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Knight of Briars (#1)
Pairing: Knight! Bucky Barnes x Female Reader
Tags: Time travel. Medieval AU. 50's AU. Slight Angst. Fluff. Smut.
Warnings: Mild Violence. Maybe I'll add more in the future.
Summary: A knight from another century crashes -literally- into a florist’s life and turns her world upside down.
Word Count: 4.2k
note: This is a silly time-travel story written purely for entertainment and to get out of my author's block. I won't be diving into complex timeline theories here. Let's not overthink the logistics and just enjoy the ride(?)
The tournament grounds were quieter now.
The crowd that had packed the stands since dawn -merchants, nobility, smallfolk who'd bartered half a week's wages for a decent vantage point- had dissolved into the taverns and banquet halls of the city, chasing warm ale and the joy of retelling someone else's violence over a good meal.
The field itself was a ruin of churned mud and discarded favor ribbons, the occasional lost boot. Someone's gauntlet, bended and forgotten near a fence post. The detritus of spectacle.
Sir James Buchanan Barnes walked through it like a man who wanted very much to be somewhere else.
He was limping. A gift from the third bout, when Sir Aldric Thornwall had gotten a lucky angle with his shield and introduced it firmly to Bucky's ribs.
The impact had knocked the air from his lungs with an audible crack that he'd felt more than heard. He'd finished the match anyway. He'd finished all of them. He'd placed second, which in any reasonable accounting of the day should have felt like something.
It didn't feel like much of anything.
Just the persistent throb beneath his ribs with every breath. Just the weight of mail he hadn't bothered to shed yet, still bearing the afternoon's sweat and dust.
The banquet, he thought, scowling.
Lord Castellan Morrow had made it clear, through three separate messengers, that his presence was expected at the celebration feast. That the competitors were guests of honor. That it would reflect poorly on a man of his standing to absent himself.
Bucky's standing, such as it was, had survived worse reflections.
So he just kept walking.
The city proper closed around him as he left the tournament grounds. Cobblestones replacing mud, the noise changing from open-air echo to the compressed warmth of torchlit streets.
Wintermouth at night had a specific smell: woodsmoke and river damp. He knew these streets well enough to navigate them half-asleep, which was approximately his current condition.
A pair of knights from the eastern circuit fell into step beside him for a while, their breath wine-sweet and celebratory, clapping him on the shoulder with the camaraderie of men who hadn't taken a shield to the ribs. He felt the impact reverberate down through the bruise, sharp enough that his vision whited at the edges.
"Hell of a final bout, Barnes."
"Could've taken him," the other offered generously. "Aldric fights dirty."
"Aldric fights to win," he said, which was the only response that was both true and didn't require him to have feelings about it. His voice came out rough, abraded by thirst and the dust he'd swallowed every time he'd hit the ground.
They took the hint, or something close enough to it, and peeled off toward the sound of music spilling from an open tavern door, lute strings and off-key singing and the particular roar of men determined to enjoy themselves.
The next interruption came two streets later, in the form of two scarcely clothed women leaning against the warm stone of a bakehouse wall, still radiating the day's stored heat.
Their exposed skin gleamed amber in the torchlight, deliberate and inviting. They tracked him with the experience of people who had learned to read a man's evening prospects at a glance.
"Sir Knight," one called, with a smile that had worked on better men than him. Her voice was honey-slow, practiced. "Shame to spend a victory night alone."
"First runner-up," he said, without stopping. The mail clinked with each step, a sound he'd long stopped hearing.
"Close enough."
It wasn't, but he didn't have the energy to explain the difference. He kept walking.
The maester caught him at the corner of Chandler's Row. Plump, earnest, clutching a satchel of medicines with both hands as it might escape. His robes were too clean, his face unlined. Fresh from the Citadel, probably. Still believed healing mattered more than politics.
"Sir Barnes." He was slightly out of breath, which suggested he'd been following for a while, trying to work up the nerve to address him. "Lord Castellan Morrow sends his regards and requests that you allow me to examine your injuries before the feast-"
"I'm not going to the feast."
A pause. The maester's throat worked. "He anticipated you might say that. He asked me to convey that your attendance is-"
"How's your handwriting?" Bucky interrupted.
The man blinked. "My- adequate, ser. Why?"
"Good." Bucky stopped walking, turned just enough to face him properly. Watched the maester straighten reflexively under the attention. "Here's what happened: you found me three streets back, examined me thoroughly despite my objections, and determined I've got at least two cracked ribs and a possible concussion. You ordered me to bed with strict instructions not to drink, feast, or make any sudden movements for the next three days."
He held the maester's wide-eyed stare. "Your professional opinion is that my attendance at tonight's festivities would be, and I'm quoting you here, 'medically inadvisable and potentially dangerous to Sir Barnes's recovery.'"
The maester's mouth opened. Closed. His gaze flickered down to Bucky's left side, where he'd been favoring it, where the mail sat wrong.
"You..." The man's voice was uncertain. "You do likely have cracked ribs, ser."
"There you go. Not even a lie." Bucky's smile was brief and sharp. "You write that up for your Lord, attach your seal to it, and you've done your duty. He gets his excuse in writing, you get to have actually helped someone today, and I get to go home. Everyone wins."
He could see the man working through it, the truth of the injury versus the falseness of the examination, the political cover versus the medical accuracy.
"I... suppose that would be acceptable," the maester said slowly. Then, with a hint of spine Bucky hadn't expected: "But you should let me examine you properly. Cracked ribs can shift, puncture-"
"I've had worse."
"That's not the reassurance you think it is, ser."
Despite everything -the ache and the exhaustion- Bucky felt something in his chest. Not quite a laugh, but close enough.
"Tomorrow," he offered, and meant it more than he'd meant most things today. "You can poke at me all you want tomorrow."
The maester nodded, satisfied or at least willing to accept the compromise. "I'll have the letter sent within the hour."
"Appreciated."
----
His lodgings were modest by deliberate choice. A single room above a cooper's workshop on the quieter end of the merchant quarter, rented by the week during tournament season. No servants' quarters. No one to report his comings and goings to anyone who might have opinions about them.
This had its advantages.
He catalogued the disadvantages the moment he stepped inside and faced the cold hearth, his breath still misting in the chill air.
Right.
He set the heavy tournament satchel down with a dull thump, rolled his left shoulder experimentally -the socket grinding in a way that spoke of old breaks poorly healed- and decided that feeling was overrated.
The fire wasn't going to light itself. The armor wasn't going to unlace itself. The evening was shaping up to be a prolonged exercise in doing everything the hard way, which was, at this point, so consistent as to be almost comforting.
Almost.
He got the fire started on the third attempt. The tinder was damp, -because of course it was- and then stood in its growing warmth and began the specific misery of removing plate armor without assistance.
The tabard first, then the gorget, useful as it was, he hated the damn thing; removing it felt like relief. Then the pauldrons, working the straps with fingers that were more cooperative on the right side than the left.
The scarring along his left forearm pulled when he reached a certain angle, the old tissue going taut. It always did. He'd stopped noticing it the way you stopped noticing a crack in a familiar wall; it was simply part of the room now.
The breastplate hit the floor with a sound like an argument ending, the impact reverberating through the floorboards.
There.
What remained was a man in a sweat-dampened gambeson with a bruised ribcage, a mild headache, and absolutely no interest in examining either. The padded underarmor clung to him, cold now that the mail was gone, the fabric stiff with salt and exertion.
He took off the gambeson and dragged the wooden chest from his satchel, the one the tournament steward had pressed into his hands with excessive ceremony, and set it beside the fire. The brass fittings caught the light, over-polished. Performative.
The lock was simple. Inside: coin, as expected. A satisfying weight of silver stacked in neat columns, some gold beneath. He'd need it. The estate his father had left him was four walls and a burned-out shell, courtesy of the same people who took him hostage and left their mark on his arm.
Rebuilding wasn't cheap. Timber, thatch, labor, it all required the kind of funds you didn't earn through valor or skill, just the slow accumulation of tournament prizes and some service contracts.
Glory didn't buy roofing.
He picked up a brooch set with garnets -gaudy, impractical, the kind of thing you pinned to a cloak if you wanted to be robbed- and looked at it for a moment. The stones were decent quality, at least. It would fetch a reasonable price from the right jeweler.
He set it aside with the others. A necklace of amber. A pair of silver clasps. All destined for the same fate: the jeweler's scale, melted down or pried out and reset for someone who actually wanted them.
He had no use for adornments. He wasn’t fond of them, as most of the nobility, and also, he had no one to give them to.
The war had seen to that.
He reached back into the chest, fingers brushing past velvet pouches, and found something else.
A ring. Silver, heavier than it looked. He drew it out into the firelight and turned it between his fingers. The stone was a ruby, deep red, cut into the shape of a star.
He stared at it.
Red stars on grey and black.
His colors.
He turned it slowly, watching firelight slide across the facets. The star was crude, the points uneven, the kind of work you got from a jeweler with more ambition than skill. It was, objectively, the ugliest ring he had ever seen. Garish. The sort of thing a merchant's son wore to his first banquet, desperate to prove he belonged.
Bucky, who wore his father's signet ring only on scarce occasions because selling it felt wrong, even if the man was never a paragon of paternal love, felt the particular pull of a terrible idea.
Just to see if it fits.
It was small for his right hand, so he tried the left, mostly out of stubbornness… and it slid on. The fit was perfect. Uncannily so, as though it had been sized for exactly this finger, accounting for the slight deviation where the bone had set wrong.
The ruby flared.
Not like firelight reflecting, but light from within, red and sharp and pointed, like something had woken up inside the stone and found him looking.
The ring burned. Seared against his skin, hot enough that he felt it in his teeth, a bright line of pain circling his finger.
What-
He grabbed for it with his right hand, trying to twist it off, but his fingers passed through something that wasn't air and wasn't quite resistance.
The room tilted.
No. The room disappeared.
The fire went first, snuffed like a candle, leaving no smoke, no ember-glow. Then the chest, the coins. The ceiling with its water-stained beams. The floor beneath his feet.
All of it went, between one breath and the next, and what replaced it was falling.
His stomach lurched, and the burning in his finger became the only solid thing in a world that had stopped being solid.
He tried to breathe and couldn't find air.
The darkness swallowed him whole and the last thing he registered, distant, wrong, was the smell of plants and humidity.
Then nothing.
----
She stood on the sidewalk in front of The Sweet Briar with her hand buried to the wrist in her purse, fingers closing around lipstick, a crumpled handkerchief, what felt like a receipt that she really ought to throw away, and absolutely nothing key-shaped.
The morning was grey and cool for early spring, the kind of damp that sank into your coat and stayed there. The street was quiet, too early yet for the lunch crowd, the shops on either side still dark. A truck rumbled past, leaving the smell of diesel and wet pavement in its wake.
Just when she thought she might have actually forgotten the keys -left them on the kitchen counter next to the bread box, maybe, or in yesterday's coat pocket- her fingers finally closed around the key ring at the very bottom of the purse, underneath everything else, because of course they were.
The lock stuck.
She jiggled it once, patiently, the same way she had jiggled this exact lock approximately four hundred times and had not yet called the locksmith, because she only ever remembered the lock was broken when she was standing directly in front of it, key in hand, and by the time she got inside she'd forgotten again.
The metal resisted, then gave with a sound like a small complaint. She pushed inside.
The front of the shop was an obstacle course.
Mr. Thomson from the supply house had delivered very late yesterday afternoon, because apparently a union picket line two blocks east had backed up half the city's delivery routes. By closing time, she didn’t have the energy to do anything about the results: buckets of early flowers stacked three deep against the counter, their blooms still tight-furled and smelling faintly of earth.
Two flats of fern she hadn't priced yet, the fronds already drooping from a day out of soil. A box of wire and ribbon spools that had no business being in the middle of the floor but was there anyway, and somewhere underneath all of it, allegedly, the new ceramic pots she'd ordered in February and assumed were lost.
She picked her way through it with careful steps, her heels clicking against the wood floor, and made it to the back without incident.
The stockroom was small and currently in a state that she chose to call organized chaos and not a problem she had to solve today.
More deliveries back here too: boxes stacked along the left wall, the worktable barely visible under brown paper wrapping and tissue. The air smelled like potting soil and the green, living scent of the spider plants hanging near the window, their runners brushing the top of a stack of terra cotta. She reached up and pulled the cord on the single overhead bulb.
The light swung once, twice, and settled.
She saw the legs first.
Long legs, stretched across the floor between a toppled flat of begonias and the base of the shelving unit, attached to a man who was very much present and very much not conscious, sprawled at an angle that suggested he had not chosen to be on the floor so much as arrived there.
Her breath stopped.
For one crystalline second, her brain refused to process what she was seeing -legs, boots, a body where no body should be- and then her heart kicked hard against her chest.
There was a man. In her stockroom. On the floor.
He'd taken out a good portion of the new stock on his way down. The begonias were scattered, soil spilled across the floorboards in dark trails. A ceramic pot in sage green -the one she'd specifically ordered and waited two months for- was in three neat pieces beside his left arm. The pothos she'd been propagating had been knocked from its perch; the vines lay crushed beneath his shoulder.
She stood very still for a moment, one hand still on the light cord, the other pressed flat against her chest where her heart was trying to break through.
He wasn't moving.
His chest was -she watched for a second, barely breathing herself- yes, his chest was moving. Shallow, but steady.
So. Not dead.
She still hadn't decided if that was good or bad.
Her gaze darted to the back door: still closed, the bolt still thrown from the inside. The window was latched. No broken glass. No signs of forced entry.
So how-?
Her hand moved without conscious thought, reaching back toward the worktable, fingers closing around the wooden handle of a trowel. Not much of a weapon, but the edge was solid steel, the point designed for breaking hard soil. It would do.
She took a step closer, the trowel held low at her side, ready to strike.
His clothing was strange. The shirt was wrong, off-white and loose, the kind of fabric that looked hand-woven, rough in a way she couldn’t describe. The collar was laced instead of buttoned, the ties loose and askew.
The trousers were the same, tucked into boots that had absolutely no business existing in 1955: tall, dark leather, worn in the way that took years and hard use, not a factory.
Over all of it, a belt of heavy leather, studded and wide. And attached to it, running down each thigh -she tilted her head slightly- what appeared to be straps, buckled and reinforced, holding padded cushioned sheaths flat against his legs.
Like something out of a medieval fair, except those fairs didn't come through this city, and even if they did, the participants didn't break into a flower shop in full costume and collapse on the begonias.
She took another step closer, careful to avoid the broken ceramic.
His face was-
Well.
A face that had seen better days was her first thought, and her second was that even roughed up as he was, it was a remarkable face to have stumbled into her stockroom.
Strong jaw, straight nose, the kind of bone structure you saw in magazine advertisements for razors or cologne, the ones that made you look twice even when you weren't in the market.
A bruise was already darkening along his left cheekbone, deep purple spreading toward his temple. There was a cut above his brow that had bled and dried, the blood a rust-brown line trailing toward his hairline.
The beard was a few days past deliberate.
And the hair -she paused on that- dark brown, long enough to brush his shoulders, pushed back from his face and thoroughly disordered, tangled with mud and sweat.
It was long for a man. Longer than any man she'd seen outside of a history book or painting.
She straightened up slowly, the trowel still in her hand.
Alright, she thought, forcing her breathing to steady. Think.
Option one: he was a vagrant who'd somehow gotten through a locked door -the damn lock, God help her- and passed out on her stock.
Possible. Unlikely, given the boots alone probably cost more than her monthly rent, but possible.
Option two: he was a veteran. There were men, she knew -the whole city knew, even if nobody said it plainly- who hadn't come back from the war quite right in the head.
Shell-shock, they'd called it in the first war. Combat fatigue now, as if giving it a softer name made it easier to carry.
Except that didn't explain the kind of clothes.
Option three: he'd gotten blind drunk somewhere in the vicinity, wandered in through a door she knew she'd locked, and the outfit was theatrical. A costume. There was a theatre district six blocks south. Strange things happened near the theatre districts. Actors were weird.
Except that the door had been locked. And bolted.
She looked down at him again.
At the slow rise and fall of his chest. At the ring on his left hand, silver with a red stone that caught the light strangely, still faintly warm-looking even in the dim stockroom.
At the begonias, crushed beyond saving.
The telephone was on the opposite wall. She edged past him, keeping the trowel between them out of some vague instinct that felt less vague with every step. Her heel caught on a scatter of soil, and she steadied herself against the doorframe, not taking her eyes off him.
He still wasn't moving.
She picked up the receiver with her free hand, the trowel still raised in the other, and dialed zero, the rotary clicking back into place.
The line hummed and returned a busy signal.
Dammit.
She clicked the hook and tried again, her gaze locked on the sprawled figure.
Busy. Again. It was a challenge to get to an operator these last few weeks. It was the third time this month she needed to make a call, and the lines were occupied.
She leaned her hip against the wall and tried a fourth time, watching him over her shoulder out of an abundance of caution that was starting to feel less abundant and more barely sufficient.
Okay. If she could just get through to the operator, get a squad car over here -or an ambulance, depending on what exactly was wrong with him- she could have this sorted before her first customer arrived at nine. It was a reasonable plan. It was perfectly reasonable-
The fifth attempt produced a busy signal and also, from somewhere behind her, a sound. The distinct scrape of ceramic against concrete, and then a longer drag, like weight shifting.
Her breath caught.
She turned around slowly, the receiver still pressed to her ear, the busy signal droning against her brain.
He was sitting up, propped on one hand with the other braced against the shelving unit, head bowed forward like it weighed too much to lift. The dark hair fell across his face in tangled strands. His shoulders rose and fell with breaths that looked like they hurt.
She didn't move. Her fingers tightened around the trowel handle until the wood bit into her palm.
For a moment he just sat there, motionless except for the breathing. Then his head lifted slowly, and he blinked at the stockroom with the heavy, confused expression of a man whose surroundings were not what he'd been expecting.
His gaze tracked left: shelves, boxes, the window with its spider plants. Right: more shelves, the worktable, the spilled soil.
Then his eyes found her.
A nice pair of steel blue eyes.
That was the completely irrelevant thing her brain produced, and she hated that it did, because those steel blue eyes were currently fixed on her with a frown that was more baffled than threatening, but he was large.
She could see that now, even sitting down he had the kind of shoulders that spoke of labor or violence or both- and he was between her and the back door, and she did not know him, and she was alone, and-
Her mind didn't finish the thought. She crossed the distance between them in three steps, raised the spade, and swung.
She didn't account for his reflexes.
One moment she was bringing the flat of the blade down toward his head, and the next, her wrist was caught mid-arc in a grip like iron, the world tilted sideways, and she was on her back on the stockroom floor with approximately two hundred twenty pounds of confused stranger pinning her there.
The impact knocked the air from her lungs. Her shoulders hit concrete, her head just barely missing the leg of the worktable. The trowel clattered away, skittering across the floor into the scattered soil.
He'd moved fast. Too fast for someone who'd been unconscious thirty seconds ago. Too fast for someone who'd struggled to sit up.
His hand was still locked around her wrist, holding it flat against the floor above her head. His other forearm was braced beside her shoulder. His knee was between hers, his weight distributed in a way that kept her pinned without crushing her, like this was something he'd done before. Many times before, in fact.
When she pulled at her wrist -once, testing, her breath coming in sharp gasps- he simply held it, not tightening, not letting go, like the question of her leaving hadn't seriously occurred to him as a variable.
Her heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in her throat, behind her eyes. She could smell him: leather and sweat and something else, something like smoke and metal and old wool.
She could count his eyelashes.
The blue eyes she'd noticed before were a lot more striking at this distance, and a lot less groggy. Whatever fog had been in them when he'd first sat up had burned off fast into something sharp and assessing.
He was looking at her the way she imagined soldiers looked at enemies in the dark. His chest rose and fell against hers with each breath. She could feel the heat of him through her blouse, through his strange linen shirt.
Get off get off get off-
She opened her mouth to scream, to say something, to demand he let her go-
And then he lowered his face toward hers by one deliberate inch, eyes narrowing and demanded, low and very even:
"State your intentions, witch."
Next Chapter
dividers by: @/honeyluvsw
Not an ask, but my girlfriend has brought to my attention that due to the recent rollbacks of some environmental protections, the Groverhaus HVAC system might be back within code again. Wanted to pass that along:)
live laugh love
Time to start MAXMAXXING. I will DO EVERYTHING. BE EVERYTHING. FEEL NOTHING. HOLLOW MYSELF OUT AND BECOME THE PERFECT VESSEL. FROM NOW ON, I AM ONLY EATING CANNED SARDINES AND DRINKINKING MY OWN BATH WATER!!! I WILL BE MEWING AND MOGGING 25 MISERABLE HOURS A DAY!!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!
Prince!Bucky Barnes X Servant Reader. Part one
Warnings/tags: slow burn, friends to lovers, slight enemies to friends to lovers at some points, longing, angst, renaissance era, use of feminine pronouns and features, eventual smut(?), cursing, forbidden love, a lot of not very period accurate things because well it’s my story and I’ll make up what I want.
Master list
——
“Shh” the young boy whispered, holding your small hand in his as he drags you through the vast and unending halls of the castle. “Bucky slow down! I have smaller legs than you!” You whisper using your free hand to grip your night dress so you don’t trip over it.
Lighting flashed outside the stain glass windows, thunder followed in loud booms. Every time Bucky’s hand gripped yours a little tighter. He’s never liked storms.
You both make it to his chambers, your small bodies quietly sneaking through his door as to not wake the guard posted outside his room. Bucky shuts it softly with a sigh of relief, he takes your hand again and you both move for his bed.
This isn’t the first time during a storm the young prince has come to find you. You’ve grown up together, granted you were both born into different lives but that didn’t stop the bond you two had. Your father was a knight, But was killed for treason. To spare you and your mother the Queen allowed you both to stay in the castle and work as servants for the crown.
When you first came here you were only three, Bucky was five. The princess, Rebecca being the same age as you, the Queen allowed you to attend some of her courses with her while your mother worked around the castle. Becca was sweet and always made sure you were right by her. Especially during dance lessons which were your favorite.
Bucky, even at the age of five. Was attending lessons on how to rule a kingdom. It wasn’t until almost two years later, during the night you had snuck out of your small room you shared with your mother, feeling restless and craving a snack. You were planning on making a quick trip to the kitchens to snag a biscuit the chef always left out for the guards who worked during the night.
But on your way, in the dark hall you heard sniffling. Your brows furrowed together, your small face scrunching with curiosity. You followed the sound to find the young prince hidden behind a pillar, one of many that decorate the hall.
“Are you alright your ma-majesty?” Your small voice asks, concentrating hard on the last word so that it is pronounced correctly. He snaps his head up, quickly wiping his eyes with the back of his hands “yes. Go away.” He snaps turning away from you more.
“But you are crying” you point out “my momma says if you see someone crying sometimes they just need a hug. To get the sad out” you extend your small arms, smiling softly. He turns his head slowly, looking at you over his shoulder. “I don’t hug servants” he mumbles. “It’s not proper” he adds as he moves to stand.
You drop your arms back to your sides “What’s proper?” You ask head tilted in confusion. He looks at you, head pointed down slightly. “I’m not really sure. But father says I’m not supposed to be kind to servants” he admits, picking at his sleep shirt sleeve.
“Oh” you mutter, “but can you talk to them?” You ask. He shrugs “yeah, to ask for something” you smile then “then why don’t you just ask for a hug? Then it’d be pro-proper” you say matter of factly struggling with the last word slightly. Bucky smiles then. It’s small but there. he glances around the pillar making sure no one is passing before he whispers “may-may I have a hug?” He asks.
You nod quickly and wrap your small arms around his torso. He’s not much taller than you, but he’s tall enough that his chin can rest on top of your head. “Is the sad gone now?” You ask quietly. He slowly wraps his arms around you and nods “I think so” he says and steps back after a few seconds.
Lightening strikes outside the castle walls, causing Bucky to jump slightly. You look from him to the stain glass window where rain is hitting against it. “Do you not like the rain?” You ask and he shakes his head “no… it’s loud and I can’t sleep when it rains..” he mumbles looking down. “I don’t like it either, when I can’t sleep my momma plays with my hair or rubs my back, OH! or sometimes she’ll sing a song! I could do that for you!” You say getting a little excited.
Bucky’s eyes widen a little, “you would?” He asks softly and you nod, “mhmm”. That was the first night you had ever shared a bed with someone other than your mother. A scared seven year old Prince, who let a five year old servant girl rub he’s back until you both fell asleep. That morning you had woken up back in your bed though. You never knew how you got back there but your five year old mind brushed it off. It wasn’t the last time though. You spent many nights running around the castle or sneaking into his chambers with the young prince, comforting each other during the rainy nights and others just spending time together to be kids. Kids without roles that were placed on them at birth.
Now, at the ages ten and thirteen here you are again. Bucky sneaking you into his chambers on a stormy night. You both sit on his bed facing each other, “did you hear?” He asks, fiddling with his thumbs. “Hear what?” You question. “My father’s sending me away.. to a school in the east.. says I’ll become a proper prince there and that they’ll teach me how to be a king..” you frown “in the east? Where in the east? For how long?” You ask quickly, your breath becoming uneven. Bucky shrugs “somewhere called.. Mo-Moldova? I don’t know when I’ll be back…” he sniffles slightly, head pointed down to his lap.
You shake your head, taking in a shaky breath as your eyes fill with tears “but.. but you can’t go..”. He looks up at you as a tear slides down your cheek “I have too, my father ordered it.” He states “but it’s not fair!” You exclaim “you’re my best friend..” you add sadly. Something changes in him then. Something you’ve seen a little of before in recent months but it’s never been directed towards you. Not until now.
“I am not your friend.. I am your prince and soon to be king..” he mumbles. Voice sounding bitter now. “W-what? Bucky-“ he cuts you off standing from his bed now. “My name is not Bucky it is James! Prince James! And you will address me as such!” He snaps, your eyes widen at his out burst. “Get out! Get out! You-you nasty servant! Get out before I call my guard!” He shouts pointing towards his door.
Your breath quickens, and you scramble to stand hopping down off of his bed, running to his door. You pull it open and step out, but glance back once. His back is still towards you and his shoulders are heaving. You shut the door then and with tears streaming down your cheeks you run all the way back down to the servants quarters. All the way back to the small room you shared with your mother. That night, as your mother lay quietly next to you in the small bed you wept quietly. That was the first time a boy has ever made you cry.
——
Now, thirteen years later. You have grown into a young woman. You now assist with chores around the castle and sometimes, you assist the princess. Becca has always been a constant, besides your mother she is a warm comfort during your long days. She’s someone you are able to confide in without worry of repercussions.
Currently you are helping her with her hair. Working on a beautiful updo. “Did you hear?” Becca asks softly, fiddling with a bracelet on her wrist as she glances at you through the mirror in front of her. You smile shaking your head softly “hear what?” You ask “dear James is coming back, should be here in a day or so is what mother says” she explains smiling. Your hands slow on her hair slightly “oh?” You say softly and she nods “yes! Can’t wait to see him, he’s been gone for so long” Becca adds and you hum in response, choosing to stay quiet.
She senses the change in you. Squinting at you through the mirror before turning around to face you. “Aren’t you excited?” She asks. You remove your hands from her hair looking down at her from where she sits. “Of course… it’s just, you know how our last talk was” you explain. The day after it happened you had confided in her about it during a dance lesson you were allowed to go to. Rebecca’s face softens then and she gently grabs your hand in hers “I know, and I know it hurt him just as much. But he does care” she says softly.
You shake your head, offering a small smile as you place your hands on her shoulders and gently turn her to face the mirror again. “I doubt he feels that way now..” you say as your hands begin fixing her hair again. Becca laughs lightly “then you truly don’t know my brother”
——
Two days passed by quickly, and the castle was buzzing with the excitement of the princes return. Some wondering how he’d react being back after being away for so long and others, mostly the younger servants and ladies maids gossiping about how he must look and if he’s as handsome as some say he is now. You were just wondering if hopefully… he’d remember you.
A small part of you always dreamed of this day, when he’d return and things between you would be as they were before that night so long ago. But you knew, deep down. It was a foolish thought. A dream.
“My dear hurry with those linens, we haven’t got much time before he arrives and we are all to be in the entrance hall for his arrival” your mother rushes, shoving a basket of clean linens into your hands and effectively snapping you out of your thoughts. “Yes mother” you nod. Adjusting your grip on the basket you make the all too familiar walk to his room. His chambers. The one for years now has been empty.
Stepping in felt like stepping into a memory. Everything relatively the same besides a few things missing that he had taken with him before he left. You hadn’t stepped back in here since that night. Letting out a heavy sigh you begin undressing the bed, replacing the old linens with the new. Making sure there was no wrinkles or creases. Taking your time to straighten and fluff the pillows. As you finish you slowly leave the room. On your way out taking one last look.
As you make your way back down the hall your mother calls for you, her dress shirts gathered slightly in her hand as she approaches you in a rushed jog “my dear hurry! The carriage has just arrived!” She exclaims, and you both rush to the servants quarters, quickly setting down the baskets you both carry before turning and rushing to the entrance hall where other servants and maids lineup on each side of the grand double doors. Guards stand in a stiff line in front of you. Heads stuck looking straight ahead while you and the other servants behind them stand heads pointed down with your hands clasped in front of you. You were never to make direct eye contact with a royal.
Trumpets blared and cheers roared outside the castle, signaling the prince’s arrival. After what felt like hours but was only minutes the grand doors opened. Revealing the royal family as they walk in together. You glance your eyes up, trying to get a glimpse of them. From what you can see, the prince.. James, and his father were in front. The Queen and Rebecca walking not too far behind them.
They stop in the middle, the king announces his son’s return “the prince has returned!” He exclaims proudly, all the guards and servants bow. In unison we all welcome him back “welcome home our prince” before standing straight again. You glance up once again, careful to not move your head. You spot him through the bodies of guards in front of you. He has grown. He’s taller, a lot taller. Broader too and his hair now hangs softly at his shoulders. He looks strong. He looks like someone who would be king.
He’s looking around, staring at the rows of guards and servants before him. His eyes pass over you without a thought, before.. for a spilt second they come back to you and your eyes lock onto each other. And for that small moment your heart picked up its pace. Does he remember me? But the thought was quickly stopped. Your mother’s elbow poking at your side snapping you back into your proper place.
“Come my son! We are throwing a grand ball in your honor tonight!” The king exclaims, he claps his hands and like clock work the servants and guards disperse. All quickly going back to work to prepare for tonight. Your mother grabs your elbow and drags you with her. But not before you take a chance on one more glance at the prince. But you find he was already looking at you.
Next Chapter
MISS CONGENIALITY (2000) dir. Donald Petrie
VIBE CHECK
18+ | MDNI
PAIRING: best friend!bucky barnes x female!reader SUMMARY: your best friend has been in love with you since you were kids. he makes sure you don't skip meals, shows up at your dorm during late-night study sessions, scowls at campus idiots trying to get your attention... and apparently now he even offers to fuck you to give your brain a break. WARNINGS: she/her pronouns for reader; set in college; best friends to lovers; best friend!bucky; whipped!bucky; protective!bucky; reader has hair; size difference (I just love beefy men so much ❤️🩹); light angst; unrequited love (according to bucky); mutual pining; jealousy & slight possessiveness; swearing; fluff; he uses A LOT of pet names & basically behaves like a boyfriend?; smut; (soft)dom!bucky & sub!reader; praise kink; sex toys; kind of guided masturbation; slight degradation; brief use of pussy pronouns; crying (bc reader feels too good 👅); pussy slapping; orgasm delay/control; edging; spitting; oral (f receiving); fingering; nipple play; unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it pls); multiple orgasms; overstimulation; messy & rough sex; squirting; creampie. WORD COUNT: 14k A/N: this one-shot is extremely self-indulgent, sorry 🥲 I'm so happy it's finally up again, it's just so important to me. I think this is porn without plot? well, there’s a bit of plot I guess, lmao. the smut part might be a little all over the place because l wrote it while studying for an exam and getting ready for a little trip. hope you’ll enjoy 💛 ps: I apologize to all the interstellar fans for eventual mistakes, I've never seen it but I needed something to match bucky's love for physics and space.
