off mid-task.
Jamie had laser focus today.
He climbed out of bed and took your hand, where you let him to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Then he went straight to the chair where he’d laid out his clothes the night before. He pulled them on with only minimal help, concentration written all over his face, like this mattered to him.
“Backpack,” he said next, already turning toward it.
“Already packed, honey,” you reminded him.
“I wanna check.”
Of course he did.
You brushed his hair as he crouched down, unzipping it and going through everything one by one. “Lunch goes here,” he said, pointing, even though it was still empty. “And my book. And my drawing.”
You blinked, a small smile tugging at your lips. You kissed his chubby little cheeks.
“Okay, who are you and what have you done with my baby boy?”
Jamie giggled, completely unfazed. “I’m ready.”.
He really was.
For a second, you just stood there, watching him, this small, determined little person that you and Bucky made, who somehow felt much older today than he had yesterday.
Who had somehow learned how to categorise and file away items for his big day.
You’d seen that focus and certainty before, in Bucky.
Maybe it was from all those times Bucky had taken him to the Tower. Let him sit nearby, watching as he checked gear, counted supplies, and ran through everything with determination.
Jamie noticed things.
He learned.
And apparently… he copied.
“Shoes,” Jamie announced, already reaching for them.
“Right,” you said, taking his little hands. “Shoes.”
—
By the time you got downstairs, the smell hit you first.
Jamie lit up immediately. “Dad made waffles!”
You followed him into the kitchen, and that was when you saw the plate.
“…Bucky.”
He glanced up from where he stood by the counter, far too innocent for the crime in front of him.
“What?”
You gestured toward the waffles, especially after you told him not to. There was fruit—okay, good. But also whipped cream. And chocolate syrup. And caramel syrup, and ice cream. And—
“Really, Buck?”
Jamie, meanwhile, had already climbed into his seat, eyes wide like he’d just been handed the greatest gift imaginable, chugging half his orange juice in one go.
Bucky shrugged, completely unrepentant as he set the plate down in front of him. He looked guilty, like he couldn’t help but spoil his son. “I… didn’t know how much is too much.”
“That doesn’t mean you send him into school on a sugar high,” you whispered, though a part of you was endeared. You moved toward the counter to start pulling together lunch. “He’s gonna crash by noon.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“Mmhm.” And now, you hoped some of that super soldier serum would show up in Jamie very soon. He could use the increased metabolism.
You started assembling a sandwich, shaking your head slightly but unable to hide the small smile tugging at your lips.
Behind you, Bucky took the seat next to Jamie.
“You excited, buddy?” he asked.
Jamie nodded enthusiastically, already cutting into his waffles like this was the best day of his life. “Yeah! I’m gonna colour and draw and… oh! And I bring my book!”
Bucky nodded, though his eyes flicked briefly to you before returning to Jamie. “You packed everything?”
You glanced over your shoulder, catching that look, and your chest tightened.
Jamie went right back to eating, happily unaware of the effect he’d just had.
Meanwhile, Bucky sat there, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped, watching him like he was trying to memorize every second of his son’s life.
It was almost funny, watching them side by side.
Jamie, who was bright, excited, completely ready to run head first towards a brand new day.
Bucky, who looked like he was sending Jamie into battle.
You slid the lunch into the tupperware, placing a couple of grapes and cookies in a different part of the container, before placing it gently on the table.
“All set,” you said.
Jamie beamed.
Bucky reached for the sandwich the moment you set it down, sliding it carefully into Jamie’s backpack. He checked the zipper twice.
“Alright,” he said, voice steady as he slung the bag over Jamie’s shoulders, adjusting the straps until they sat just right. “C’mon, kid. I’ll drive you to school.”
Jamie lit up instantly, nearly bouncing out of his chair. “Okay!”
Then Bucky added,nudging him gently toward you, “Say goodbye to your mom.”
And that…
That was the moment it hit you.
Not when he woke up early. Not when he got dressed all on his own. Not even when he sat there eating waffles like it was the best morning of his life.
It was this.
The goodbye.
Jamie turned to you without hesitation, already smiling, like this was just another step in his very important plan for the day. “Bye, Mama!”
You crouched down quickly, too quickly, your hands coming up to his face, smoothing his hair, adjusting his shirt even though it didn’t need it.
“Hey, hey… slow down,” you said, your voice softer than you meant it to be.
He giggled.
“I’m gonna go to school,” he told you, like you didn’t already know.
“I know,” you said, smiling, even as your chest tightened. “I know, baby.”
You pulled him into a hug, holding him just a second longer than usual.
He didn’t notice. Or maybe he did, and just didn’t question it.
“I love you,” you whispered into his hair.
“Love you too,” he said easily, already starting to pull back.
And oh, you almost broke.
Tears rose up so suddenly it caught you off guard, your throat tightening before you could stop it.
You were so close. So close to crying.
But you swallowed it down, forcing a steady breath, pressing one last kiss to his cheek before letting him go.
“Have fun, okay?” you said, brushing your thumb under his eye like he was still little enough to need it.
“I will!”
Jamie grabbed his backpack straps, turning back toward Bucky like nothing had shifted at all.
Like this wasn’t the first time he’d ever walked out the door for a big change.
Bucky’s eyes flicked to yours for half a second, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t call it out.
He stepped closer, kissing you gently, wiping off the start of tears discreetly.
“I’ll text you when we get there, sweetheart,” he said, pressing his lips to your cheek.
You nodded, trusting your voice a little less now. “Okay.”
He hesitated for the smallest moment, like he wanted to say something else, but decided against it. Perhaps waiting for a more private moment.
So instead, he reached for Jamie.
“Alright, buddy,” Bucky said, resting a hand lightly on his back. “Let’s move.”
Jamie grinned.
And just like that, they were heading for the door.
You followed them as far as the house would let you, arms folding loosely around yourself, like that might hold everything in place.
He glanced back at you one more time.
You gave him a small nod. Go.
And just like that, the house was quiet again.
You stood there for a moment, staring at the door, your chest still tight, your eyes stinging.
“…He’s fine,” you whispered to yourself.
You breathed out slowly, pressing your hand briefly over your heart, the way you had Bucky’s earlier.
“He’s gonna be okay.”
—
The car ride was fun. Jamie was in the back seat, legs swinging, backpack still on like he didn’t trust taking it off, talking a mile a minute about everything all at once. From his book, to the very fun swings he’s heard about, to the idea of “making at least two friends,” which he said very seriously.
Bucky glanced at him in the rearview mirror, metal hand steady on the wheel. “Two?” he asked.
Jamie nodded solemnly. “Maybe three.”
Bucky nodded with a chuckle. “Ambitious.”
Jamie beamed, taking that as approval.
See, Jamie was fine. He was practically vibrating with excitement, completely locked in on the day ahead of him.
“You remember what to do?” Bucky asked.
Jamie nodded immediately. “I go in, find my teacher, hang my bag, and then sit down.”
“Good,” Bucky said. “And if you need anything?”
“I ask.”
“Right.”
Jamie leaned forward slightly, peeking between the seats. “Are we there yet?”
Bucky’s grip on the wheel tightened just a fraction. “Just a couple minutes now, buddy.”
Jamie settled back, satisfied with that answer, already moving on to the next thought.
Bucky… wasn’t.
—
The school came up too quickly.
One minute they were driving, Jamie talking non-stop, and the next Bucky was pulling into a parking spot, the engine going quiet as everything suddenly slowed down.
He turned slightly in his seat, looking back.
Jamie was already unbuckling. “Okay!” he said, like this was the easiest thing in the world.
Bucky let a small smile slip, stepping out of the car and moving around to open the back door. Jamie reached for his hand immediately, like it was instinct.
They walked up together, Jamie’s small hand wrapped tightly around his human one, the school growing louder with every step. The noise of kids, parents, voices blending into one overwhelming hum.
Bucky crouched once they reached the front, bringing himself level with him.
“I guess…” he started, his voice catching just slightly before he steadied it. “I guess I’ll see you later, okay?”
Jamie blinked. It’s almost as if he was confused. Or processing. Bucky didn’t really know what was happening or what was going wrong. Did he forget something? Did he miss his mom?
Then, his face changed immediately, from excitement to… dread.
“Wait—” his grip tightened suddenly, panic in his eyes. “Daddy, you’re not coming with me?”
Oh.
Oh no.
Bucky’s chest dropped.
You and Bucky had been so caught up with making sure he was excited, making sure he didn’t miss a thing, that you didn’t even think of telling him that… he would have to be on his own.
How could you both forget? Did you both just naively assume he knew?
“Hey, hey,” he said quickly, his hands coming up to steady him, one on each of Jamie’s shoulders. “It’s okay, pal…”
Jamie’s eyes were already shining with a layer of tears, his breath going uneven. “But-but… what if I don’t know where to go?”
“You do,” Bucky said gently, grounding him, just like he would on any mission, but this was different. This was more important. This was his son. “You just told me, remember? Find your teacher, hang your bag.”
Bucky pulled him closer, not too tight, just enough. “Hey. Look at me.”
Jamie did, only barely. It didn’t help that he had your beautiful eyes. The eyes he found very difficult to say no to.
“You’re strong,” Bucky encouraged, steady and sure. “You know that?”
Jamie sniffed, uncertain.
“You’re my kid,” Bucky continued, brushing his thumb under Jamie’s eye as the tears fell. “You’re brave. You can do this.”
Jamie’s lip trembled.
Bucky’s forehead touched his, as if he could transfer all the courage he had left to him.
“And your mom and I will be right here when you’re done,” he added. “We’ll pick you up, okay? And then you can tell us all about the friends you made.”
Jamie searched his face, needing it to be true. “Promise, Daddy?”
Bucky didn’t hesitate. “I promise.”
He pressed a firm kiss to Jamie’s forehead, then pulled him into a hug that truthfully, he didn’t wanna let go of.
For a second, Jamie held on just as tight.
Then, slowly… reluctantly… Jamie, the brave boy he was, was the first one to let go.
Oh.
Bucky helped him straighten his backpack one last time, his hands lingering just a second longer than necessary.
“Go on,” he said, a smile on his face.
Jamie nodded and took one step. He hesitated, just for a heartbeat, then kept going.
Bucky stayed where he was, watching, waiting.
Jamie reached the entrance waving goodbye to him.
Bucky waved back.
Jamie looked away, hesitantly looking around. That’s when he saw a smaller kid standing nearby, looking just as unsure as Jamie had a second ago.
Jamie paused.
Then, like a switch flipped, like he had enough courage for the both of them, he walked over.
Bucky blinked. What was he doing?
Jamie said something to the smaller boy. Bucky couldn’t hear it from where he stood from all the noise, but the other kid nodded, and just like that…
They walked inside together.
Neither of them were looking back.
And they were gone.
Bucky breathed out slowly, the tightness in his chest loosening and tightening all at once.
“Okay,” he muttered to no one but himself.
He stayed there another minute, just in case.
Maybe another ten minutes.
When he was sure Jamie wasn’t going to run out, he turned, heading back to the car, each step feeling quieter than the last.