Bucky is halfway through a problem set in the library, equations spread out in messy sheets all over the desk and coffee going cold at his elbow, when he checks the time on his phone and feels that familiar tug in his chest. He’s not even close to being tired, could easily grind through another two chapters, but his focus has thinned to a thread. So he closes his notebook a little too decisively and mutters something about calling it a night, about being exhausted.
Steve looks up slowly, deeply unimpressed. His eyes are screaming do you think I was born yesterday? but Bucky refuses to meet them. He shrugs, trying to appear casual, and shoves his laptop into his backpack like he’s annoyed at the implication.
Steve’s mouth twitches knowingly. His friend’s body has been betraying him for a while: knee bouncing incessantly, jaw tight, eyes landing back to his phone every few minutes.
Bucky has been pulling this move for years and usually Steve would drag it out by raising a brow, asking if he should send flowers already. Sometimes he’d start humming a wedding march under his breath until Bucky’s ears burn red and he threatens to blacklist him from future study sessions. But tonight, his friend just watches him for a second longer than necessary, taking in the barely concealed anticipation in the way Bucky adjusts his puffer jacket, then checks his phone twice in the span of two minutes, clearly hoping for a text.
Steve just nods once and Bucky perceives the mercy like a gift.
The walk back to the dorm is automatic at this point; his feet know the path too well, from the shortcut through the nearby park—technically closed at night but still accessible thanks to the worn patch in the bushes—to the way the lights flicker near the humanities building every fifteen seconds. And the exact amount of steps it takes to reach your floor.
The rhythm of his footsteps carries just enough weight that they draw a satisfying echo from the tile. Although Bucky thought about surprising you after not seeing each other for almost a week, he wants you to notice the noise. You hate unexpected knocks, always have. He remembers you mentioning it to him once, shrugging like it was no big deal, but he is too observant when it comes to you. Something simple like a knock rattling the silence never fails to make your shoulders tense up and your heartbeat accelerate, eyes widening just slightly. That’s why he ensures each footfall is deliberate, loud enough for you to acknowledge a presence in the hallway but soft enough not to hurl your brain into panic.
When he finally reaches your door, Bucky lets his hand linger on the frame. He knows you’re inside from the quiet tapping of a keyboard and the occasional muttered curse over some paper you’re clearly taking too seriously.
The knock is gentle, barely there. “Open up, doll. Campus security’s doing a wellness check.”
“Bucky?” Your voice comes soft, but cautious. Once the door is opened, he takes a step forward and tugs you into a hug, your arms wrapping around him without thought.
“Hi, sweetheart. Hi, angel. Hi, my little overachiever.” He murmurs into your hair, pressing a kiss there, then another to your temple.
Your surprised laugh is half-muffled by his chest. “What are you doing here?”
“Rescue mission.” He promptly exclaims, pulling back just enough to study your tired features. With his hands cupping your cheeks, he looks into your eyes with a feigned frown. “I could feel you stressing from the library, baby. It was like a disturbance in the stratosphere."
You roll your eyes. “I’m not—”
He narrows his eyes, and you hesitate just for a second.
“... That stressed.” Your voice fades into a whisper.
“Mh-mh.” He leans down and presses a long kiss on your forehead. “Keep telling yourself that, doll.”
Bucky nudges the door shut behind him with his foot while guiding you backward into the room, as if he’s lived here with you his whole life. His backpack drops to the floor, forgotten, only for him to engulf you back in his arms.
“You’re freezing, sweetheart.” He murmurs. “Why is your dorm always a sauna in the summer and an arctic tundra in winter?”
You giggle quietly, pulling back just enough to brush a little bit of snow off his shoulders. “It’s just particularly cold these days.”
“Just these days?” He scoffs. “It’s inhumane. I’m having a very serious conversation with your RA about this.”
You grab his sleeve reflexively. “Please don’t.”
He blinks down at you, an eyebrow suspiciously raised. “Why not?”
“Because she already scowls at me every time we pass in the hallway after you cornered her about the radiator in the bathroom.” You mumble. “I told you it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“It clanked in the middle of the night, and then you would jolt awake and never fall back asleep.” Bucky defends instantly.
“Still... she looks at me like I personally filed a lawsuit against her.” You argue weakly.
“Good. Maybe she’ll think twice before ignoring the pipe orchestra in your bathroom at three in the morning.”
“Bucky.” You reprimand him jokingly, squeezing his torso once.
“Shh.” He whispers, his gaze alert as it scans the room. He immediately spots your laptop and a pile of books and binders stacked like some kind of intellectual barricade on your bed. “You’re really going to bury yourself in all this tonight?”
“I have a paper due next week.” You admit, sitting on the edge of the mattress. Bucky doesn’t miss the way your shoulders suddenly slump, as if resigned. “I… just wanted to get a head start.”
He crouches in front of you after carelessly throwing his jacket on your desk chair, his hands blanketing yours perfectly. “Sweetheart, look at me.”
You peer at him through your eyelashes, noticing the exact moment his expression melts into something softer, something only you are allowed to witness. Cupping your face gently, his thumbs brush your cheeks with such tenderness you almost tear up. “When was the last time you took a break?”
You sigh. “Buck—”
“Not a ‘I-scrolled-on-my-phone-for-five-minutes’ break. I’m talking about a real one.”
You look away, suddenly feeling a scorching heat taking over your neck. You know how much he hates when you overwork yourself to the bone, and the thought of disappointing him of all people makes your stomach churn with shame.
Bucky exhales dramatically, pulling you back into his chest with a swift move that makes you yelp. “You’re working too hard, baby. Way too hard. You’re gonna burn yourself out if I don’t intervene.”
You are always three steps ahead, always prepared for some invisible emergency no one else has even considered yet. And not just on an academic level. He’s watched you fix things for others for years. You dig through your bag without looking and somehow produce exactly what is needed. Band-aids in three different sizes—yes, three. A little pouch of medicine: painkillers, allergy tablets, something for stomach aches because “campus food is unpredictable”. Extra pads tucked into the side pocket; two packs of tissues; hand sanitizer clipped to the zipper. A tiny sewing kit because one time someone’s button popped off and you decided that would never happen again in your presence. Mints. Lip gloss. Hair ties. Bobby pins. A small comb. A portable charger that’s always somehow fully charged. A granola bar “in case someone forgets to eat”. Bucky literally recoiled when some tomato sauce fell on Kate’s jeans last month and you were handing her a stain remover pen before she could even acknowledge the stain.
He’s seen you pull each of those things out at least once, along the relief on people’s faces when you quietly fix their problem before it becomes embarrassing. You never make a big deal out of it, always ready to reassure them with a smile.
You also remember everything, from birthdays to when your friends have their exams.
Natasha gets migraines when she’s stressed, so you make sure to always carry that specific brand of painkillers that works for her. You keep peppermint gum too, because you once read online it helps, and you don’t even like peppermint.
Steve forgets to eat when he’s buried in his art projects, so you text him reminders and shove protein bars into his hands without ceremony. You’ve memorized his deadlines better than he has, and you once stayed up proofreading his paper even though you had your own due the next morning.
Sam swears he never gets sick, yet you still bring extra throat lozenges when he starts losing his voice—the consequence of him being president of several clubs and giving one motivational speech after another.
Kate is very confident in herself, but she panics before every presentation. You sit in the front row each time, smiling and nodding at her like a proud mom. You never dwell on the mistakes or the stumbles; instead, you point out the strongest parts of her speech: the clever phrasing, the insights she came up with on the spot when the professor started asking questions, the arguments that actually landed. You always highlight the good things, the moments that matter, and she leaves the room feeling lighter, even when she doubts the quality of her work.
Wanda pretends she doesn’t get cold, but you pack an extra scarf in your bag anyway. You also walk slower when she’s overwhelmed, never pushing, just hovering gently in case she needs you.
Yelena acts all fearless, but you always suggest ordering something sweet at the end of a meal, because you know she won’t unless someone tags along.
Every preference. Every weakness. Every tiny crack people try to hide… you smooth them over without them even noticing. And you do it without expecting anything in return, like it’s nothing.
Your brain is constantly scanning, ready to cushion the fall before it happens. You’ve somehow made yourself responsible for the comfort of everyone around you, and Bucky loves how capable you are, how steady your presence is to the point everyone gravitates toward you without even realizing. You’re the calm center, the one people trust, the one who fixes things.
But sometimes… sometimes it makes his chest hurt, because he sees the cost. You don’t sit down until everyone else has, nor you relax unless someone forces you to. You’re always the one refilling glasses before your own, the one staying behind to stack chairs or wipe down tables even when it isn’t your responsibility. In study groups, you’re the last to pack up, double-checking that everyone understands the material before you even glance at your own notes. You answer texts at two in the morning because someone’s panicking about something, and somehow their anxiety becomes yours, sitting heavy in your chest until you’re sure they’re okay. If a friend is upset, you carry it with you for the rest of the day, replaying their words, wondering what else you could’ve said, what more you could’ve done.
You have this way of absorbing other people’s burdens and slipping them into your own pockets as if they belong there.
And Bucky wants—selfishly, desperately—to be the one place where you don’t have to take care of anything.
With him, you don’t need your emergency kit.
With him, you don’t need to think ahead.
He carries the snacks; he argues with the professor; he deals with the guys who don’t stop staring. He drives, fixes, calls, confronts, handles. You are free to flop dramatically across his lap, and steal his fries. You can let your eyes squeeze in frustration and complain about your professors without trying to solve anything, or fall asleep mid-movie, because you know he’ll carry you to bed.
You trust him to handle the world so you don’t have to.
He wants to take the weight off your shoulders so permanently that you forget it was ever there, because his affection does not sit politely in his chest. It calls for you. It rattles through him like something alive that needs to breath.
Bucky has loved you for so long that he can’t remember what it felt like before. He tries, sometimes, to pinpoint the exact moment it shifted from childhood attachment to a blade pressed under his ribs, not deep enough to kill him, but the wound pulses every time he breathes, as a reminder.
Maybe it was the day you grabbed his hand on the playground and refused to let go when another kid tried to tease him for the scar on his left arm, the one he got trying to prove he wasn’t scared of the ramp behind the old basketball court. Maybe it was during your first ever movie night in middle school, when he sat completely still for three hours after you fell asleep on his shoulder to not wake you up.
Or maybe it was gradual. Like erosion. Like water carving into stone until there’s no version of the rock that ever existed without the river running through it.
He only knows there’s never been an end.
Bucky often reflects on the fact that he’s the safest place you’ve ever known. You trust him in a way that is almost sacred. You curl into him without hesitation. You change in front of him without thinking twice. You press your cold hands under his shirt because you know he’ll yelp and then immediately tug you into his chest to warm you. Bucky finds himself more often than not lying in his own bed and thinking about this, about the way you trust him with your entire body, with your happiness, your quiet and your sadness. But not with your heart. At least, not in the way he wants.
You look at him like he’s home, like he’s already yours. Like there’s no risk of losing him—and he would never give you a reason to think otherwise. That’s the cruelest part. Bucky would stay even if you never loved him back. He’s been staying since he was fourteen and realized that the reason he wanted to punch that boy at the school dance wasn’t because the kid stepped on your shoes, but because he made you laugh too hard. He’s been staying since you cried over your first breakup and let him hold you as he tried to ignore the way his jaw clenched every time you said your ex’s name.
Taking care of you comes so easy to him, maybe too easy. Sam once told him it borders on ridiculousness. But you have no idea what it costs him. You sit in his lap and kiss the corner of his mouth by accident, giggling, looking away too fast to notice how he freezes for a second too long.
You have never kissed him on the lips, though.
Bucky thinks about that more than he should.
He’s prepared for everything: skipped meals that make you dizzy in the middle of a lecture; all-nighters where your eyes get glassy and you insist you’re “fine” as your fingers tremble around a pen; the way you grind yourself down for grades like your worth depends on them. He’s prepared to sit at the kitchen table while you bake and pretend not to want to smooth the wrinkle between your brows when you frown in concentration; or to kiss your lips after you feed him a dollop of custard, because you trust him enough to tell you if it sucks.
He’s also prepared for every guy who thinks your softness means easy access. For every hand that lingers too long and every flirtatious grin thrown your way.
He is not prepared for the possibility that one day, you might actually want one of them.
Bucky watched it happen more often than not. Smiling politely while some guy leans a little too close, and pretending he’s not tracking every movement, cataloging whether the guy’s hand drifts lower than it should.
He never interrupts. He simply waits. Because if you step back even half an inch, he’s already beside you. If your smile falters, he’s glaring at the idiot. If you look even slightly uncomfortable, he’s casually sliding an arm around your waist.
Possessive enough to send a message, but not enough to claim you.
And sometimes... it’s just unbearable.
You call him dramatic when he scowls, laughing as you remind him that you can handle yourself just fine. And he knows you can. He was the one who taught you self-defense in high school, for fuck’s sake. It’s just that Bucky wants to be the only one who gets to see that soft little grin of yours when you’re on the brink of sleep, to hear your muttered curses when your fingers fumble through a tangle of yarn. Or watch you get genuinely angry over a dumb misunderstanding while reading one of those romance novels of yours that leave you sighing dreamily at the end.
The territorial edge of these thoughts leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, but the shame dissipates as soon as one of those guys smiles at you, making room for something ugly and hot that crawls through his chest and makes his jaw ache.
Bucky has imagined telling you.
It never gets far.
In his head, the words sound steady, confident.
But you’d blink, go quiet… look guilty. And he would rather cut his own heart out than see you blame yourself for his own feelings.
So he keeps quiet, and pours his love into other things, like gently drying your hair after you shower, and giving you little forehead kisses—Bucky knows you adore those because you unconsciously shiver each time. But also calling you sweetheart and angel and doll, and all those other pet names Natasha deems ‘corny’ with a grimace. Like they don’t mean anything deeper. He touches you, constantly. Not because he’s careless, but because he’s greedy. The contact reassures him that you’re still here, that you’re still choosing to be by his side, even if it’s not in the way he yearns for.
From time to time, when you fall asleep in the crook of his neck, Bucky presses his mouth to your hair and breathes you in like it’s something he could survive on, his arms tightening around you just how you like. It’s become his favorite thing to do ever since you told him how safe and cocooned you feel in his embrace.
Because when you’re awake, you might see the way his breathing changes when your fingers trace absentminded patterns on his chest, or the way he shivers when you call him Jamie—you are the only one allowed to do that.
You might finally understand that every innocent kiss is just him restraining himself.
So Bucky lets himself slip only in the dark, when no one can see the awe twinkling in his eyes whenever you are around. He’s balancing on a thin line as it is; one wrong move and the entire “best friends” foundation cracks. And he swallows it all. The jealousy, the hunger, those three treacherous words that rise too close to the surface every time you look up at him with those pretty eyes.
But loving you is perpetual. It hums under his skin when you let yourself melt into his hugs. It sits heavy in his stomach when your lips brush his forehead with a quick kiss before you run to class. It blooms sharp and hot every time someone asks for your number.
He wonders if he ruined himself by loving you that young, because no one else has ever fit right by his side. Yet, he would rather have you like this than risk losing you by asking for more. Even if sometimes it feels like his heart is stretched too tight in his chest. Even if when you look at him, tired and soft and wrapped in his comforter, he has to glance away and breathe through the urge to kiss you until you’re both left wheezing.
With him, you just get to exist. And if this is the only role he ever gets to play in your life, he’ll take it. Because Bucky has always thought of himself as the equivalent of an oversized hoodie that’s been worn too long.
Comfortable, warm, easy to grab when you’re cold.
But not the thing you pick when you want to feel special.
Bucky presses a kiss to your cheek, then your jaw. When he reaches the side of your neck, his lips linger just enough to receive a squirm in return and a giggle that softens his smile into the most tender thing you’ve ever seen.
“Bucky.” You whisper, half-scolding, half-laughing.
“What?” He asks innocently. “I’m just appreciating my favorite person.”
“You’re distracting me.”
“Good.” He hums, preening inside. “That’s the point, baby.”
Moving onto your bed, his hands tug you gently until you stumble back. “C’mere. Sit with me.”
Lying down, he looks at you expectantly, blue eyes prettily begging you to follow him.
“James seriously, I have to finish—”
“Nope.” He grabs your wrists and pulls you forward so you’re kneeling right between his thighs. His hands settle on your hips like they’ve always belonged there, and you shiver, hoping he’ll blame it on the heating not working properly in the middle of winter.
“You need to breathe, angel. And you breathe better when you’re not spiraling over footnotes. Look at you, you chewed on that pen like a stressed little squirrel.” He teases, guiding you until you’re reluctantly lying on your front. “You’re too precious to suffer like this. Not on my watch.”
You huff softly, but you don’t dare move away. The knowledge that you trust him to this extent, that you allow yourself to bend your strict study routines for him, floods him with a quiet, overwhelming happiness that makes his heart ache in the best way.
“You know,” Bucky starts softly, brushing his nose against your temple. “You don’t have to be in charge with me.”
Your shoulders drop just a fraction, and he takes that in with a hint of a satisfied smile.
“I’ve got it, okay? I’ve got you.” He continues with a lower voice. You finally go completely slack in his hold, the curve of your body molding against his chest as your ear presses on his left pec.
And God, he would stay like this forever if you’d let him.
Bucky kisses the top of your head again, tracing a path with his lips that ends on the apple of your cheek. “See? There’s my girl.” He murmurs. “You’re adorable, angel. Did you know that? Ridiculously, impossibly adorable.”
“And you’re impossible.” You mumble, eyelids threatening to close under his tender attention.
“I know. I know, sweetheart.” He murmurs, pretending to pout. “I can’t help it. It’s a curse, really. You’re just… irresistible when you let yourself go.”
“But you adore me.” He quickly adds.
You don’t answer that, yet he pretends to ignore the way his heart skips when you squeeze your arms once around his torso. A hand comes up to run up and down your back slowly. Protective. Possessive in the quietest way.
“If anyone bothered you today,” he mentions casually, jaw tightening just slightly. “I’d like names.”
You burst out laughing and Bucky tightens his hold just a little at that, a fuzzy feeling tingling in the back of his head as his ears are blessed with his favorite melody. “Calm down, stud. No one bothered me today.”
“Good.” His thumb brushes absent circles on your lower back. “Because I don’t feel like scowling at freshmen tonight.”
“You always scowl at freshmen.” You peek up at him, impossibly cute with your cheek smushed against his chest. The urge to kiss you is so strong he almost shortens the distance between you.
“They look at you.”
“They look at everyone.”
“Not like they look at you, baby.”
There’s a small silence after that, but Bucky fills it quickly.
“Anyway,” He glides over the topic, his voice suddenly too high to sound nonchalant, so he clears his throat. “You’re done for the night. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“I’m a concerned citizen.”
You lift your head just enough to squint at him.
“Chronic overworking, severe lack of cuddling, and acute stubbornness are very serious conditions.” His fingers walk up your spine as he lists your “symptoms”.
You snort, letting your head fall back to its previous resting place. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Mh. Tragic, really.” Bucky shifts, scooting back against the headboard to settle against the myriad of pillows you accumulated throughout the years, tugging you with him. “Prescription says: cuddles, a movie, and you,” he pats his chest, wiggling his eyebrows. “Right here.”
You laugh again, softer now that you have given up. “Alright, alright, Dr. Barnes.” You know he hates when you roll your eyes, but you do it anyway.
“Ha! Victory!” He whispers triumphantly.
You shake your head, the corners of your mouth betraying you as they lift just slightly when you reach for your laptop. Once you settle back down, you automatically curl into his side, like it’s muscle memory. It’s always been that simple between the two of you.
He shifts immediately to accommodate you, one arm sliding around your waist as the other tucks behind his head.
“You know I’m proud of you, right?” Bucky mentions casually, low like a secret you are only meant to know. “You always work so hard. You’re so good—too good.”
Your fingers tighten in his shirt, but you only nod, pressing closer.
You’ve never known what to do with praise. It slides off you most of the time, makes you fidget, causes your eyes to drop to the floor like you’re being accused of something you don’t quite believe. And it’s not as if Bucky’s new at this—he’s been telling you how brilliant you are, how capable, how kind, and pretty since you were small enough to swing your legs off a playground bench. He’s never once missed a chance to compliment you.
Still, every time he does that, your shoulders go tight for a second before you remember it’s just him. Just Bucky. Not judging, not measuring, not expecting you to live up to the compliment. You never thank him with words, just burrow closer, like you’re doing now, hiding your face against his chest as if you can tuck the warmth of his words somewhere safe. They feel so fragile, so precious, and you are still learning how to hold them properly.
“What are we in the mood for, sweetheart, mh?” His words are gentle near your ear. “Something brainless? Something with explosions so I can complain about the physics and you can pretend to be impressed?”
You shift slightly, tucking your leg over his thigh. He adjusts immediately, never failing to make space for you, hand tightening just a little at your waist to keep you steady.
“Blanket?” A small shiver and a nod are enough for Bucky to lean sideways awkwardly, reaching for the fluffy lilac fabric lying on your second desk chair, nearly falling over in the process.
“Careful.” You snicker.
“I’m graceful.” Bucky insists, dragging the blanket back triumphantly. “Military precision.”
“You almost tripped over the air.”
“Well, the air started it.”
He drapes it over the both of you, smoothing it at your hip, before pressing a kiss to the crown of your head like it’s part of the ritual.
“There,” he hums. “Contained.”
His chin settles then on the top of your head. “So? If you don’t choose in the next minute, I’m putting on Interstellar again.”
You go rigid at that. “James.”
“What?” He quips, entirely unapologetic.
“You made me watch that at two in the morning.”
“It’s a masterpiece.”
“It’s almost three hours long.”
“It’s cinema.”
“You paused it every five minutes,” you accuse, lifting your head to glare back at him. “You had diagrams, Bucky.”
He grins, completely unashamed. “You said you wanted something educational.”
“I did not say I wanted a physics lecture in my pajamas.”
“You loved it.”
You raise an eyebrow. “I fell asleep during the wormhole explanation.”
He gasps softly. “How dare you!”
You burst out in an incredulous laugh. “You started calculating stuff on the back of a takeout receipt!”
At that point Bucky chuckles under his breath, the sound vibrating against your cheek when you drop your head back on his chest.
“You’re impossible.” You mutter, going back to scroll through movies you’ve already watched, and rated, with your best friend. “I need something easy. My brain’s fried.”
“Easy,” he repeats thoughtfully. “So no space, no time paradoxes—”
“No academic lectures.” You add firmly.
“Fine, baby.” He sighs. “But one day you’re going to sit through the docking scene without complaining.”
“You cried during the docking scene.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
With a clear of his throat, he squirms awkwardly under you. “It’s just... well done.”
After finally picking a mindless sitcom you’ve both seen a hundred times, he sets the laptop on his thigh, adjusting the angle so you can see as well, then shifts again so your body is draped more comfortably over him, leaving his free hand to lie on his chest. You reach forward absently and lace your fingers with his, causing Bucky to go still for half a second, before his fingers squeeze yours back. He presses another kiss into your hair, hoping you won’t hear his heart do something embarrassing in his ribcage.
“Comfy, pretty girl?” He asks softly.
“Mh.” You sigh. “You’re warm.”
“Good. Means I’m doing my job.”
Huffing a quiet laugh at that, you just curl closer.
Bucky pretends to focus on the show, but really he’s more aware of the slow sound of your breathing. His thumb keeps stroking your side, tracing slow, absent circles that leave goosebumps behind, even with the soft fabric of your sweater separating him from your skin. Every so often he presses a kiss into your hairline, or your temple... just wherever he can reach without jostling you too much.
When you shiver again, Bucky perks up.
“Still cold?”
“No.”
He narrows his eyes playfully. “Liar.”
“I’m not cold.”
“You shivered.”
“I just—” You stop, realizing you have no explanation that you can give him.
You can feel his grin into his next words. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
You smack his chest lightly, and he laughs—soft and low—then catches your hand to press a quick peck on your knuckles.
“Careful,” he murmurs. “This is violence against your concerned citizen.”
Though the small crease in your eyebrows has finally smoothed out, your fingers keep twitching in his shirt, and your jaw ticks every few seconds like you’re biting back thoughts. The tightness in your shoulders is very much alive and burning under your skin, your breathing shaky at the edge each time you exhale. Bucky can’t help but glance down at your leg shifting under the blanket every few seconds.
He lets it go on longer than he should.
His thumb traces the same slow path over your side, patient, grounding. Pressing his lips briefly to your forehead, he waits for you to melt into him the way you usually do. But instead, you sigh. It’s a little, quiet sound, but it carries too much weight.
“What is it?”
“Oh? Nothing, sorry.” Your reply is quick and rehearsed, and Bucky doesn’t like that one bit.
“Hey,” his arm squeezes your torso once. “None of that, sweetheart. You know you can tell me anything.”
At that point you shift onto your back with a slow exhale, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s just…” You hesitate for what seems like an endless amount of time to Bucky, like you’re deciding whether it’s worth saying out loud.
“I keep thinking about that paper. I should finish it by tomorrow, because we haven’t made any progress with that group project I told you about last week. I’ve sent four messages on the group chat to ask when we should meet and no one has read them.” A small, frustrated laugh bursts out of your chest. “I feel so dumb for chasing them, but at this point I’ll have to finish it by myself.”
His jaw tightens.
“You know that’s what they want you to do, right? They’re gonna take all the credits while you try to finish the entire presentation by yourself on top of your own assignments. You’re not supposed to carry all of that, baby. It’s not fair.” He frowns. “You’ve already got enough on your plate and you need to rest.”
“I know.” You groan, momentarily closing your eyes. “But I hate not having any control over it.” Words pick up speed as your eyes flit over the surface of your white ceiling turned orange by the warm lamp on your nightstand. “Everything’s half-finished and sitting there waiting for me, and I can’t stop thinking about it long enough to breathe.”
Bucky lets you vent at your own pace, because he knows better than to rush you. You try to sound calm, reasonable, like this is just another thing to manage, but he can feel the pressure running through your veins, the strain that causes your voice to shake at the end.
“I can help you.”
The words leave him before he can fully consider them.
You immediately turn your head to give him a reproachful look. “James.”
“What?”
“No.”
“Why—”
“You have your own stuff to do—”
Bucky shakes his head, pushing himself up on one elbow so he can look at you properly. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It sounded like it.”
“You know I’d write all your papers if you’d let me, but you’re such a little spitfire, angel. You’ve got this ridiculous way of holding yourself to every rule, every detail... I love it, but damn, you’re stubborn as hell about doing things your own way.” A faint exhale of a laugh slips out the both of you despite the tension. “But I meant, I can help you not think about it.”
You study him carefully, brows furrowed. “What do you mean? Aren’t we already taking a break?”
That question sits between you, innocent, and Bucky swears the room is starting to spin.
His mind betrays him with an image so vivid it nearly steals the air from his lungs: you beneath him, pliant and warm, your fingers tangled in his shirt, and your mouth soft against his, muffling your sweet pants and moans. Just that morning Bucky woke up from the cruelest of dreams. Your mouth on his, your skin bare. His shirt was drenched in sweat and his underwear embarrassingly sticky when the sun split through the curtains and hit him with a brutal dose of reality. He quietly jerked off in the shower, ears red and stomach flipping with shame as he only saw you behind his closed eyelids, but the ache is always there. It never goes away.
His eyes close briefly.
This is not the time.
But the words sit at the back of his tongue, heavy and impatient.
“Maybe,” he starts slowly, choosing each word like the world might explode. “You just need something stimulating enough that forces your brain to focus on one thing.”
“Like what?”
His heart is pounding so loudly he’s certain you can hear it. He can’t believe he’s really going to say it.
He swallows. “Have you ever thought about… I don’t know… sex?”
It feels as if someone snatched the word from his throat and tossed it between the two of you, like a sturdy stone being violently thrown into a still lake.
You don’t react immediately, but you recoil a little, taken aback.
“I didn’t mean it like—” Bucky winces, suddenly aware of the very small distance between your bodies. So he stands up, cheeks flushed as your eyes follow him. “I mean, I did mean it, but not in a...” He exhales sharply. “God. That sounded worse.”
You blink at him, and Bucky runs a hand through his hair, pacing at the edge of the bed like he’s trying to outrun his own suggestion.
“I just meant,” he tries again, cautious now. “Sometimes when your brain won’t shut up, you need something… physical. Something that makes you focus on anything but your thoughts.” He gestures vaguely between you, not quite daring to point. “We’re—We’ve always been—I mean, there’s nothing we haven’t shared, so it doesn’t have to be weird. It could just be...”
You tilt your head. “What?”
“I…” His mouth opens and closes pathetically, the words dying in his throat as you adjust yourself, now sitting upright with your legs crossed. “It’d just be… us.”
The room is plunged into a religious silence, broken solely by the low hum of the old fridge near the kitchenette and the faint sound of your labored breaths. It makes Bucky want to bury himself alive.
Your fingers keep fidgeting with the blanket.
“It’s been a long time.” You quietly admit.
He stops abruptly in his quest of digging his own grave by walking up and down your room.
“What?”
You stubbornly stare at your hands, chin tucked down.
“Since... the last time I had sex.”
His stomach drops.
“How long?” Bucky croaks out, trying to sound nonchalant but he fails miserably as he almost chokes on his own saliva.
You hesitate for half a second, then mumble. “Since Chris.”
The name lands awkwardly between you, like a relic from another lifetime. Those five letters drag up memories Bucky thought he’d pushed down beneath the careful armor he’d worn around you for all these years. You wailing against his chest in his bedroom, the smug grin on Chris’ face every time he crossed you in the school hallways, and Bucky pretending he didn’t want to hunt that asshole down.
His throat suddenly goes very dry. “High school Chris?”
You nod, still too embarrassed to look him in the eye.
Bucky lets out a disbelieving breath. “That was... years ago.”
You swallow. “I know.”
“You haven’t—” He can’t finish the sentence, but you understand.
You shake your head, biting your bottom lip.
His brain struggles to process that. Bucky had convinced himself there had to be someone. Some random fling at one of the frat parties he couldn’t attend because of some last-minute visit to his family, or an assignment started too late. He spent so many nights lying awake waiting for your text reassuring him that you were home, safe and sound, telling himself he was being ridiculous, that of course you had allowed someone to touch you the way he wanted to.
But now this revelation feels like being shoved off a cliff, blindfolded in darkness.
“So,” you start softly, like you’re testing the word. “You believe… sex would help.”
He swallows, nodding sharply. “It might.”
You glance at your best friend, then away again. “You’ve thought about it.”
It’s not a question.
Bucky huffs nervously. “I mean, I’m not blind.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
His right hand reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “Yeah. I’ve thought about it.”
There’s a moment of silence that makes Bucky wonder if being completely honest was the right choice.
“Recently?” You perk up.
He almost laughs at that. “Define recently.”
You try not to smile, and Bucky steps closer again, slower this time, like approaching a skittish wild animal.
“I’m not trying to make this weird.” He clarifies quickly. “I can go away, or—or we can pretend I never said anything and I’ll go back to being your emotional support distraction machine.”
Your head snaps up at that, a spark of hurt flashing in your eyes. “It’s not weird, and you’re not my emotional support distraction machine.” A frown settles on your features, and Bucky’s heart thuds at the adorable sight.
“I was joking, sweetheart.” He reassures you gently.
“I know, but I don’t like you calling yourself that. You know you are everything to me.”
“Yeah?” He strangles out, and you nod, chewing on your bottom lip.
“You are everything to me too.”
The air feels different now. Thicker. You glance at his mouth, just for a fleeting moment, yet his blue eyes—too bright, too earnest, like they’d strip you bare if you let yourself crack the slightest bit—catch that instantly.
“Should we do it?” You ask, almost daring.
Bucky hesitates—not because he doesn’t want to, but because he wants it so much he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if you were to accept his absurd offer just for one night.
“Only if you want to.” His voice cracks. “I don’t—I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you, or something. We’re just...” He gestures between you helplessly. “We’re us.”
Your silence stretches just long enough for his chest to start caving in. Bucky examines your face carefully, searching for any sign of discomfort, annoyance… anything he can work with. But you give him nothing.
Just a clean slate of neutrality.
The shift inside himself is dreadful, hope morphing into humiliation. Of course he pushed too far. You’re stressed, allowing yourself to be vulnerable around him and what does he decide to do? He suggests to have fucking sex with you.