Inside, the silence hit him harder. He missed his excited voice. He missed the small presence in the back seat.
Bucky sat there for a second, hands resting on the wheel, staring straight ahead.
Then he reached for his phone.
He’s inside, he typed. He did good.
He stared at the screen for a moment.
He didn’t even look back, hun.
He hit send.
And then, Bucky let his head fall back against the seat.
His hand came up, dragging over his face as his chest hitched once.
“Oh my god,” he breathed, almost disbelieving.
His eyes stung. He blinked hard, but it didn’t quite stop it.
His little boy is growing up.
Bucky swallowed as he stared up at the ceiling of the car.
“He’s gonna be okay,” he said.
But this time, he didn’t know if he was talking about Jamie or himself.
—
Bucky hadn’t expected the house to feel this… empty.
It was not really quiet. He’d lived in silence for years. But this was different. This was the kind of quiet that reminded him something was missing.
He shut the door behind him, keys barely making a sound as he set them down. For a second, he just stood there, listening out of habit, half expecting to hear small feet running down the hall, or that constant stream of chatter that filled every room.
Nothing.
“Sweetheart?” he called, already moving further inside.
He got no answer.
He tilted his head, confused. You’d been fine when he left. Emotional, yeah, but holding it together.
“Sweets, you there?” he tried again, stepping to the hallway.
Still… nothing.
And then, as he climbed up the stairs, he heard soft, uneven sobs.
Bucky quickly followed it to Jamie’s room to see… you, sitting on the floor, surrounded by Jamie’s things.
Tiny shirts he’d outgrown, one of his little sweaters clutched in your hands like you didn’t quite know what to do with it. His toys scattered around you, a book open in your lap.
Your shoulders shook, head bowed as your fingers traced over the thick cardboard. It was the alphabet one, with all the ice cream flavour. A is for apple pie ice cream… B is for bubblegum ice cream … C is for cherry ice cream… all the way down to Z is for zesty lemon ice cream, each page filled with ridiculous, overly cheerful drawings of scoops he used to point at with a serious look on his face.
“Remember this?” you whispered, voice breaking. “He used to make me read this every night… every night, Buck…”
Bucky’s chest tightened. He stepped in slowly. “Sweetheart.”
You didn’t look up right away.
Your hand flipped the pages, worn at the edges. “Remember when he was just learning? He couldn’t even say half the letters right, he’d just—” your breath hitched, a broken laugh slipping through “—he’d just make up sounds and get so proud of himself…”
Bucky crouched down in front of you now, close enough to reach, but not interrupting yet.
“He’s growing up so fast,” you said, finally looking at him, eyes glassy, tears spilling over. “Like… when did that happen? When did he get so big?”
Your voice cracked harder than as you lifted your head slightly. “Is he okay? Did he cry? Did he…”
“Sweets.” His hands came up to your face, thumbs brushing your cheeks and kissing the tears away.
“He’s okay,” he said, grounding, certain. “He’s okay.”
You searched his face like you needed proof.
And he gave it to you.
“He was scared for a second,” Bucky admitted. “He… didn’t know he’d be on his own.”
“What?!” You wiped at your cheek quickly, but it didn’t help “—is he… did he cry? What if he got scared? What if he wants to come home? What if… what if my baby—”
Bucky decided to stop your spiral by pulling you in, metal arm wrapping around your back, the human coming up to cradle your head against his chest as you broke properly into him.
“Hey, hey…” he murmured, grounding, steady. “C’mon. You know him. He’s okay.”
You clutched at his shirt, shaking your head against him. “But he didn’t know! What if—”
“He’s okay,” Bucky repeated for the umpteenth time, pressing his cheek to your hair. “I saw it.”
Your grip tightened.
“He handled it,” he continued gently. “I talked him through it.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him, searching.
“And then?” you asked, voice small.
Bucky huffed, maybe even a little annoyed at how easily his son had found courage, but no less proud. “Then he walked in there like he had a mission.”
Finally, a faint smile tugged at your lips.
“He even found another kid,” Bucky added. “Looked just as lost as he did.”
Your brows knit slightly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “He went right up to him. Said something…” he gestured lightly toward the door “then they walked in together.”
Your eyes filled again, but this time it was different. It was good. “Oh my god…”
“Yeah,” Bucky said, bumping his nose with yours. “That’s our kid, alright.”
You let out a breath that was half sob, half laugh, leaning back into him.
“He’s okay,” you whispered, more to yourself now.
“He is,” Bucky said.
For a second, you both just sat there in the middle of the room, surrounded by the little pieces of Jamie’s life that suddenly felt smaller.
Then Bucky tilted his head slightly, looking down at you.
“…Look at you,” he chuckled.
You blinked. “What?”
“In the morning, I was the one losing it,” he pointed out, one brow lifting just a little. “Could barely keep it together.”
A tiny huff of a laugh escaped you.
“And now,” he continued, nudging your chin up gently, “here you are.”
You sniffed, wiping at your face. “These are happy tears,” you insisted, though your voice wobbled.
Bucky smiled knowing. “Yeah. Sure, sweets.”
You leaned into him again, quieter this time.
“He gets it from you, you know,” you said after a moment.
Bucky frowned slightly. “Get what?”
“That,” you said, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes. “That… focus. That way he just decides and goes for it.”
Bucky let out a breath, glancing down for a second before looking back at you. “Hmm, I think he gets it from you,” he countered, nudging your knee lightly. “That heart? The way he went back for that other kid?” he shook his head a little. “That’s all you.”
You sighed.
“Maybe,” you admitted, almost begrudgingly. “or maybe… he gets that from us both.”
Bucky huffed. “I’ll take that.”
You leaned your head against his shoulder, your fingers absently tracing the words.
After a good five minutes of silence, you looked up at your husband. “Bucky?”
“Yeah?”
You sniffed, glancing down at the little book still resting in your lap, your fingers absentmindedly tracing the edge of the page. “Can we take him for ice cream when we pick him up?”
Bucky blinked, a small smile pulling at his lips as he leaned in to press a kiss to your temple. “Even after all the loading I did with the waffles?”
You nodded against him. “I just… I want him to know he did a good job today.”
He let out a huff, shaking his head like there was never really a question.
Of course you were gonna pick him up together. Of course he was gonna get ice cream. Of course you both would do everything you could to make sure he knew that you both were so, so damn proud of him.
summary: roommate!bucky is obsessed with you - based on this Imagine...
tw: fluff, brief alluding to Bucky's past, m!masturbation, mention of porn, use of a sex toy, dirty talk, Bucky wants to get caught?
Roommate!Bucky who didn't mean to fall in love with you. The two of you ending up as roommates purely by happenstance. The chaos of it all drowning out his immediate attraction to you.
Roommate!Bucky who originally planned to keep to his room when you were home, only to find himself basking in your presence whenever he could. Shared meals and home improvement projects and unprompted lessons about all the things he never got to experience.
Roommate!Bucky who somehow got roped into keeping a list of every new song. And movie. And TV show that you introduced him to. Taking the time to actually rate them. Discuss them. Hold a real conversation like he's not some walking relic with a trail of ghosts.
Roommate!Bucky who started doing little things to make your life easier. Wash and refill your water bottle before he went to bed. Made sure there was something easy you could take to work for lunch. Switched your clothes to the dryer when you forgot.
Roommate!Bucky who tried to convince you (and himself) it wasn't a big deal. Simply old habits that survived the modern world. Pitching in on household chores. Volunteering to make dinner after a long day. Actually listening without trying to fix anything.
Roommate!Bucky who did his best not to let his gaze linger too long. Always careful to avert his eyes if you bent over. Or wore a low cut top. Or shorts that showed off your soft thighs.
Roommate!Bucky who pretended it was simply because he was a touch-starved centenarian. And not because he was addicted to you. To your laugh. Your teasing. Your stubbornness over the right way to do something. Even if his suggestion made it easier.
Roommate!Bucky who nearly combusted when you put your feet in his lap after a heated debate, declaring yourself the victor. Toes flexing against his thighs while he used every ounce of his super-soldier strength to will his dick to go down.
Roommate!Bucky who finally ventured out into modern day porn. Hoping it'd overwrite all the fantasies you've been starring in. Only to end up with a long list of sinful things he wants to try with you. The positions he could put you in. The way you might scream his name.
Roommate!Bucky who did his best to compartmentalize. Never let his mind stray when he was with you. Refused to focus on the flickering images his mind tried to conjure: kissing you. Touching you. Bending you over the nearest surface and fucking you with his tongue.
Roommate!Bucky who started taking longer showers to play out all those filthy thoughts. What you might taste like. The sounds you'd make while he licked your clit and fucked you with his fingers. How hot and tight and wet you'd feel. The way you'd grab his hair when you came all over his face.
Roommate!Bucky who eventually got so desperate for you that his hand just wasn't enough anymore. Restless nights of fucking his fist leaving him aching for more. Wanting to imagine your lips stretched around his thick cock, but all he could focus on were the hands that used to carve violence.
Roommate!Bucky who caved one night and spent hours searching for a sex toy that didn't make him itch with second thoughts. Finally deciding on something small enough to hide, but realistic enough to live out his fantasies. Convinced he'd spend the rest of his life like this. Fucking a silicone pussy, imagining it's you.
Roommate!Bucky who was supposed to be home when the package arrived, only to have you intercept it. Mistake it for yours. Open it and accidentally discover his dirty little secret.
Roommate!Bucky who appreciates that you at least tried to cover your tracks. Put everything back in its place. Set the taped box on the kitchen counter. Acted completely nonchalant.
Roommate!Bucky who's so obsessed with you that he instantly recognizes your scent lingering on the inside container - an image of the fake pussy plastered across the side. Leaving absolutely no doubt that you know exactly what he's doing right now.
Roommate!Bucky who should stuff everything away, shove all the evidence under his bed, and return to the living room. Maybe make dinner. But now he's harder than he's ever been in his entire life, and he can't stop picturing you finding it. Holding it. The look on your face. Plush lips parted. Gorgeous eyes widened in shock.
Roommate!Bucky who should feel ashamed for the way his cock twitches at the thought. Instead, he just lets the image shift, imagining you on your knees, same surprised look when you see him for the first time. Cock heavy in his hand, fist stroking it slowly.
Roommate!Bucky who doesn't even remember pushing his pants and underwear down, dick slick with pre-cum. Flesh and vibranium tearing apart the packaging, hastily preparing the toy before he's diving in. Knees hitting carpet, silicone perched at the edge of the bed, a stolen shirt of yours tucked around it, his fingers spreading the pussy-flavored lube like he's working you open.
Roommate!Bucky who watches the way the toy yields for him. Lets himself get lost in the fantasy. "So wet for me, sweetheart," he whispers, still currently terrified that you'll hear him. "Want me to taste you?" Tongue peeking out to trace along the puffy pussy, the scent of you making this feel almost too real.
Roommate!Bucky who has to grip the base of his dick to keep himself from coming. Tongue lapping at your folds, gathering your sweetness, drinking you down while his fingers keep you spread. Forearm resting on top of the toy to make it mimic your movements, hips following his hungry mouth.
Roommate!Bucky who will never admit to researching how to eat you out. Technically, how to eat pussy, but given the effort he put into learning all about it, he's sure he could have you shaking apart in no time. Lips suctioning around your clit, tongue finding the perfect rhythm, while his fingers curl inside of you. Stroking that spot until you're gripping his hair and riding his face.
Roommate!Bucky who barely registers the obscene noises filling the room. His unabashed groans, mouth slurping against silicone, lube and spit dripping down to soak your shirt. The repetitive squelch punctuating measured strokes along your silky walls. Swearing he can feel you tightening, his own hips humping the air in search of relief from the delicious torment.
Roommate!Bucky who growls your name, louder than he means to, nose pressed against the wet toy, breath sawing through clenched teeth, fingers leaving you to wrap around his painful cock. Heavy and swollen, a steady flow of pre-cum leaking from the tip, easing the desperate strokes.
Roommate!Bucky who should be quieter. Panting against your pretty pussy, lost in the fantasy. "Taste so fucking good, baby." A swipe of his tongue over your clit while he pumps his cock faster. "Can't wait until you - shit - until you ride my face." Back bowing from the overwhelming pleasure licking up his spine. "Gonna - oh my god - gonna smother me with that- that sweet pussy, doll? Gonna-."
Roommate!Bucky who's on the verge of coming when he hears you. Footsteps outside his unlocked door. Gentle raps against wood that has ice rushing through his veins. And his cock twitching in his grip. The soft "Bucky?" drifting through the barrier making him groan pathetically.
Roommate!Bucky who should be scrambling. Panicking. Destroying all evidence of what just transpired. But he's stuck. Heart hammering in his chest. Blood roaring through his veins, keeping him rock-hard. Only a couple deafening seconds passing until you're breaking the silence.
Roommate!Bucky who swears his heart almost leaves his chest when you confidently announce, "I'm comin' in, okay?" Voice thick with something he's too far gone to decipher.
Roommate!Bucky who doesn't tell you no. Doesn't tell you yes either. Lets you decide if you wanna be a witness to the most debauched moment of his entire life. Utterly and entirely consumed by you. And he swears to god, if you open that door, he's done feeling guilty about it.
(banners by @cafekitsune)
Hmm, I might just have to write more of these two...
pairing: bucky barnes x avenger!fem!reader
word count: 3.6k
warning: reader and the other are awful | handjob | yearning if you squint | bucky sad
summary: sometimes you think everything is planned out until you realise is not...
The common room was a battlefield of snack wrappers and half-drunk protein shakes, remains of a long debrief.
Y/N sat curled up in a blanket on the couch, legs tucked under her and her eyes drifted toward the window, then back to her team. “You know what?” she started saying to the other members of the Avengers, voice deceptively casual. “I’m not so sure about my relationship with Bucky anymore…”
The others paused mid-conversation.
Natasha raised an eyebrow.
Steve slowly turned his head, already bracing himself.
Sam snorted. “THANK GOODNESS… I’ve been waiting for this day.”
Y/N blinked, surprised. “Wait… seriously?”
“Dead serious?” Nat asked, grabbing a grape from the bowl in front of her. “That man is emotionally constipated but somehow still manages to be clingy.”
Tony didn’t even look up from his tablet. “Break up with him. Immediately. Do it now. I’ll call Pepper, she’ll get the fireworks.”
Steve sighed dramatically. “I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s my best friend but he’s… exhausting. Not everything is HYDRA and not everyone is trying to kill him… God he’s pathetic.” Steve snorted and covered his mouth.
“Right?” Y/N said smiling, sitting up a little. “He acts like every conversation is a war flashback.”
Sam burst out laughing. “Girl, you’ve been carrying that relationship like a soldier in the trenches. We see you limping through those deep talks.”
“And the staring,” Nat added. “God, the brooding stares. If I wanted to be glared at all day, I’d go back to S.H.I.E.L.D. debriefings.”
Y/N cackled, no she actually laughed. “You guys are horrible. I love it.”
Tony smirked. “You’re glowing already and you haven’t even dumped him yet. I say send a text. Or better… a group email. CC the team.”
“No, no,” Sam grinned. “Group text. Include a selfie.”
Steve looked slightly guilty but not enough to object. “Look, he’s not a bad guy. Just… not great for you. He drains you.”
“Literally,” Y/N said, tossing a bunch of popcorn in her mouth. “Dating him is like doing… taxes but more dramatic.” She finished chewing on her popcorn, and she formed a thought. “I don’t wanna sound rude…”
“Please be rude…” Nat asked, propping her upper body and leaning closer to you.
“He’s not even lean anymore… or at least how he used to be… you know…” Y/N said, mimicking a bigger space with her arms. “Always thought super soldiers were fit… no matter what…”
Steve, stood and came closer to Y/N. In front of her, he slid up his shirt. “Like this?” He said, pointing at his abs.
“God!” Y/N was speechless.
“You can touch if you want…”
Y/N did touch Steve’s abs and she indeed enjoy that. She even propped herself close to Steve and in a rush of adrenaline, she licked his abdomen. Steve shivered looking down and caressed her cheek.
“What a good girl…” He said like there was no one else in the room.
“Only for you Captain.” Y/N replied.
They all laughed, a little too hard maybe, but it felt good.
“Why don’t you come here sweet…” Steve asked.
Y/N as she was controlled, stood and reach Steve. She straddled his lap, stroking his tights. Steve’s hands gripped her hips, grounding her.
“Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.” The group began to cheer.
Y/N leaned and kiss Steve. A battle of tongues and lips crashing. Steve’s hands gripped her harder and she moaned.
Nat covered her eyes, like she was the third wheel. Sam busted laughing and Tony swore he was gonna watch the surveillance video forever.
No guilt.
No hesitation.
Just honesty, sharp-edged and wrapped in affection.
Nat leaned back, smirking. “So? What are you waiting for?” She asked, just after Steve stepped back still keeping her on his lap.
Y/N stretched like a cat and pulled out her phone, checking Steve again. “I think it’s time Sergeant Barnes gets honorably discharged… from my life.”
And the whole room cheered.
Unbeknownst to the group, Bucky was about to enter the hallway minutes ago. He returned early from the post-mission weapons check, footsteps silent as always. He paused outside the common room, as he heard voices drifting through the half-open door.
He heard his name.
Then he heard everything.
“Dating him is like doing taxes, but more dramatic”
He froze.
“You can touch if you want…”
He froze again.
“Why don’t you come here sweet…”
His best friend and the love of his life.
What was she touching? Did she always thought about Steve and his body? Did she always fake liking Bucky’s body?
Inside, laughter erupted again and Y/N’s voice rang out like a bell. “…time for Sergeant Barnes to get honorably discharged… from my life.”
Another round of cheers.
Bucky swallowed hard, the sound deafening in his own ears. Then, because he was still Bucky Barnes and former Winter Soldier and man of pride and principles, he pushed the door open.
The laughter died down in slow motion.
Steve’s face twisted first in a wince.
Tony? Not even a flinch.
Natasha didn’t blink.
Sam smiled like he’d been waiting for this.
Y/N turned her head lazily and looked him dead in the eyes. “Oh, hey.” She said as if Bucky’s world wasn’t collapsed. She stood up from Steve’s lap, sitting at her old spot.
Bucky’s voice was low, tight. “I heard what you said… and saw what you two were doing…” he pointed at her and Steve.
Tony sipped his drink. “Yeah, funny how sound works when the door’s half open. And that little show… was very exciting… maybe too much for you, old man…”
Bucky’s jaw clenched. “You all really feel that way?”
“Pretty much,” Sam said overlapping Y/N’s voice, unfazed. “Been biting my tongue for like a year. My dentist thanks you.”
Y/N stood up, arms crossed but relaxed.
Her expression? Unbothered, almost relieved.
“Honestly if you’re surprised… that’s half of the problem.”
Bucky looked at Steve, hoping for something but he looked anywhere but at him. It wasn’t shame or panic, Steve was happy. Relieved. Definitely excited, noticing the tent in his pants. He didn’t even try to hide it. Y/N noticed where Bucky was looking and looked herself too. She smiled at Steve, licking her lips.
Was he waiting this moment? Was he already ready to steal Y/N?
“I’m not trying to humiliate you,” Y/N said, calmly. “But I am done pretending I’m happy. I’m not your therapist nor your shadow… or your 40s emotional support blanket.” She snort lightly.
Everyone in the room didn’t even try to hide the snorts and the laughs.
“Buck, listen…” Y/N started.
It was his favorite way of being called. Now it sounded like an insult.
“I’m sure you heard even about me not liking you… psychically… I’m sorry but I’m trying to stay in shape for you and you literally stopped working out.”
“That’s not true,” Bucky tried to argue, fighting the tears he was trying to hold back.
Bucky’s brows pulled together, wounded and confused. “I… I thought we were working through it.”
“You were brooding through it,” Nat cut in. “There’s a difference.”
Tony stood and walked over, clapping a hand on Bucky’s shoulder with fake sympathy. “She’s too young… hot,” Tony said looking at Y/N deeply. He then turned back to Bucky. “Emotionally stable for this mess, my guy. Be happy she didn’t ghost you in Morse code.”
God even Tony wanted her.
Sam chuckled. “And hey…maybe now you’ll finally stop hovering behind her like a sad knife salesman.”
Y/N tilted her head. “I wish you the best, Bucky. I really do. But this energy?” She gestures vaguely at his entire vibe. “You can keep it. I’m not the type of girl happy with books and small talk. I don’t even remember the last time we went to a party.”
Bucky stood there, humiliated, but for once he didn’t argue because deep down he knew they weren’t lying.
Without another word, he turned and walked out.
Nat looked at Y/N. “You okay?”
“Better than okay,” she said, sitting back down. “I feel like I just took out the emotional trash.”
Tony raised a toast with his smoothie. “To fresh starts and men who don’t trauma-dump like it’s a personality.”
“Amen… and may your next man know how to hold a conversation without a five-second dramatic pause between each word.” Sam added.
They all clinked glasses, smirking.
Y/N leaned back with a satisfied sigh. “God, I should’ve done this months ago.” She then turned to Steve again. “C’mon Captain… we have place to be…”
“Right behind you,” he answered giving her ass a long and deep look.
Bucky was still in the hallway when he saw his best friend and girlfriend kissing and touching and running to the elevator.
“Noooooo…” He yelled.
Bucky sat up in bed, chest heaving. Sweat clung to his skin, hair damp at the temples. His heart was racing like he’d just come off the battlefield.
The dream had felt too real.
The laughter.
The pity.
Y/N’s voice cold, final.
His hands trembled as he looked around.
No Avengers tower.
No roasting session.
No Y/N walking away with that blank, done look in her eyes.
No kissing his best friend, running to a room to have sex.
Then he heard some soft clinking, the hum of the coffee maker like a distant but comforting shuffle of someone padding around barefoot.
She was still here. In their home. The home they bought together. The home where they cook together even tho Y/N is a better cooker than him. The home with the little balcony where Y/N almost cry seeing it and imagining her slow morning outside with him and a cup of coffee.