Bucky takes a step back without meaning to, already bracing for the fallout. What would you do if he confessed right now? Telling you he’s loved you since scraped knees and shared headphones and walking you home because “it’s on my way anyway”. That every girl who approached him felt like a placeholder. That he’s swallowed the ache years ago, and locked the longing somewhere unreachable, so it would never hurt you.
“Forget I said anything,” he mutters, already stepping back from your bed. “That was out of line. You’re overwhelmed and I just made it worse. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
Even the name that has been lightning your eyes up since high school tastes bitter now.
She’s trying to figure out how to let you down gently.
She’s contemplating if this will change things between you two.
She’s wondering if she’s been leading you on without realizing it.
She’s suspecting you’ve been trying to get in her pants all along.
Bucky moves another step back, running a hand over his face. “I’m—”
“James.”
He looks up immediately, and you’re suddenly watching him like you’re going to cry.
“I haven’t done this in years.” You repeat softly. “So if I’m bad at it—”
His stomach drops. “You won’t be.” He rushes out.
You observe him with a rueful smile, shoulders dropping as if suddenly freed from an unbearable weight. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” He frowns, blushing violently at how certain he sounds.
Your sigh sounds like it’s been living in your chest for years, and after you clear your throat, attempting to pull yourself together. “What happens now?”
His heart is pounding so hard it almost drowns out the show still playing in the background.
“Now,” he says carefully, stepping closer. “I ask if I can kiss you.”
You hold his gaze. “And then?”
“And then, if you say yes,” he continues, fighting to keep his voice steady. “I’m going to do it. Just once. And if you hate it, we pretend it never happened.”
You don’t hesitate, your body unconsciously leaning forward as he kneels in front of you.
“I won’t hate it.”
That confidence nearly unravels him.
“So… can I?” Bucky’s voice is barely above a whisper, rough around the edges, his hunger leaking out after holding it back for years.
At your tiny, shy nod, that carries more weight than anything he’s ever felt, his chest tightens, almost forgetting how to breathe. His hand lifts slowly, almost reverently, and cups the side of your face, his gaze focusing on the action. The feeling of his thumb gently brushing along your jaw makes you shiver, before his eyes flutter close for a fraction of a second, enough to carve this moment into his soul. When he opens them, his breath hitches at what he sees: your pretty, trusting eyes fixed on him, openly giving him permission.
You don’t pull back. Instead, you tilt your head just slightly, leaning into the touch, and that simple motion nearly stops his heart.
Bucky exhales softly and bravely leans in, lips brushing yours in a featherlike, tentative contact—a question posed in motion. It’s the most tender of kisses, meant to taste the waters, to ask if you want this as much as he does. You respond immediately, pressing against him, and in that moment, a spark ignites in his chest.
Every sensation is magnified. The softness of your lips against his, your eyelashes fluttering against his cheek as you close your eyes, your quiet, pleased sigh… Each one sends shockwaves through him.
His other hand hesitantly reaches your waist, just enough to anchor you against him. He doesn’t pull, allowing your body to find his to its own volition. The pressure is grounding, careful, and each subtle shift of your weight beneath his palm leaves him more certain, more addicted to the feeling of you.
Your hands slide to his chest, light at first, then press more firmly as if to claim the space that’s always been yours to take. His fingers twitch instinctively, tracing lines along your sides, feeling the curve of your ribcage, memorizing the rhythm of you in his arms. That’s when he deepens the kiss, still careful not to overwhelm. Your lips part just a bit, yielding, allowing him to savor the sweetness, the trust. And your hair is caught through his fingers as he tilts your head slightly, to explore without breaking the fragile balance. The clean, floral scent of the body lotion you recently bought mixes with something inherently yours, filling his senses, grounding him while simultaneously setting his nerves ablaze. You make a high, almost imperceptible mewl that sends heat straight to his crotch, prompting Buck to lean into you just a little more, confirming that this—this closeness, this softness—is real.
Time stretches, the show hums unnoticed, the bed creaks faintly beneath the weight of you both, and your breathing mingles with his, shallow and intoxicating. Every tremor of yours is loaded with anticipation, your heart racing in tandem with his.
Finally, Bucky pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against yours, the tips of your noses brushing.
“You’re so beautiful.” He whispers, voice raw and breathy, as if saying it louder would shatter this dream he never wants to wake up from. “Can I... Can I kiss you again, angel?”
Your smile is just short of shy as you press once more into him. The way he tilts his head is automatic, capturing the soft warmth of your lips again. Your sternums touch, and one of your hands grasps the hair on his nape, eliciting a low groan out of him. This time, Bucky kisses you as if he wants it to bruise, his mouth heavy against yours, trying so desperately to burn himself into you. You’re trembling in his tight hold, yes, but Bucky is barely holding himself together at the thought of a lifetime spent loving you in secret. His teeth graze your bottom lip in the middle of it all, leaving behind a surprisingly nice sting that makes you shiver. He wants to kiss you forever, even against the merciless ache in his lungs.
His hands finally gather the courage to move, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips, slipping under the cotton of your oversized sweater to graze your bare skin, a moan shamelessly falling into your mouth.
“Bucky.” You whimper as his lips trace an unmapped path along your jaw.
“Yeah, sweetheart?” He gently nibbles a sensitive spot just under your ear that you didn’t even know existed. You shiver again, feeling the curve of his grin against your bare throat. “What is it, doll? Talk to me.” He presses an open-mouthed, heated kiss on the crook of your collarbone, suckling until you squeak.
“I’m—” You gasp. “It’s hard.” You blurt out. “To... to come these days.” Your voice fades into a whisper. “Too much stress. I can’t focus.”
Bucky stills at your timid confession. He presses your foreheads together to quietly stare at you, all blown pupils and this dazed, adoring expression that makes your stomach flutter. “That’s okay, angel.” He stops your anxious blabbering. “What do you usually do?”
“What?” You gape at him, not expecting that question.
“What do you do when you’re alone, baby?”
“I have… toys.” Your cheeks feel so hot you start sweating.
“Show me.”
“You—You want to watch me while I…?” You squeak, eyebrows shooting up.
His jaw clenches at the thought, cock already half-hard since your lips touched for the first time, before he nods. “Will you let me, darling?”
“But—”
Bucky calls your name, steady and serious. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course!” The way those words fall from your lips, offended that he would even hint you don’t, elicits a boyish laugh out of him.
“Then let me help you.”
There’s a beat. A long, awful, charged beat.
“Okay.” You whisper.
“Yeah?” He perks up a little too enthusiastically.
“Yes, yes Bucky.” You bite your bottom lip, trying to hide your amusement.
“Where are they?”
“Um, second drawer of the nightstand.”
Once the box is opened, Bucky’s mouth goes completely dry, so much that it almost hurts to swallow.
His brain stops. Just… fully refuses to work.
It’s ridiculous how fast heat climbs up his neck, spreads across his chest and then drops straight into his stomach.
A shockingly realistic dildo, a bullet vibrator, a suction vibrator connected to the curled end of a dildo, another dildo, and it vibrates too...
Pull yourself together, it’s just silicone for fuck’s sake.
But it’s yours.
And suddenly his mind, traitorous and vivid, supplies images he has spent years trying not to picture too clearly. You, laughing. You, stretching in one of his large hoodies. You, soft and sleepy in his arms. You, riding one of these fucking toys. You, spread on his bed with that thing stretching your pussy just enough to burn deliciously. You, moaning and whining and calling his name, begging to make it better with his—
And under the mortification, something else coils low in his crotch. Crude, shameful… disrespectful.
“They’re just toys.” You mumble, promptly looking away. “Right?”
“Yes!” Bucky rushes out, hating the way you seem to make yourself a little smaller, as if embarrassed. “Yes, sweetheart. I’m sorry. It’s just… I never knew you…” He trails off absentmindedly, exhaling harshly as his blue eyes trace your curves. His hands slide slowly to your waist, thumbs brushing small strokes over your hipbones as if he’s reacquainting himself with something he’s known forever but is allowed to touch differently now.
“Let me make you feel good. Can I?” Bucky murmurs, momentarily forgetting about the protagonists of his future dreams. He guides you back until he has you propped against your plush pillows by the headboard, their fuzziness and the soft plaid comforter under you easing your nerves just slightly.
You nod, certain but coyly.
Bucky then leans in carefully, planting a sweet kiss on the corner of your mouth first.
“Does this feel good? Here?” Half-lidded eyes burn into yours, your breath catching in your throat at the tenderness, and you nod again, quickly.
He smiles against your skin and shifts slightly, lips brushing along your jaw. Slower, lingering.
“What about here, mh?”
You bite down on your lower lip, the smallest sound trying to escape your throat before you swallow it back. Another nod.
His hand slides up to cradle the side of your neck, thumb warm beneath your ear as he presses a kiss just under it. He feels the way your pulse jumps, feels the way your shoulders tense before melting again.
“Oh,” Bucky hums quietly. “Definitely here.”
Your fingers curl into his shirt as a reflex, grounding yourself and him both.
Moving lower, his lips set over the spot where your neck meets your shoulder, charting your skin like an astronomer tracing a constellation he’s spent a lifetime hoping to find.
“Here?”
You nod too fast this time, and Bucky pulls back just enough to look at you, all twinkling eyes and clenched jaw.
“You don’t have to be so quiet,” he murmurs, thumb pressing against your lip to free it from your teeth. “I wanna hear you.”
That only makes it worse.
You shake your head slightly, and he chuckles under his breath, so terribly fond.
“No?” He whispers, leaning back in. “You don’t want me to hear your sweet sounds?”
He kisses your mouth this time, taking your chin between his fingers and making sure your tongues touch in a slow dance. And you don’t disappoint, rewarding him with the most precious of moans.
“Good job, sweetheart.” Your next breath is shaky, gaze avoiding his as Bucky reaches lower to brush his mouth on the sliver of belly exposed by the raised hem of your sweater.
Another nod, and Bucky smiles against your skin, teasing.
“Mh, still nodding at me?” There’s no bite to it. “Cute, but I know you can give me more.” Your hand slides then into his hair as a response, tugging lightly, and Bucky almost breaks his composure. He exhales sharply, forehead dropping briefly to your stomach like he is the one being unraveled.
“You like that, huh?” He sighs, voice low. “Making me lose my mind over you?” The corners of your mouth lift mischievously, and Bucky has to grit his teeth to not smile at the adorable sight.
“Careful, doll.” His thumbs slide along your hips, adjusting himself so he can go even lower. “I might just return the favor… in a way you won’t forget.”
Your breath hitches, and his lips return patient, learning you like a sacred treasure.
“Here?” His mouth lands on your hipbone, and you nod, pressing your lips together.
“And here?”
A kiss on your thigh that again gives him a nod in return.
“And what about here, angel?”
Your breath stutters, and this time you can’t stop the high whimper that slips free.
His lips... kissing your clothed pussy.
Bucky stills for half a second to make sure he heard right, before a smug grin brightens his features.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Thought so.”
Once he’s climbed back up, hands back at the curve of your waist, he squeezes the flesh, relishing in your startled squeak. “How often do you use them?” He glances between your cloudy eyes and your tantalizing lips as you cling to his broad shoulders.
“What?” You mumble dizzily, blinking as if waking up from a soft dream.
“The toys.”
“It—It depends if—” A gasp interrupts you as he starts mouthing down your jaw and neck. “If I’m in the mood—Bucky.” You sigh, tossing your head back when his fingers dig into your sides.
“Mh?” He barely acknowledges you.
“Tickles.” Your fingers tighten in the fabric of his shirt. His grip eases a little, stroking the skin as if to apologize. He goes back to your lips just in time to swallow your wanton whine. Meanwhile, his right hand grabs the box.
“What’s your favorite, sweetheart?” He asks, planting a kiss on your cheek that feels too pure compared to what you are about to do. Gulping, you sit more upright to examine your secret stash as he holds it between you two, his left hand gently splaying over your thigh to comfort you.
Your hand snatches the purple dildo that vibrates, your cheeks instantly heating up as Bucky leans back over you with a satisfied smile, kissing you with more love than hunger. His tongue runs along your lower lip, and when granted permission, he meets your tongue in an eager dance.
“This okay?” He pants in your mouth, his fingers having traveled to the waistband of your sweats without you even noticing it. His lips have you so dizzy your brain has been turned to complete mush, so you can only nod, already tugging him back to you as he lowers your bottoms, tossing them somewhere on the floor. You whimper in protest when Bucky doesn’t move, taking a moment to examine your panties, something that you were entirely unprepared for.
“You’ve been this wet the whole time, baby?”
Oh.
You feel your eyes widen, jaw going slack as you notice exactly what he was referring to. Glancing away in embarrassment, your hands shoot up to cover your face. You knew you were aroused, but hearing your best friend declaring it so crudely just makes you want to hide under your sheets and never come out. Your core throbs just a little, hot and aching under the uncomfortable fabric and his intense attention. Your fingers part shyly just in time to see Bucky reach for your centre, flinching as two fingers start a slow rubbing motion with just enough pressure, and an occasional pinch of your nub. Your slick seeps through, turning the cotton to a darker color, and Bucky groans as his digits get sticky with your arousal, his other hand undoing the belt and then unbuttoning his jeans for some room for his erection.
Your stomach churns as you bravely tuck your palms under your chin, finding him still staring at that stain. It’s really happening, you realize at once, particularly vulnerable now that your best friend looms between your spread thighs.
“Your shirt, can you…?” You croak out softly, and that’s when Bucky’s head shoots up, hands clumsily going for the hem of his sweater. You then wrap one hand around his neck to bring him back into a kiss as you let the other wrap around the dildo. Still devouring your lips, his fingers focus now on your panties, holding them from both sides until an abrupt rip echoes in the silent room.
You gasp, eyes snapping wide open just in time to see his hand carelessly toss your ruined underwear over his shoulders. Unbothered by the fact that he literally just tore the fabric in two, his whole body tenses at the faint click, followed by a low buzzing noise. The toy comes to life in your hand, tingling your palm, and you consider the sensation for a short moment, before pressing the button again.
“Fuck.” He exhales harshly, his forehead falling on your shoulder to brace himself as he feels your body tense beneath his, a soft whimper getting caught in your throat when you press the tip of the toy firmly against your clit.
“Can I—” He clears his throat, voice so rough you can hear restrain bleed through. “Can I look, princess?” He could come right now, completely untouched, but your comfort comes first. Always.
“Ah—yes, yes please!” Your eyes fall shut.
“So fucking pretty.” Swallowing back a growl, his hips shift unconsciously. His palms land on your thighs, thumbs stroking the skin at a calming pace. “Prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.” He murmurs, darkened eyes glancing up at your scrunched-up features.
“Open your eyes, baby. Let me look at you, c’mon.”
The command is soft but you obey instantly, eager to show Bucky just how good you can be for him.
“Good girl.” The proud praise elicits a whimper out of you before you can swallow it. Your urge to please him definitely goes beyond eating reminders and proper breaks between your study sessions.
Your hips jolt up unconsciously when you start grinding the toy against your clit after pressing the small button once to let it vibrate faster. Your free hand scrambles to grasp Bucky’s wrist in attempt to find some sort of comfort while you let yourself fall blindly into the pleasure.
“Feels so good, right?”
Your eyes drift over his face, half-lidded, drinking in the stubble darkening his jaw, the perfect line of his nose, the smug curve of his smile, each contour and shadow marking him as impossibly beautiful. Scorching heat hums between you, and you feel it not just in your skin but deep in your chest, pressing against your ribs like it could tear you open. Every brush of his lips, every press of his palm, every quiet sigh that slips from him drives you closer to breaking open, like stepping through your front door after the world has worn you down, when the pull in your chest finally bursts and you can only surrender to its force.
“Bucky.” You call out to him absently, panting.
“Say it again. My name.” His voice is suddenly deeper, you can see his throat bobbing.
“Bucky.” You moan, raw and louder this time, even if your face feels like it just bursted in flames.
“Good girl.” He notices the exact moment you register the words, a shiver shaking your body as your eyes close again in pure bliss.
Yes, a good girl. His.
“Wanna hear you say my name like that all the time.” He groans. “Why don’t you show me how good she can take this little toy of yours?”
You twitch, aching with the desperate need to put the dildo back, to indulge in the cruel vibrations until you fall over the edge. Yet your body complies without hesitation, sliding it inside your soaking core.
“Shit.”
You draw the dildo back out again, relishing the drag, setting a slow and steady pace with your wrist as a wanton moan falls from your parted lips. “Oh Bucky.”
“I’m right here, okay?” He grits out, exhaling harshly as his gaze traces your body. “C’mon baby, put on a show for me.”
Thrusting harder, your eyes roll back as your pussy clenches tightly around the toy in its desperation.
“Good girl.”
All of a sudden, Bucky’s hands, warm and so familiar yet new as they explore your bare sides, glide under your sweater, until your chest is exposed to the chilly air of your bedroom.
“That’s it, baby. Keep that pretty hole stretched for me.” He encourages, his tongue licking his bottom lip as he looks in your hazy eyes, before slowly leaning down.
His breath is hot on your skin, that’s the first thing your brain registers. You close your eyes in anticipation as he tenderly kisses you, then moving down to leave soft pecks on the swell of your breasts that send shivers down your spine. His thumbs brush your nipples so gently, indulging in every little gasp, but it’s not long before his lips close around a hard peak, both nipples receiving sweet suckles that gradually turn meaner.
“Why were you hiding these pretty tits from me, doll mh?” His eyes glance up, slyly grinning when his teeth bite down a little harder and your back jerks up.
“You’re drooling, baby. Can’t imagine what’ll happen when I split you on my fat cock.” The needy, desperate whine is out of your mouth the second the thought enters your mind. He licks his way up, from the side of your breast to your damp cheek, before firmly grabbing your jaw. His fingers keep your mouth open, only for a globe of his spit to land your tongue.
“Swallow.”
Gasping, you quickly follow his order, a hint of humiliation swirling chaotically in your belly. It only makes your core throb painfully.
“Beautiful.”
“Bucky please.”
“Please what? Need words, angel.”
Your mouth opens and closes pathetically a few times, before you can string a proper sentence together. “I want—fuck—I need you.” You eventually whimper out.
The deep groan rumbling in his ribcage goes straight to your stomach. “Good girl. Wanna see you come once around it, watch you moan and gush as you beg for me to touch you. And then I’ll make you leak for days.” His lips attach to your neck and collarbone, his rough words muffled by your soft skin.
You nod eagerly, whimpering as you pick up the pace, pushing the dildo as deep as you can, and it’s not long before you’re floating again, light like a fuzzy cloud of pink cotton candy. This is the best torture you’ve ever experienced, docile to his orders and exposed to his adoring eyes, but you really need more. You need him to fuck you like an animal, to have his strong hands that until now have only handled you with care to ruin you to tears and hold you down as his cock carves its shape inside you.
Bucky coos, observing your reaction meticulously, your legs twitching impossibly wider as you let your head hit the headboard. “That’s it. It’s been so long since anyone has fucked you like you deserve, and now my princess needs me to take care of her, isn’t that right sweet girl?”
“Only you, Bucky. Only you can do it.” You whisper.
His shaky exhale gives his anticipation away. “I will, baby. I will.” His eyes lock on your trembling form. “Fucking hell, doll, you’re perfect.” His lips are again all over your face, your lust-glazed eyes unable to do anything but flutter shut with desire. “My pretty girl, all mine.”
It’s all too much and not enough at the same time.
“You ready to come for me, sweetheart?”
Nodding enthusiastically, the sound clawing out of your throat is pitiful. You love being stuffed and pounded, but having an orgasm just from it? It’s not something that comes easy to you. All at once, this feels like a cruel punishment. You need more, but pleasing Bucky is necessary, something stronger than the urge to rub your clit.
“Bucky.” You wail, squeezing his wrist.
He gently soothes his palms along your thighs and the effect is immediate. You melt into the mattress at the warmth of his skin, yet your chin wobbles pathetically. “What is it? I’m right here, sweetheart. You’re doing so good for me.”
“I need—can I touch it, please?”
Bucky sits back on his heels with a playful smirk, the urgent worry disappearing at once. “You can’t come if you don’t touch your pretty little clit?”
“No.” You shake your head, a thrill of excitement racing under your hot skin. “I—I hit it sometimes too.” You reveal quietly, the words spilling out before you can stop them.
His eyes widen, Adam’s apple bobbing. His whole body goes still, stripped of every shred of cockiness. “What?”
You quickly slap your hand against your pussy, glancing up at him to find him licking his lips like a wolf ready to sink his fangs into its coveted prey.
“Sweet girl, you like being rough with your pretty pussy?”
At your eager nod, your best friend swears every ounce of oxygen has vanished from the room.
“Then slap it for me.”
You swiftly pull the toy out just enough to bring your hand down with a sharp smack. The shock of the impact makes your body jolt, the sensation recoiling through your core as the wet sound resounds lewdly in his ears.
“Fuck!” Your pussy is so tender, yet the slap only spurs you closer to the edge.
“Again.”
You smack your flesh harder, gasping at the delicious sting. Alternating a few thrusts of the dildo to the little spanks, you are not sure you’ll be able to wait for his permission to come if Bucky keeps ordering you around.
“Just like that, don’t stop.” Humming thoughtfully—his cock hot and painfully hard, still trapped in the confines of his underwear—Bucky takes a deep breath, trying to regain at least a fraction of self-control before coming untouched just by witnessing the girl he yearned so long for losing herself to this debauchery.
“You’re doing so well for me. One day I’ll make you come just by slapping your pussy, I promise.” Your reaction is immediate, hips twitching up and mouth forming a lovely circle around a loud whine. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? My dirty, little girl.” His fingers smush your cheeks together with a cocky smirk. “You want another one, doll?”
“Please.”
“So fucking sweet.” He growls. “Go on.”
Tears start running down your cheeks unprompted. “’M so close.”
Nuzzling your jaw, he cups your face with such tenderness, appealing directly to that part of you that would do anything for him. “Beautiful… so, so beautiful. Wanna come for me, baby?”
You nod enthusiastically.
“Yeah, I know you do.” He coos. “C’mon then, put that stupid toy to use.”
“Oh my God.” Your eyes roll in the back of your head as you bring the toy back on your clit, the knot in your belly ready to snap violently. At this point you’re far too close to what you’ve been craving to care about your neighbors hearing you.
“Fuck! I’m coming—Bucky!”
“Let go, doll. You have been such a good girl for me. Make me proud, and I’ll reward you by licking your pussy clean after, okay?”
The tight knot in your lower belly finally snaps. You are at your pleasure’s mercy, your thighs trembling and your aching pussy clenching helplessly around nothing.
“There you go. You’re so fucking perfect, so good for me. Love you so damn much, angel.”
The toy ends up dumped somewhere on the bed as your entire focus shifts on your breathing, your head flopping back to look at the ceiling, utterly exhausted and still quivering from the leftover pleasure.
Without wasting a minute, Bucky is already kissing his way down your body, gently and attentively, until he stops between your legs, resting his head against your inner thigh, two fingers leisurely running from your clit down to your entrance.
Your reaction is immediate as your body lurches. “Bucky.”
He softly parts your glistening folds with his thumbs. “Look at this pretty mess.” He whispers directly into your core, his breath sending shivers down your spine.
As Bucky lazily flicks your clit with the tip of his tongue, your body suddenly feels like it is going to implode. A strangled gasp falls from your lips when he slips a finger in, his mouth moving to thoroughly savor every drop of arousal from your previous release on your inner things.
Bucky decides then to busy himself with your clit again, and your body stiffens.
“Bucky! Sensitive!” You choke out, a hand shooting down to grasp his wrist while the other fists a handful of your bed sheets.
“‘S okay, I’ve got you, sweet girl.” With a mumble, he slips another finger in, making you cry out.
“Fuck fuck fuck!” You almost scream, thighs snapping close around his head.
Bucky growls at the pressure, hungrily nursing on your throbbing clit as his nostrils flare, your scent making him dizzy as he literally buries his face in your core. It’s so messy, with his saliva dripping down his chin and the insatiable need to please you driving him wild. You can feel its intensity from the way his starved tongue laps at you, every flick sending biting sparks down your spine.
Your mind and body are both spiraling out of control, thoroughly consumed by the exquisite sensation of his fingers stretching you so deliciously.
His eyes stay fixed on your crumpled features, his hand imprinting its shape on the soft flesh of your thigh to stop himself from humping your bed like a beast, so close to his own release that he could come right there with a single brush of the mattress against his cock.
He pulls away with a wet squelch, groaning in delight at the intoxicating taste. “Make a mess on my face” He rumbles, chest heaving. “Wanna taste you every day on my tongue.” His mouth latches back onto your clit, sucking on it with a steady rhythm, producing such humiliating, sloppy sounds.
His fingers strategically curl up, massaging that sweet spot of yours, leaving you teetering on the edge of sublime release. His arms shake with pent-up desire, still, Bucky makes sure to take his time with your trembling body.
“I’m gonna—fuck, please please don’t stop!” You cry out, fisting his hair and he grunts.
“Give it to me, doll. Use me.”
You obey, literally humping his face. “‘M gonna come.” You sob, hips frantically driving into his face. “Jamie!” His tongue abuses the poor nub while quickly pumping his fingers even as your walls clamp, your slick pouring into his eager mouth, soaking his stubble.
“Breathe, angel.” Slowly retracting his fingers, his eyes study your face, your inner thighs burning raw from the way he rubbed his facial hair all over your core. He brings his fingers to his mouth, making a show of licking them clean as he crawls forward to hover over you again, his bulge now impatiently pressing against the fabric for your attention.
“Holy shit.” You huff, on the brink of passing out.
“One more.” Bucky kisses you.
“What?” You squeak out, still dazed yet blinking at him more awake than ever.
“One more, baby.” He implores, his hand soothing along the curve of your hip as you faintly catch the rustling of fabric. “You were crying so prettily for my cock before, don’t you want it anymore?”
Before your lips can part around an incredulous laugh, a weight settles between your folds. Your eyes shoot down as his length is gradually coated in your slick.
Thick, long, with veins running along the flushed skin.
“Shit.” He grits out, mouth watering at the sight of the mess you are making on his cock.
“I’m gonna come inside you, sweetheart. Ask me for it, ask me for my cum.”
“Please, Bucky.” You swallow back a whine, nails digging into his skin. “Make me yours.”
He shushes your blabbering gently, cupping your cheek. “Look at me.” He orders, your vision blurry from all the unshed tears. “I’m here, pretty girl. Just a little more patience and we’ll watch it leak out of you because it’s too much for you to keep inside.” The reverence in his blue eyes makes you shiver as he takes in your pleading gaze. The way his thumb traces your lower lip, so tenderly and hypnotizing, has him unconsciously leaning forward, until your mouths join in a slow dance.
Your name comes out of his mouth in a low murmur against your lips. “Thank you for letting me have you like this.”
You’ve been yearning for his touch for what seemed like a never-ending lifetime. Every fiber of your being has ached for him, and now that you have him like this, warm and gentle and staring down at you as if you are the missing piece of himself he was searching for all along, you can’t ignore it anymore.
“I love you, Bucky.” You blurt out, tremblingly grabbing his face with both of your hands, bringing him down for another kiss—hard and desperate and filthy, your heart beating so fast you’re convinced it’s going to escape your chest anytime now.
With flushed cheeks, Bucky pants, the tip of his nose brushing yours. “Sweetheart,” he soothes dotingly, an ache to his voice that creeps through the tenderness as he buries his face into the crook of your neck. He breathes you in, brought to his knees by three simple words.
“You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamed of this. Of you. I can’t pretend anymore now that I know what it feels like to have you in my arms, knowing that you’re mine...” Bucky swallows, eyes falling down on your chest before tentatively lifting up to meet yours.
You have never seen him like this. Hesitant. Never around you.
“You are mine, right?”
“Always have.” You breathe out, and with a broken groan, he takes your face in his hands, kissing any part he can reach: from your neck to your collarbones and then your breasts, latching onto a nipple. Moaning, you indulge in his warm tongue taking care of both nubs as his length slowly humps your wet folds.
“You feel it, angel? This is what you do to me.” He murmurs, humming at your nod. “Such a good girl.”
“Your good girl.”
That earns you a feral kiss. “I have to be inside you.” Bucky pants as your lips messily meet once again. “Now. I can’t take it anymore, need to feel you—Christ.” You break with a sharp cry when his tip encounters some resistance as it finally breeches your hole.
“Slowly sweetheart, look at her opening up so beautifully for me, you—” Bucky abruptly grunts as you clench incredibly tight. Maintaining a clear head becomes tricky, his forehead dropping to your shoulder as a choked groan leaves his throat. “You need to relax for me, or else I’m gonna finish embarrassingly fast, angel.” A strained chuckle bleeds through his gritted teeth.
“Can’t. You’re so big.” You squeal mindlessly, thighs trembling around his hips as his base finally meets your core.
“I know.” His lips briefly press to your cheek, shuddering. “I know, but you’re taking it so well. God, look at you.” He swallows as his hips ease back slowly, until you can feel only the tip inside. You squeak out a pathetic whimper, hands clinging onto his shoulders. Then he bottoms out again, quicker this time. You gasp, back arching.
“Fuck!” You almost scream, your insides feeling so sensitive you feel like you are going to burst into flames.
Bucky finds a temporary steady pace, letting you melt beneath him, then bends your legs back, until they almost touch your chest, satisfied as soon as you respond with a sob of pleasure, the new angle making your eyes cross.
“Oh shit! Bucky!” Your nails leave crescent marks into his skin, toes curling.
He can’t take his eyes off you, drinking carefully in the way your eyes squeeze shut, or how your hole snuggles his cock deeper when his tip brushes just right against your walls. At some point, his wet mouth is on your breasts again, flicking your nipple some more just to listen to your pathetic whimpers and feel you arch back into him. His hips are picking up their pace, slamming against that deep spot at an almost desperate speed. When his fingers momentarily leave your hip to flick and rub your puffy clit, your lips open in a silent scream as you clench again.
“There she is.” He growls. “Fuck, it feels so good.” His thrusts turn animalistic.
“I’m gonna make a mess on your pussy.”
The shameless sound of your flesh slapping against his is so loud but you can’t hear it, too dizzy and lost in the feeling of his dick hitting your sweet spot with a new kind of precision. His muscled arms keep you safe and still for him to play with, his chest pressed against your bouncing breasts so your sensitive nipples are rubbed raw.
“Fuck, wish you could see yourself right now.” His voice breaks when your pussy tightens.
It’s too much—his fierce, insistent thrusts, his pubic hair stimulating your clit, the way he talks to you as if he’s losing his mind, just blabbering about whatever pops into his head.
And you? You can just take it. You scream his name, eyes rolling back and mouth unable to close, legs shaky and hips trying to rock back into his, unsuccessfully. Until your climax unravels violently and you ascend to heaven. Your body freezes, before pleasure ripples through you like pure electricity. Bucky marvels with gritted teeth at the clear liquid squirting out of you and making a mess of his lower abdomen and cock, fucking you through it to prolong your pleasure as much as he can.
You squirm uncontrollably in his hold, but he keeps you firmly locked on his cock.
“Jesus Christ, fucking beautiful, sweetheart. Wish I could keep you here and make you squirt on my cock every day for the rest of my life. You’re gonna make me come so hard.” He pants, voice bordering on a snarl and features scrunched up. “’S coming, take it all, doll—fuck!”
His cum spurts on your walls to claim you fully, cock throbbing, making him groan in utter relief. At some point, some spills out and down his thick length, mixing with your creamy mess on the bed and on your ass. You decide to not acknowledge it, too embarrassed by what you have done.
Bucky ends up collapsing over you, forearms firmly planted on the mattress to keep himself from completely crushing you, mindful of your well-being even as he feels like he is going to pass out after this powerful release, fueled by having restrained himself for so long.
You’re still shaking in his hold, exhausted and sated, but definitely more alert now that you have both freed yourselves of years of longing and pent-up sexual frustration. He’s reluctant to let you go just yet—and you couldn’t be more grateful for that, your body feeling like it’s going to crumble after your last climax—so he opts to pepper the slope of your neck in lazy kisses, indulging in your soft mewls when he finally reaches your mouth.
Bucky shifts just enough to brush a thumb over your cheek, watching your eyes flutter close and then back open, as though checking if he’s still there.
“Hey.” He clears his throat, voice hoarse.
Your lips part, words sticking somewhere between your throat and the tips of your tongue. You try to answer, but only a breathless hum escapes, and it’s enough. He leans closer, resting his forehead against yours, inhaling, grounding himself in the reality of you.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he says more to himself, worry threading through his awe. “I just… I just want to know if you’re okay.”
You manage a weak nod, letting your fingers curl around his wrists. His eyes, wide and unguarded, observe you like you’re the only thing he’s ever wanted to understand.
“You’re perfect,” he says finally, the words spilling urgently, reverently. “Every bit of you. You’re—” He swallows, shaking his head slightly, as if even language feels too clumsy for this. “You’re everything I’ve ever needed.”
A small, exhausted laugh catches in your throat, and you bury your face into the crook of his neck, letting him feel you trembling with the last threads of adrenaline leaving you. He holds you tighter, hums a random, almost inaudible melody against your hair, and for a long while, neither of you speaks.
It feels like an eternity passes before Bucky finally cradles your face in his hands, looking a little more lucid.
“We can talk after. But you need to know, doll, you are my whole world.” His forehead presses to yours, like he needs the contact to stay upright, as if pulling away means the gravity of the moment would swallow him whole.
“You have no idea,” he murmurs, voice breaking at the edges. “How long I tried to hold this in. But I can’t anymore, not after tonight, not after having a taste of what it feels like to be completely and utterly yours.” His thumb traces the curve of your jaw.
“I think I’ve loved you,” his breath hitches, because he can’t believe he’s finally saying it out loud for you to hear. No moans, no bed creaking to drown the words. Just the quiet stillness of the night, as if the moon itself is holding its breath with him. “Since I was too young to even understand what that meant.”
Your hand flattens against the rapid drum of his chest, perceiving every irregular skip, every fierce, insistent beat that has somehow always belonged to you. For a moment, it feels as if the rest of the world has fallen away, leaving only the two of you suspended in this fragile, trembling bubble.
Your eyes glisten with tears you haven’t let fall—tiny, fragile sparks that catch the dim light like stars at night, and your chest tightens with the ache of everything you’ve held in silence for so long. All the unspoken words between you, the years of stolen glances, small touches, and secrets suddenly all converge in this single moment.
His shoulders shift, leaning ever so slightly toward you, and your fingers press more firmly, almost desperate, into the heat of his chest.
“Jamie,” your voice quivers. “It’s always been you.”
And when you glance up at him, so radiant and so inevitably his, Bucky finally looks at you without any restraint, staying like he always has, and always will.
END NOTES: thank you so much for reading 🤍
Brown Sugar and Gunmetal
Pairing: Alpha! Winter Soldier x Omega! Female Reader
Tags: A/B/O AU. True mates. Smut. Porn. Debauchery.
Warnings: A/B/O dynamics. Knot. Breeding. Rough Sex. Scent Kink. Dub-con elements: breaking and entering, but all sex is enthusiastically consented. Non-traditional alpha purring. Size Kink. Premature Ejaculation. Feral/Possessive Behaviour.
Summary: Who would have thought that an inconspicuous vent in a bakery alley would be what brought them together: the omega who never felt right with any alpha, and the asset who wasn't supposed to want at all.
Word Count: 12.7k
note: I have been toying with this concept for a while, and wrote these character premises as a background: Alpha!Soldat - Omega!Reader
5:07 AM.
The sky hasn't decided yet whether it's going to dawn or surrender back to night. It’s that liminal hour when the city just stops, too late for the night crowd, and too early for the commuters. Just the street cleaners, the delivery trucks, and the bakers finishing their shifts.
She pulls her jacket tighter against the October chill and starts walking.
Twelve blocks, it’s not far. Close enough that she doesn't need the subway, but far enough that her legs feel it after eight hours on her feet, kneading dough. Her shoulders ache. Her lower back protests. She smells like the industrial-strength flour that gets into everything, no matter how many times she washes her hands.
She doesn't see him.
But he's there.
----
Three rooftops back, tracking her with the concentration it would use on a target: eyes cataloging her gait, her route, the way she favors her right leg slightly after a long shift. But this isn't a mission. There’s no handler voice in its ear telling it where to go, what to do, or who to eliminate.
Just her scent in the air.
Brown sugar and yeast, yes, but underneath that… omega. Warm and sweet and something that makes Soldat's chest constrict in a way that has no name, no designation, no mission-relevant purpose.
It doesn't understand why it's following her.
Can't articulate the drive that pulled it off its assigned route many nights ago, and keeps pulling it back to the alley behind the bakery, to the vent that breathes her scent into the dark.
It still has things to do that don't include stalking an omega through pre-dawn streets like something hungry.
But it can't stop.
Has tried. Twice. Completed the mission and returned to wait for new orders. And both times, it found itself an excuse to be back in that alley at 3:47 AM when the oven is hot, and her scent filters through the vent.
Omega. Mine.
The thought comes from somewhere deep. Some base-level recognition that bypasses protocol and conditioning, and makes Soldat's hands shake.
She turns the corner onto a quieter street.
Residential. Old brownstones with iron railings and window boxes that haven't been tended in years. It drops from the rooftop to a fire escape -silent, controlled- and continues tracking her from the shadows.
It shouldn't be doing this.
Knows it shouldn't.
Handlers aren’t here. It chastises itself.
There's no debrief scheduled for today. No extraction team waiting.
Only her scent on the wind.
----
Her building is old. Pre-war, maybe. Brick facade with a fire escape that's seen better decades. She lets herself in through the front door -no doorman, it notes, filing it away in the part of its brain that still calculates threat assessments- and disappears into the stairwell.
It waits sixty seconds.
Counts them, precisely. Giving her time to reach her floor, -the one that smells like her- to unlock her door, to be safely inside before-
Before what?
Soldat doesn't know.
Doesn't have a plan. Just the pull in its body that screams closer and the scent memory that's been driving it slowly insane for days.
It should leave, but it's already moving. Not toward the front door, but toward the fire escape.
Metal fingers find purchase first on iron rungs worn smooth by decades of weather. It climbs silently, the thing barely creaks under its weight because it knows exactly where to place its feet, how to distribute the load.
It moves up the side of the building like water flowing upward. Silent and inevitable to the second floor.
Her window faces the alley, so it crouches on the fire escape landing, perfectly still, and watches her shrugging off her jacket and draping it over the back of a chair, toeing off her shoes, and leaving them by the door.
It’s a small apartment, a studio layout, its mind automatically catalogs. Kitchen area, living space, bathroom door, and a bed in the corner.
She moves through the space and opens the fridge -light spills out, illuminating her for three seconds- grabs a bottle of juice. Drinks. Sets it down.
And pulls her shirt over her head.
Soldat's breath stops.
It can see skin it has no right to look at, and it can't make itself turn away. Can't make itself leave, like every remaining protocol says it should.
Because she's just there. Right there, separated from it by a pane of glass and ten feet of air, and the seventy years of conditioning that says don't want, don't need, don't feel.
But Soldat is feeling.
Chest tight, breathing uneven. Cock still hard. Has been hard since it caught her slick-scent through the bakery vent two hours ago, an ache it doesn't remember ever experiencing before.
And it wants.
She disappears further into the apartment.
A door closes. The bathroom, its mind supplies automatically. It hears water running through the pipes. Shower.
Every instruction it has left says to disengage now. Report the issue, because that's what this is, isn't it? An issue.
It isn't supposed to follow civilians home. Isn't supposed to be crouched on a fire escape at 5 AM watching an omega through her window like something feral.
Its hand moves to the window ledge.
Testing.
The old wood is swollen with moisture. The latch is visible through the gap in the curtains, a simple mechanism, not designed to keep out anyone who actually wants in.
Don't.
Its other hand goes to the knife at its thigh.
Leave. Disengage. Return to base.
But it's already moving.
The blade slides between the window and the frame. Simple leverage. The latch gives with barely a click, the wood is too old, and the mechanism is too worn to provide real resistance.
The window slides up smoothly, and the scent-
Fuck.
It escapes out of the open window like a physical thing. Concentrated. Undiluted. Brown sugar, yeast, and omega, coating the inside of its mouth, taking root inside its lungs.
Soldat is inside before really processing it.
The window slides shut behind it, and he just stands there, surrounded by her scent.
The shower is still running. It can hear it through the bathroom door. Can picture her under the spray, water running over skin it saw for three seconds and can't stop thinking about.
Its cock throbs.
Insistent. Painful. It looks down at the bulge behind its pants like it belongs to someone else, like it's a malfunction rather than proof that the drugs are failing, have been failing, because the body knows she's its.
It is biological, absolute, and completely outside of its control.
It crosses to the other window -the one that faces the living area, opposite the bathroom- and sits down on the sill.
It doesn't hide. Doesn't try to blend into shadows or position itself tactically, just waits.
Because she needs to see it. Some part of it that isn't entirely a weapon understands that surprising her, cornering her in the bathroom, or grabbing her when she's vulnerable, would be wrong.
Would make her afraid.
And it doesn't want her afraid.
Wants-
It doesn't know what it wants. Just knows it's going to wait right here until she comes out.
The water cuts off.
Its breathing goes shallow as it hears her moving around in the bathroom. A towel. The medicine cabinet opening and closing. Footsteps. The door handle turning, and finally, the door opening.
----
She steps out of the bathroom barefoot, wrapped in a towel, hair damp and dripping down her back.
And freezes.
Because a man is sitting in her window.
No, not a man. Something else. Something that makes every rational thought in her head go quiet, replaced by a single, primal recognition that bypasses her brain entirely and speaks directly to that omega part of her that had seemed dormant almost all her life.
Alpha.
He's engulfed in black. Tactical gear that looks military, maybe a mercenary, she doesn't know enough to tell the difference, just knows it's meant for violence. A polymer mask covers the lower half of his face as some kind of muzzle, and it should look wrong, should look like something out of a nightmare, but doesn't.
Above it, his eyes.
Blue. Pale, pale blue. The color of ice over deep water.
And they're locked on her.
Not looking. Locked. Fixed in a way that makes her instinct whisper predator even as her omega biology sings yes.
Black paint is smeared across the upper half of his face, crude, deliberately, the kind of thing meant to swallow the light and turn a man into a shadow. His hair hangs lank, brushing his shoulders, dark and tangled like it hasn't seen a brush in weeks. Maybe months.
And his left arm-
Metal.
Plates and articulated joints that catch the yellow light from her bedside lamp, silver and unmistakably not human. It rests on his thigh, fingers splayed, and she can see the micro-movements, the tiny recalibrations of servos and mechanisms that keep it alive.
She should scream.
She should run, lock herself back in the bathroom, call 911, something, anything other than just standing here dripping onto her floor in nothing but a towel that suddenly feels thinner than paper.
But her body doesn't respond with fight or flight.
It still responds with yes.
Because that scent, oh god, that scent.
It hits her fully now that she's out of the steam-thick bathroom. Leather worn soft with age. Gunmetal, cordite. And underneath it all, something alive and warm. Clean sweat, musk, cedar smoke, and a bass note she doesn't have a name for, but her body knows.
It's him.
The ghost she's been smelling through the bakery vent for days. The phantom that made her slick in the middle of a shift, made her hands shake while she shaped croissants, made her lie awake at night with her fingers between her legs chasing a release that never quite came because it wasn't him.
He's real.
He's in her apartment.
And some twisted, fucked-up part of her -the part that's never felt right with any alpha she's tried to want, the part that's been waiting for something she couldn't name- feels like he belongs here.
Her pulse hammers in her throat. She can feel it, hot and frantic, thudding against her scent gland. Her skin prickles with hyperawareness, the towel too rough against her nipples, and-
Oh no.
Oh no.
Warmth between her thighs. The telltale slick slide that means her body is already reacting, already preparing, already wanting in a way she's never felt with flesh-and-blood alphas who bought her drinks and asked politely and did everything right.
She's getting wet for a stranger sitting in her window like a bird of prey.
The shame of it burns, but not enough to stop it. Not enough to make her body listen to her brain's increasingly frantic commands to move, run, do something.
She hears him inhale and sees the way his entire body goes rigid.
Oh fuck.
He smells it.
----
It watches her freeze.
Sees the way her pupils blow wide, black swallowing the color until there's barely any left. Perceives the flutter of her pulse, rabbit-quick, omega-fragile. Sees the water droplets sliding down her collarbone, disappearing into the edge of the towel.
She hasn't screamed.
That's… weird. Civilians scream when it appears in their private rooms. They run. They freeze and shake, and sometimes they cry, but they don't just stand there staring at it like-
Her scent changes, and it takes it half a second to place it, and when it does, something in its brain fractures.
Slick.
It tenses.
That's not- omegas don't smell like that for it. Warm and sweet and wanting, with pheromones that pull at something on it, that the handlers said was fixed.
But it's surfacing now.
Clawing up from whatever dark place they tried to bury it, and it doesn't know what to do with it. It doesn't have a protocol for this. Just the overwhelming need to get closer, to bury its face in her throat and breathe.
Its cock throbs. Heavy, aching, trapped behind tactical fabric that suddenly feels painfully constricting.
It shifts slightly on the windowsill, trying to relieve the pressure, and the movement is clumsy. It doesn't know how to do this. Doesn't remember ever needing to.
Her eyes drop.
She's looking at the obvious bulge straining against black fabric, at the evidence of something it thought was dead.
She should be running.
Why isn't she running?
"How did you get in?" Her voice comes out steady. Not scared, or angry.
Like this is a normal question to ask a heavily-armed stranger sitting in her window at five in the morning.
It doesn't answer.
Doesn't know how to answer.
So it stands.
The movement is fluid and controlled because the body knows how to move smoothly even when the mind is fracturing.
She's still just standing there, still looking at it with those wide eyes, pupils blown. The towel is slipping slightly on one side, and it can see a droplet of water sliding down between her breasts, and its mouth goes dry.
It takes a step toward her.
Then another.
Her scent gets stronger with each foot of distance it closes. Thicker. Sweeter. The slick-smell underneath makes something in Soldat's alpha core growl with satisfaction because yes, omega wants, omega is ready-
No.
It doesn't think like that. Isn't supposed to think like that. Omegas are targets or obstacles or irrelevant sources of pain, not-
Another step.
She hasn't moved.
Hasn't backed up, hasn't reached for a makeshift weapon, hasn't done any of the things a smart person should do when a strange man invades her home.
Three more steps and it's close enough to feel the residual heat from her shower radiating off her damp skin. Close enough to see the way her chest is rising and falling too fast, shallow breaths that make the towel shift with each inhale.
Close enough to hear the slight hitch when it stops less than a foot away.
----
He is close enough that she can see the black paint smudged at his temple, the faint scar cutting through his eyebrow, the way his pupils have blown so wide the blue is almost gone.
Close enough to drown in his scent.
It's overwhelming this close, and her body responds like he's touching her even though there are still inches of space between them.
More slick. Warm and mortifying, sliding down her inner thighs beneath the towel.
She watches him scent the air, watches his pupils dilate even further -if that's even possible- watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.
He knows exactly what her body is doing.
And some absolutely insane part of her is glad.
His metal hand comes up slowly, like he's giving her every chance to bolt, to scream, to do literally anything other than stand here and let him.
The hand hovers near her face.
Not touching. Just so close that she can see her reflection dancing in the fingers plates, warped and strange, and hear the whisper-quiet whir of mechanisms, as he holds it perfectly still.
Her heart is hammering so hard she's sure he can hear it, but she doesn't flinch.
Doesn't do any of the rational things a person should do when a stranger breaks into their home and reaches for their face with a metal hand that could probably crush her throat without effort.
Just stands there, meeting those burning blue eyes, her heart a war drum in her chest, and waits.
Because this feels…
Right.
Every alpha she's ever tried to force herself to want was just wrong. Wrong scent, wrong touch, wrong everything. Going through the correct actions because that's what omegas are supposed to do, supposed to crave, but her body never responded. Never wanted.
Until now.
A stranger in tactical gear with a metal arm and war paint, and her body is screaming yes louder than it's ever screamed anything in her life.
She watches his hand hover, and in defiance of every rational instinct, she takes a step forward. Closes those last six inches of space until the towel brushes against his thigh, and his scent completely surrounds her, drowns her, ruins her.
And reaches up.
Her fingers wrap around his metal wrist -still hovering, still waiting- and she guides it down, pressing that cold palm against her cheek.
----
She touches it, and Soldat furrows his brows.
Because no one touches the arm unless they have to. Handlers avoid it. Technicians maintain it with detachment. Targets flinch from it. Witnesses scream when they see it.
But she-
A sound is ripped out of it, low, subvocal, resonating in the hollow of its ribcage. It doesn't recognize it at first. Doesn't have a reference for the frequency, the pattern, or the way it seems to vibrate through its entire body.
Not a growl, not a snarl.
Something else.
Something the handlers never trained it for because alphas don't… alphas aren't supposed to-
Purr.
Soldat is purring.
It doesn't know how to stop.
Doesn't know if it wants to stop.
Because she's still touching the arm, still holding its wrist, and her eyes are closed now, her face tipped into the metal palm like she's seeking comfort from it.
From it.
The purr intensifies.
Its thumb moves -carefully, because the arm could hurt her so easily, and that thought makes something violent twist in its gut- and brushes along her cheekbone.
Her breath catches, and Soldat hears it, and wants to touch more.
Wants to map every inch of her body with both hands, with its mouth. Wants to bury its face in her throat and learn the exact composition of her scent. Wants to know what she tastes like. Wants to-
It hands grip her shoulders and pulls her closer, using the momentum to bend down and bury its face in the curve of her neck where the scent gland sits and inhales, or tries to.
Because the mask creates a barrier between its face and her skin. Only millimeters of separation, but it might as well be miles.
It’s not enough.
It presses closer, trying to get its nose flush against her throat, trying to eliminate even those few millimeters of distance.
But the rigid edge of the muzzle won't let it, and the frustration is maddening.
The sound that rips out of its throat is not a growl. Smaller than that. Sharper. Almost a whine, high and thwarted, vibrating through its chest in a way that makes it freeze because…
Because it doesn't make sounds like that.
It pulls back from her throat, hands still on her shoulders, and it stares down at the space between them like it's a tactical problem requiring assessment.
Remove it.
The thought surfaces clean and logical. A simple solution to a simple problem.
Its flesh hand releases her shoulder and lifts toward its own head. Fingers reaching for the straps at the back, close enough that it would only take a second, just release the catch, pull the strap free…
Then the hand stops, freezing mid-motion, and Soldat's jaw clenches beneath the muzzle.
The conditioning surfaces automatically and absolutely. Operational equipment stays on until a handler authorizes removal. The Soldat doesn't touch the gear. Doesn't adjust it. Doesn't remove it.
Waits for orders. Always waits for orders.
But there are no orders here.
No handler voice in its ear telling it what to do, what's permitted, what comes next.
Just the omega standing in front of it and the scent it can't reach, and the need clawing inside it like something trying to break out.
Its hand trembles. Actually trembles. Seventy years of conditioning screaming don't touch the equipment warring with the biological imperative howling get closer to omega.
She makes a sound.
Soft. Questioning. Her eyes watch the internal struggle in real time.
And it realizes, she can see it. The conflict, the frozen hand.
The Soldat's hand drops back onto her shoulder. It can't do this.
The frustration is physical. A tightness in its throat, a pressure behind its eyes, and the whine tries to surface again, but it swallows it down because it doesn’t want to show weakness to her, besides its uselessness.
The word surfaces bitter and cold.
Can't even take off its own gear. Can't function like anything other than a weapon waiting for orders that aren't coming.
----
She can see it in his eyes.
He wants the mask off. The way he's looking at the space between them with something that's not quite frustration, or confusion, but somewhere in between.
Trapped.
He's trapped by something she can't see. Some kind of rule he can't break, even though every line of his body is screaming that he wants to.
He's not going to take it off himself.
Can't, or won't, or has been trained so thoroughly not to that his hand literally won't complete the motion even though he's desperate for it.
And that… that's wrong. Whatever they did to him, whoever they are, it's wrong.
Her hands come up slowly, carefully, so he can see it coming.
She reaches past his shoulders, past his neck, finding the straps at the back of his head. Her fingers brush through his tangled hair, searching for the buckles hidden beneath.
"Can I?"
Her voice is barely a whisper. Rough with want and the absolute insanity of what she's doing, asking permission to unmask a stranger who broke into her apartment, like that's the wildest part of this situation.
But nothing about this makes sense, so why should this?
He nods, almost military in its precision.
And something in her chest aches at how strange that is, that he needs her help to remove something that's clearly bothering him. That he can't just do it himself.
She reaches up and carefully -so carefully- lifts it away.
The straps pull free from his hair. The contraption comes away from his face, and she can see the slight indentations it left on his skin, red marks where it pressed too tightly for too long.
How long has he been wearing this?
She doesn't ask.
Just holds the mask for a second, then drops it, and it hits the floor with a dull plastic thud that seems too loud in the quiet of her apartment.
For the first time, she sees his whole face.
Sharp jaw. Dry lips parted slightly as he drags in air like he's been holding his breath. A mouth that looks like it was made for smiling, except she doesn't think he remembers how. The black paint extends down past where the mask sat, smudged across his cheeks making his eyes look even more intense.
He's… beautiful. Devastatingly so.
Not pretty, not soft, but beautiful. All sharp edges and hard lines, and a vulnerability in his eyes that doesn't match the rest of him.
And he's staring at her like she's the only thing in the world that matters, like she just gave him something he didn't know he needed.
The moment the mask leaves his face, he moves.
Fast, faster than she can track, his face buries into the curve of her throat, and the sound he makes is wrecked.
A shuddering inhale that she feels all the way down between her thighs. His nose is pressed directly against her scent gland now, nothing between them, and his whole body goes rigid against hers.
Then he breathes her in again, deep and desperate, and the groan he makes is so raw it makes her knees weak.
She feels his lips part, and the wet heat of his tongue dragging directly over her scent gland, tasting her, and her vision goes white for a second.
Her head tips back.
Automatic. Instinctive. Omega nature taking over and offering her throat to an alpha she doesn't even know, and she should be terrified of how right this feels.
But she's not.
He licks her again, slower this time, deliberately, learning her taste. Then his mouth seals over the gland, and he sucks.
The sound she makes is high and breathy and omega, and she feels it, feels her knees give out, feels her body go liquid and pliant.
He catches her.
The metal arm bands around her waist instantly, hauling her up and pinning her against him so her feet barely touch the floor. She's pressed against tactical gear and body armor and all that heat radiating off his body, and the towel-
The towel is gone.
She doesn't know when it fell. Doesn't care. Can't think past the way his mouth is working her throat, licking, sucking, the scrape of teeth that makes her gasp and arch into him.
He's hard.
She can feel it against her hip, thick and insistent even through the clothing, and he's grinding into her like he can't help himself. Like his hips are moving on pure instinct, chasing friction and relief and something he doesn't have words for.
The purr is still going.
That deep, subvocal vibration she can feel everywhere they're touching: his chest against hers, his arm around her waist, his face in her throat.
Wrong, some distant part of her brain whispers. Alphas don't purr.
But he is.
And it's the most beautiful thing she's ever felt.
She tilts her head back further, giving him more access, and the noise he makes in response is purely animal. Grateful and starving and so far gone she knows -knows- that something is deeply wrong with him.
Not wrong like dangerous.
Wrong like broken.
The way he touches her is frantic but not cruel, demanding but not bruising, desperate but not violent. Like he's running on instinct with no learned behavior, no finesse. Just need, confusion, and the desperate drive to get closer.
His flesh hand grips her thigh and lifts, hitching her leg up around his hip and pressing in hard, grinding his erection against where she's slick and open and aching, and the pressure makes her whimper.
He pulls back just enough to look at her.
His eyes are wild. Just thin rings of ice around bottomless black. His lips are wet, the black paint smudged where his face was pressed into her throat. He's panting like he just ran miles, and she can see it-
The confusion.
The need.
The absolute terror of not understanding what's happening to him. He doesn't know what he's doing, what he seeks.
But she wants to pull him down to her bed and let him figure it out. Wants to guide those shaking hands, wants to teach him what touch can feel like. Wants to watch him come apart with her name on his lips, except she doesn't even know his name and-
"Please."
The word falls out of her mouth. Barely a whisper. Rough and desperate, and she doesn't even know what she's asking for.
But he seems to understand.
----
Please.
The omega says it like a prayer, and something in Soldat's mind just shatters. Because she's asking. Begging. Not for it to stop, not for it to leave her alone, but for more.
Her scent is everywhere. On its tongue, in its nose, soaking into its skin through the tactical gear. Brown sugar and yeast, and that salt undertone that makes its alpha instinct groan mine, omega, MINE.
Her leg is wrapped around its hip. Her body is bare and warm and pressed against it, and it can smell how wet she is, and its cock is so hard it hurts.
It feels pain. Real, physical pain, because it hasn't been hard in… it doesn't know how long. Doesn't remember what this feels like, this ache low in its belly, this pressure behind the zipper of its pants that won't go away no matter how it grinds against her.
And she's letting it.
Not just letting, she's arching into it, making those high breathy sounds that spike straight down Soldat's spine, and it doesn't know what to do.
It knows how to kill. Knows ten ways to incapacitate from this position. Knows where to put the knife, the bullet.
Doesn't know how to touch her without breaking her.
Its flesh hand is gripping her thigh too tightly. It can see its knuckles white with pressure, can calculate the exact force needed to bruise, and it tries to ease up, but can't make its fingers let go.
Because if it lets go, she might-
Soldat doesn't know what it's afraid of. That she'll run. That she'll stay. That this will end. That it won't.
Her hands come up.
Slide into its hair, tangling in the unwashed strands, and she pulls.
Not hard. Just enough to guide its face back to her throat, and it complies because it can't do anything else. Can't think past the need to have its mouth on her skin, to taste the scent gland again, to feel her pulse against its tongue.
It licks a stripe up her throat, tasting her, and the purr intensifies until its entire chest is vibrating with it.
She whimpers, and the sound goes straight to its leaking cock.
It doesn't know what it's doing. Just knows it needs to move, needs friction, needs something.
Its hips jerk forward, grinding the thick length behind its pants against her, and the heat there -wet and slick and ready- makes its vision blur.
Omega.
Wants.
Needs.
The thoughts don't form in words. Just primal drive, instinct clawing up from wherever they buried it. Its free hand -the metal one, careful, so careful- slides down her side. Traces her waist, her hip, until it reaches her thigh, the one not wrapped around him, and it grips, gentle as it knows how, which might not be gentle enough, and lifts.
Both her legs are now wrapped around its waist, her back against the wall, its both hands holding her up by her ass, and she's completely open against it now.
Nothing but its tactical pants between them. It can feel the slick soaking through, can smell it so thick in the air it's drowning everything else out.
It grinds forward.
The pressure makes her gasp -loud and sharp- and her nails dig into its shoulders through the vest.
Yes.
It does it again. Harder. Chasing the friction, the heat, the sounds she's making. Its hips move in a rhythm it doesn't remember learning, rutting against her like something feral.
She's saying something, but it can't process the words. Just the tone, breathy, desperate, wanting, and it's enough.
More than enough.
Its mouth finds her throat again. Finds the scent gland and bites. Not hard. Not breaking skin, just enough pressure to make her feel it, to hold her, to-
Mark?
The thought surfaces sharp and alien. Soldat doesn't mark. Doesn't claim. It's not supposed to-
But its teeth are on her gland, and she's keening, high and sweet and surrendering, and its primal alpha nature is screaming YES, MINE, OMEGA, CLAIM-
No.
Can't.
Not allowed.
It doesn't know who decided that or why, just knows it's true. It can't bond her. Can't keep her.
But it can't let go either.
Can't stop grinding against her, can't stop purring, can't stop holding her against the wall like she's the only thing that matters in the world.
She pulls its hair again, forcing Soldat's face up, making it meet her eyes. And what it sees there is want, need. But also something else.
Understanding, maybe.
Like she can see the fracture and the confusion inside its head.
Her thumb brushes its cheekbone, smearing the black paint. Gentle in a way nothing has been with it in years.
"It's okay," she whispers.
And Soldat doesn't know what she means.
Doesn't know what's okay. This isn't okay, none of this is okay. It had broken into her home and put its hands on her, and she should be screaming and squirming but instead she's-
"It's okay," she says again, and her lips brush against it like she's afraid it might break.
Soldat freezes.
Her lips are warm. Soft. Moving gently against its mouth like she's asking a question, but it doesn't know how to answer, doesn't know what to do with its mouth except keep it closed, rigid, and unresponsive while she kisses it with a tenderness that disarms it.
She pulls back.
Just a fraction. Just enough to look at it, and Soldat can see the question in her eyes even though she doesn't ask it out loud.
Is this okay?
It doesn't know.
She kisses it again, slower this time. A soft press of lips, then another, feather-light brushes that make its breath hitch.
Her hands slide from its hair to cup its face -cradling it between her palms like it's something precious- and she kisses the corner of its mouth. Its jaw. The edge of its lips again.
Patiently, like she has all the time in the world.
Like she's not pinned against a wall, held up by its hands under her ass, legs wrapped around its waist while completely naked.
Soldat's brain tries to process this, but her tongue flicks out. Just barely. A soft, wet touch against its bottom lip that sends electricity straight down its spine.
The sensation is-
Soldat doesn't have a reference for it.
Its breath catches. Actually stutters in its chest because no one has ever done that to him.
The tongue traces its bottom lip again, a little bolder this time, and something in Soldat's chest constricts. It's compelling, her mouth on its mouth. The promise of more if it just-
If it just takes it.
And something inside it just… snaps.
It surges forward, crushing its mouth against hers and takes.
Because it doesn't know how to do this softly. Doesn't know how to kiss like she was kissing it, all tenderness and patience. Just knows want and need and more, and its mouth opens against hers, demanding, claiming.
She gasps against its lips.
It swallows the sound. Licks into her mouth, tasting her -omega, sweet, mine- and her flavor explodes across its tongue like nothing it's ever experienced.
Its flesh hand comes up from her ass and grips the back of her head, fisting her damp hair and holds her still while it kisses her like it's starving.
She makes a sound, high and breathy, and Soldat growls.
Can't help it. The sound rumbles up from its chest, vibrating through the kiss, possessive and feral and alpha in a way it didn't know it still could be.
The metal arm under her ass flexes. Lifts her higher against the wall, adjusting the angle so it can kiss her harder, deeper, can tilt her head back with the hand in her hair and devour her mouth.
She whimpers into the kiss and her hips roll, grinding down against where Soldat's cock is straining behind its zipper, and the friction -fuck, the friction-makes its hips jerk forward on instinct.
It's still kissing her. Can't stop kissing her. Can't pull away even to breathe because breathing means not kissing, and that's unacceptable.
Its hips grind up. Her hips roll down. The rhythm builds between them, clumsy, desperate, uncoordinated, and it can feel her heat even through the tactical pants.
Slick. So much of it, soaking through the fabric.
For it.
It tears its mouth away from hers just long enough to breathe -one harsh gasp-and then it's dragging its lips down her jaw, her throat. Back to the scent gland that's calling to every broken alpha instinct it has left.
It bites down.
Harder than before. Still not breaking skin, but claiming the space, holding her throat between its teeth while she keens above it.
Her hands fist in its hair. Pull hard enough to hurt, but the pain is good. Grounds it. Keeps it tethered to this moment, this omega, this impossible thing that's happening.
Its metal arm shifts, adjusting its grip on her ass, fingers spreading wider, and it can smell everything. The heat. The slickness. How ready she is.
How much she wants.
Its hips are still grinding up against her in a rhythm that feels right, even though Soldat doesn't know why. Chasing pressure and friction, and the heat radiating from between her legs.
She's panting now. Harsh little gasps every time its hips thrust up, every time the thick length behind its pants grinds against where she's open and slick and wanting.
"Please-"
She says it again. Broken and desperate, and Soldat doesn't know what she's asking for, but it wants to give it to her.
Wants to give her everything.
Its mouth releases her throat. Licks over the mark its teeth left behind -soothing, claiming- and then finds her mouth again.
Kisses her hard. Deep. Swallowing her gasps and her whimpers while its hips grind up harder, faster, chasing something its body knows even if its mind doesn't.
The pressure is building, low in Soldat's belly, behind its cock. Something coiling tighter and tighter with every thrust, every slide of slick-heat against fabric, every sound she makes into its mouth.
It doesn't know what it is.
Just knows it's coming.
And it can't stop.