“Imagine us here, having breakfast while it’s raining.” She said with a dreamy look when the real estate agent left them to have a look.
Bucky would have bought even a tent if she asked.
He threw the covers off, heart stuttering in his chest. He walked, no ran, down the hall and past the living room into the soft morning light pouring from the kitchen.
And there she was.
Standing near the counter, elbow resting on it. Bare legs, his dark red Henley that hung off one shoulder. Hair slightly messy from sleep, a mug cradled in the arm on the counter and phone in the other. She stood on one leg, like a flamingo.
Calm. Unbothered. Safe.
She didn’t even notice him right away but Bucky saw her like he hadn’t in weeks. Like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground.
Without thinking, he dropped to his knees in front of her, arms wrapping around her leg as if anchoring himself to her presence.
“Please don’t leave,” he whispered, voice cracking. “I know I’m not easy to deal with… I know I shut down and I push you away. But I’m trying, doll. I’m really trying.”
Y/N blinked, caught off guard. Her coffee spilled a little in her hand. She looked down, gently placing her phone and mug beside her. She lowered her other leg too on the floor.
“Bucky?”
He buried his face against her thighs, holding her tighter like she might disappear. His voice was barely a breath now. She was trying to balance herself, but Bucky’s strength held her wobbling.
Y/N froze. Her brain playing catch-up. “Bucky… what are you talking about?”
He held her tighter, almost desperately, like she might vanish if he let go.
“You said you weren’t sure anymore. That you wanted to break up. That everyone agreed I wasn’t good for you. That I was too much… and you were kissing Steve… but it’s okay I can accept it….” He choked on the words, breath hitching. “Tony told you to dump me. Steve didn’t even stop you. You called me exhausting and said dating me was like doing taxes. I…” he shook his head violently. “I heard it. All of it. I was right there.”
Her brows knit in confusion, her heart pounding.
“Buck, what are you talking about? That never happened.”
His eyes, red and frantic, looked up at her.
“It did. In the common room. You were sitting with them and laughing about me. Like I was some… pathetic joke. Then you were on Steve’s lap and when I got out you both were running upstairs… for sex…” He cried more, and tighten her legs harder.
She blinked hard, realization dawning like the slow lift of a heavy curtain.
“Wait… did you dream that?”
His silence was answer enough. He looked down, ashamed and panicked, like he was losing his grip on reality and her at the same time. He were now realizing it was a dream.
“I thought it was real,” he whispered. “It felt so real and I couldn’t breathe. I could hear your voice saying I was a burden. And I couldn’t stop it.”
Y/N stared at him, her breath caught in her throat.
He looked wrecked.
She slowly untangled from his arms and slid on the floor kneeling in front of him, hands on his face, forcing him to look at her.
“Bucky. Baby, that wasn’t real. I never said any of that.”
“But you could,” he croaked. “You should. You’re patient and warm and normal… and I come with a goddamn instruction manual no one should have to read.”
Her eyes softened. “Do you really think I’d sit there with our colleagues and tear you down behind your back?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “Sometimes I think… I’m so much to carry. That it’s only a matter of time before you decide to drop me.”
That broke her. Not in the way that shattered, but in the way that made her fiercely protective.
“James Buchanan Barnes, look at me.”
He hesitated.
“Look at me.” She repeated firmly.
His eyes finally locked onto hers.
“I chose you with my eyes open. I know what I signed up for. You have trauma. So do I. But I don’t need you to be perfect. I need you to be honest with me when your mind turns against you like this.”
He swallowed, nodding, lashes wet.
“You’re allowed to be scared,” she added, voice gentler now.
Bucky let out a broken breath. “I just… I woke up and couldn’t tell what was real. I thought I already lost you.”
She leaned forward and kissed him slow, deep, grounding.
“You didn’t lose me. You’re not going to. Got it?”
He nodded again, forehead pressing to hers.
“Got it. I just… I love you. So damn much. Too much, maybe.”
She smiled, cupping his cheeks. “There’s no such thing as too much love. We just learn how to hold it better. Together.”
The warmth between them had settled now. The quiet wasn’t awkward, it was the kind of silence that felt like safety. He sat on the floor, back against the counter. Y/N was in between his legs. Caged and safe.
Bucky looked down at her, his thumb brushing softly over the fabric of his Henley she was wearing. His voice, when it came, was hesitant… like he already knew the answer, but the dream had rattled loose old ghosts he couldn’t quite shake.
“Doll?” He asked, voice low. “Do you like my body?”
“Excuse me? What kind of question is that? Of course I like your body. I fucking love it.”
Bucky snorted, but she read him like a book. “Why?”
“You said… you weren’t attracted anymore basically. I’m not lean or fit as I used to be… I’m not Steve…”
“Thank god I’d say.” She laughed.
“W-what?” Bucky asked confused.
“Oh don’t get me wrong… I know he’s your buddy but…”
“But?” He asked propping himself up.
She fully turned into his legs, looking at him. “Listen, I love Steve truly. He’s a great Captain America and a terrific friend,” she said and Bucky got calm after hearing Steve and love in the same sentence. “But… he’s too obsessed with gym and healthy food. He’s great but if I have to listen another hour long rant about how us modern people should be grateful for the fibers and the veggies… I’d crumble,” she laughed a little.
Bucky was astonished. He looked at her, and kiss her.
Deeply and consuming and fiercely.
“Uhh… yeah okay… what was the question again?” She asked a little breathless. “Did you dream it, right…” She thought back at some minutes ago when Bucky arrived in the kitchen panicking. “Buck I love you. I love you body. I love your eyes. I love your persona. I love everything about you. Please never forget this. Please.” She leaned in and kissed him again.
He grunted in the kiss, and held her tight. She knelt better in the middle of his legs, then lifted a leg right after the other one. She was now straddling his lap.
“Wait…” Bucky stopped her. “In the dream… you were like this…”
She lowered herself until his ear. “Let me change that, Sargent.”
He took a deep breathe and nodded.
Y/N kissed his neck, along with his jawline and cheek. Once her lips were touching his, she devoured him. She gripped his hair, a strong fist behind his head. Bucky moaned into the kiss and circled his arms around her waist. She began stroking him, moving her hips up and down and back and forth. She was feeling her muscle of him contract and she bit his lobe.
“Doll… god you know what that does to me,”
“That’s why I’m doing it.”
She continued her slow but surely effective dancing on him. He wasn’t even trying to hide his growing length. She felt him hardening under her and snatched a hand into his boxer. She gripped his cock and began to stroking him. Thumb circling his tip.
“Look at me, Buck.”
“Won’t last…”
“Look. At. Me.” She ordered.
He of course complied.
She looked at him and he looked at her. Her hand doing nothing but giving him pleasure. She removed for a second her fingers from him and he grunted. She licked her palms and got back to action. Bucky could have swore his heart stopped.
“Doll… I’m coming… please faster…”
“At your command, Sargent.”
She moved around him faster, sliding her hand from the bottom to the tip. Her other hand, the free one, slid on his chest. On his heart. She felt it and he covered her hand with his. He came looking straight into her eyes.
After some time, you were once more between his legs. He calmed himself and his breathe.
“Would you switch it?” He asked, eyes locked on hers. “The quiet life. Me. All of this. Would you trade it to go back to how things were before me?”
Y/N blinked, startled for a moment not by the question but by the doubt still lingering behind it. Then her lips curled up in a knowing smile. “Bucky. Do you remember how I even got you to talk to me the first time?”
He furrowed his brows slightly, lips quirking. “You asked me something about Dostoevsky?”
She grinned wider, tapping his chest. “I asked you to join my book club because I had a massive painfully obvious and I’d say embarrassingly loud crush on you. I made up a whole excuse just to sit next to you and talk about tragic Russian men and sad metaphors.”
His brows lifted in amused disbelief. “You did not make that up.”
She tilted her head. “Okay the book club was real but the sudden interest in nineteenth-century Russian literature? Yeah, that was all you, Barnes.”
He chuckled softly, forehead pressing to hers again.
“Yeah, I know. But… you used to party. You had a whole life. Friends. Noise. Nights out. I just… don’t want to be the reason you feel like you settled.”
Y/N’s gaze softened immediately. Her hands came to frame his face, her thumbs tracing the edge of his cheekbones.
“Bucky. I didn’t settle. I chose and I keep choosing.”
She leaned closer, her voice warm and certain.
“It was fun, sure but none of that ever made me feel whole. None of that made me feel seen. I was just another girl in a room full of people trying not to feel alone.”
He swallowed, jaw tight.
“And now?”
She kissed the tip of his nose then his lips slow, like she was answering with every heartbeat.
“Now, I wake up next to a man who knows all the things I don’t say. Who listens when I talk about books no one else cares about. Who holds me when I have nightmares and folds my socks in pairs. This life, Buck? This is the one I dreamed about when I didn’t even know I was allowed to want it.”
Bucky’s eyes glistened and for a moment, he looked so young and hopeful.
“So… no champagne towers and thumping bass?”
She laughed, brushing her nose against his.
“I’d take burnt pancakes and a slow morning with you over any rooftop party. Every damn time.”
His smile bloomed quietly, a little stunned, like he still couldn’t believe he got to keep this.
“Then I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered.
“Good,” she replied, curling her fingers into his hair. “Because I’m never letting you go.”
And just like that, the ghost of the dream faded away replaced with real warmth, real love, and the kind of quiet you only find when you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.
Summary : Bucky’s a little in love with you. He’s also a little scared of admitting it. In the meantime, he’ll let you fall asleep on his shoulders.
Pairing : New Avengers!Bucky Barnes x New Avengers!reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : Tower fic!!! Food. Just two oblivious people crushing on each other. Post-mission talk, brief mention of reader's past. Set after Thunderbolts* (Let me know if I missed anything!)
Word count : 2.6k
Note : Sorry for not posting for a while, I’ve been so busy, but enjoy!
The mission had gone fine.
There were no casualties, only minimal damage, and the target was secured. It was just one of those missions that got filed quickly and forgotten even faster.
But missions were never just fine, at least not really. They clung to you by the gunpowder in your clothes, adrenaline under your skin, and the faint tremor in your hands you can’t seem to get rid off.
Which was probably why neither you nor Bucky had gone to your rooms.
Instead, you ended up in the kitchen.
At… whatever time it was. 12AM? Maybe 12.30. Either way, it was late enough that the compound had gone eerily quiet. The lights were dimmed and the world narrowed down to the hum of the refrigerator and the buzz of the overhead lamp.
Bucky set the Chinese takeaway bag on the counter like it was precious cargo. “Got you your favourite.”
“You didn’t have to,” you said, leaning back against the opposite counter, arms loosely crossed. Your voice was softer than usual, and Bucky took note of that.
He shrugged, already pulling containers out. “You forgot to eat before the mission.”
You rolled your eyes, but there was no aggression behind it. “I had a protein bar.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“It does if I say it does.”
Bucky glanced at you, the corner of his mouth tugging up. “Yeah, well. You’d say anything counts if it means you don’t have to admit you’re wrong.”
You huffed out an amused laugh.