Can't stop moving, can't stop kissing her, can't stop needing-
Her teeth catch its bottom lip. Bite down just enough to sting, it snarls into her mouth.
Its metal hand grips.
Pulls her down harder against its shaft while its hips snap up, and the angle -fuck- the angle grinds the ridge of its cock directly against where she's hottest.
She cries out.
Breaks the kiss, head thrown back against the wall, and it can see the pleasure breaking across her face, can see her eyes roll back, can feel her thighs shaking around its waist.
Beautiful.
She's beautiful.
And Soldat is-
It's-
The pressure peaks.
Crests like a wave, and Soldat doesn't know what's happening, but it can't stop, can't do anything but grind up into her one more time, hard and desperate and-
Everything goes white.
----
She feels him go rigid against her, and then-
He makes a sound.
Low and guttural and broken, muffled against her throat where his face is buried now, and she feels it, feels him shuddering against her, feels the rhythmic pulse against her hip even through his pants.
Oh.
He just-
Her brain catches up a second too late, pleasure still sparking through her nerve endings from the way he was grinding against her, the perfect pressure against her clit, the desperate rhythm that had her right on the edge-
But he got there first.
And something in her breaks with something tender and possessive and achingly sad all at once.
Because this -this desperate, uncontrolled response- tells her everything she needs to know about how touch-starved he is, coming from friction alone.
Her alpha came untouched, shaking against her, and the intimacy of that moment makes her throat tight. And somehow she is glad her body, her scent, was enough to make him lose control so completely, that could give him this.
Even if she's still aching. Still empty. Still wet and wanting and so close to the edge she could cry.
The purr has stuttered into something irregular, broken, almost pained. And her omega instincts surge.
Protect. Soothe. Comfort.
Her hands move on instinct, one sliding into his hair, the other pressing flat against his chest, where she can feel his heart racing like a war drum.
His grip on her hasn't loosened.
Still holding her up, metal arm banded under her ass, flesh hand fisted in her hair at the nape of her neck. Still pressing her into the wall like she's the only solid thing in his world.
He's not moving.
He’s just frozen there, face buried in her throat, breathing hard and ragged against her skin. She can feel the wetness between them, his release soaking through his pants, merging with her slick, warm where their hips are still pressed together.
And he hasn't let go.
Won't let go.
She can feel it in the tension of his body, the way his fingers are still fisted in her hair, the trembling in his flesh hand that suggests he's fighting every instinct to squeeze tighter, hold harder, never release.
Like he's terrified she'll disappear if he loosens his grip even a fraction.
"Hey," she whispers, and her voice comes out… wrecked.
"Hey, it's okay."
She doesn't know if she's talking to him or herself.
Doesn't know what she's reassuring him of. That coming like this is okay? That she's not disgusted? That she's not going anywhere?
All of it, maybe.
She feels his face shift against her throat. A tiny movement, his nose dragging along her scent gland like he's seeking reassurance in her smell.
And her heart just-
Breaks.
Breaks for this broken alpha who doesn't even know how to accept comfort without making it into something instinctive and biological.
His breathing doesn't even out. If anything, it gets worse. Harsher. Like he's trying to pull himself together and failing.
And she notices it, the alpha shame. Of losing control. Of being weak. Of needing.
"Alpha," she says, and she's surprised by how steady her voice comes out. How sure. "It's okay. You're okay."
She doesn't know if he understands words right now -doesn't know how much of him is even there behind those pale eyes- but shesays it anyway.
Like she can make it true just by believing it hard enough.
The purr is starting to even out now. Still irregular, but less jagged. And she can feel the exact moment something changes in him, when the shame starts to give way to something else.
His grip tightens fractionally. The hand in her hair flexes, and his face presses harder into her throat, and the sound he makes is low and rough and utterly possessive.
Mine, it says without words.
Omega. Mine. Not letting go.
And fuck, she wants to be his.
Her thighs are starting to shake from the position. Legs wrapped around his waist, all her weight held up by his arm, and she's not sure how long they've been like this, but her muscles are beginning to protest.
"Hey," she says softly. "You can… you can put me down if you want. I can grab a towel, clean up a bit-"
No.
He doesn't say it, just makes a sound -low, immediate, almost a growl- and his grip tightens on her.
Metal and flesh both, holding her closer instead of letting go, and his face presses harder into her throat like the suggestion of separation is physically painful.
She feels him shake his head.
Just once. Sharp and definitive.
Not letting go. Not putting her down. Not giving her space to clean up or think or do anything except stay right here, wrapped around him, her scent in his lungs.
"Okay," she whispers, and she doesn't know why she's surrendering so easily. Doesn't know why the word falls from her lips like a vow. "Okay, alpha. I'm not going anywhere."
And she… should probably be concerned about that reaction.
Should insist on disengaging, because they're both a mess, his release soaking through his pants, her slick coating her thighs and the fabric, the obscene mix of it smeared between them where their bodies are pressed together.
But the way he's holding her, the way his breathing is starting to change again. Getting heavier. Rougher. Not the ragged gasps from before but something else. Something deeper.
His scent shifts.
Sharpens.
She smells it even through her own arousal, through the mess between them, leather and gunmetal going darker, muskier, edged with something that makes her inner omega sit up and pay attention.
Alpha.
Not just alpha.
Rutting alpha.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
He's-
Before she can finish the thought, he moves.
Turns from the wall, carrying her like she weighs nothing, and crosses her small apartment in a couple of long strides. Her bed is right there -unmade, sheets still tangled from when she left for work yesterday- and he doesn't hesitate.
Just leans forward and deposits her on it. Not rough, but not gentle either. Without ceremony, she's suddenly on her back on the mattress, legs falling open, and he's standing over her, looking down with those pale blue eyes engulfed in blown pupils.
Somehow, she feels more naked now, exposed. Sprawled on the bed, thighs still shaking, slick coating her inner thighs and probably the sheets beneath her.
He can see all of it, and he's staring where she's open. Wet. Swollen. Still aching from how close she was before he came, before everything stopped.
His nostrils flare.
And the sound he makes is-
Feral.
----
The scent is everywhere.
Brown sugar and yeast and the slick of her arousal, but now it's mixed with the smell of Soldat's own release, and it's-
Obscene.
The word pops into its mind, and it's correct. The mix of their scents shouldn't blend like this, but it does, and it makes its inner alpha go absolutely feral with possessive satisfaction.
Soldat's cock is stirring again.
Shouldn't be possible. It just came, hard enough that it's still feeling the aftershocks, still wet and sensitive under its pants, but it doesn't matter.
Because she's there.
Spread out on the bed, and it can see it now. Can see the slick coating her inner thighs, can see how ready she is, can smell it thick and sweet and calling to every broken instinct it has.
It doesn't think.
Just drops to its knees beside the bed gracelessly, metal hand bracing on the mattress, flesh hand going straight to her thigh.
Gripping, spreading her wider.
She makes a sound -surprise, maybe, or arousal- but it barely registers. Can't hear anything past the rush of blood in its ears.
It needs to taste her.
Not the scent gland this time. Not her throat or her mouth or any of the places it's already learned.
Here.
Where her scent is strongest, purest, where she's slick and open and-
It buries its face between her thighs.
Fuck.
The word detonates in its head, sharp and visceral, because she tastes sweet, and salt. Omega.
Its tongue drags through her folds -clumsy, unpracticed, chasing the flavor- and she gasps under it. Her thighs try to close on reflex, but its hands are there, metal and flesh both, holding her open.
Keeping her spread while it licks.
Learning her. The texture, the taste, the way she's so wet the slick coats its tongue, slides down its throat.
It growls against her.
Can't help it. The sound vibrates through her core, possessive and hungry, and she whimpers. Soldat does it again.
Licks slower this time, more deliberate. Dragging its tongue from her entrance up to-
She jerks.
Hips bucking up, a sharp inhale, Soldat freezes.
There.
That spot. Small and swollen, and when its tongue brushes it again, she makes the sound again, high and broken.
Clit.
The word surfaces from somewhere. Detached. But Soldat doesn't need the terminology. Just needs to know that touching there makes her react like that.
Makes her want.
It seals its lips around it and sucks.
----
She screams.
Can't help it. Can't muffle it. The sensation rips through her body like lightning, his mouth on her clit, sucking hard and wet and perfect, and her back arches off the bed.
Her hands fly to his hair, fisting in the tangled strands, and she doesn't know if she's pulling him closer or trying to push him away because it's too much, too intense, she's already been on edge for-
His tongue circles her clit. Flicks over it. Then sucks again, and she can't breathe.
He's-
He's devouring her.
Face buried between her thighs like he's starving, like this is the only thing he wants in the world. His hands are holding her open, and she can feel his nose pressed against her mound, can feel the vibration of the sounds he's making.
Growls. Deep and continuous, rumbling through her core every time he licks, every time he tastes her.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
She can tell. The movements are enthusiastic but uncoordinated, chasing reactions without technique. Licking everywhere, tasting everything, like he's trying to map her by flavor alone.
But it works.
Because he's paying attention. Learning what makes her gasp, what makes her hips buck, what makes her pull his hair and whimper his-
She doesn't even know his name.
The thought penetrates through her pleasure-drunk brain and dissolves immediately because his tongue just found her entrance and pushes inside.
"Oh fuck!"
The curse rips out of her. His tongue is inside her, licking, and the sensation is so foreign and good and wet that her thighs start shaking again.
He groans against her.
The vibration travels straight through her core, and she can feel it, feel him tasting her from the inside, feel the way his tongue curls and explores like he's trying to drink every drop of slick.
And there's so much.
She's never been this wet in her life. Can feel it coating her thighs, soaking into the sheets, and he's lapping at it like it's the best thing he's ever tasted.
His metal hand shifts on her thigh.
Adjusts its grip, and then-
She feels it.
The cool press of metal against her entrance. One finger, articulated and precise, pressing in and stretching alongside his tongue.
"Alpha-"
The word escapes her lips. Desperate. Pleading. She doesn't even know what she's asking for.
But he seems to understand.
His tongue pulls out. The metal finger becomes two, and he pushes them in -slowly, carefully, letting her feel the drag- and she loses it.
----
Soldat can't stop.
Can't pull away from her taste, the slick coating its tongue, the way she's whimpering and pulling its hair and making sounds that go straight to its cock.
Which is impossibly hard again. Aching, still wet from before, and it starts grinding against the mattress without conscious thought. Seeking friction, seeking relief, but it's not enough.
The pants are too restrictive. The fabric cuts into its cock every time it thrusts forward, and it's wrong.
They’re in the way.
It pulls back from between her thighs -just for a second, just enough- and its hands go to its belt, ripping it open.
The buckle clatters, the tactical webbing falling away, and then it is yanking at the fly. Buttons, zipper, whatever, it doesn't care. Just needs them off, needs the pressure gone.
The pants and undergarment peel down over its hips, shoved down to mid-thigh, and-
It looks down.
Its cock is twitching, flushed, and still wet from its release, cum smeared along the length, sticky and cooling against overheated skin. The smell hits immediately: the musk of spent alpha mixed with her slick-sweet omega scent in the air.
Its lip curls.
Not in disgust. In something else. Something possessive and satisfied because that's their scent. Mixed. Merged.
But it's also… messy.
Soldat doesn't do messy. Doesn't-
A sound interrupts its thoughts.
Her.
Whimpering.
Its head snaps up.
----
She's staring.
Can't help it.
He's... fuck. He's big.
Still wet from coming in his pants, she can see it, the streaks of his release coating it, glistening with the light from her bedside lamp.
And the smell.
It makes fresh slick slide down her thighs, makes her body ache with want so visceral she can barely think past it. She needs-
But he's already moving.
Already turning back toward the bed, dropping his gaze to where she's sprawled on the mattress, legs still spread, and she can see the intent written clearly on his face.
He's going back down. Going to bury his face between her thighs again, taste her again, and-
Yes, his mouth felt incredible. The enthusiastic, uncoordinated desperation of it, the way he licked and sucked like he was starving.
But that's not what she needs right now. Not when he's right there, hard and ready, and she can smell how much he wants her.
"Wait-"
The word tumbles out before she can stop it. Desperate. Pleading.
"Alpha, wait-"
He freezes.
Mid-motion. One knee on the bed, hands reaching for her thighs, and those pale eyes snap up to meet hers.
She sees the confusion dance across his face.
And then-
His expression shutters.
Goes from open and needy to closed and determined in the space of a heartbeat, and his hands land on her thighs, metal and flesh both.
And the grip is different now.
Firmer. Restraining.
His fingers dig in -not painful, but unmistakably harder- and he pushes. Spreading her thighs wider, pinning them to the mattress, and the look in his eyes-
Oh no.
He thinks she's telling him to stop.
Thinks she's refusing, resisting, and his entire body language has changed into something that makes her inner omega sit up and take notice.
Dominant. Controlling. Alpha.
"No, I just-" she tries again, voice coming out shakier than she wants. "I want-"
But he's not listening.
His gaze drops back between her legs. Fixed. Focused. And his hands press down harder, holding her flat against the mattress.
The message is crystal clear:
Stay still. Let me.
And-
Fuck.
She whimpers.
Can't help it. Can't stop the sound that escapes her throat because the dominance in the gesture, the way he's pinning her open, the raw alpha energy radiating off him…
It should scare her.
Should send up every red flag about consent, control, and danger.
But it doesn't. It just makes her wetter.
Makes her body respond with a fresh gush of slick because, apparently, her omega brain thinks being held down by this strange alpha is the hottest thing that's ever happened to her.
But that's not what she wants, not right now.
She needs him inside her. Needs to feel that thick cock splitting her open, needs to be filled and claimed and bred, and if she doesn't get it soon, she's going to lose her mind.
She writhes.
Twisting in his grip. Not trying to escape, just trying to move, to shift position, to show him what she wants.
But his hands just tighten, holding her down more firmly, his shoulders settling into a posture that says he's not going to let her move until he's done with her.
Okay.
New strategy.
She stops fighting the pressure pushing her thighs down, and instead, she uses it. Let him think he's won, let her legs go slack in his grip for just a second-
And then she twists.
Hard. Fast. Using the slickness of her sweat and the slick coating on her thighs to slip out of his grip, throwing her weight sideways.
It catches him off guard.
His hands lose purchase for half a second -just half a second- but it's enough.
She rolls onto her stomach.
Scrambling. Hands planting on the mattress, knees pulling up under her, and-
His metal hand lands on her hip immediately.
Firm grip. Already trying to maneuver her, and she can feel his intent: he's going to flip her back over, get her on her back again so he can put his face between her legs and-
She doesn't let him.
Plants her knees wide. Braces her weight forward on her elbows. And arches her back, hard. Pushing her ass up and out, spine curving in a deep arch that puts everything on display.
Presenting herself.
The effect is immediate. His hands go still on her hips, and the pressure trying to flip her over just… stops.
She can feel him freeze behind her. Can feel his gaze locked on her body, on the position she's in.
And she knows what he's seeing.
Her on her knees. Back arched so deep it almost hurts. Ass high in the air, thighs spread wide.
Completely open. Completely vulnerable. Offering.
"Please," she gasps into the mattress.
Her voice is wrecked. Desperate. Shaking with need.
"Please, alpha-"
She reaches back, both hands sliding over her ass, down between her thighs, and-
She spreads herself open for him.
Fingers pulling her folds apart. Exposing her entrance, slick and clenching and empty. Exposing her clit, swollen and oversensitive. Exposing everything.
Desperate.
Obscene.
Begging.
"Please- I need- please-"
----
Soldat's brain shutdowns. Every thought fragments into white noise because she's-
Presenting?
The visual input hits its alpha instincts like a tactical nuke:
Omega. On her knees. Back arched. Ass up, and thighs spread wide, holding herself open.
Showing Soldat exactly where she wants it. Where she needs it.
Begging for it.
Omega wants.
Omega needs to be bred.
Again, the thoughts don't form in words. Just primal recognition slamming through its neural pathways with brutal, devastating clarity.
This is what the body was built for. This moment. This position.
And they tried to kill it.
Tried to suppress, chemically neuter, erase this entire drive from its system. Seventy years of injections and conditioning stomping down every breeding instinct, every mating urge, every biological imperative that makes an alpha alpha.
And it's all coming back now, roaring back to life with devastating, unstoppable force. The Soldat's cock throbs again. Hard. Aching.
And it can feel it, the need building like pressure behind a dam about to break.
Need to mount her.
Need to breed her.
Need to fill her and knot her and make her MINE.
It moves before processing the thought, crawling onto the bed. Knees hitting the mattress on either side of her thighs, bracketing her, caging her in.
One hand -metal- grips her hip. Servos engaging to hold her steady, hold her exactly in position. The other hand drops to its cock, wrapping around the base. The skin is oversensitive, still tender from coming so hard before, but it doesn't matter.
Nothing matters except getting inside her.
It lines up, dragging the head of its cock through her folds -so wet, so slick, coating the tip- and finding her entrance.
There.
The head presses against her opening, and it can feel the resistance, feel her body starting to yield, and-
She makes a begging sound.
Desperate. Pleading.
And something in the Soldat's chest snarls.
Possessive. Feral. Every remaining shred of control burned away under the weight of pure instinct.
Mine.
Omega is MINE.
Soldat's hips push forward. Not slow, or carefully. And the heat-
Fuck.
The word detonates somewhere in its fractured consciousness because the sensation is-
Overwhelming.
Tight. Hot. Perfect.
It can feel her body struggling to adjust. Feel the flutter of her walls around just the tip, trying to accommodate the intrusion.
And Soldat-
Soldat doesn't stop.
Can't stop.
Just pulls back half an inch and drives forward harder, forcing deeper. Splitting her open. Burying itself halfway with one brutal thrust and-
The sound she makes.
High. Broken. Somewhere between a scream and a sob.
----
She can't breathe.
The sensation of being split open, stretched in ways she's never experienced, is so overwhelming that her mind goes completely blank.
Her body is struggling to accommodate the thick intrusion forcing its way inside, and god, there's so much slick, she can feel it coating her thighs, easing the way, her omega body preparing itself to be mounted.
The pressure of being filled too fast, too much, has her walls relaxing and clenching around him, trying to adjust, trying to make room, and it's so much more than any toy she's ever used, more than any alpha she's been with.
Just those first few inches, and she already feels impossibly full.
Her hands fist in the sheets as a high, shocked sound rips from her throat. Not pain or discomfort, but raw, filthy pleasure because she didn't know it could feel like this.
Didn't know her body could stretch like this, yield like this, open like this for an alpha's cock. Didn't know being filled could feel so right that her inner omega is practically screaming yes, this, MORE.
He pulls back half an inch -barely anything- and she feels the drag of every ridge and vein, feels the way her body is gripping him desperately like it doesn't want to let go, trying to keep him inside where he belongs.
And then he slams forward, harder and deeper, burying himself halfway in one brutal thrust.
The cry that tears from her is ragged and wrecked because oh fuck, YES, the stretch is perfect. She can feel her body yielding and surrendering even as it struggles to accommodate the impossible slide of his thick cock forcing deeper, filling her in ways that make her inner omega purr with savage satisfaction.
Because this, this is what she's built for. This is what her body has been screaming for every time she's gone into heat alone, every time she's fucked herself on toys that were never enough, every time an alpha touched her and it felt wrong because they weren't him.
This fullness, this alpha mounting her and forcing her body to yield and open and take him, this is what she's been waiting for her entire life without knowing it.
And it feels so fucking good.
"Alpha-" The word spills from her lips, broken and desperate and drenched in need. Not a protest but pure, filthy appreciation because he's so deep already and she can feel him shuddering above her, can feel the trembling restraint in his grip, and she wants him to lose it. Wants him to stop holding back and just fuck her the way his instincts are demanding.
His grip on her hips tightens -metal fingers digging in, flesh hand trembling- and she knows he heard it, knows what that word does to him.
He makes a sound, low and possessive and feral, and then he moves.
Pulls back so she feels every devastating inch of the drag, that delicious friction against her inner walls that makes her gasp and clench around him, and then he slams back in harder, deeper, forcing the rest of the way in with one brutal thrust until she feels his hips flush against her ass.
And the feeling is-
Fuck.
It's everything.
He's everywhere -inside her, around her, the weight of his body pressing her into the mattress, the heat of his skin against her back, his cock buried so deep she swears she can feel him in her throat- and the sensation of being stretched around him, stuffed full of alpha cock, mounted and claimed is so intense and perfect and right that her vision goes almost white.
Her body clenches around him reflexively, her inner walls rippling and squeezing his length, trying to pull him impossibly deeper even though there's no more room for it to go, and she feels her arms give out , her back arching deeper, presenting herself even more, and she can't do anything except feel him filling her.
She needs more.
Needs him to move, to fuck her, to use her body exactly like his instincts are screaming at him to do. Needs to feel him pounding into her, rutting into her, like the desperate omega she apparently is.
"Please-" she gasps into the mattress, and her voice is absolutely wrecked. Desperate. Filthy. Her hand reaches back blindly, finds his wrist, and squeezes hard. "Move. Alpha, please-”
Because if he doesn't start moving soon, if he doesn't give her what her body is screaming for, she's going to lose her fucking mind.
----
Soldat snarls in response.
Move?
Her begging comes from somewhere deep, somewhere primal. And it wants to give it to her. Whatever she asks.
Wants to fuck her. Breed her. Claim her.
Now.
Its hips pull back slowly, dragging its cock almost all the way out, feeling every inch of tight omega heat clinging to it, trying to keep it inside.
And then it slams back in.
Hard.
The omega screams and moans, high and sharp, and the sound goes straight to its heavy balls, flipping every remaining switch from control to breed.
It doesn't know how to do this gently.
Doesn't have the reference. Doesn't have the capacity right now with her scent flooding its system, with the feel of her wrapped around its cock, with seventy years of chemical castration breaking apart under the weight of pure biological drive.
So it just fucks.
Pulls out and slams back in, setting a brutal rhythm immediately. Hips snapping forward, the slap of skin on skin is obscenely loud in the small apartment, and she's taking it.
Taking every thrust. Her body yielding even as it struggles to adjust, slick easing the way, and Soldat can feel it, feel her getting wetter, feel the way her walls are clenching around its cock.
Its metal hand tightens on her hip.
Servos whirring as it grips harder, using the leverage to pull her back into each thrust. Making the penetration deeper, harder, and-
The omega makes another sound. A different moan, long and low and completely debauched, and her forearms lower completely, as she presses her face into the mattress.
Surrendering.
Letting it use her.
Soldat snarls again.
Possessive. Feral. Its flesh hand releases her hip and moves to the back of her neck instead, gripping. Holding her down while its hips thrust faster, chasing something its body knows even if its mind doesn't.
She's whimpering into the mattress.
High, continuous sounds with each thrust, and Soldat can smell it, can smell her arousal spiking, can smell the way their scents are mixing where they're joined.
Omega slick and alpha musk and the wet, obscene sound of the fucking as it drives into her over and over and over.
Its cock is still sensitive. Every thrust sends sparks of almost-too-much up its spine, pleasure edging toward pain, but it doesn't matter. Can't stop. Won't stop.
Because she needs this.
It can tell. Can read it in the way she's pushing back into each thrust now, can hear it in the sounds she's making, can smell it in the way her scent keeps getting sweeter.
Omega needs to be fucked.
Needs to be bred.
And the Soldat is-
Soldat is going to-
No.
The thought surfaces sharp and cold. The Soldat can't. Isn't allowed to breed. The handlers said-
But there are no handlers.
Just instinct. Pure and brutal and clawing through its system, demanding it claim this omega, fill her, knot her-
Knot.
Soldat can feel it. The base of its cock starts to swell, pressure building with each thrust. It's going to lock inside her and-
And she's going to take it.
Its rhythm falters.
Just for a second. Uncertainty flickering through the haze of need because this is- this is too much. Once it knots her there's no taking it back, no undoing it, and-
She pushes back hard.
Takes its cock to the hilt and grinds, pressing her ass flush against its hips, and the whimper she makes is so desperate, so needy, that its brain just-
Breaks.
Fuck the handlers.
Fuck seventy years of suppression.
Soldat is going to knot his omega.
Its hand leaves her neck. Both hands go to her forearms, and it lifts her, pulling her up until her back is arched almost vertically, until she's on her knees with Soldat pressed against her back.
Changing the angle completely.
And then it drives in.
Deeper than before. So deep the omega sobs, and it can feel it, can feel the head of its cock hitting something that makes her whole body shake.
There.
The Soldat does it again.
Pulls almost all the way out and slams back in at that angle, and she cries out. Loud, uncontrolled, her thighs shaking, and it can smell the spike in her arousal.
Close.
She's close.
It can tell. Can read it in her body language, in her scent, in the way her walls are starting to tighten around its cock.
Soldat's rhythm turns brutal.
Fast and hard and deep, hitting that spot, chasing her orgasm because it needs -needs- to feel her come on its cock. Needs to feel her clench and shake and break while it fills her.
Its metal arm bands across her chest, holding her upright, holding her in place, while its flesh hand drops between her legs and finds her swollen clit.
The omega shrieks.
Hips bucking, body jerking in Soldat's hold, but it doesn't let go. Just keeps fucking into her, keeps its fingers on her clit -circling, pressing, rubbing- and she's sobbing now.
Incoherent. Desperate. Completely overwhelmed.
"Please- please- alpha, I'm-"
She doesn't finish the sentence.
Just shatters.
Soldat feels it. Feels her walls clamp down around its cock like a silken fist, feels her whole body go rigid and then shake, feels the gush of fresh slick as she comes hard.
And it-
It roars.
Can't stop it. Can't control the sound ripping out of its throat as its knot swells, expanding rapidly, locking them together as the orgasm hits it like a freight train.
White-hot. Devastating.
Its hips jerk forward one last time, burying its cock and knot as deep as physically possible, and then it's coming.
Spilling inside her. Filling her. Breeding her the way every broken instinct is screaming at it to do.
The omega is still shaking.
Still coming, her walls rippling around the knot, milking it, and Soldat can't think past the pleasure, past the overwhelming rightness of being locked inside her.
Mine.
Omega.
MINE.
The knot pulses. Once. Twice. Pumping more into her with each throb, and she's-
She's taking all of it.
It can feel it. Feel her body accepting everything it's giving, can smell the way their scents are completely merged now.
Inseparable.
Her legs are shaking. The only thing keeping it upright is the metal arm still banded across her chest, holding her against it. The flesh hand has fallen away from her clit, braced on the mattress instead, because Soldat's coordination is gone.
Just-
Gone.
Pleasure still rolling through it in waves, aftershocks making its cock pulse inside her, and she's-
She's making sounds. Small, whimpering. Not in distress. Something else.
Its face drops to her shoulder, nose finding her scent gland on instinct, and it breathes her in. Brown sugar and yeast and satisfied omega, and the purr starts again.
Deep. Subvocal. Vibrating through both their chests where they're pressed together.
The knot is still locked. Not going down anytime soon.
She's not fighting it or trying to pull away. She’s just leaning her weight against its chest, trusting it to hold her up.
And Soldat does.
Metal arm secured under her breasts, flesh hand moving from the mattress to her hip. Holding her. Supporting her. Keeping her upright while they're locked together.
It doesn't know how long this lasts, doesn't have a reference for how long a knot holds. Just knows it can't pull out even if it wanted to, which it doesn't.
Can't imagine wanting to leave the tight heat of her body. Can't imagine letting go.
The purr continues, steady now. Soothing. It doesn't know if it's trying to soothe her or itself. Maybe both.
Her head tilts.
Just slightly. Turning toward Soldat's face still pressed against her shoulder, and it can see her profile. Eyes closed. Lips parted. Face heated and damp with sweat.
Beautiful.
The word surfaces unbidden.
It has never called anything beautiful before, because it doesn't have the framework for aesthetic appreciation. But she's-
She is.
Especially like this. Fucked out and knotted and completely trusting it to hold her.
Its nose drags along her scent gland, taking her in, and she makes a soft sound -pleased, satisfied- tilting her head, giving it more access, and Soldat's purr deepens.
----
She can't feel her legs.
Can't feel much of anything except him. Inside her. Around her. The metal arm holding her upright. The purr vibrating through her chest. The knot stretching her so full that she can barely breathe.
And it's-
God, it's perfect.
She's never felt like this before.
Never felt so completely claimed. So utterly taken. Every alpha she's ever been with was… adequate.
But this-
This is different.
This is feral and desperate and completely uncontrolled, and somehow it's exactly what she needed without ever knowing she needed it.
She can feel his nose dragging along her scent gland, can feel the rumble of that impossible purr, and her inner omega is just-
Singing.
Satisfied in a way she's never experienced. Sated. Content.
Because he, her alpha-
She doesn't even know his name, and she's already thinking of him as hers.
The thought should probably scare her. Should send up red flags about bonding too fast with a stranger. But it doesn't.
Because this isn't fast.
This is inevitable.
Like every decision she's ever made led her here, to this moment, knotted and claimed by an alpha who broke into her apartment and looked at her like she was the only thing in the world worth having.
His knot pulses inside her.
She feels it. The throb, the gush of warmth, and her body clenches around it automatically. Milking him. Taking everything he's giving, even though she's already so full it's almost too much.
Almost.
But not quite.
Because her body wants this. Wants to be filled. Wants to be bred. Every dormant omega instinct she had is purring in satisfaction.
Yes. This. Him. Finally.
She feels him shift behind her.
The metal arm around her tightens slightly, and then he's pulling her more upright, bringing her back flush against his chest. She's properly kneeling now, her back supported entirely by his body, and the angle change makes her gasp because the knot-
Fuck.
The knot feels even bigger like this. Deeper.
And his flesh hand-
It slides down.
Over her hip, her thigh, and then between her legs and cups her mound, covering where they're joined. Where his knot is stretching her, where the mess of their combined release is slick and obscene between her thighs.
His palm presses gently as his fingers spread to cover all of it, her, him, the evidence of what just happened.
The sound he makes against her shoulder is possessive. Satisfied. A low rumble that's half-purr, half-growl.
Mine, the gesture says.
Bred. Claimed. Marked. MINE.
And she whimpers.
Because yes.
Yes.
His.
Completely and utterly his.
His purring deepens.
Smug. Like he knows exactly what that sound means. Like he's pleased she's responding to his possessiveness instead of fighting it.
His face shifts against her shoulder, nuzzling deeper. His nose drags along the curve where her neck meets her shoulder, breathing her in like he can't get enough.
And then she feels his lips.
A kiss.
Soft. Tender. Pressed against her sweat-damp skin.
Then another. Along her shoulder. Gentle and reverent and completely at odds with the brutal way he just fucked her.
His teeth scrape. The edge of a nip that doesn't break skin, doesn't hurt, just makes her shiver.
Her hand comes up and reaches back -awkward angle, but she manages- and threads into his hair, combing through the tangled strands while he continues his exploration of her shoulder, her neck, every inch of skin he can reach from this position.
He makes a sound against her skin, and she can feel him settling.
The frantic energy bleeding out, the feral drive giving way to something gentler. Still possessive. Still intensely alpha, but softer.
His forehead comes to rest against the back of her neck.
The hand between her legs stays there, rubbing slowly, smearing their mess on her knotted entrance. A constant reminder of what they just did, what they are now.
The knot still pulses occasionally. She doesn't know how long this lasts -thirty minutes, an hour?- but she's not in a hurry, can't bring herself to care, not when he's holding her like this.
Not when every instinct she has is screaming mate.
True mate.
Hers.
She lets her eyes close.
Leans her head back against his shoulder and lets the metal arm support her weight, lets the purr lull her into a haze of satisfaction and safety.
And for the first time in her life, she feels complete.
Trustfall, Prologue
Winter Soldier!Bucky x fem!Reader, 9 chapters plus prologue & epilogue. Explicit for sexual contact in later chapters, which considering it’s the Winter Soldier should be considered vaguely dub!con within an established relationship. Updates will be Tuesdays & Thursdays until complete.
Summary:
Hydra attacks the Tower, fully intending to regain control of their Asset. But Bucky Barnes has a plan. Bucky Barnes has you.
A/N: Inspired by this Tumblr post by @calzone-d, but then it took a life of its own. The working title for this was “Hostage to the Winter Soldier!” (complete with exclamation point, because it’s funnier that way, and if you don’t imagine that title in one of those 1950s B-movie fonts, you’re doing it wrong), but by the time I finished writing, I had Pink’s song stuck in my head, and it’s probably a better fit.
Full notes on AO3, but please note the Trigger Warning for Dub!con above.
Prologue ~ Chapters 1 ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ 4 ~ 5 ~ 6 ~ 7 ~ 8 ~ 9 ~ Epilogue
MCU Masterlist
“Oh come on, they’ll never hire me,” you protest, laughing. You have to shout it to be heard over the noise of the bar. “And anyway, I’m happy in the ER.”
“But it’s Avengers Tower,” groans your best friend Steph, her slightly tipsy head dropping onto the bar. “You have to—ow. Who made bars so hard? That hurt.”
You pat her shoulder. “I like the ER. It’s fast-paced, it’s exciting, I’m doing exactly what I always wanted.”
“Two words. Super. Heroes.”
“That’s one word, Steph. And come on, superheroes aren’t that interesting. They probably do their own stitches and skip their regular check-ups.”
“Is she still bothering you about the Avengers job?” asks the bartender, Chet, as he hands Steph a towel full of ice from behind the bar.
“Yes,” you groan as Steph mumbles a thank you and plops the iced towel on her head, still lying on the bar. “And it’s not an Avengers job. It’s just a job at the Tower. I probably wouldn’t even see them. I bet I’d be giving SI employees their immunizations and checking for fevers in the on-site daycare.”
“Or working with Bruce Banner?”
“There’s no guarantee of that!”
“Oh yeah? Is there a security clearance involved?”
“Well, yeah…”
“Working with Bruce Banner,” says Chet sagely. “And you know, wiping snotty noses in the daycare and chasing down superheroes for their yearly check-ups.”
“I like the ER,” you insist.
“We know you do,” says Chet. “But we like seeing you, and this is the first time you’ve been out since you got the job two years ago.”
“I miss you,” moans Steph to the bar. Well, in the direction of the bar, but presumably to you. “You’re my best friend and the only way I see you is by breaking my ankle.”
“Oh my God, Steph, tell me you didn’t do that on purpose.”
“Just apply,” says Chet. “If nothing else, it’ll give you bargaining power when your contract comes up again.”
“It does have better hours. And dental.”
“Dental,” sighs Steph longingly.
*
“I got the job!”
“What?” Steph yells back. Clearly, hunting down Steph while she’s on the dance floor was a bad idea.
“I. GOT. THE. JOB!!!”
“Oh my God!” shrieks Steph, encasing you in a huge hug. “My best friend’s gonna be an Avenger!”
You burst into laughter, glad no one else can hear you over the music. “Not an Avenger, Steph. Just a nurse working in the medical bay in the Tower. I probably won’t even see them.”
Steph holds your shoulders firmly. “You are not allowed to replace me with Black Widow.”
“As if!”
Chet gives you a free drink, as do a few others nearby who overheard the part about “new job.” Only one of them actually asks where the job is.
“Stark Industries,” you say, because it’s basically true. “Probably not as exciting as the ER was, but the hours are way better and so’s the pay and benefits.”
“I hope you enjoy it,” says the man, lifting his glass in a toast. He’s got a really pleasant accent, wire-rimmed glasses, the scar on the side of his face barely noticeable in the dim light. You’d like to keep talking to him, but Steph distracts you for a moment, and when you turn back around, he’s gone.
*
Okay, so you hadn’t really lied to Steph. You don’t see the Avengers very often, but that’s only because you don’t work nights and they only ever show up in the med bay when it’s dark outside. Or seem to, anyway.
But you’ve met just about all of them for one reason or another, and so far, every encounter has shown them to be pleasant and friendly as can be.
Until one afternoon, about six months after you started working, when you overhear two very loud, very shouty voices, in the hall outside the nurse’s station.
“I DO NOT NEED STITCHES.”
“You’re worse than Clint! Get in there!”
“Come on, Stevie, they’re gonna heal up on their own in ten minutes.”
“Not if you don’t get the broken glass out first.”
Broken glass? You immediately reach for the kit with the tweezers and a pair of nitrile gloves.
“So you do it.”
“I can’t do it, I have to go brief Hill.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Yeah. For the nurse.”
“Stevie,” groans the guy. “Is this what it all comes to? Saving me from the clutches of Hydra only to make me relive my worst nightmares? You’ve seen the nurses here, Stevie, they all look like my Uncle Maurice.”
“Not true, Buck.”
“They’re cold, heartless bitches, Stevie, the lot of them.”
“Hello,” you say cheerfully, entering the room where Captain America straddles a second man, face-down on the floor and long past fighting. “I’m the attending cold heartless bitch who looks like your Uncle Maurice, I hear you’ve got some glass embedded somewhere?”
“A plate glass window attacked him,” Captain America tells you. “It was brutal.”
“You should’ve seen the window,” grumbles the man to the floor.
“I’ll be sure to send a sympathy card,” you say, setting up your tools on the tray table. “I can do this on the floor, but it’d probably be more sanitary up here.”
“Right,” says Captain America, and he gets off the floor.
The man immediately makes a break for it.
“Nope,” you say, and grab one of the conveniently-placed straps on his leather coat. He spins and stares at you in shock.
He’s cute, you think, or would be if it weren’t for the gaping wound in his forehead. It sparkles, though that’s probably the glass catching in the light.
“So that’s what the straps are for,” says Captain America, impressed, right before he grabs the guy by the ear and hauls him up on the examining table.
“OW.” The man glares at Captain America, who doesn’t seem the least bit concerned. Even though that glare’s probably the scariest thing you’ve ever seen.
“Hold still,” you tell the glare, and start removing the glass from his forehead.
It’s a nasty wound, too. You work as fast as you can, fully aware of how the man you’re treating is—despite all outward appearances—scared to death.
Not that he’d admit it, or even realize you know it. But you worked in an ER for a while. You’ve seen everything, from spaced-out junkies to suicidal octogenarians to homeless vets.
You know which this guy is most like. The way he’s not shaking or trembling, the way he’s so tense and unable to breathe. Not just not breathing, but actually, physically, unable to take a breath because he’s working so hard to keep from screaming.
“The only way out is through,” you murmur as you pull another shard of glass from his forehead.
“Hmm?” asks Captain America, but the guy watches you: wary, assessing every move, even as you telegraph them as plainly as you can.
Calm, almost, despite the now-shallow breaths.
“Nothing,” you say. “One more piece.”
You pull it out, cleaning the area again. “Now, unless I miss my guess, you’re both thinking he’s going to self-heal fairly quickly?”
“By suppertime, probably.”
You nod. “I’d still recommend a steri-stitch or two. Just to keep it clean until the healing’s done. You don’t have to return to remove them, either.”
“Perfect,” says Captain America gratefully, and after a few more minutes, they’re both gone.
But the next morning, when you come in, there’s a bouquet of flowers sitting on the counter with your name on it, and a note written in perfect copperplate handwriting.
I’m sorry I said you looked like Uncle Maurice. You’re much prettier. –JBB
The smile on your face is so big, it stays the rest of the day.
Chapter One ->
it’s so hard being awake in this economy
best laid plans
[gif credit]
♡ read on ao3 here
♡ stucky x reader (no y/n)
♡ rating: explicit / mdni / 18+ !
♡ tags/warnings: f!reader, college/university au, established relationship stucky, allusions to violence on college campuses, drinking (unrelated to the sex), hurt/comfort, friends to lovers, threesome, oral sex (f!receiving), fingering, p in v sex, multiple orgasms, spit/spit kink, dom bucky if you squint, pet names (sweetheart, honey, baby, sweet girl, etc.), dirty talk (use of ‘cunt’ and ‘pussy’), sex toys (vibrator), crying during sex (the good kind), aftercare, eventual poly relationship, happy ending, getting together
♡ word count: 16k
♡ synopsis:
Steve and Bucky have a reputation around campus. You've heard the whispers in the back of lecture halls about the way they are with girls and you make a point to generally avoid them if possible, even if only because you're worried you might willingly turn into another notch on their well-used bedpost. When your own reputation gets dragged through the mud, you begin to understand them a little better—and maybe let yourself admit that you didn't really have the full picture the way you thought you did. But you do now, and it only makes you want them more. Luckily, they want you too.
♡ please note! i am new to this format and am primarily used to posting on ao3, so if you see anything I forgot to mention and should include here, please ~kindly~ let me know for next time. thank you! x
*reader is mentioned to have hair that can be 'let down' and tucked behind ear in one (1) instance during the smut*
[ also, this has not been checked yet for mistakes. ]
It’s taken you three years to break your ‘no-dating-during-undergrad’ rule, and you’re already regretting it.
It was a well thought out rule. The gap year you’d taken before college was stock full of poor decisions you probably wouldn’t make again, and while you don’t necessarily have regrets, you definitely came out of it with some things you didn’t want to experience again.
The dating pool is, quite frankly, shit. Everyone wants to build-a-partner on swiping apps or have a mediocre one night stand and then sneak out before the sheets have gone cold. You’ve yet to encounter a man your age that hasn’t been horribly immature or blatantly antagonistic, and the older men you very briefly considered dating treated you like you were the one lacking maturity.
That year had taught you a lot about wanting. But wanting fades, and you’d decided, moving forward, that casual flings weren’t really for you.
Brendan seemed to understand all of that at first. A little too well, maybe.
You thought that meant something, until you’d found out that the months you’d spent casually getting to know one another and building a connection was actually just the result of a bet to see how long it’d take you to put out. It feels like you’re in fucking high school all over again.
You’re more mad about the fact that you couldn’t see it for yourself. Hurt, even—if you can let yourself admit to it.
But now Brendan’s staring at you open-mouthed from his spot on the shitty sofa in his shittier frat house, surrounded by his friends and everyone else who knew and didn’t tell you before, and the drink you’d poured over his head is soaking into the material like watercolors. His face is ashen with disbelief, mouth wrenched open as he spits out liquid onto himself, fists clenched in festering anger. He looks like a child, which is fitting, really, for the way he acts.
You’ve kept your head down for three years. You don’t like making scenes, but this helped a little.
You storm out of the frat with your chin held high, distantly aware of the people recording on their phones. You hope it gets circulated online—Brendan deserves to be miserable and lonely until graduation, if not after that too.
You just sort of wish you didn’t feel the same.
“That was fucking awesome. God. I’ve never seen his face do that before. I’m saving this video. Can you set a video as a lockscreen?”
You stifle a laugh into your textbook, lifting your neck up for the first time in an hour or so. Your eyes hurt from reading and typing on your computer screen beside you, and when you look up, most of the library occupants that’d been here when you first sat down have left.
Except for Steve and Bucky, who’ve just arrived, seemingly, only to talk to you.
You raise a brow at Bucky as he slumps into the seat across from you. “You really want Brendan’s face to be what you see every time you pick up your phone?”
He grins. “If it’s you throwing a drink in it, hell yeah. S’good shit.”
“He’s got a point,” Steve adds, leaning against your table with his arms crossed over his university sweatshirt. “I think there’s about half the campus that’s been dreaming about doing what you did to him. Worse, probably. It’s a collective catharsis.”
“Look who’s taking an advanced English course,” Bucky reaches over to pinch him in the hip. Steve Steve swats him away, and Bucky looks back at you. “No, but. Seriously. People are being very supportive in the comments.”
“Comments?” you groan, closing your textbook.
“It is the twenty-first century,” Bucky reminds you.
You chew at your lip, trying not to picture the worst. “Are there any bad ones?”
Steve snorts as he helps you slide your laptop into your bag and then hefts it and your textbooks onto his shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Buck’s been on comment duty since it first went up, reporting anyone who’s being an ass.”
“I am now responsible for several suspensions,” Bucky says proudly, standing from the table with a mock bow.
“Thanks for defending my honor.” You pat his head a little condescendingly, but his smile is blinding enough to throw you off when he stands again and winks.
“Anytime, sweetheart.”
It’s dark outside the library when the three of you make it out to the courtyard, and you’re suddenly grateful they’d decided to show up. You hadn’t meant to stay so long, and while your campus isn’t necessarily scary, you don’t exactly relish walking alone at night.
You fall into step between them on the sidewalk, Steve’s sweatshirt and Bucky’s dark tee grazing either of your arms. A few other lingering students glance your way from across the quad, and you straighten up, putting some distance in between the three of you.
Steve and Bucky have a…reputation. And while you don’t care what they get up to in their personal time, you’d like to hold onto some semblance of your own reputation after all of this.
But they were also the only ones here who were honest with you, so you can’t be too picky. You clear your throat, unsure if you’ve said it before now.
“Hey, um. Thanks, again. For telling me about the bet in the first place.”
“You don’t need to thank us for being halfway decent human beings,” Steve says.
“Well. I wouldn’t go that far,” you tease, smiling.
“You’re welcome, is what he meant to say,” Bucky rolls his eyes, nudging his shoulder with yours. “We’ve got your back.”
“If I ever hear anyone in the girl’s bathroom making wagers about you guys, I’ll be sure to return the favor.”
Steve looks adorably concerned. “Do they do that?”
“Personally, I’d be happy to lend a hand to anyone looking to win a few bucks,” Bucky interjects.
You raise a brow as you pass underneath a streetlight. “At the expense of your dignity?”
“Not much there to begin with,” Steve mutters. Bucky reaches over you to shove him.
“Punk.” He smiles at Steve fondly for a beat too long, then looks back to you. “So. What’s the plan now that dickwad is out of the picture?”
“The plan?” you echo, shrugging. “Focus on school. Graduate. Get a job. Same as it was before him.”
“That’s great, sweetheart. But I meant less academically and professionally and more… you know, romantically and such.”
“I’m not sure that really fits into it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it just doesn’t,” you tell him, slightly harsher than you mean to. Both of them back off a little as you turn toward your small apartment building, and you sigh, feeling guilty for taking it out on them when they’re trying to cheer you up. “Look. I tried it, okay? I tried back home, I tried here, I tried again, just now, even though I probably shouldn’t have. I just think I need to get my feet under me first before I try anything like that again.”
“Because guys who are a few years older and have a job can’t also be assholes,” Bucky mutters.
“Buck,” Steve admonishes.
“I’m just saying—assholes are assholes. They can be any age, any place, any time. But that shouldn’t stop you from putting yourself out there because, against all odds, there are some of us who are, like. Halfway decent. And stuff.”
You huff a laugh. “Strong argument.”
“You know what I mean,” Bucky insists, uncharacteristically serious for a moment. “You deserve to be treated right, is all. And if you withdraw completely, you cut yourself off from the good stuff, too.”
You glance at his expression, waiting for the crack, the joke, but it never comes.
“I’ll keep that in mind, Bucky,” you agree gently.
You pause at the door to your building, scanning yourself in and standing in the open space to keep it from closing on you. You take your bag back from Steve and hold your textbooks, and Bucky leans back against the railing on the steps, crossing his ankles.
“Well. I’d say it definitely worked out for us, Stevie. We’re now friends with the coolest girl on campus.”
You look at him. “Friends?”
“She doesn’t have to be friends with us, Buck.”
“No, but she should be. We come with perks.”
You freeze for a second, suddenly worried that their kindness has all been culminating into them hitting on you. But you relax slightly as he continues, counting on his fingers.
“We’ll walk you home whenever you want. We always have snacks. And, uh. Steve will let you copy his work if you don’t feel like doing an assignment, probably.” He pauses, thinking hard, then breaking out into a cheesy smirk. “Also, free eye candy whenever you want it.”
Steve sighs, heavily. “That’s a dollar in the jar.”
“The jar,” you implore.
“The Douchebag Jar,” Bucky clarifies. “Which I am so not contributing to for that, by the way.”
“Oh, this is great,” you decide, ignoring him to turn to Steve. “Am I allowed to make him add to it, too?”
Bucky scoffs. “Hey!”
Steve shrugs. “Be my guest.”
“Well I guess that’s a reason to keep you guys around,” you tease. “This’ll be fun.”
Steve laughs, and Bucky sticks out an exaggerated lower lip, glaring at both of you. “This is so unfair. After everything I did for you in that comment section—”
“Alright,” Steve huffs, reaching over to yank his sleeve, pushing him down the steps. He glances back at you. “We’ll let you get inside. And, seriously, we’re glad everything went okay with the Brendan situation.”
“I mean it—lockscreen material!” Bucky says from the sidewalk.
“Thanks,” you tell them earnestly. You offer a smile as Steve joins him and the begin to head back toward the dorms, watching them walk so close together that they nearly blend into one shadow. At the corner Bucky tosses up a wave, and then they’re gone.
Sagging with the heaviness of your bag and books, you make sure the door’s security system activates and then drag yourself down the hall to the stairs. You pass a girl living on the floor above you on her way down. You used to make small talk with her in the hallways, but since the video, the conversation has significantly lessened, like she’s secretly afraid you’re going to toss a drink on her too.
With a measured inhale and exhale, you make it to your apartment and let yourself inside, slumping your things to the small table in the foyer to deal with after you’ve gotten some sleep. You’ve been here for three years and not really made many friends, but this is by far the most alone you’ve felt since you got here.
You’ve got Steve and Bucky, though, apparently. You don’t quite know how to feel about that accidental friendship yet, but it’s something.
Right now, you’ll take it.
You go home for spring break, avoiding all the festivities going on around campus. Brendan’s sure to be at all of them, and you’d like to save yourself the tension.
You figure that by the time you get back to campus, Bucky and Steve will have mostly forgotten about you. They’d done you a favor, and you hadn’t offered to sleep with them for it. You’re not sure what else they could want from you. Especially not after a week full of opportunities for parties and booze and ill-advised sexual encounters.
But your return only picks up right where you left off. The two of them begin showing up around you like stray dogs looking for a home, in the library, outside the lecture hall, the diner just off campus when you’re picking up food to-go. You want to be annoyed, and you’re still a little confused, but over time it gets easier just to accept the fact that you’ve befriended them. You might as well, you figure, since apparently this last year before graduation you’re doing all sorts of things that are outside of your comfort zone.
Privately, you wait for the other shoe to drop. You know that their reputation isn’t unwarranted; you’ve been classmates with girls who’ve had no issue regaling in fine detail their nights of passion between both of them. None of the stories have ever been bad, certainly not like some other guys around campus, but those other ones have made you leery of men in general. Especially lately, it’s difficult to let down your guard.
It doesn’t matter though, because they’re persistent. Steve is always quick to remind you that you don’t owe them anything, but you have genuinely come to enjoy the company sometimes. You’re so used to the sound of your own thoughts or your headphones that it was jarring, at first, having two people around you so often; Steve’s solid presence and Bucky’s perpetually running mouth.
It’s been nice, is all. Not being alone.
Even if you’re trying not to let yourself get used to it.
The first time you realize you might’ve been wrong about them is when you’re hanging out at their dorm, take out boxes scattered around you on the floor and a shitty movie playing on Steve’s computer.
You’ve all had a few drinks that Bucky bought from the gas station on the corner, and you picked up your favorite Chinese so that you could watch Steve’s cheeks go bright red with the seasonings. You’re already a little buzzed by the time you realize you’ve never seen Steve and Bucky drunk before, never overlapped at parties or events.
They aren’t drunk but they’re headed that way, Bucky all giggles and Steve more loose lipped than you’ve ever seen him before. You’re pleased to find out that they aren’t aggressive or rude, still nice to you even with their inhibitions lowered.
Lowered so much, in fact, that you’ve never seen them so touchy before. Not with you, but with each other.
All three of you have been talking over the movie, sharing food cartons and passing beers back and forth, but any hopes you had on refocusing for the end of it are gone when you can’t stop watching them instead.
Every few minutes Steve will lean over and say something in Bucky’s ear that makes him grin, crooked and private. You try to make yourself look away, back to your food or the movie, but they’re a little distracting.
At some point, their hands meet in the middle where their thighs are pressed together, leaning back against Steve’s sofa. You watch Bucky’s pinky wrap around Steve’s and then retreat, teasing, before Steve does it back. A minute later, Steve feeds Bucky a bite of chicken using his own chopsticks. When sauce smears at the corner of his mouth, Steve licks his thumb and presses it to the spot, lingering there for a few seconds longer.
Then, just as you’re about to look away, Bucky leans in to close the extra few inches and kisses him.
It’s quick, sweet, and obviously not really meant for your viewing. You yank your eyes away from them, heart beating rapidly in your chest, and blink at your rice as you readjust your perception of them inside your head.
You finish the last of the movie in silence, and by the time you’ve gathered enough courage to look back at them, everything looks relatively back to normal.
Which you’re now realizing is something very different than what you thought.
“So you two are…” you gesture between them, buzzed enough to bring it up but not enough to be eloquent about it, “...together.”
A few feet away from you, Steve looks sheepish, and Bucky looks resigned. Something has hardened in his expression that you aren’t used to, defensive, almost, as he purses his lips and avoids your eye.
“Yeah.”
“Oh,” you say distantly. “I thought it was just, like—a thing you did to…”
“To get girls into bed with us?” Bucky asks wryly, stabbing at his food. “Yeah. Most people think so.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed,” you tell them gently, guilt killing the rest of your pleasant haze from the alcohol.
“It’s not like we’re super public about it or anything,” Steve says, but even his smile is strained. “Don’t sweat it.”
“Is the not-public on purpose, or…?”
Bucky tosses up a shoulder. “Not really. People assume things. There’s a lot of people that wanna get in between us for a night or two. We just don’t really have that many friends. You know?”
Yeah, you think. “I know what you mean.”
Steve’s smile turns a little more genuine, and Bucky runs his eyes over your face for a minute, assessing. Eventually he relaxes, and you feel restless with the need to prove that you can be trusted with this.
“You got any other movies saved?”
Bucky announces that he’s choosing next, and you scoot a little closer to Steve on the rug, sharing fortune cookies between you.
Your eyes stray to the infamous Douchebag Jar on the dresser, wishing you had a dollar to put in it yourself.
Somehow, you get roped into attending another party—something else you’d sworn off for the rest of the semester.
And it’s not even for any fun reason. You have a group assignment ready to submit that makes up nearly half your grade in this course, and one person hasn’t logged in to sign off, which is the final barrier to submission.
You decide to cash in on your friendship perks that Bucky promised you before, enlisting him and Steve to accompany you to the party you know your groupmate will be at. The untouchable confidence you felt when you dumped your drink on him has dwindled into something sour now. Brendan might be an asshole, but he’s a frat asshole, and that means he’s got connections all over the place that you probably don’t know about. You’d pissed him off, and you don’t want him to retaliate somehow when you’re not expecting it.
Things are fine for the first bit of the night. You show up with Bucky and Steve in tow and find yourself a relatively quiet corner, talking with Bucky while Steve goes to the kitchen to find drinks that haven’t been spiked or taste revolting.
Eyes were on you the minute you stepped in, but upon closer inspection, you think maybe they’re just looking at Bucky. From this angle you both have a view of Steve over by the island, watching as a girl approaches him, lip caught between her teeth, a hand on the outside of his arm. You can’t even blame her. Steve looks as handsome as he ever does, like he was ripped straight from a vintage GAP men’s ad to be hung up on bedroom walls, and she’s really pretty.
You wonder if she’s their type. Briefly you consider asking Bucky, but you think that might be rude.
“Does that ever get old?” you ask him instead, nodding toward Steve.
Bucky stares for a minute, watching Steve politely duck out from under the girl’s attention. “Yes and no. Always nice to be wanted, I guess.”
He stops himself, and you tilt your head. “But…?”
“But sometimes, y’know.” He sighs. “It’s hard not to wonder if it would even matter if I was there too or not.”
You frown. “How so?”
“‘Cause—well, you know what people say about us. Steve’s the relationship guy. The guy you date, ‘cause he brings flowers and he pulls out the chairs and he’s charming without even trying to be. Sometimes more so when he’s not trying to be.” Bucky glances down. “And I’m—I’m the reason we have the reputation we do.”
“Bucky, that’s not true,” you tell him.
“It is. I’m the one that likes the more social shit. Getting to know people. And, yeah, sometimes that means going home with ‘em if everybody’s feeling it.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I just—it was something we did a few times, the first couple years. And then, suddenly, it was just like we were only known for that. Which sucks, because Steve’s really fuckin’ smart, and he’s a great artist, and I think he’d get a lot more accolades if my name wasn’t always attached to him.”
You study Bucky’s side profile, the curve of his shoulders and his hands stuffed into his pockets. It’s so easy to think of Bucky as confident with the way he presents himself, but you’re realizing now that he has a lot of the same insecurities that you do in relationships. It’s another thing that makes him feel more accessible to you, lowered from the isolated pedestal you’d put them both on before.
“I can’t say I know what that feels like, because I don’t,” you tell him, your elbows touching. “But I have had the displeasure of suddenly being known for only one thing this year. And it does suck. And I don’t know about everybody else, but I’m really glad that you guys thought I was worth sticking around for long enough that I could get the chance to be proved wrong, too.” You nudge him purposefully. “You guys are great, Bucky. Not just Steve. You balance each other, you know? And I’m—I’m just really glad I get to know you.”
Feeling oddly vulnerable after your impromptu speech, you clear your throat, hoping that the flush on your cheeks isn’t terribly vulnerable—even though Bucky’s private smile tells you that it probably is.
“We’re really glad to know you too, sweetheart,” he says.
The two of you have drifted closer throughout your conversation as the party got louder, your sides fully pressed together and Bucky’s face inches from yours. You feel yourself heat further once you realize your proximity, and you immediately shove down the memories of thoughts you might’ve had about them once or twice before you became friends.
Steve returns, saving you from breaking the tension yourself as he holds out a cup to you and Bucky with a smile.
“Okay, I hope you like plain coke because it’s about the only thing here that I could guarantee was safe to drink. Unless you want questionably dated orange juice.”
“I’ll take the coke,” you laugh.
“Definitely same,” Bucky agrees.
You cheers your plastic cups together and take a drink, scanning the small crowd in the house for your classmate and coming up unsuccessful.
The house buzzes as even more people find their way in, your corner feeling a little crowded as others begin coming up every few minutes, saying hello to Steve and Bucky and catching up. Apparently they haven't been going to many parties lately, either.
All of your earlier texts to your classmate have been left unread, but you check immediately when your phone finally buzzes with a response. You pull it out of your pocket while Steve chats with someone they know beside you, and Bucky peers over your shoulder.
“That him?”
“Yeah. He says he’s outside. I’ll meet him out there, make sure he signs, then we can go.”
“I’ll go with you,” Bucky offers, pushing off the wall.
“You go with Steve,” you insist, handing him your empty cup. “I’ll be fine. Seriously. Finish your conversation and then meet me out front.”
He glances between you and Steve with a frown. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Though he doesn’t seem pleased about it, you appreciate that Bucky lets you go without an argument. He slips into place at Steve’s side as you vacate the spot, and you head back toward the front lawn to get your digital signature.
It’s humid out front, and you squint at the setting sun as you descend the front steps and move off to the side to wait. There’s groups of other students hanging around on the porch and the sidewalk, each of them glancing at you periodically. You cross your arms over your chest, forcing yourself to stand your ground despite the unwelcome attention.
A minute turns into two, then five, and you find yourself wishing you had asked Bucky to come with you. You get out your phone again to text your classmate a series of question marks, and you get two words in response.
Look up.
You have about a split second to realize what’s happening before you look over your shoulder to find a group of Brendan’s friends huddled together on the third story balcony, a large bucket balanced on the railing.
They shout something at you and then tilt the thing over, and suddenly you’re standing in the middle of the yard, drenched head to toe in something sticky and ice cold, frozen.
You barely register voices coming out of the house, footsteps headed toward you. You cling to Steve as he strips off his jacket to cover you with, and when you peek out from under it, you see Bucky on the other end of the sidewalk gearing up to throw a punch at a guy who won’t delete the video. If you weren’t still partially in shock, it’d make you smile.
He joins you soon enough, once Steve has quickly walked you to the other side of the fence and far away from the house and anyone who might still have a camera.
“Hey. Let’s get out of here, huh?” Bucky asks, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and attempting to rub warmth back into your arm. Your teeth are chattering.
“I—I didn’t get the signature—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Steve says. “I was the TA in that course last semester and I still talk to the professor. I’ll speak to him and explain. It’ll be fine.”
Soaking wet and feeling horribly lost, you walk the same path to your apartment that you’ve taken with them countless times before. It’s not the first time you’ve felt grateful for them, but it is the first time you don’t really know what you would’ve done without them.
So much for trying not to get attached.
You let them spend the night.
They find something to eat while you’re in the shower, and by the time you come out of your bathroom with wet hair and a fresh set of pajamas on, the food’s ready, there’s a sitcom playing on the television, and the way Bucky rushes to put his phone away tells you he’s been on very dutiful damage control again.
You’re upset about what happened, but mostly tired at the moment, still too numb yet to cry or get angry. Steve tells you he’s emailed the professor as one episode rolls into another, the three of you sharing space on your small couch.
The comfort is much needed. They don’t make you talk about it but they remind you they’re there in other ways; Steve’s arm along the back of the couch for you to lean against while he rubs your shoulder, Bucky’s fingers hooking onto yours on the cushion between both of your legs the same way he’d done with Steve on the floor of their dorm room weeks ago. Their quiet conversation amongst each other anchors you enough that you can’t get lost in a rabbit hole of bad thoughts, but they also don’t expect you to jump in and try to be happy at the moment. You aren’t sure you could anyway.
It’s not a particularly high bar, but it does prove something important: Steve and Bucky have walked you home, seen you half drunk, been alone with you in their dorm and in your apartment, and now also when you’re emotionally vulnerable and looking for support.
And not once have they acted like any of your exes. They haven’t used any of it against you or to manipulate you into something.
“Will you stay?” you ask them between one episode and the next, the first words you’ve spoken since you got back.
Even then, they say yes without strings. Steve takes your couch and Bucky curls up in the armchair by the window, both in relatively close distance to your bed that you probably could have all fit on, if you’d tried.
You lay awake for long time that night, even when you can hear Steve snoring from the sofa and Bucky’s conked out against the side of the chair, cheek smushed against his arm.
You’re not just attached, you realize quietly. You’re something a whole lot more than that.
As graduation continues to get closer, so do the three of you. Maybe a little closer than you intended.
Steve left some of his books at your place the night before and you told him you’d drop them by before your classes. So, for the record, you had warned him.
Which is why you’re slightly surprised that it’s Bucky who swings open the dorm room door to greet you, his body blocking the view into the room.
His body, which is lacking a shirt and very nearly lacking pants too, strapped low across his hips. He’s breathing heavily, face flushed, pupils dilated and fixed on you with a focus that’s so intense you have to keep yourself rooted to your spot.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he grins. “Those for Steve?”
“Um. Yeah,” you say. “Is he—uh, here?”
Bucky chuckles. “Oh, he’s here. He’s just…occupied. At the moment.”
Your stomach drops in a split second, your confused smile going with it. You do take a step back then, holding out Steve’s things as a barrier between the two of you.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realize you guys had someone over.”
“What?” Bucky drops the smirk, stepping fully into the hallway with you. “There’s nobody else in there. Thought we covered that.”
Now confused and embarrassed, you feel your face heat. “I—we did. I just figured, since you answered the door, and you said he was still—sorry,” you rush out. “I misunderstood.”
Bucky stares at you for a second, and you desperately hope that you haven’t accidentally offended him again. Your reaction was more so rooted in your own feelings for them than anything about them, but you can’t exactly come out and say that right now.
Without looking away from you, Bucky twists the doorknob behind him and leans back enough to call through the gap.
“Stevie,” he says. “Make yourself decent.”
There’s a muffled answer on the other side and then some shuffling, and after a tense minute between you and Bucky in the hall, Steve stumbles to the door just as half-dressed and obviously mid-coital as Bucky had been. With glassy eyes and hair sticking up randomly, he knuckles at his eye.
“My stuff,” Steve says in belated acknowledgement when he sees you, offering you a small, breathless smile. “Thanks for bringing it by. I really appreciate it.”
“Move over,” Bucky grunts.
Him and Steve step back into the room, and Bucky holds the door open wide, waving you in. You hesitate for a second in the hallway before tentatively stepping forward, and he shuts it again behind you. He’s letting you see for yourself, you realize.
And, sure enough, the room is empty except for them. The sheets on the bed in the corner are all rucked up and half coming off the side, morning light spilling onto it from the window above the headboard. Steve’s desk, doubling as a nightstand, has a bottle of lube balanced on the edge of it, still open.