There it was, that comfortable rapport you and Bucky got going on. It always came there, no matter how the mission went. It was… nice, for lack of a better word.
He slid one of the containers toward you without asking.
Your favorite, the wonton soup.
Of course it was.
You looked down at it, then back up at him. “You remembered.”
He didn’t look at you this time, focusing instead on unwrapping his own food. “You order the same thing every time.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“It’s not,” you insisted, but your voice had gone softer again, almost thoughtful. “Sometimes I get the other thing.”
“What? The egg drop soup?” Bucky finally glanced up, lifting an eyebrow. “You complain about it every time you get it and say you should’ve gotten this instead.”
You paused. He did have a point.
His mouth twitched up again only barely, like he was trying not to let himself smile too much.
And then, because you couldn’t help yourself, you smiled too.
You both settled around the small coffee table on the corner of the room, the one that was technically too small for two people but somehow always ended up being shared anyway.
Bucky leaned back slightly in his chair, stretching one arm along the backrest beside him. The metal of his other hand rested on the table, fingers tapping once, then twice.
“You did good today,” you said after a moment, stirring at your soup more than actually eating it.
“So did you.”
“I almost missed that shot.”
“You didn’t.”
“Almost.”
“Doesn’t count.”
You huffed softly, glancing up at him. “Right,” you muttered, looking back down, even though you could still feel his eyes on you.
A moment passed in silence, until it was too uncomfortable for either of you to bear.
“You didn’t have to—” you started again, nodding toward the food, like you needed to circle back to a safer topic. “—do this.”
Bucky leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on the table now.“It’s just food.”
“It’s not just food,” you took a bite full of wonton, then swallowed, “and you know it.”
He did. He could’ve just heated up frozen pizza. Or put on some fries in the new air fryer Val got. Instead, he went through all the effort to get you your favourite takeout.
He shrugged, “You were running on empty.”
You laughed, almost in disbelief. “That’s not your problem.”
Bucky can only smile. “Yeah,” he said, “I know.”
You looked up again, and he was already looking at you.
And for a second it felt like something that had been brewing between you for months might actually be said. It’s almost as if one wrong move might break it, or fix it, or—
You nudged his foot lightly under the table.
“Eat your food, Barnes,” you said, gentler now, but with that teasing edge still. “You’re gonna get all grumpy if you don’t.”
He tilted his head. “Already grumpy.”
“No, you’re not.” You nudged him again. “Not when you’re with me.”
You didn’t even know what you meant by that, but he didn’t move his foot away.
Instead, his eyes dropped briefly to where your feet touched under the table, then back up to your face.
“You worry too much,” he said.
You nodded your head. “Someone has to.”
Bucky let out a huff, almost like a laugh.
By the time the food was gone, neither of you had moved much.
Your containers sat empty, pushed off to the side. The common room had gone quieter, if that was even possible.
Bucky was still leaning back in his chair, one arm hooked over the back, the other resting on the table.
It was getting late. You should go to bed. You didn’t, though.
Bucky cleared his throat. “Uh—”
You looked up.
He was already looking at you, but the second your eyes met, his gaze flicked away, suddenly shy. His fingers tapped once against the table.
“You, uh…” He shifted slightly in his chair. “You wanna watch a movie or something?”
The words came out a little too nervous to be casual. It was like he was aiming for easy and landed just shy of it.
“Okay,” you said.
His shoulders dropped just a fraction.“Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
“Okay,” he repeated, like he needed to hear it twice.
—
That was how you ended up on the couch.
The TV lit up the room in soft blue light as the menu screen flickered to life.
Bucky handed you the remote. “Your pick.”
You narrowed your eyes at him. “That’s a trap.”
“It’s not a trap.”
“If I pick something bad, you’re gonna judge me.”
“I don’t—” he started, then paused. “I don’t judge.”
You just looked at him.
He sighed. “…Okay, I judge a little.”
“Exactly.”
You turned your attention back to the screen, scrolling through options.
Rows of movies passed by. You hovered over one— Hachiko, a dog movie.
Bucky leaned slightly closer to see. “…No. The book is better.”
You turned to him. “I didn’t even pick it yet.”
“You were thinking about it.”
You scoffed. “You don’t know my thought process.”
“I do.”
“Oh, do you?”
“Yeah,” he said, a little too confidently. “You pick something sad, then pretend you’re ‘fine’ the whole time.”
“I am fine.”
“You cried at that other dog movie.”
“Airbud was emotional!”
“The dog was fine at the end.”
“That’s not the point!”
Bucky chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re not picking that.”
“Oh, so now I don’t get to pick at all?”
“You can pick,” he said, gesturing toward the screen. “Just not that.”
You stared at him for a second, then hovered over it again just to get on his nerves.
Bucky leaned forward instantly. “Don’t.”
You grinned, pretending to press the button dramatically.
“Don’t.”
You clicked away at the last second, satisfied.
“Wow,” he muttered. “Real mature.”
“Thank you.”
You kept scrolling and paused over one of the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies.
Bucky leaned in to you, close enough that you could feel his warmth, the brush of his arm against yours.
“Are you kidding?” he said.
“You didn’t even read which one it was!”
“I don’t need to,” he said stubbornly, “the books are better.”
“You’re fucking impossible, old man,” you said, faking an annoyance.
“You have terrible taste.” He didn’t really mean it.
You sunk back on the couch. “Whatever.”
Five minutes later, you were still scrolling.
Five minutes turned to ten minutes. Then fifteen.
Lego Movie? Pass. Lego Batman? Pass. Alien? Meh. Predator. Seen that too many times.
“This is getting ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath.
“You keep vetoing everything,” you shook your head.
“Everything you pick is concerning.”
You turned to him. “You suggested a documentary about trains last time.”
“It was interesting.”
“It was two hours of trains, Bucky.”
“They were different trains.”
You stared at him. He stared back.
“I’m not watching that again.”
“Your loss.”
You rolled your eyes, then kept scrolling to another row… another..
And then—
You stopped.
You slowly turned your head toward him.
“No,” you both said, in perfect sync, though neither sounded convinced.
You looked back at the screen, before looking back at each other.
“Okay, but…” you started.
“It’s a stupid choice to make,” he said.
“I know.”
“It’s really stupid. We could do better”
“I know.”
Then, quieter, like he was giving in despite himself, he broke the silence. “…You wanna watch it?”
Your smile spread immediately. “Yeah.”
He huffed. You pressed it and the movie started.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.
Sam had made him watch the first one after all. He had pretended not to like it, but it became one of his guilty pleasures.
It wasn’t longer before you slapped a hand over your mouth after you snorted at a scene. “I’m sorry.”
Bucky shook his head, already smiling. “No, no. it’s—”
Another ridiculous scene played, and you both lost it.
At one point, you leaned into him without thinking, your shoulder pressing fully against his as you laughed.
Bucky froze for half a second, before relaxing into it.
His arm shifted slightly, not quite around you, but close. Close enough that if either of you moved just a little more…
But neither of you did.
The movie played on, ridiculous and dumb and perfect in a way neither of you would admit out loud.
—
The movie had been playing for, what— thirty minutes? Maybe forty.
Bucky couldn’t tell anymore, because he was now frozen.
Just two minutes ago, he was laughing at a corny joke saying something stupid about segways, when he realised you weren’t answering.
He looked to the side and saw that you were leaning on his human shoulders.
He hadn’t dared move, hadn’t even trusted himself to breathe normally. He was hyper-aware of everything: the warmth of being so close to you, the weight leaning into his arm, the faint scent of oil you couldn’t quite get out of your hair. Every nerve in his body felt like it had been switched on at once.
Your head tipped.
And before he could even process it, before he could decide whether to panic or not… his mind supplied helpfully, that you were asleep.
You were asleep on him.
Bucky stared straight ahead at the TV like it might detonate if he looked away.
Okay.
Okay, this was fine.
An adorably small exhale left you, and your head slid just slightly more onto his shoulder, settling there.
There was a very important decision to make here.
He could wake you.
That would be the normal thing to do. It was the reasonable thing to do. He should gently nudge you, say your name, pretend his heart wasn’t currently trying to punch its way out of his chest.
Or…
He glanced down, carefully.
Your cheek was pressed against his shoulder, your face relaxed in sleep. You were peaceful. Comfortable. With him.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew your past and the mental toll that came with it. He knew you were paranoid and hyper vigilant— you told him that yourself. Once, you even told him people made you uncomfortable and uneasy.
But evidently, not him.
His throat went dry.
Or… he could not wake you.
Bucky reached very, very carefully for the remote and paused the movie. The screen froze mid-scene, some convention that Blart was currently attending in the background.
He set the remote aside like it might make noise if he wasn’t cautious enough.
And then he stayed. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe in too deep. And he didn’t even dare adjust his human arm, even though it was already starting to go a little numb.
At some point, your breathing evened out into that steady rhythm of deep sleep. You shifted slightly, and Bucky tensed, worried you’d wake, but instead you just settled more comfortably against him.
Your lips parted just a little.
Aaaand you were definitely drooling on him.
Bucky still did not move. If anything, his shoulders somehow squared further, like he was bracing himself against the concept of ever disturbing you.
Time passed, and Bucky didn’t even check the clock. His arm had long since gone numb, pins and needles creeping down into his fingers, but he refused to shift even an inch.
This was fine. He’d survived worse with Hydra, cryo, decades of nightmares… He could surely survive being a human pillow.
The door whooshed open at around 3 AM.
Bucky didn’t react. It wasn't unusual for one of the team members to get hungry and raid the kitchen before everyone else was awake.
“Hey, Buck…” Bob’s voice cut off mid-sentence. “…What are you doing?”
Bucky stared straight ahead at the frozen TV screen. “Watching a movie.”
Bob walked further into the room.“The movie is paused.”
“We’re uh… taking a break.” Bucky was obviously trying to whispers
Bob looked between the TV and you.
Then he looked back at Bucky, sitting ramrod straight like a statue, arm clearly trapped but making absolutely no attempt to fix it.
Bob raised an eyebrow. “How long have you been…?”
Bucky hesitated. “Not long.”
Bob glanced at the clock, knowing you came back from the mission little less than four hours ago.. “Are you sure?”
“Maybe an hour,” Bucky gulped.
Bob just chuckled. “You’ve been sitting there, not moving… For an hour.”
Bucky said nothing.
“Your arm is literally dead, isn’t it?”
“I can’t feel my fingers.” He admitted dryly.
“And you’re just… okay with that,” Bob tilted his head curiously.
“Yeah.”
Bob let out a small innocent laugh, reaching for sweets in the jar on the table behind them. Bob knew Bucky, and he knew you. He knew that Bucky was very particular about his personal space, and he hated the invasion of it. This, however, was less of an invasion and more of a please come into my space and stay there forever. “Have you tried telling her you’re in love with her?” He suggested, trying to be helpful.
Bucky’s head snapped toward him so fast it was almost alarming. “I’m not—”
Note I love soft Bucky who does things like, secretly. I love him in love. Plus, I know he's a nerd and loves technology but I like to think phones stress him so much. This has a very short smut scene so please, remember that.