You turn slowly so you’re looking at them again, trying to come up with a way to apologize without giving yourself away. Bucky beats you to the punch.
“We haven’t brought anyone else here this semester,” he says deliberately, holding your eye. “You understand?”
So, before they told you about Brendan. Before you in general. The heat on your face feels like it spreads throughout your body, and you nod.
“Good,” Bucky says. “And just for the record, you’re welcome here anytime, no matter what we’re doing. You’re not interrupting anything we wouldn’t be okay with you interrupting.”
You glance at Steve for his reaction, but he seems to be in agreement. He steps up beside Bucky, bending to lean a dimpled cheek against Bucky’s shoulder atop his crossed arms, and smiles at you.
“Think you’re gonna be late, honey,” he says.
“Oh, shit,” you curse. “Yeah. I am, probably. Here,” you hand him his things clumsily, stepping forward into their space to trade it off.
You plan to take a quick step back but Bucky catches your arm before you can. Steve drops the books on the sofa and turns back to you too, and you’re promptly pulled into a three way hug, your face against their bare chests.
They’ve been more physical with you since staying over at your apartment, less hesitant to put a hand on your back or grab your hand or pull you into hugs like this one.
Usually they’re wearing clothes, though.
“Sorry,” you mumble, hugging them back. You feel Steve’s mouth against the top of your head.
“Don’t be. We’ll see you after class, huh?”
You nod, and Steve returns to the bed as Bucky walks you back into the hallway. His words from before still ring in your head about people’s assumptions, and even though Steve was alright with it, you feel like you owe Bucky another apology.
“I really am sorry, Bucky. I honestly didn’t mean it the way that it came out.”
“I know what you meant,” Bucky says, stepping closer, “because I would’ve done the same thing if Steve and I came over and I thought you had someone else inside.”
You swallow. “I haven’t—with anyone else, either.”
Bucky didn’t ask, and you aren’t really sure why you offered. It feels like you’re talking about the same things but you can’t be sure, and that’s scary enough to hesitate.
But Bucky gives you another long look, his head tilted as he drinks you in, and then he nods as if pleased by your answer. Stepping away from you feels like a loss, your limbs thrumming with how close you’d been.
“Good.” He smiles, then, and nods toward the exit. “Get to class. We’ll see you for lunch, okay?”
Still reeling, you follow his direction, nearly jogging as you try to make it to your morning lecture.
You get there, barely, but it’s no real use anyway.
All you can think about is what Steve and Bucky had been up to before you got there and—hopefully, maybe—what they’d finished after you left.
After that, it’s difficult to ignore the mounting tension between you. And with the dwindling time left before you leave campus, you’re antsy.
You’ve come to appreciate Steve and Bucky as genuine friends. What if you try to make it more than it is and you don’t click the same way in that setting, and then things are weird between you until graduation? What if you’d somehow misunderstood their intentions and they actually don’t want you like that anyway?
You’re pretty sure that last one isn’t the case. But you don’t really want to lose the one friendship you might manage to take out of college because of your libido.
It’s hard not to want more though when they give you just about everything you wanted and never got in your past relationships. You meet Bucky’s sister too when she visits for Steve’s birthday in July, and the three of you stumble your way through a very awkward explanation when you try to convince her that you aren’t, in fact, a part of their relationship and none of you have any real evidence against it.
Except for the sex. You are very much aware of the sex that is not being had in this situation.
Ultimately, it doesn’t take much to shift things into place.
You had dinner with them at a bar off campus, something a little nicer than the ones here, and none of you had been ready to part ways when you got back. Back at your place you change into something comfier while Bucky kicks off his boots and Steve sheds his jacket, the three of you spreading out in your space like you’ve been doing it forever.
Steve sits at your dining table, bent over a sketchbook he’d pulled from his bag. Bucky is fiddling with the bluetooth speaker that you broke last year and haven’t been able to fix, his tongue stuck between his lips as he pokes and prods, and you’re on the couch, scrolling through your playlists in hopes that he can get it up and running. There’s a lingering energy in all of you tonight that your typical movie marathon doesn’t seem like it would satiate.
The top you’d worn to the bar is a button down, soft enough that you’d left it on when you got home even though you changed your pants. You have to roll up the sleeves as you watch Bucky work, hotter outside and a different heat here in your apartment, your body keenly aware of where Steve and Bucky are inside of it.
The apartment. Not you, unfortunately.
With your hair let down and the makeup you’d put on this morning mostly smudged off now from laughing at dinner, you’re an odd mix between pleasantly relaxed and impatient for more.
“Aha,” Bucky cheers, pressing a button on the speaker. The traitorous thing that hadn’t worked when you did that gives a happy beep at Bucky’s touch, the lights on the front blinking to show that it’s ready to pair. He grins at you, lethal with his dark brown hair and the deep green of his sweatshirt, and holds out a hand for your phone. “You picked a song yet?”
You give it over, shuffling one of your most recent playlists when you couldn’t decide on anything else, and Bucky pairs it with the bluetooth. Soon enough there’s quiet music playing throughout your living room, and you realize how much you’ve missed having it to fill the silence.
Finished with the speaker, Bucky leaves it on the windowsill and crosses over to you, shoving the coffee table out of the way as he goes. He extends a palm. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
He drags you up from the sofa and to the center of the room, now an empty space, hands on either side of your waist.
“We’re going right here,” he says. “There was nowhere to dance in the bar.”
“I think there was, actually,” you point out.
Bucky gives you a flat look. “If I just wanted to grab onto your hips and hump you from behind for a few minutes, I’d prefer it not be in public, sweetheart.”
You stutter a laugh, allowing him to pull you close. One of his hands on the center of your back, the other holding yours against his chest underneath his collarbone. It puts his nose at your hair and yours near his neck, close enough to smell the cologne he’d put on this morning as he sways the two of you back and forth.
“I should probably tell you that I’m not very good at dancing,” you admit.
“Seems like you’re doin’ just fine to me,” he says. “Stevie? Thoughts?”
Steve grunts from the dining table. “Busy. Keep dancing”
The two of you turn in a slow circle, and when you begin to face him, you realize that Steve is drawing you and Bucky. You’re pretty sure he’d been working on something else before, but now his eyes keep flicking up to you every few seconds, tracing curves and hard edges, the line where you and Bucky meet in the middle and your shuffling feet as you try to stay off Bucky’s toes.
One song bleeds into another on the speaker, and you tilt your head enough to rest it opposite your hand on Bucky’s chest. You feel his sigh as much as you hear it, his pulse steady under your cheek.
“Been a long time since I’ve gotten to do this,” he tells you.
“It’s nice,” you agree. “I don’t think I’ve actually ever danced with anyone before this.”
Bucky pulls away from you only enough to guide you into a small spin, then tugs you right back with a wink. “You’re a natural.”
You’d enjoyed the momentary distraction of learning something new, but by the time the third song comes to a close, all you can think about is how close the two of you are.
You keep picturing the way he’d looked in the hallway in the dorms that day, flushed and sweaty and yet still in control. Letting you into their space, proving to you that there was no one else. You’d been embarrassed in the moment, but every time you’ve thought of it afterward you get distracted wondering what might’ve happened if you hadn’t had class, if you’d stayed, if you’d joined them in bed and finished what they’d started with each other before you got there. You wonder now if Bucky can feel your pulse picking up underneath his hands.
The sun is setting outside the windows and you can feel it through the cracked blinds, humid and inescapable. When you tilt your head up, you’re close enough to Bucky’s face to see the beginnings of sweat on his temples.
“S’warm,” you murmur, worried he might let go of you if you’re too loud. His mouth curves up at the corner, making a show of feeling your forehead before moving down to your cheek.
“You are, yeah,” he confirms, swiping a thumb over the collar of your shirt. “Maybe we should lose a few layers.”
You swallow. “I’m, um. I’m not wearing anything underneath.”
It’s meant to be more of a reason you can’t take it off than an attempt at flirting, but Bucky is visibly affected, inhaling sharply through his nose as his eyes run over your face. The hand on your lower back spreads out and tugs, pressing you tight against his chest.
It makes you stumble, catching yourself with a grip on his arm and a surprised noise. The shirt isn’t particularly thick, and neither is the lace bra you’re wearing underneath it. It doesn’t have any padding in it so every bit of your breasts go firmly against the heat of Bucky’s chest, with nowhere to hide and no place to conceal the hardened points of your nipples through the lace.
With an extremely measured exhale, the hand Bucky has on your cheek spares a thumb to trace over the outline of your lips. When you don’t pull away, Bucky leans in.
“You been wantin’ this as much as we have?”
You nod, breathless. Relieved. “Longer, probably.”
“Wanna bet?” Bucky cocks a brow, then winces. “Ah, fuck. Sorry. Bad choice of words.”
Your laugh is quiet, but it makes Bucky smile. Your fingers spread out on his chest, smoothing over his shoulder and up to his neck, grazing his hair that’s close to touching his shoulders now.
“And if I was feeling lucky?”
“I would say,” Bucky proposes faux thoughtfully, slipping both arms around your waist and lowering his voice to a whisper, “that there’s a damn near guarantee we could make Steve awful jealous right now.”
You fight a smile. “I think I like those odds.”
Bucky leans in closer, until the ends of your noses are touching. Everything about him is warm, his scent familiar and inviting, his arms easy to lean into. His eyes flick down to your mouth and back up again, and you tilt your chin for him without having to ask.
Bucky could probably tease you all night long, but if he wants you, he’s going to have to be the one to make the first move.
He doesn’t leave you waiting for long. His own face turns, just enough to catch your lips with his. A brief graze at first, and then more firmly. It’s been months now since you’ve kissed somebody, and you always forget how much you enjoy it. And the fact that it’s Bucky is just a really, really nice plus.
You lean into his weight as you abandon any former semblance of dancing altogether, standing still and sliding your hand fully up into his hair. He hardly parts from you enough to breath but neither of you seem to care, and for a few seconds, everything else falls away.
Everything except for Steve, that is; you can hear the soft scratch of his pencil stop as it hits the sketchbook and rolls off somewhere on the table, the thump of his feet on your floor, the added body heat at your back when he steps into your space.
It’s the only thing that makes you pull away from Bucky, twisting so you can make sure that, despite all the signals, he’s still alright with this happening.
He assuages your worries nearly immediately, turning you in Bucky’s arms so that he can take your face in his hands and taste you for himself. It’s surreal, having this in real life and not only in your head, and you cling to the front of Steve’s shirt like you had Bucky’s, caught between them both.
“What do you want?” Steve asks you, dropping his hands to hold yours, rubbing circles into your wrists in between your bodies.
“Anything you want,” Bucky agrees, pressing against your back.
You glance over toward your bed and ask them, for a second time, “Stay?”
Steve grins and you feel Bucky’s relieved exhale as his chest caves behind you. He bends to kiss your shoulder, and Steve slips his fingers through yours.
“Lead the way, sweetheart.”
It’s not as weird having Bucky and Steve in your bed as you thought it might be.
They’ve already been everywhere else in your apartment anyway, and it’s almost weirder that they haven’t been in it yet in some capacity or another. You’re glad to be rectifying that now.
You go down easily when Bucky lays you back on the end of the mattress, reluctant to part from your mouth. He does eventually though, if only to peel off his sweatshirt and leave him in a thin t-shirt, and Steve steps up in his absence to kiss you some more.
“How many times have you touched yourself, right here, thinking about us?” Bucky asks, grinning above you.
“Dollar in the jar,” you tell him.
He doesn’t even try to make a joke. “Dead serious, sweetheart.”
You look to Steve for support, but he only chews at his lip, sheepish. “I’m kind of curious too.”
Rolling your eyes, you kick Bucky in the hip with your leg. “Surprised your egos fit through the doorway.”
He catches your calf in his hand before you can draw it back to the bed and you watch, propped up on your elbows, as he rubs the skin there up and up and up. He kneels on the mattress beside you, fingers grazing your shin, the sensitive inside of your knee.
“You tellin’ me we’re wrong?” he asks. “That you’ve never once thought about us when you were in here, came home after seein’ us and needed some relief? Never slipped your fingers between these thighs and wished it was ours instead?”
He bends to attach his mouth to the side of your neck, and your head rolls to the side to allow him access even as you keep stubbornly quiet.
“Never imagined what it’d be like if we were there with you, huh? One on either side, keepin’ you warm. Makin’ you squirm.” His fingers trail up higher, just barely grazing the line of your shorts before pulling away. “Makin’ you beg.”
“Bucky,” you gasp.
He smiles like you’ve just proved his point, but schools it quickly to sit back on his knees with a shrug as Steve takes a seat by your ankles.
“‘Cause if you had pictured us, I was gonna offer to make your dreams come true. But I can’t really do that if you didn’t have ‘em in the first place, so—”
“I did,” you relent, too keyed up to deny it. “I—I thought about you. Both of you.”
Steve’s eyes light up at your admission, his own touch slipping around your ankle, rubbing. “Yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Tell us about it?” Bucky prompts. “We’ll do whatever you want.”
You’re not sure you have a place to start. You’ve pictured this happening in a variety of different ways, none of them given to you quite so easily, and the unexpected power placed into your hands is something you aren’t sure you know how to hold just yet.
Steve ducks down to press his lips against your knee, then moves to pull his own shirt over his head. Bucky, seemingly sensing your dilemma, moves to sit behind you. He leans back against the headboard, slipping his hands underneath your arms to drag you back against his chest to watch Steve.
“How ‘bout we start with just one, hm? That make it easier?” He rubs your arms. “Why don’t you tell Stevie what you like about him?”
The man himself is shuffling at the end of your bed, his chest bare but his hands twitching like he still wants to shove them into the pockets of his jeans. You reach a hand out, and he comes closer, kneeling on the end of the mattress.
“Your hands,” you say first.
“They’re nice, aren’t they?” Bucky agrees. Your answer earns you Bucky’s hands slipping over your shoulders and down to the buttons of your shirt, flicking open one and then two. “Could probably hold these real good, one in either hand.”
He grips both of your breasts in his palms in display, and you bite back a gasp as you push up against him.
But just as easy as he’d moved toward them, he moves away. Casually, he runs a finger over the next button.
“What else?”
“You’re nice to me,” you tell Steve, whose smile softens a little at your words.
Bucky eases another button from its pocket. “That turns you on, sweetheart? His manners?”
“You care,” you rephrase, staring at Steve until he meets your eye despite the spreading flush on his cheeks. “You ask how my day was and actually care about the answer. Offer to help me carry things when I overcommit on accident. You check in on me if you know I’m having a hard time, and you always make sure I’m comfortable and feel safe.”
“Anyone would have done those things,” Steve argues.
“No,” you insist, “they wouldn’t. They haven’t.”
Unable to fight you on that, Steve can only look at you, surprised and quiet.
“Also, you have nice shoulders.”
That earns you a laugh, Steve’s aforementioned shoulders shaking with it as he sits fully on his bent legs on your bed. “Thanks, honey.”
Sitting up, you part from the warmth of Bucky’s chest behind you so that you can turn around and face him. He doesn’t stop you as you settle on his lap, just settles one hand on your hip and the other on one of your thighs as you get comfortable. He’s gone quiet, and you don’t like it.
“And you…” you trail off, using your hand to make him look at you.
“Not quite as polite as Stevie is,” he says with a subdued smile.
“Maybe, but that’s not what I like about you anyway,” you tell him easily. “If you were polite, you wouldn’t have monitored the comments on that video. Or punched someone in the face to defend my honor. Or marched up to me in the library all those months ago to let me know that my boyfriend was betting on my virtue, despite the fact that we were practically strangers before that.” You raise your brows when he opens his mouth. “And don’t tell me anyone would have done that, because almost everybody knew, and they didn’t say a word.”
He rolls his eyes, but you can tell that at least some part of what you said has settled him a little. “Yeah, alright.”
“You’re honest. That means a lot to somebody who’s been lied to before.”
“Well, shit,” he murmurs softly, looking at you. “Here I was thinking it was my rugged handsomeness that hooked you in, but—”
You lean forward and kiss him again, and he abandons his train of thought to kiss you back. You can’t resist grinning when you pull back, thumbing at the dimple in his chin.
“You are pretty handsome.”
The room goes quiet, all three of you smiling to yourselves. Even when you look to the side, Steve’s just watching the two of you, a fond expression on his face.
“I went off topic. Sorry,” you apologize. “Did I ruin the mood?”
“You’re half naked in Bucky’s lap,” Steve says pragmatically. “I’m not sure anything could ruin the mood for me right now.”
As if being reminded of the fact himself, Bucky’s eyes take a detour from yours, trailing down the front of your open shirt and lace bra and back up again as he draws in a slow breath. His fingers twitch on either side of your hips.
“Steve,” Bucky says, still looking at you. “Gimme your hands.”
Without question, Steve’s hands—the ones you said you’d liked so much just a few minutes ago—appear, one on either side of you at Bucky’s disposal, palm up. You watch as Bucky’s own hands curl around his wrists and tug, making Steve kneel behind you, his warmth obvious even through the thin layers.
Bucky presses Steve’s palms flat against your ribs, letting you feel the weight and shape. He moves them slowly up, still watching your face, until Steve’s cupping the underside of your breasts. Both of them can feel the hitch in your breathing, but you can’t find it in yourself to be embarrassed.
From the look on his face, Bucky knows exactly what he’s doing to you.
Finally, just when you’re about to pester him about it, Bucky slides Steve’s palms up the last couple of inches to mold over the shape of your breasts fully. The three of you exhale a variety of different noises—you, a gasp, Steve’s stuttered moan, Bucky groaning low in his throat, eyes half-lidded as he watches Steve learn your shape.
You sway a little, off balance, but Steve’s right there behind you to rest against. Leaning back into him pushes your chest up and forward, further into his eager hands, and he squeezes briefly, enough to pull a surprised noise from you again.
“So soft,” Steve murmurs, dipping forward to nose at the side of your neck. His thumbs sweep over the line dividing flesh from lace underneath your shirt, slow and steady until he can find the hard peak of your nipple under the material. You whimper, your hips restless against Bucky’s underneath you.
“Look at that,” Bucky says, tucking your hair behind your ear. “See what happens when you tell us what you want?”
His hands slip down to grip your waist more firmly, hauling you up against him closer until the bulge of his hardening cock sits snug in the split of your legs. You’re separated by his jeans and your underwear, but the heat, the shape, the feeling—it’s already so good.
“We thought about you too,” Steve admits, breathing harder against your neck as he slips two fingers beneath the fabric of your bra to press against your nipples with nothing in between.
It takes a moment for the words to catch up with you. You lift your head from his shoulder. “Really?”
“Fuck. Yeah.”
“Steve,” Bucky warns. His cheeks are the slightest bit more flushed, and you wonder, briefly, what could have been so depraved that even Bucky would be blushing.
You desperately want to know.
“You’re so—we didn’t think you’d ever want this. But we’d talk about it. Sometimes.”
“‘Sometimes’ as in over brunch,” you question breathlessly, slipping a hand back to slide it into Steve’s hair, “or sometimes like that day at your—?”
“Both,” Steve moans when you pull. “Definitely both.”
You turn your chin enough that Steve can kiss you over your shoulder, his other hand yanking Bucky forward against your chest. One of Steve’s hands leaves you as his tongue teases the corner of your mouth, and you hum into his mouth when Bucky’s teeth graze the spot Steve’s wandering fingers just vacated.
Kissing Steve is warm and intense, slicker than you thought it’d be. Something about Steve made you think his kisses might be chaste and just as polite as the rest of him, but he holds the back of your neck and gets as close to you as possible, sharing air and cradling your lower lip with his own with a focus so heavy it makes you a little dizzy.
Which isn’t to say that Bucky isn’t doing his best to distract you anyway; his arms have wrapped fully around your waist now to hold you against his chest, his mouth mapping out the path of skin between your breasts with aching intent. Every few seconds you feel his teeth, nipping and teasing, but it’s hardly enough. You put a hand to the back of his neck and press until he commits, mouthing at you in wet trails and sinking his teeth and tongue into your skin enough that it’ll leave a mark or two behind.
It’s more sensitive the closer he gets to your nipples, the skin thinner and easier to bruise. But he hears your muffled noises against Steve’s mouth for what they are, easing up on you as he takes one in his mouth before swiping a tender thumb over the blooming marks to solidify them.
“Can I taste you?” Steve pants against your lips, pulling back. “Please. Been thinkin’ about it, what you taste like—”
“He’s real good with his tongue, sweetheart,” Bucky rasps in addition, as if you need any more convincing.
No sooner have you nodded do you find yourself plucked off of Bucky’s lap and laid on your back on the mattress, and the loss of solid heat between your legs feels like an ache. You reach for Bucky, kissing him messily as he flicks open the last of the buttons on your shirt and Steve eases your underwear down and off your legs. It feels jarring, a little, until Bucky leans up to strip his own shirt off, and you see Steve losing his pants in the corner of your hazy vision as Bucky leans in to kiss you again.
He does it differently than Steve does, rougher, less composed. The same flash of teeth you’d felt against your breasts is the one you feel now against your lips, and he likes kissing you nice and long and deep and then pulling back, watching you chase him for more. You’ll make some sort of joke about that cocky grin, some time when you aren’t otherwise occupied.
Steve’s hands slide up the outside of your legs, over the tops of your thighs, running up and down to the inside of your knees and back up again. You’re ticklish there, and you shiver when his mouth follows closely behind, the bed creaking as he settles in the space you’ve made for him between.
“So fuckin’ wet,” Steve marvels distantly, and the thickness of his voice draws you back into the moment. You break from Bucky’s mouth with a gasp and a string of spit still connecting you, and Bucky thumbs it away as you glance down between your legs at where Steve is openly staring at you. His eyes flick up to your face for a second, a spark of something mischievous in his gaze. “Bet you’re soft here too.”
Without further ado he lowers his mouth to your cunt, and you groan, dropping your head backward into the quick reflex of Bucky’s hand that cradles it.
“Don’t be afraid to tell him what you like,” Bucky murmurs against your jaw. “He takes orders like a champ.”
You file that away to be explored later. The affect it has on you is obvious—to Steve, at least—who moans against you when your cunt bears down around the wet heat of his tongue. You slide a hand down to slip it into Steve’s hair and against his scalp, but don’t direct him otherwise.
“Don’t know what feels good. Haven’t done this part much.”
At your admission, Steve slips his arms underneath your thighs, pulls your legs over his shoulders, makes a noise that you can feel. He laps at you without shame, but you can feel that focus in every movement; the angle of his sharp jaw, the suction in his cheeks, each measured exhale that makes you shiver before he settles his mouth over the bump of your clit and sucks, then goes back to flicking his tongue.
It’s true, nonetheless—none of your previous partners have bothered much with eating you out, and if they had, it was always a couple minute precursor to penetrative sex and nothing more. And that was usually just to get you wet enough, which…is not looking like it’s going to be much of an issue here.
Steve’s eyes flick up to you again, finding yours atop the rolling wave of your stomach as you try and fail not to grind your hips up against his mouth. He holds your gaze as he rubs one warm fingertip through your excitement and then hovers it above your entrance, thoroughly prepared by his tongue, and you nod.
His tongue makes wide, firm circles against your clit as the digit sinks into you. Not quick, not rough, slow enough that you feel every aching inch of it until there isn’t anymore to go. You whimper, pushing against him for more, but it’s Bucky that answers.
His hand wraps loosely around your throat to get your attention, fingers on your neck and thumb pressed to your chin to tilt it back. He’s been watching you while Steve takes you apart, quieter than you typically know him to be, but the heaviness in his eyes tells you it’s arousal and not anything bad that’s got his tongue tied.
The thumb on your chin raises by an inch, pressing down on the thickest part of your lower lip. You open for him, eager for whatever you’ll be given, but he doesn’t kiss you.
Instead, as Steve eases a second finger in underneath the relentless roll of his tongue, Bucky hovers above you, purses his lips, and spits, slow, into your open mouth.
You shudder, clenching down hard against Steve’s fingers as you’re pushed even closer to your first orgasm of the night. Bucky sees it all—watches your eyes roll backward before the flutter closed, lets you squeeze the outside of his wrist against your throat, doesn’t look away for a moment as you close your mouth to swallow what he gave you and then open again so he can check.
“Fuck,” he curses, drawing the word out long and pressing it into your tongue as he drops down to kiss you. It’s overwhelming, the thrust of Bucky’s tongue similar to the motion of Steve’s fingers inside you; it’s so deliciously close to what you’d pictured all the times you’d thought about this alone in bed.
Just that the real thing is better.
Your hand finds the side of Bucky’s face as you kiss, and you find your nails dragging across the roughness of his facial hair. It’s somewhere between stubble and a beard and you like the in between, can’t help thinking about the marks it’d make if he took Steve’s place between your legs right now.
“I like this,” you tell him, rubbing your hand over it. “Liked it both ways, but it looks good grown out.”
“Both ways?” Bucky lifts a brow. “You knew about us before this year?”
Steve tilts his hand, curves his two fingers up into you to find your spot, shoves his tongue in the space left over. You shiver, your brain-to-mouth filter momentarily offline.
“In the stands. Football game. Freshman year. You always had crowds around you.”
“No shit,” Bucky breathes, chuckling as he smears a kiss against your cheek. “Can’t believe we wasted so much fuckin’ time.”
You pull his mouth back to yours, one hand in his hair and the other digging your nails into Steve’s arm that’s been spread over your stomach to keep you from bucking away from him too far. His jaw must be aching by now, you think; your other partners certainly would have complained by now that you hadn’t come yet.
Before you can start feeling guilty and trying to make yourself, Bucky pulls you back with a hand on your face. “Hey. You wanna come like this?”
Your lower lip disappears behind your front teeth, still tasting of Bucky. If you say yes, there’s a chance it’s a means to an end—you get off, then they get off, and then it’s over. You want this to last as long as possible.
“I don’t know.”
“Let me rephrase, then,” Bucky says, catching the lobe of your ear between his teeth. “If Steve makes you come now with his mouth, can you do it again for me afterward?”
“Yes,” you nod frantically. “Yes. Please.”
Bucky grins. “Atta girl.”
With a clear goal in mind, Bucky slips rough fingertips down the front of your body, between the valley of your breasts and down your quivering abdomen, past your hips until he reaches where Steve’s head is settled in between your shaking thighs. He goes even further then, using two digits to spread you apart nice and wide, the way Steve can’t while he’s holding your waist and fucking you on his fingers.
The position means that there’s nowhere left to hide now, no reprieve from the sensation of Steve’s tongue. It’s warm and wet and unyielding, sucking and flicking and drawing your clit to full attention for him. With toys or fingers it might be too much sensation to really feel good, but the pressure of his mouth is just right.
You cling onto Bucky’s arm and Steve’s hand as you begin to tense up, the coil in your stomach tightening. You like this part, this little plateau before the plunge, and it’s been so long—if ever—since you’ve actually gotten to experience it at the hands of someone else and not just your own.
If you could talk, you’d say right there or don’t stop or I’m close, but your breath is getting stuck in pants and hiccups, your hips twitching, out of your control. You feel molten underneath both of their gazes, anticipating your release but not rushing you toward it.
You let your eyes close, welcome the sudden press of Bucky’s fingers against your mouth and Steve’s hand to keep you grounded, and let everything else fall away for a minute.
The orgasm doesn’t take you by surprise. It builds, slowly and then in quicker increments, until it takes you over. Your mouth wrenches open noiselessly, eyes wet with overwhelmed tears, and all of you tenses tight before rapidly unraveling between the fixed points that Steve and Bucky make around you.
It keeps going, Steve’s mouth and fingers insistent as he works you through it. Noise fades back in as the ringing in your ears adjusts, Steve’s moans as you get him wet with your release, Bucky’s rough, raspy whispers of praise against your hair, your own shameless whines and squeaks as you ride it out completely.
Eventually, when you’re spent, you collapse back against the pillow Bucky put under your head and blink idly at the ceiling. You feel cold between your legs when Steve pulls away, your cunt pulsing, displeased at the sudden emptiness.
It’s worth it—if only because you get to lie back and catch your breath while Bucky drags Steve in by the neck and ravages his mouth with his tongue, tasting him. Tasting you.
Their hands are all over each other in a way that betrays the fact that they’ve been in a much longer relationship, aware of each other’s limits and weak spots. Steve groans when Bucky yanks his head backward and sinks his teeth against his neck, smearing you even further across Steve’s skin, leaving visible wetness behind. You watch, half surprised and still valiantly turned on, when his palm smacks the side of Steve’s ass and squeezes before he pulls away.
Both of them are hard, Bucky’s bulge significant underneath his boxers and Steve’s briefs rucked dangerously low against his hips, enough to see the hair around the base of his cock. He must’ve been grinding against the bed. You push your thighs together again with a whimper at the thought.
The noise draws Steve’s attention, and he crawls back on top of you, turning your bent legs to the side but keeping your back against the sheets as he kisses you. Soft, slow, more like what you thought he’d be like in the first place.
“Was that good?” Steve asks you.
“So good,” you agree with a smile, pushing a hand through his hair. “Thank you.”
“Both of you are too polite,” Bucky sighs. “What am I gonna do with you two?”
Steve slants his eyes from you over to Bucky, sly. “Something with your dick, preferably.”
You choke at his forwardness; you’ve never known Steve to be that bold. Bucky laughs at your expression, and Steve seems unabashed.
“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet, sweetheart,” Bucky tells you. “Just wait ‘til I’m fuckin’ him through the mattress. He gets real filthy, then.”
“Fuck,” you exhale. Your filter’s still not totally back.
Biting down on a smile, Bucky leans in to look up at Steve with you, appraising. “He does make quite the picture like that. But maybe…” he turns, talking right into your ear. “Maybe you take him first, huh? Been so patient, both of you—you want that?”
You nod. “Yes. Yeah.”
“Then, after he’s finished, when you’re all shaky and sensitive—it’ll be my turn. Roll you over. Slip into you, nice and easy. Fuck you deep enough that you can feel me right here,” Bucky continues, reaching down between you and Steve to press a palm against the cradle of skin between your hips.
“Bucky,” you moan. “Yes. Please. All of it.”
Lazily, Bucky rolls his head to look up at Steve. “Stevie?”
“You gotta fuckin’ ask?” he mutters to a laughing Bucky. You raise a brow, and he shifts his gaze to you, smiling crookedly. “When I said we’d talked about this, I meant in detail.”
You laugh with them, which is something else that hasn’t happened during sex with anyone else. It feels good. You feel good. Your body is loose from your first orgasm and you’re comfortable enough with Steve and Bucky that you don’t feel like you have to put on a show or hold a certain position. Which is good, because they seem to be developing a habit of arranging you however they like.
Like you’re a delicate addition to the well oiled machine of their relationship, Steve wraps his arms around your thighs again and pulls you down to the center of the mattress, and Bucky locates one of their wallets from the floor to grab a condom. The thoughtfulness makes you momentarily emotional, one less thing you have to think or worry about.
The condoms in their wallets that, you’re realizing right now, are probably more so for them to have sex with each other than they are to hook up with girls like you initially thought. You’re glad to understand better, now.
While Bucky’s up he grabs a water from your fridge and pops the cap, drains a good third and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before tossing it to Steve. He does the same, then leans down to hold it against your lips while Bucky fixes the pillows behind you. It’s oddly intimate, given everything you’ve already done, and you flush with heat at the unexpected gesture.
The boxers come off, Steve’s and then Bucky’s. You drink them in with a stare that’s only partially intentional, your mouth dry despite the water, suddenly glad that Steve had opened you up on his fingers in addition to his mouth. It’s been a while, and they’re both fairly well endowed.
It’d be the perfect place to make a crude joke at your expression, but it never comes. Steve leans in, fingers brushing your cheek. “You okay? We can do something else, if you want.”
“Or stop, if you’re tired,” Bucky adds.
True to your word, care and honesty really do seem to be what gets you going these days.
You shake your head, pulling your legs apart and Steve in between them as you lay back with Bucky’s thigh as a pillow. The condom sits idly on the bedspread to the side, and you pick it up and hand it to him in invitation.
With a smile and a final press of his lips to your forehead, Steve kneels up between your legs and rips it open, rolling it onto himself. He takes a few measured breaths as he looks at you, working his fist over the length of his cock in three slow pumps before he relents and braces on his knees.