The first time Bucky Barnes asked you for help with his phone, he looked like a man about to be executed.
It was three months into your relationship—if you could call it that, back then. You were still in that floaty, uncertain space where every text felt loaded and every accidental brush of fingers sent your heart skittering. He'd shown up at your apartment door with his jaw set, shoulders tense, and the Stark-issued smartphone held out in front of him like a dead fish.
“I need you to do something,” he'd said, flat and miserable.
You'd blinked at him. “Okay. Are you okay?”
“No.” He shoved the phone into your hands. “The screen changed. I don't know how. I can't make it go back. I've been trying for three hours.”
You'd looked down at the screen. It was, inexplicably, set to a photo of a cat wearing a tiny sombrero. You had no idea where it had come from, and you were absolutely certain Bucky didn't either. You'd bitten the inside of your cheek so hard you tasted blood, because if you laughed, he would leave. You knew him well enough by then to know that.
“Okay,” you'd said, very seriously. “This is an easy fix. Come sit down.”
He'd sat on your couch like a soldier awaiting orders, knees apart, hands resting on his thighs, watching your every move with the kind of laser focus he usually reserved for potential threats. You'd talked him through it slowly—settings, wallpaper, choose a new photo—and when you'd handed the phone back to him with a plain black screen, he'd let out a breath like you'd just defused a bomb.
“Thank you,” he'd said, quiet and gruff. And then, after a long pause: “I hate this thing.”
“I know,” you'd said. “Do you want me to show you again? So you can do it yourself next time?”
He'd looked at you for a long moment. Something soft had passed over his face, there and gone like a shadow. “Yeah,” he'd said. “Okay.”
That was the beginning of it. The thing between you. Not love, not yet—but the roots of it, pushing down through the dark soil of his reluctance and your patience, twining together until you couldn't tell where one stopped and the other started.
Eight months later, Bucky Barnes still hated technology. He just hated it a little less when you were involved.
He had a laptop now—a basic one, nothing fancy, because he'd refused to let you buy him anything expensive. He used it for emails badly, for video calls with the team reluctantly, and for watching old movies... his secret pleasure, though he'd never admit it. He had a tablet that was gathering dust on his nightstand because he kept forgetting to charge it. He had a smart TV in his apartment that he operated exclusively via the physical buttons on the side because the remote had too many options and he didn't trust anything that listened to him.
But his phone—that, he used. Mostly for you.
You texted him throughout the day. Silly things. Photos of your lunch, a weird cloud you saw on your walk, a meme that made you think of him. He didn't always respond, but he always read them. You knew because sometimes he'd show up at your door with the exact snack you'd mentioned craving, or he'd look up at the sky and say, "That's the cloud?" like it was personally offensive to him.
And you called him. Every night, before bed. Not long calls—neither of you were talkers, not in that way—but there was something about hearing his voice, low and rough through the speaker, that made the distance between your apartments feel smaller. He'd tell you about his day in short, clipped sentences, and you'd fill in the gaps with your own rambling stories, and somewhere in the middle of it, he'd start to relax. You could hear it in his breathing. The way it slowed. The way he stopped holding himself so tight.
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” he'd say at the end, every time, and you'd curl around your phone like it was him.
You never told him that. It would have embarrassed him. And Bucky Barnes, you were learning, was a man who carried enough embarrassment already—for the things he'd done, the things he didn't understand, the way the world kept spinning and leaving him behind. You weren't going to add to it.
So you helped him when he asked. You showed him how to clear his notifications, how to download a podcast, how to mute a group chat that Sam had added him to against his will. You never made him feel stupid. You never sighed or rolled your eyes. You just took his hand and placed it over the screen, and guided his fingers where they needed to go.
“See?” you'd say. “You're doing it. You're fine.”
And he'd look at you like you'd given him something precious. Something he didn't have a name for.
Bucky was alone in his apartment. You'd gone to bed early—a headache, you'd texted, nothing serious, just need to sleep it off. He'd called you anyway, just to hear your voice, and you'd sounded tired but sweet, and he'd told you to drink water and take something and text him when you woke up. You'd promised you would. And then the line had gone dead, and his apartment had felt too big and too quiet all at once.
He sat on his couch for a while, not doing anything. Just sitting. His phone was still in his hand and the screen was dark, and he was thinking about you.
He did that a lot lately. Thought about you. It was annoying, honestly. He'd spent decades learning how to be still, how to empty his mind, how to exist in the space between missions without wanting anything. And then you'd come along with your soft hands and your patient voice and your habit of leaving your tea mugs everywhere, and now he couldn't stop wanting. Wanting to see you. Wanting to hear you. Wanting to touch you.
He looked down at his phone. The lock screen was still that plain black wallpaper he'd set months ago, the one you'd helped him choose. Functional. Boring. Safe.
He pressed the side button. The screen lit up, and he was confronted with his own reflection—faint, ghostly, superimposed over the black. He looked tired. He always looked tired.
He thought about your face.
He had photos of you on his phone. You'd taken them yourself, mostly, or sent them to him from your own camera roll. There was one of you at a farmer's market, holding up a ridiculously large zucchini like a trophy. There was one of you asleep on his couch, mouth slightly open, hair everywhere, a throw pillow clutched to your chest. There was one you'd taken in the mirror of his bathroom, making a silly face, and he'd looked at it so many times that he'd accidentally memorized every pixel.
He wanted to see your face when he woke up.
Not just in his mind. Not just in the hazy space between dreaming and waking, where you were always just out of reach. He wanted to press a button and have you there, looking back at him, telling him without words that the day was worth facing.
He opened his settings.
It took him a long time. Longer than it should have. He had to backtrack twice, had to Google something (which he hated doing, because the internet assumed he knew more than he did), had to sit with his frustration and breathe through it the way his therapist had taught him. But he didn't give up. He kept going, one clumsy thumb-press at a time, because this was for you. This was about you. And you never gave up on him.
Finally—finally—he found it. Wallpaper. Lock screen. Choose photo.
His heart was beating too fast. That was stupid. It was just a phone. It was just a picture. But his hands were shaking as he scrolled through his camera roll, past the blurry shots of nothing, past the screenshots of things you'd sent him, until he found the one he wanted.
It was a photo you'd taken of yourself. Just your face, close to the lens, soft smile, eyes crinkled at the corners. You were wearing his hoodie—the gray one, the one that smelled like him—and your hair was messy, and there was a smudge of something on your cheek. You'd sent it to him with no caption, just the photo, and he'd stared at it for ten minutes straight before he'd remembered to breathe.
He selected it. Adjusted the crop so your face was centered, so you'd be the first thing he saw every time he woke his phone. Saved it. Locked the screen. Pressed the button.
There you were.
He stared at you for a long time. Your smile. Your eyes. The way you looked at him even in a photo, like he was someone worth looking at. His chest ached. It was a good ache, mostly. The kind that meant something had settled into place.
He didn't text you. It was late, and you were asleep, and your headache was probably gone by now but he didn't want to risk waking you. He just looked at your face one more time, then set his phone on the coffee table and went to bed.
For the first time in a very long time, he didn't dream of falling.
He forgot about it.
Not the photo—he didn't forget about that. He saw it every time he checked his phone, and every time, something warm and private unfurled in his chest. But he forgot that other people might see it. That other people might notice. He'd been so focused on the act of doing it himself, on the small victory of figuring it out without your help, that he hadn't considered the consequences.
The consequences, as it turned out, had a name. Sam Wilson.
It was three days later. Bucky was at the compound, which he hated, sitting in the common room, which he hated more, waiting for a briefing that had been delayed because someone—probably Sam—had lost a file. And he "hated" him even more because of that. He was scrolling through his phone, not really paying attention, when Sam dropped onto the couch next to him with all the grace of a falling piano.
“Hey, man. Have you seen the—” Sam stopped. Looked at Bucky's phone. Looked at Bucky. Looked at the phone again.
Bucky looked down. Your face was smiling up at him, soft and happy and completely unmistakable.
“Barnes,” Sam said slowly. “Is that—”
“No,” Bucky said, too fast.
“I didn't even say anything.”
“It's not what you think.”
“Bucky. Your lock screen is a picture of your girlfriend.”
Bucky locked his phone. Shoved it in his pocket. Stared straight ahead at the wall, which was beige and boring and mercifully free of Sam's smug face.
“That's adorable,” Sam said. “That's genuinely, genuinely adorable. I'm going to tell everyone.”
“You're not going to tell anyone.”
“Yelena is going to lose her mind.”
“Sam.”
“You know how much she adores your woman. She's going to frame it. She's going to make it her own lock screen. She's going to—”
Bucky turned his head. His expression was flat, unreadable, the kind of look that had made men in the forties cross the street to avoid him. “I will throw you off this roof.”
“You won't,” Sam said, entirely unbothered. “You like me too much.”
“I don't like you at all.”
“You changed your lock screen, man. By yourself. For a woman. That's growth. That's character development. I'm proud of you.”
Bucky's jaw tightened. He could feel heat creeping up the back of his neck, and he hated it, hated the way Sam could see right through him, hated that this small private thing was no longer private. He'd wanted to keep it. Just for himself. Just for you. The knowledge that he'd done it alone, that he'd pushed through his frustration and his shame and his fear of looking stupid, and he'd figured it out, and now your face was there every time he woke his phone, telling him without words that he was capable. That he could learn. That he wasn't broken.
And now Sam was going to turn it into a joke.
“Leave it alone,” Bucky said quietly.
Something in his voice must have shifted, because Sam's expression changed. The teasing didn't disappear entirely—it never did, with Sam—but it softened at the edges. He leaned back against the couch and let out a long breath.
“I'm just messing with you,” he said. “It's cool. It's good. She's good for you.”
Bucky didn't say anything.
“I mean it,” Sam said. “You actually smiled the other day. Like, a real smile. I almost called a doctor.”
“I smile.”
“You grimace. There's a difference.”
Bucky snorted despite himself. “I smile when you're not around. You irritate me.” Sam grinned, and the tension in the room cracked, just a little. They sat in silence for a moment, the way they sometimes did—two men who'd been through too much to need words all the time.
“She doesn't know,” Bucky said finally.
“Know what?”
“That I did it myself. She always helps me with the phone stuff. She doesn't... she doesn't know I figured this one out.”
Sam looked at him. Really looked. “So tell her.”
“It's stupid.”
“It's not stupid. It's sweet. It's stupidly sweet. But it's not stupid.”
Bucky pulled his phone out of his pocket again. Unlocked it. Your face appeared, and he felt that same warm ache in his chest, the one he still didn't have a name for.
“Maybe,” he said.
Sam clapped him on the shoulder. “That's the spirit, Grandpa. Now come on, we've got a briefing. And try not to look at your phone during it, because I will call you out in front of everyone.”
Bucky stood up. Followed Sam toward the conference room. And if he happened to look at his phone one more time before he walked through the door—if he happened to trace the outline of your smile with his thumb, just for a second—well. That was nobody's business but his own.
You found out four hours later, because Yelena Belova had the emotional restraint of a caffeinated ferret and zero concept of privacy.
You were at your apartment, grading papers (you taught part-time at a community college, something Bucky still couldn't quite wrap his head around because you were so smart, why were you wasting your time on nineteen-year-olds who didn't do the reading?), when your phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
Unknown Number: Hello, Bucky's girlfriend. This is Yelena.
You stared at the message. Then, before you could respond, another one came through.
Unknown Number: I am texting you because Sam is a coward and will not give me your number. So I took it from his phone while he was in the bathroom.
Unknown Number: Do not tell him. It will be funny later.
You were already smiling. You'd met Yelena exactly twice, and both times she'd managed to steal something off your person without you noticing—a hair tie the first time, a pen the second. You liked her. She was terrifying in a way that felt almost familiar, like a cat who might let you pet her belly but might also shred your arm to ribbons.
You: Hi Yelena. What's up?
Yelena: I have information.
Yelena: Important information.
Yelena: About your boyfriend.
Your heart did a little skip. Not a bad skip—Bucky wasn't the type to keep bad secrets, at least not from you—but a curious one. You set down your red pen and gave the conversation your full attention.
You: What kind of information?
Yelena: He changed his lock screen.
You: Okay?
Yelena: To a picture of you.
You: ...oh.
Yelena: OH.
Yelena: That is all you have to say? "Oh"? I expected screaming. Or crying. Or at least a reaction of some kind.
You stared at your phone. Your face was warm. Your chest was warm. Everything was warm, actually, and you weren't entirely sure you were still breathing.
Bucky had changed his lock screen. By himself. To a picture of you.
Bucky, who got frustrated when his voicemail box was full. Bucky, who had once thrown his phone across the room because autocorrect changed 'okay' to 'leaky.' Bucky, who needed your help to download a PDF. That Bucky had sat down, alone, and figured out how to change his lock screen, and he'd chosen a photo of you.
You: Are you sure?
He really doesn't know how to use it.
You: Except for calls.
Yelena: I saw it with my own eyes. Sam saw it too. He is being very annoying about it. He keeps saying "character development" and I do not know what that means in this context but I assume it is teasing.
Yelena: I am not teasing. I am reporting facts. The facts are that your boyfriend is soft and in love and does not know how to hide it.
Yelena: It is disgusting. I love it.
You: He didn't tell me.
Yelena: Of course he didn't tell you. He is a man. They are idiots. You have to go to him and kiss him very hard and make him admit that he did it because he wants to see your face first thing in the morning.
Yelena: That is what I would do. If I had a boyfriend. Which I do not. Because men are idiots. People in general.
Yelena: Except you. I like you. Not like that but you're okay. Fuck, this is why I don't like the "relationships" thing.
Yelena: Anyways. Go. Now. I will track your phone to make sure you are going the right direction.
You laughed out loud. Your apartment was quiet around you, the last of the evening light slanting through the blinds, and you were supposed to be grading ten more papers before bed, and none of that mattered anymore.
You grabbed your keys. Your jacket. Your phone, which was already buzzing again with what looked like a map from Yelena—she'd actually sent you a map, with a highlighted route from your apartment to Bucky's, complete with little knife emojis marking potential shortcuts.
You: I'm going now. No need to tell me where he lives. I know that by memory.
Yelena: Good. Send me updates.
Yelena: Not the sexual ones. Just the emotional ones.
You: I'm not going to send you ANY updates.
Yelena: Fine. Be boring. But I will know anyway because I have access to all security cameras within a three-mile radius.
You weren't entirely sure she was joking.
Bucky's apartment was a fifteen-minute walk from yours. You made it in eleven, because you were practically jogging, because your heart was pounding and your palms were sweaty and you felt like you were sixteen again, giddy, idiotic and terrified and hopeful all at once.
You knocked on his door. Waited. Heard his footsteps—heavy, deliberate, the gait of a man who'd spent decades learning how to move silently and now didn't bother because he was home, because he was safe, because he was yours.
The door opened.
He was wearing a faded henley and sweatpants, his hair loose around his face, his vibranium arm catching the low light from the hallway. He looked tired. He looked beautiful. He looked confused.
“Hey, honey” he said. “Was gonna call you but... I thought you were grading—”
You kissed him.
It wasn't a gentle kiss. It wasn't the kind of kiss you usually gave him, soft and slow and careful, because he was still learning that he deserved softness. This was a kiss with teeth behind it, a kiss that said I know and I'm here and you did that for me all at once. You pushed him backward into the apartment, kicked the door shut behind you, and kept kissing him until his back hit the wall and his hands came up to your waist like he was trying to anchor himself.
“Sweetheart,” he breathed against your mouth. "Not that I hate this surprise but why—”
“You changed your lock screen,” you said.
He went very still.
“You changed your lock screen,” you said again, pulling back just enough to look at his face. His eyes were wide, his lips parted, and there was a flush creeping up his neck that made you want to bite him. “By yourself. To a picture of me.”
"Who told you?" he said flatly.
“Lena.”
“Of course it was Yelena.” He closed his eyes. Let his head fall back against the wall. “She texted you, didn't she? Since she got a phone she's been very into that thing, searching new things.”
“She sent me a map.”
“A map.”
"With some heart with fire and knife emojis."
He opened his eyes. Looked at you. And despite everything—despite the embarrassment and the frustration and the fact that his private little secret was now very much not private—the corner of his mouth twitched.
“I'm going to kill her.” he said.
“No, you're not.”
“I'm going to kill her and then I'm going to kill Sam and then I'm going to move to a country without Wiffy.”
“Wi-Fi, baby and no, you're not going to do any of those things.” You stepped closer, pressing your body against his, and his breath hitched. You could feel the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands were still hovering at your waist like he wasn't sure he was allowed to touch. “You're going to show me.”
“Show you... what?”
He asks and a small grin appears on his face.
“The lock screen. I want to see it.”
He stared at you for a long moment. Then, slowly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He didn't look at it as he handed it to you. He looked at you, watching your face, and there was something vulnerable in his expression—something raw and uncertain that made your chest ache.
You pressed the side button and the screen lit up. And there you were.
It was the photo you'd sent him weeks ago. The one in his hoodie, with the messy hair and the smudge on your cheek. You remembered taking it—you'd been half-asleep, curled up on his couch, and you'd pointed your phone at your face and smiled without thinking, because he'd just kissed your forehead and told you to stay the night, and you'd been so happy you thought you might burst.
You hadn't known he'd kept it.
You hadn't known he'd looked at it.
“Bucky,” you whispered.
“It's stupid,” he said quickly. “I know it's stupid. I just—I wanted to see you. When I wake up. Before I go to sleep. I wanted—”
You kissed him again. Softer this time. Slower. The kind of kiss that said everything you couldn't put into words, the kind that made him melt against you, the kind that made his hands finally settle on your hips, pulling you flush against him.
“It's not stupid,” you said, pulling back just far enough to speak. “It's the least stupid thing you've ever done.”
“I didn't ask for help,” he said. His voice was lower now, rougher. His thumbs were tracing circles on your hip bones through the fabric of your jeans. “I figured it out. On my own.”
“I know.” You smiled at him. Your eyes were stinging, which was ridiculous, but you didn't care. “I'm so proud of you.”
He made a sound. A small one, barely audible, like something had caught in his throat. And then he was kissing you again, harder this time, and his hands were no longer hesitant. They were everywhere—your hips, your back, sliding up under the hem of your shirt to press against the bare skin of your waist.
“Tell me,” he said against your neck, his voice rough. His teeth grazed your pulse point, not quite a bite, and you gasped. “Tell me again.”
“I'm proud of you,” you said, and he groaned, low and deep, his hips pressing into yours. You could feel him through his sweatpants, already half-hard, and the knowledge that you had done that, just by showing up, just by knowing, just by praising him, sent a thrill down your spine. “I'm so proud of you, Bucky. You did that. You learned something new. You did it for me.”
“Everything,” he said, and the word was muffled against your skin as he kissed a trail down your throat, across your collarbone, his hands sliding lower to grip the backs of your thighs. “I'd do everything for you.”
You pulled his face up so you could look at him. His eyes were dark, blown wide with want, his lips red from kissing, his hair falling over his forehead. He looked younger like this. Softer. Hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food.
“Show me how you did it,” you said.
“What?”
“The lock screen. Show me how you changed it. Walk me through it.”
He blinked at you, clearly thrown. “You already know how to change a lock screen.”
“I know. I want to watch you do it.”
Something shifted in his expression. Understanding, maybe. Or gratitude. Or love—that quiet, steady love that he still didn't know how to name but showed you every day, in every small thing he did. And beneath it, something else. Something hotter. Something that made his hands tighten on your hips.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “Okay. But not here.”
He took your hand and led you away from the wall, through the living room, toward his bedroom. You followed without hesitation, your heart pounding, your skin tingling where he'd touched you.
His bedroom was dark, lit only by the streetlight filtering through the blinds. His bed was unmade, the sheets rumpled, and there was a book on his nightstand that you'd recommended to him months ago, still marked about a third of the way through. He was trying. He was always trying.
He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled you down beside him. His thigh pressed against yours, solid and warm. He pulled out his phone. Unlocked it. And then, slowly, deliberately, he walked you through the steps.
“Settings,” he said, his thumb moving over the screen. His other hand rested on your thigh, high enough to make your breath catch. “Wallpaper. Add new wallpaper.” He glanced at you. “I had to Google that part.”
“You Googled it?”
“I didn't want to ask you. I wanted to do it myself.”
Your heart did something complicated in your chest. “And then?”
“And then I went to my photos. And I found the one I wanted.” He pulled up the photo and held the phone so you could see. His thumb traced the edge of the screen, right over your face. “I cropped it so you'd be centered. So I could see your face.”
“Bucky.”
“And then I saved it. And now...” He locked the screen. Pressed the button. Your face appeared, soft and smiling. He set the phone on the nightstand and turned to face you fully, his hand sliding higher on your thigh. “Now you're there, honey. Every time.”
You stared at the phone for a moment. At your own face, captured in a moment of unthinking happiness. At the way his hand rested on your leg, casual and possessive, like he was holding you even when he wasn't.
Then you looked at him. Really looked. At the man who had survived the unsurvivable, who had crawled through decades of darkness to end up here, on this bed, with his hand on your thigh and your face on his phone.
“I love you.” you said.
The words fell out of you. Unplanned. Unfiltered. You hadn't meant to say them yet—it felt too soon, or maybe too big, or maybe you were just scared of what would happen if you put that kind of weight into the world. But they were out now, hanging in the air between you, and you couldn't take them back.
Bucky went very still.
The phone was forgotten. The world was forgotten. His eyes were locked on your face, wide and dark and unreadable, and for one terrible moment you thought you'd made a mistake. That you'd pushed too far. That he wasn't ready.
Then his hand came up to your face. His flesh hand, warm and calloused, cupping your jaw like you were something precious. His thumb traced your lower lip, tugging it down just slightly, and he was looking at you like he'd never seen anything so beautiful in all his long, long life.
“Say it again,” he whispered.
“I love you.”
“I love you too. I love you so much.” The words came out rough, cracked at the edges, like they'd been buried for a long time and he was still digging them out. “God, sweetheart. I love you so much. I don't... I don't know how to do any of this. The phone stuff, the feelings stuff, any of it. The only thing I know is that I love you. And I want to learn. I want to learn everything, if you'll teach me.”
You kissed him. What else could you do, with your heart so full it felt like it might split open?
The kiss deepened. Slowed. Became something else entirely—something hungrier, needier, the kind of kiss that had hands wandering and breath hitching and clothes starting to shift. He pulled you into his lap, and you went willingly, straddling his thighs, wrapping your arms around his neck and threading your fingers through his hair.
“I want to show you,” he murmured against your mouth. His hands slid under your shirt, palms flat against the bare skin of your back, and you shivered. “How much. How much I love you.”
“Show me, please.” you said.
He started with your shirt.
Not fast. Not impatient. He pulled back just enough to look at you, his hands already at the hem, his eyes asking permission even though he didn't need to. You nodded—a small, breathless thing—and he lifted the fabric slowly, dragging it up over your stomach, your ribs, your chest. The air hit your skin and you shivered again, but not from cold. From the way he was looking at you. Like you were something holy.
The shirt came off over your head, and he tossed it somewhere behind him without looking. His hands came back to you immediately, palms flat on your bare waist, thumbs tracing the line of your bra. He didn't move higher. Didn't push. Just looked.
“So beautiful,” he said, and his voice was wrecked. “Every time. I can't believe I get to look at you.”
You reached for the hem of his henley. “Your turn.”
He let you pull it off and then he was bare-chested in front of you, and you took a moment to look back. The scars. The muscle. The place where his left arm met his shoulder, the seam of metal and skin that he still hated but that you had kissed a hundred times. You put your hand there now, right over the join, and he exhaled like you'd touched something raw.
“I love this,” you said. “I love all of it. I love you.”
He kissed you again, and this time there was no softness left in it. This was a kiss that burned. His hands were everywhere—your back, your ribs, the curve of your ass—and you were arching into him, grinding down against his lap, feeling him hard beneath the thin fabric of his sweatpants. He groaned into your mouth, and the sound went straight through you, pooling low in your belly.
“Sweetheart,” he said, breaking the kiss to press his forehead against yours. His breathing was ragged. “Tell me what you want.”
“You,” you said. “I just want you.”
“I'm yours,” he said, and the words were so simple, so honest, that your eyes stung. “I've been yours since the very first moment. Tell me what you want me to do, honey.”
You reached between you and pressed your palm against him through his sweatpants. He gasped—actually gasped—and his hips bucked into your touch.
“This,” you said. “I want this. I want you inside me. I want to feel you.”
He made a sound that was almost a whimper. His hands tightened on your hips. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, okay. But slow. I want to go slow.”
“You always go slow.” You say and smile at him.
“Because I want to remember it.” He kissed your shoulder, your collarbone, the hollow of your throat. “Every time. I want to remember every time.”
He laid you back on the bed, slow and careful, like you were something precious. The sheets were cool against your bare back, and then he was over you, warm and solid, his weight pressing you into the mattress in the best possible way. He kissed you again—deep, languid, the kind of kiss that was meant to take its time—and his hands started to wander.
He undid your jeans. Button, zipper, the slide of denim down your thighs. You lifted your hips to help him, and he pulled them off, along with your socks, your underwear, everything. He sat back on his heels and looked at you—really looked, from your flushed face to your parted lips to the way your hands were reaching for him.
“God,” he said. “You're perfect. You know that? You're fucking perfect.” He was out of breath.
“I'm not,” you said, laughing a little, that annoying timid tone in your voice for a bit. “I'm really not.”
“You are to me.” He leaned down and kissed your stomach, just above your navel. Then lower. Then lower still. “You're everything to me.”
He took his time. He always took his time. But tonight, there was something different in the way he touched you—something reverent, something desperate beneath the patience. He learned you with his hands and his mouth, found every place that made you gasp, made you moan, made you say his name like a prayer. And when you were shaking beneath him, when you were so close you could taste it, he stopped.
“Bucky,” you begged. “Please.”
“Please what?” He was smiling. The bastard was smiling. His lips were wet just like his beard, his eyes dark, and he was smiling like he knew exactly what he was doing to you.
“Please. I need you. I need—”
He kissed you then, hard and deep, and you felt him smile against your mouth, sharing your taste. “That's what I wanted to hear.”
He stood up just long enough to shed his sweatpants and his boxers, and then he was back, skin to skin, and the heat of him was almost too much. He settled between your thighs, and you wrapped your legs around his waist, and he looked down at you with an expression so tender it made your chest ache.
“I love you,” he said. “I love you. I love you so fucking much, love.”
“I know,” you said. “I love you too. Now please—”
He pushed inside you, slow and steady, and you both groaned at the same time. The stretch of it, the fullness, the way he filled you completely—it was almost too much and not enough all at once. He paused when he was fully seated, his forehead pressed to yours, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay,” you said. “More than okay. Move. Please move.”
He moved slowly at first, deep strokes that made your toes curl and your fingers dig into his shoulders. His metal forearm was braced beside your head, the plates shifting with every thrust, the hand was tangled in your hair, holding you like he was afraid you'd disappear. His flesh hand started making circles in your bundle of nerves, slow at first, knowing the rhythm you love. You held onto him, your legs locked around his waist, pulling him deeper, wanting more, wanting everything.
“You feel—” he started, and then broke off with a groan. “You feel so good. I can't—I'm not going to last—”
“Then don't,” you said. “I'm close. I'm so close. Just—”
He changed the angle, shifted his hips, and suddenly he was hitting somewhere new, somewhere that made stars burst behind your eyes. You cried out—loud, too loud, you didn't care—and he covered your mouth with his, swallowing the sound.
“That's it,” he murmured against your lips. “That's it, sweetheart. Let go. I've got you."”
And you did. You let go, falling apart beneath him, your body clenching around him as wave after wave of pleasure crashed through you. He followed right after, burying his face in your neck, his hips stuttering, a low, broken sound escaping his throat.
You held each other through it. Through the shaking and the aftershocks and the slow, steady return to reality. He didn't pull away. He stayed inside you, his weight on top of you, his face hidden in your neck, and you stroked his hair and waited for his breathing to even out.
“I love you,” he said again, his voice wrecked. “I love you. I love you.”
“I know,” you said, and kissed his temple. “I know. I love you too.”
You lay there for a long time, tangled up in each other and the rumpled sheets. His head was on your chest, and you could feel his heartbeat slowing, syncing up with yours. His metal arm was cool against your ribs, a familiar weight, and his flesh hand was tracing lazy patterns on your hip.
“Sam's going to be insufferable,” he said eventually.
You laughed. The sound was muffled by his hair, but he felt it, and he smiled against your skin.
“Yelena's worse,” you said.
“She's going to want updates.”
“She already asked for updates. I told her no.”
“Good.” He lifted his head to look at you. His eyes were soft, drowsy, the hard edges smoothed away by exhaustion and satisfaction. “This is ours. Not theirs.”
“This love is ours.” you said and smiled at him.
He kissed you, soft and slow, and then settled back down with his head on your chest. His phone was still on the nightstand, its screen dark. But you knew that when he woke it up tomorrow morning—when he pressed that button and saw your face—he'd smile. And maybe he'd roll his eyes at himself. And maybe he'd feel a little silly, a little soft, a little like the man he used to be before the world broke him.
But he'd smile. And that was enough.
Five days later, Sam walked into the common room to find Bucky Barnes sitting on the couch, staring at his phone with an expression of profound annoyance.
“What's wrong with you now?” Sam asked, grabbing a water bottle from the fridge.
“The wallpaper changed again,” Bucky said flatly.
Sam leaned over his shoulder. The lock screen was no longer a photo of you. Instead, it was a photo of a cat wearing a tiny sombrero—the exact same photo that had started this whole thing, months ago.
Neither of them said anything for a long moment.
Then Sam burst out laughing. Loud, obnoxious, can't-breathe laughter that doubled him over and made his eyes water.
“I'm going to kill her,” Bucky said, but he was smiling. Just a little. Just enough.
At least in front of Sam.
“She's going to be your wife someday,” Sam wheezed. “You know that, right? You're going to marry that woman, and she's going to change your lock screen to a cat wearing a sombrero too big for its body for the rest of your life.”
Bucky looked down at the photo. The cat was cute, he supposed. Stupid, but cute. And he could change it back. He knew how now. He could go into settings, choose a new wallpaper, put your face back where it belonged.
But first, he was going to call you. And you were going to laugh—he could already hear it, that bright, unself-conscious sound—and you were going to say, "Yelena must have gotten into your phone," and he was going to pretend to be annoyed, and then you were going to say something soft and sweet that made his chest ache, and he was going to forget all about the cat.
He unlocked his phone. Ignored Sam's lingering laughter. And called you.
You picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, handsome,” you said. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Why would something be wrong, honey? I just wanted to hear your voice.”
And in the background, he heard you smile.
Two years have passed and there was a different apartment. A different phone. A different name on the lease—both of yours, now.
Bucky woke up to sunlight streaming through the curtains and your body warm against his side. You were still asleep, your face pressed into his shoulder, your hand resting over his heart. The morning light caught the ring on your finger—simple, gold, perfect—and he still wasn't used to it. Still caught himself staring at it like he couldn't believe it was real.
You were his wife and he was your husband.
The thought still made his chest ache in the best possible way.
He didn't move. Didn't want to wake you. Just lay there, breathing, listening to the soft rhythm of your breath, watching the way your lashes fanned against your cheeks. You'd fallen asleep in his arms last night, tangled up and exhausted in the best way, and he'd stayed awake for a while just to watch you. Just to remind himself that this was real. That he was allowed to have this.
His phone was on the nightstand. He reached for it without thinking, pressed the button, and smiled.
The lock screen was a photo from your wedding day.
It was his favorite. The one where you were both laughing—you in your white dress, him in his suit, your foreheads almost touching, his metal arm wrapped around your waist. Steve had taken it, right after the ceremony, when the two of you had slipped away from the crowd for just a moment. You'd said something funny—he couldn't even remember what—and he'd laughed, really laughed, and you'd looked at him like he was the sun, and the photographer had captured it all.
He'd changed it himself. No help. No Googling. Just his own two hands and his own stubborn determination, because he loved you, and he wanted to see you first thing every morning for the rest of his life.
Now he saw you in white. Saw you laughing. Saw the way you looked at him, like he was someone worth looking at.
You stirred against him. Made a small, sleepy sound. “What time is it?”
“Early,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”
“Mmm.” You snuggled closer, your nose brushing his collarbone. “Love you, husband.”
His heart swelled. It was embarrassing, honestly, how much those two words affected him. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “Love you too, wife.”
You smiled against his skin. He could feel it. And he thought about how far he'd come—from a man who couldn't change his own lock screen to a man who had changed his entire life. From a man who didn't know how to want to a man who wanted nothing more than this. You. Here. Forever.
His phone went dark. He didn't press the button again. He didn't need to.
Your face was already right where he could see it.