Steve’s broad all over, and he spreads you wide without even meaning to. The span of his thighs and hips pushes your legs open enough that when he leans forward on top of you his dick is already straining where it wants to go, and you hiss when it bumps against your still-sensitive clit, shivering.
He grips it and swipes it through your wetness, letting it rest against you so you can feel the weight and shape of it before anything else happens. He’s warm, velvet hot against you, and you’re so wet that you can feel it on the sheets underneath you. Open from the orgasm and Steve’s fingers too, you think he should be able to slide in fairly easily.
You hook a leg over Steve’s hip as he leans forward further, the head of his cock pushing barely inside of you. Both of you moan, and Bucky lets you squeeze his hand as hard as you want in open anticipation.
Holding himself there, Steve gives a few slow thrusts against you. Shallow and brief, working himself in just slightly more each time. His thoughtfulness is a tease without meaning to be, making you clench down around nothing each time he withdraws.
Then, on a particular forward thrust, his cock sinks in a little deeper. He holds himself still, then repeats it all again. By the time he’s halfway inside of you you’re both holding your breath, sweat beading on Steve’s hairline, his grip tight enough to leave marks on your hip.
“Shit. Bucky. I’m—” Steve curses, squeezing his eyes shut as he pauses, shivering.
“Get it together, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs, pushing some of his hair back from his face. “Promised her a good time, did we not? You gonna deliver?”
Steve nods quickly, but the muscles in his neck and shoulders are pulled taut as he swallows audibly. “She’s—tight, Bucky. Fuck.”
“You would know, since you just had your fingers inside her, big guy.” Bucky flashes you a grin. “Sorry. Steve gets a little stupid about good pussy.”
“Liar,” Steve manages, breathless. “Never had one like this before.”
“Had what?” Bucky taunts him. “She’s got a name, don’t she?”
Being with them is apparently unlocking various new kinks for you. You feel suspended, weightless, anchored only by the thick pressure of Steve’s cock stretching you open, the biggest you’ve ever taken. You couldn’t form words if you tried.
“Your—” Steve chokes, trailing off. He grits his teeth, forces his eyes open and looks straight into yours as he slides the rest of the way inside of you. “Fuck. Your cunt. This tight little fuckin’ cunt.”
You cry out, arms shooting up and sideways to grip onto whatever you can to steady yourself. It doesn’t hurt, though you’re sure to be sore later. But you’ve never taken anyone this big before and it’s different in a way you hadn’t thought to expect.
You can feel him, hot inside of your body. Every inch of you is aware of it too, making room, adjusting, overwhelmed. You struggle to get air in for a moment but keep a shaky hand pressed to Steve’s side so he doesn’t pull out, trying to catch your breath.
Steve noses at your cheek. “That okay? S’it—?”
“Yeah,” you manage, blinking rapidly to clear your vision. “Deep. It’s—so full.”
Tender as anything, Bucky wipes at your cheeks to catch the tears you hadn’t managed to hide and strokes over your flushed skin with his thumb. “He’s big, isn’t he? Knows how to use it, too.”
He turns his attention to Steve, sinking fingers into your hair and settling up against your scalp, holding you steady. Sparks dance along your nerve endings at the promise of it, and you can’t help bearing down, drawing Steve further into you in anticipation.
“Show her, Steve.”
Steve shifts, bracing his palms on the bed in preparation obediently, but he pauses to kiss you again first, each one sweeter than the last.
“Tell me if it’s too much, ‘kay?”
With your approval, he widens his stance by your shoulders, bends his knees to push yours apart a little further, and braces himself to draw backward.
It’s slow—achingly so, at first, but necessary to get you used to him. He pulls back only halfway before pushing back in, working out of you the same way he’d worked himself in. Your wetness makes it all perfectly audible, the obscene slick noises echoing in all three of your ears each time he shifts.
You wrap a hand around his bicep, feeling the movement of the muscles underneath, and squeeze to let him know you can take a little more. His thrusts deepen, pulling nearly all the way back out of you before returning this time. It exaggerates the length of his cock, makes every drag of it feel even deeper, every brief moment of emptiness like a loss.
The three of you are quiet as he works up to a rhythm, entranced by the sight and sound and feeling of him taking you for the first time. You’re struck by a moment of disbelief at how unlikely this had seemed to you before; a fantasy you’d never actually get to have.
But you do, and it’s better than you imagined, and you’re not planning to waste it thinking of past hypotheticals.
You clench around Steve again, wiggling your hips, and he seems to get the message. With a quick readjustment of his grip on your hips, he kneels up and drags you with him, laying your ass against the slope of his thick, tensed thighs. It rushes blood to your head that’s still on flatter ground against Bucky’s leg and you gasp, feeling exposed and split open as your legs fall further apart to accommodate him.
Steve fucks you deep and the right amount of rough, a divot between his eyebrows that tells you it must be feeling good for him too. He’s glistening with sweat now, bare chest and muscles on display, and it’s hard not to feel self conscious around the two of them. But he’s making you feel good enough that it’s easier to let go, and if that didn’t do the trick, Bucky bending over you to kiss you again surely does.
Watching the two of you kiss makes Steve quicken his pace again. He grunts with each thrust of his hips, your wetness spreading all over his lap and the inside of your thighs and making a mess. When he thumbs over your clit you cry out into Bucky’s mouth, your body suddenly beginning to strive for release again.
“Fuck,” Steve pants, the circles of his thumb rough with the pace of his thrusts. “Baby. Want—I want you to come with me. Can you?”
“Nightstand,” you gasp to Bucky on autopilot. “Top drawer.”
He goes without question, stretching himself out so that he doesn’t have to move you to get to the nightstand. The drawer opens and things rattle to your left as Steve lowers your body back flat to the sheets and begins fucking you in sharp thrusts aimed right at your spot. It’s so good but you need just a little bit more, just—
“Fuckin’ hell,” you hear Bucky groan as he finds your vibrator and frees it from its not-so-secret hiding spot. You’ve resorted to it more often than not lately, the idea of a quick and efficient release more enticing than a slow workup if you’re tired or stressed. “How many times’ this thing heard our names, huh?”
You don’t give him the answer to that, because it’s mortifying. Instead, you say, “Second button. Hold it down, then press it twice.”
Seconds later, you hear it buzz to life. Even the sound of it seems to push you closer, the sensation so closely linked to release in your mind that you’re aching for it. Steve’s thumbs are digging into your hips, Bucky’s skin hot beneath your cheek, your body rising to meet each one of Steve’s movements. You’re so overwhelmed you feel like you might cry again—the really good kind of tears.
And then Bucky presses the vibrator against your clit.
You do cry, then, and yell something you’ll probably find embarrassing later on. But Bucky knows what you need, doesn’t let you wiggle away from it. There’s nowhere for you to go, even, not when Steve’s cock is buried so deeply inside of you.
And it is deep; he’s not pulling out as much anymore, holding you still, fucking into in long, punctuated thrusts, never once leaving you empty. He grinds into you in a concentrated effort now that the vibrator’s on you, careful not to knock it off.
“You gonna come for me?” he grunts to you, disheveled in a way so unlike Steve that it threatens to unravel you. His perfectly styled hair is in ruins lying across his forehead from you and Bucky’s fingers, scratch marks across his chest, a red flush working its way down from there with his restraint. His want.
You nod, trying and failing to form the words. Bucky, as if reading your mind, kicks the vibrator up just one more notch and presses.
“Oh, fuck,” Steve shudders, fucking you harder. “M’not—not gonna last. God, you—you’re squeezing me so fuckin’ tight, baby.”
“Yeah? Is he right, sweetheart? You feelin’ real good? I got this in the right place?” Bucky asks above you.
You nod, blurry with tears and pleasure. “Don’t—don’t stop.”
“Nobody’s stoppin’, honey. Promise. Not ‘til you come for us again.”
You don’t wait for a command or a cue, can’t even wait to make sure that Steve’s there with you before you go tumbling over the edge again. The orgasms with the vibrator are sharper and more sudden, rolling over you in waves. You say their names this time, repeating them as you whimper and squirm between the onslaught of Steve’s cock and the toy, caught in an endless loop of pleasure.
This one doesn’t last as long, but you’re slower to come back from it. Once your body stops rolling with the last dredges of your orgasm, you feel little things—Steve’s tight grip around your waist, his teeth in your shoulder, the added weight and wetness between your legs as he fucks himself through his own orgasm into the condom. Bucky’s hands still in your hair, his voice praising both of you, the fixed points at the edges of his smile.
You stay like that for seconds, minutes, you aren’t sure, basking in the aftermath of it. It’d been unexpectedly intense, and you’re once again glad that this is them and not anybody else, content to let yourself float in it for a minute before you have to be coherent again.
Steve eases off of you slowly, carefully, mindful of your sensitive and spent body as he pulls up and out of you. The emptiness this time around feels more severe, and you’re embarrassed at the noise you make and the fact that Steve has to reach down and curl three fingers back into you until it feels like less of a loss.
You aren’t certain how long it’s like that—Bucky stroking over your arms, your legs, your thighs, Steve’s fingers gently fucking into you without purpose until your body is more okay with letting him go. Even then there’s a smoothness to it all, a system with you in the center.
Steve gets up to toss the condom and grab another water while Bucky pushes the last of the other one to your lips and helps you finish it. Awareness begins to trickle in again, your muscles a little sore and the wet spot on the bed less than ideal underneath you, but Bucky remains a solid, sturdy weight at your side.
Bucky, who’s still achingly hard against his own hip and hasn’t made a single move to do anything about it. He could’ve fucked your mouth while Steve was fucking you, could have gotten himself off with his own hand and come on your chest. It’s not like you would have said no.
But he hadn’t done any of that, because you had a plan, and because he’s more polite than any of you give him credit for apparently.
Roll you over. Slip into you, nice and easy. Fuck you deep enough that you can feel me right here.
Lazily, you roll off of Bucky’s thigh and into a dry spot on the sheets, laying your cheek against the pillow to look up at him. He really is handsome, his hair and his face and his body and his heart, and you want him just as badly as you wanted Steve. You still do, if he’ll have you.
You reach blindly across the bed to grab his hand and tug. He leans on an elbow beside you obligingly, running a hand up your spine. When you make another noise, he finally undoes the clasp that’d been barely holding your bra still on you all night, and the straps fall open, baring your back to him fully.
“You wanna sleep, sweetheart?”
You shake your head, fumbling for his wallet on the corner of the nightstand. You’re still shaking a little but you manage it, flipping one side open and pulling another condom out with two of your fingers to hand back to him.
With the audacity to look surprised, Bucky glances at you, wide eyed. He leans closer, stroking a hand down the back of your head. “Still want me?”
You nod against the pillow, slipping one of your arms beneath your head. “Just—slow.”
“‘Course,” Bucky agrees.
He arranges you so you don’t have to move anymore, letting your head stay comfortable while he nudges your hips up onto a pillow and into place for him. You’re already wet and open and ready for him and you hope the thought is as exciting to him as it is to you, that he’s been waiting for this as much as you have.
Distantly, you register movement. The condom being ripped open, footsteps returning, soft voices, the bed creaking under new weight. With anyone else, you would’ve had to be on high alert. Wouldn’t have trusted them to be so vulnerable with. You’re not scared with Steve and Bucky.
As if proving the point, your body opens for him easily when he presses inside. You’d liked seeing Steve face to face but this way everything is so much tighter, warmer, softer around the edges, every inch of Bucky’s body pressed against yours keeping you anchored to the bed. He’s not as long as Steve but he makes up for it in thickness, the weight of him filling you like pressing on a lovebite you don’t want to fade.
He pauses for a minute when he’s settled to the hilt, just holding you. Your breathing syncs, heart rates much calmer now, and you welcome him in so much that you think you could nearly fall asleep if he held still long enough.
And then he moves.
An arm tucked underneath your shoulders and another keeping a forearm pressed into the pillow beside your head for leverage, Bucky doesn’t bother with the rough fucking Steve had given you. He hardly pulls out much at all. Instead, he grinds into you in steep, slow circles, making sure that neither of you miss any fleeting detail. It’s the most quiet you think he’s ever been around you before, both of you listening, moving, communicating with each other in a way you haven’t before.
The angle is so different than being on your back. The times you’ve been on your front before were all hands and knees, nothing like this; not the intimate press of a warm chest to your bare shoulder blades, not an open palm against the thud of your heartbeat, not with anyone close enough to feel the reactions of what they were doing to your body.
It builds quickly this time, and without any conscious effort. You lean gratefully into Steve’s fingers when they move your hair from your face, but otherwise, you’re overwhelmed by nothing but Bucky. He’s thorough and attentive, seemingly conscious of the same approaching crescendo as you are. You can believe it, after making him wait all night.
Bucky moves your hair from your shoulders too, kisses the curve of your neck, your shoulder, the first notches of your spine. The hand on your chest rises briefly to hold your throat again, keeping you steady as he rocks into you over and over again.
There’s a subtle tremble in the strength he uses to hold himself above you, a few last strings that need cutting. He’s still taking care of you.
The pillow propping your hips up gives enough room to reach underneath and touch yourself, but it’s not your hand that you want there.
Lifting your tired limbs, you shift your arm until you can wrap your fingers around Bucky’s wrist that’s around your chest. You drag it down between your hips and push it where you need it, Bucky’s rough fingers finding your throbbing clit with ease.
Relief rolls over you at the intensity of it. You don’t have much energy except to tilt your hips back and try to move them back and forth between Bucky’s cock and his fingers, but it’s enough.
The angle’s better and Bucky slides into you even deeper, his helpless groans matching pitch with your frantic whimpers. It’s not going to take much this time, not with so much build up, and when you feel Bucky’s thighs begin to shake around yours where he’d shoved one up at to the side, you tighten around him, the contractions of your muscles drawing your own orgasm to the surface.
Bucky takes your jaw in his hand as you come one last time, his fingers spreading out over your face to hold you while he fucks you through his simultaneous release. It’s the least intense one of the night but your tired body feels every ebb and flow of it, clutching onto every part of Bucky you can with how much it rocks you, makes you feel vulnerable.
He keeps you steady through it, boxed in in his arms just like when you were dancing earlier. Even when you’re both finally through the aftershocks he stays there inside of you, lips pressed against your shoulder, hand tucked underneath your cheek.
He leans up just enough to press a kiss there too when he eventually lifts himself off of you, and you can feel Steve at the ready with a cool rag to wipe you down. It’s not as good as a shower would be but there’s no way you have the energy for that right now. You appreciate the change in temperature and the gentle treatment as your body winds down from the rush of endorphins you’d flooded it with, and when you’re mostly clean, Steve helps you sit up and slip on Bucky’s shirt while Bucky strips the sheets and tosses a clean blanket over the mattress.
You settle in between both of them, already nearly asleep when you curl against Bucky’s front and feel Steve slip an arm around you from behind. Bucky’s the last one to talk, thick with sleep and something else you can’t name just yet.
“Thank you, sweet girl.”
You press an open mouthed kiss against his chest in response. You’d missed his voice.
Brendan (and the rest of the campus, for that matter), are all shocked to find out that the school’s biggest brat and its equally notorious playboys are all in a relationship. Even more so when it lasts through another semester and after graduation, too.
You’re not, though. They’d been wrong about all three of you, so it makes sense they’d be wrong about this too. You’ve stopped caring so much about proving people wrong, especially when you have so many other things to put your focus toward.
Nudging open the door of your apartment with your shoe, you let yourself inside and set the last moving box down by the dining room table. You smile at the sketchbook that’s been left out, a rough drawing of Bucky on one side, you on the other.
“Okay, I think that’s everything,” Bucky announces, falling back onto your couch.
“Until we have to move everything up another floor next week,” Steve reminds him, gulping down water from your sink. Bucky groans.
“Don’t fuckin’ remind me.” He tosses an arm over his eyes dramatically. “You sure we can’t just live here, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” you answer immediately. “The size of your unit is practically double mine. If anything, I would be moving in with you.”
Peeling his arm away, Bucky gives you a mischievous grin. “Now there’s an idea.”
You laugh, walking over to him. “Easy, tiger. One thing at a time.”
“Oh? S’that the plan now?”
You settle on his lap, both of you sweaty from moving their boxes to your place temporarily. The window Steve cracked isn’t doing much in the way of cooling you down, but you sort of like the way Bucky’s hands feel like brands on your hips.
“No plans. We’re going with the flow, remember?”
“Ah, that’s right.” He nods, thumbing at your lip. “Does the flow entail us takin’ a break so I can get this mouth on me again?”
“Horny jar,” you say at the same time as Steve, both of you grinning at Bucky’s groan.
“I’m not using that damn jar anytime I want my girl,” Bucky complains. “I’d be broke.”
“Yeah, but we’d have rent covered for the first, like, three months at least,” Steve reasons.
Tossing an arm over the back of the couch to flip him the middle finger, Bucky uses his other hand to curve around your neck and pull you down to his mouth. He kisses you deep, slow, as lazy as the heat in the apartment, and your sore muscles go slack against him.
“Maybe we can take a little break before trying to organize everything,” you tell him.
With a cheer, Bucky lifts you clean off the couch and sets you on the ground, spinning you in his arms. “Fuck yeah. You have the best ideas. I love you.”
He kisses you again, but both of you pause when you realize what he just said. You glance from Bucky to Steve, who’s already looking over at you from the kitchen, equally frozen.
“Uh,” Bucky says. “Hey, so. I love you?”
Your mouth splits into a slow grin when he doesn’t retract it but tells you again, and you laugh as you lean up to kiss him again.
“I love you too.”
His arms slip around your waist, keeping your mouths together as he walks you back toward your bed. You can hear Steve clearing your pathway, then finally feel him against you once you hit the mattress.
“I guess Buck beat me to it,” he smiles, “but I love you, too.”
“Well, I love you…three?” you ask, giddy as you pull him down against you.
“So much love,” Steve murmurs against your mouth. “Does this mean we have to start a love jar now?”
“Nah,” Bucky insists, stripping out of his shirt. “We’d lose count.”
The three of you collapse into a pile in the center of your mattress in a happy heap, all smiles and wandering hands, and you think, as Steve peels his borrowed boxers down your legs with your shorts, that this is the best you’ve ever felt in a relationship in your life.
When you feel safe enough, you’ve discovered, you kind of like not having a plan.
They settle in around you easily, slotting into place, and stay.
.
.
.
Croaker, I have written a document that chronicles the timeline and important details of the various plot arks of your blog. It is over 100 pages long. Would you like for me to share it with your followers?
What is wrong with you. Yes absolutely
A Muppet Joker Odyssey By: AL Trigger Warnings: Furbies, Muppet Sex, Bodily fluids, Violence, Pregnancy, Cannibalism, Daddy issues, Horse
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16dqe8TzlnnWWtrYAEQ51WA87Q3u-0xfY1mUJHuyuShI/edit?usp=drivesdk
Bon Apetit. If something doesn't work let me know! Probably could be formatted better but OH WELL
I'm too busy to FUCK MY KERMIT PLUSHIE or make TUMBLR POSTS due to PURSUING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT and THE TORMENT NEXUS OF CAPITALISM! UNBELIEVABLY SAD!!! FUCK MY STUPID BAKA MUPPET LIFE!!!!!
A Hand in the Dark Masterlist
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader
Tags: Hurt/Comfort. Canon-Typical Violence. Fluff.
Warnings: Psychological Trauma. Depictions of Physical Wounds.
Summary: Somewhere in the 1950s, in a brief moment of lucidity, Soldat makes a choice: he saves a stranger's life. Decades later, that stranger's granddaughter finds him bleeding out in an alley, and chooses to save him back.
Status: Ended.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
dividers by: @/strangergraphics
Adrift
Character: Cecaelia!Bucky
Tags: Dark Fantasy. Angst.
Warnings: PTSD. Graphic Violence. Mating Sex. Mentions of Steve -is it a warning? I don't know, it might trigger Endgame rant-
Sinopsis: Liberated but not free, Bucky survives but never quite lives. A story exploring how he ended up in the cave, long before he meets her.
Word Count: 6.6k
note: Prequel of Tangled.
Bucky pressed his forehead against the cold stone of the cave wall, trying to ground himself and breathe through the headache. The pressure had built behind his eyes until his vision whited out at the edges, until all he could do was coil tighter against the rock and wait for it to pass.
It always passed.
Eventually.
He didn't know how long he'd been here. Days, maybe. A week? Time moved strangely when every waking moment was either pain or the exhausted emptiness that came after.
The cave wasn't his. Wasn't anyone's, as far as he could tell. Just a pathetic hollow in the rock he'd found when swimming became too much, when his body had simply refused to go any farther. Dark. Cold. Deep enough that light didn't reach. Far enough from anything that no one would stumble across him by accident.
Which was good. He didn't want to be found.
His limbs drifted limp in the water, some coiled loosely against the rock floor, others floating weightless. He should move them. Stretch. Keep the muscles from atrophy. But the thought of moving -of doing anything- felt impossible.
Another wave of pain crashed through his head, and he hissed through his teeth, claws scraping against rock.
Was it the magic?
It had to be. What else could it be?
Steve had destroyed the collar, ripped it off with his bare hands in those first violent hours when Bucky hadn't known who he was, hadn't known anything except the screaming need to obey obey obey-
His breath hitched.
Don't think about Steve.
But the pain made it hard not to. Made everything blur together: past and present, memory and moment.
"You need to eat."
Steve's voice. Firm. Worried.
Bucky had turned his head away from the fish he offered, his stomach twisting with nausea that had nothing to do with hunger.
"You haven't eaten in three days."
The memory dissolved as another spike of pain lanced through his brain. Bucky's hand flew to his head, fingers digging into his scalp, his shorter, uneven hair catching between his claws.
Maybe this was hunger.
Or maybe it was the magic, still rooted in his nervous system like poisoned kelp, slowly consuming him from the inside out, eating away at whatever was left.
He'd felt it in those early days -weeks?- when Steve had kept him in that other place. The compulsions. The way his body would try to follow orders that no longer existed, and when it couldn't, when there was no voice commanding him, his muscles would seize and his mind would fracture and-
"Bucky. Look at me."
Hands on his face, forcing eye contact.
"You're safe. Do you hear me? No one's controlling you anymore."
But his body hadn't believed it. Had thrashed against the bindings Steve had used to keep him from hurting himself, from swimming back to-
Where?
He couldn't even remember where they'd kept him. Just glass. Cold glass walls. Chains. The bite of iron on his skin.
Bucky's eyes opened -when had he closed them?- and he stared into the darkness of the cave.
How long had Steve kept him there?
Long enough for the worst of it to pass, for him to stop attacking on sight, for the convulsions to space out from constant to occasional, from several times a day to once every few days.
Long enough for Steve to tell him-
His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.
But the memory came anyway, sharp and jagged:
"Now that you're better-"
"I'm not better."
Steve had paused, floating in the water across from him. The space had been bigger than this one. Lighter. Steve had chosen it carefully, close enough to his territory that he could hunt, far enough from others that no one would find them.
"Better enough," Steve amended quietly. "You're lucid now. You know who you are. Who I am."
"And that means you're leaving."
It wasn't a question.
Steve's expression had changed -guilt, relief, something Bucky couldn't name-and then nodded.
"Yeah."
Bucky's fingers dug harder into his scalp.
He should've known.
He had saved him because he owed him. All those winters Bucky had kept him alive when he'd been small, weak, struggling. This was just... repayment. Settling a debt.
And now the debt was paid.
"There's someone," Steve had said, and his voice had gone soft in a way that made Bucky's skin crawl. "I met her before I found you."
Bucky's brow furrowed. Someone?
Their kind didn't do that. Didn't pair off. Didn't wait for anyone.
"Someone?" he repeated slowly.
The blonde nodded, and he could see it... the guilt in his expression.
"She's waiting for me."
"She's-" Bucky stopped. "Who? We don't-”
"She's not one of us."
Something cold slithered down Bucky's spine. Every muscle in his body went tense.
Not one of them.
His mind raced through possibilities, each worse than the last. What else lived in these waters? What else could Steve possibly-
"What," Bucky said, his hard. "A siren? Ningyo?"
The disdain in his tone was sharp enough to cut.
Steve's jaw clenched. His eyes dropped for just a moment before meeting Bucky's again.
"Human."
The word landed like a stone in deep water.
Bucky stared at him, certain he'd misheard. Certain this was another trick of the magic still rotting in his brain, making him hear things that weren't real.
"You're mating with a human."
It wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
Steve exhaled slowly. "It's not- it wasn't planned. I didn't mean for it to happen, it just-"
"Just what?"
"It just... did."
Bucky's eyes burned.
He'd said horrible things after that. Things he couldn't take back. Things that had made Steve flinch and then made his expression harden.
Things that were true.
Because humans were weak. Prey. The same creatures that had chained, tortured, and controlled him, turning him into a weapon against his own kind.
And Steve was going to-
His stomach lurched, and this time it wasn't from the pain in his head.
He forced himself to breathe slowly. In. Out. In. Out.
It didn't matter.
Steve was gone.
Had been gone for... how long now?
A week?
More?
He had left that cave as soon as Steve disappeared. Couldn't stay there. Couldn't stand the way it smelled like both of them, couldn't stand the fish left behind like Bucky was some kind of pathetic-
So he'd swum.
Didn't know where. Didn't care.
Just away.
And when his body had finally given out, when the pain in his head had become too much, and his muscles had stopped cooperating, he'd found this place.
This cold, dark, empty place.
Where he could-
What?
Recover?
He almost laughed, but the sound died in his throat.
There was nothing to recover to. Steve had made that clear enough before he left.
"You can't go back to the communal areas. Not yet. Maybe not ever."
"Why?"
But Bucky had known why. Had seen it in Steve's eyes.
"They-"
"Think I'm a traitor."
Steve hadn't denied it.
So.
Here he was.
Alone in a cave that wasn't his, in pain that wouldn't stop, with a body that was still trying to obey commands from a master who no longer can puppeteer him.
Starving, probably.
Or being eaten alive by residual magic.
Did it matter which?
The pain crested again, and he pressed himself harder against the stone, squeezing his eyes shut.
----
The first winters were hard.
Not because of the ostracism, the Thal'kyr weren’t exactly social to begin with. The only reason to gather was mating, an occasional territorial dispute that required a council's intervention, or to seize weakened territory from other merfolk for the benefit of the pups’ colonies, and little else. Solitude was normal. Expected, even.
No, the hard part was the nights.
Or what passed for nights in the depths where he'd made his temporary territory. Time lost meaning when you avoided the surface, when you spent your days drifting between caves and rocky outcrops, never staying long enough to call any of them home.
The nightmares were relentless.
He'd close his eyes -or try to- and immediately he was back there. Chained. The narrow glass walls pressing around him. The cold bite of iron around his limbs and neck, hooks piercing his flesh to keep him suspended, on display.
Sometimes he dreamed of the commands. The voice -multiple voices, layered and wrong- worming into his head, wrapping around his thoughts until they weren't his anymore.
Kill.
Destroy.
Tear them apart.
And he had.
His eyes snapped open in the darkness. His limbs had closed tight around his body without him realizing, a defensive posture, like he could protect himself from memories.
He forced himself to uncoil. To breathe.
The magic was gone. The collar was destroyed. The commands were silent.
He was free.
Free.
But the word tasted like a lie.
He'd been so sure of himself before. Proud. Reckless. After killing that colossal squid, he'd felt invincible, like nothing in the ocean could touch him, like he was apex, untouchable.
What a fool he'd been.
Because there were other forces in this world. Forces that didn't need teeth or limbs or brute strength. Magic that could reach inside you and hollow you out, turn you into a puppet wearing your own skin.
He didn't sleep much after that. Couldn't. Every time he tried, the dreams pulled him back to that glass prison, to the weight of the chains, to the feeling of his will dissolving like salt in water.
So he swam instead.
Aimlessly. Endlessly.
He avoided the communal areas without Steve needing to tell him. Stayed away from the breeding grounds, the territorial waters where others of his kind might cross paths.
He didn't want to see the recognition in their eyes. Didn't want to hear what they'd call him.
The moons bled together. He hunted when hunger became impossible to ignore, ate without tasting, and kept moving.
Always moving.
The passing of winters blurred together like ink in water. Four, maybe five. He stopped counting after the first few seasons, stopped marking time in any way that mattered. The nightmares faded to a dull constant. Not gone, never gone, but manageable. Background noise he'd learned to function through.
Eventually, he claimed a territory in the northern reaches. Not a home -he wouldn't call it that- but a space that was his. Cold water, deep trenches, rocky outcrops that felt familiar after months of drifting past them.
The magic's grip loosened, degree by painful degree. The phantom compulsions grew quieter. His hands shook less. He learned to sleep again. Not well, but enough.
The pattern became routine: hunt, drift, avoid. And when the water warmed each spring, he swam farther north, following the cold until the season passed.
Again.
And again.
This year was no different. He felt it gradually, the shift in currents, the change in the way prey moved through the depths. His own body responded despite everything, that biological pull he couldn't ignore, no matter how much he wanted to.
He swam farther.
He pushed north, then east, following cold currents that tasted of ice and emptiness. The open ocean stretched endlessly around him, dark and vast and blessedly empty of anyone who might know his name.
Here, he could drift.
And if his body ached with the season's demands, if instinct pulled at him like a hook in his gut, he would ignored it.
He'd gotten good at ignoring things.
Pain. Hunger. The way his hands still shook sometimes when he woke from the dreams.
This was just one more thing to endure.
----
He might have kept enduring it if he hadn't noticed he was being followed. Two days now, nothing obvious. Just the faint disturbance in the water that meant someone was tracking him, staying just outside his sensory range but not quite careful enough to be completely invisible.
At first, he'd thought it was paranoia. The magic-induced hypervigilance that still hadn't fully left him, that made him startle at shadows and hear threats in every shift of current.
But no.
Someone was following him.
And if they wanted him dead, they were taking their time about it.
Fine.
If they wanted to play hunter, he'd give them prey.
He found a kelp forest -dense enough to hide in, open enough to maneuver- and made a show of settling there. Nested against a rocky outcrop, half-hidden in the swaying fronds, his skin shifting to match the mottled greens and browns around him.
Then he waited.
It didn't take long.
The water shifted. A presence moved through the kelp with predatory silence, approaching from behind.
Amateur mistake.
Bucky's limbs shot out fast, wrapping around tentacles and torso before his stalker could react. He yanked hard, dragging them forward, spinning them around, and pressing them against the rock face.
His forearm pressed across their throat. His clawed hand readied to pierce a vital point-
And stopped.
Wide female eyes stared back at him, more annoyed than afraid. Her limbs had shifted to a deep burgundy, dark and unmistakable even in the filtered light.
Oh.
He released her immediately, pushing back, putting space between them.
She straightened slowly, adjusting the shells and bone ornaments braided into her hair, her expression utterly unbothered by the fact that he'd just had her pinned with a crushing grip.
"Satisfied?" she asked, her tone dry.
Bucky's eyes narrowed. "What do you want?"
She tilted her head, regarding him like he was something mildly interesting she'd found abandoned on the ocean floor. Her gaze traveled deliberately down to his left arm, lingering on the dark patterns, the raised scars.
Then back to his face.
"I remember you being more intelligent than this," she said.
Her limbs rippled, that burgundy deepening, spreading up toward her torso.
Not all females could produce the red pigment, but among those who could, it had only one meaning.
Bucky's teeth clicked. "What, are you so desperate you're hunting down a pariah? No one else would have you?"
Her expression didn't change, but something sharp flickered in her eyes.
"The males I've seen lately don't surprise me," she said coolly. "Adequate marks. Mediocre strength. Nothing worth my time."
She drifted closer, and he forced himself not to move back.
"I don't consider you a traitor," she continued, her tone matter-of-fact. "Weak-minded for letting yourself be manipulated? Yes. But what I'm looking for is a strong mate, not mental fortitude."
The words landed like a slap.
Bucky's jaw clenched, his own limbs darkening reflexively, blacks and deep blues bleeding through his skin.
"How flattering," he bit out.
She shrugged, unbothered. "I'm not here to flatter you.” Her eyes dropped to his arm again. “I'm here because you're the only male in three territories with a mark worth considering." She said it like she was reciting facts, not praise. "That level of capability doesn't just disappear because humans broke your mind."
His hands flexed into fists. "Careful."
"Why?" She met his gaze evenly. "You going to tell me I'm wrong? That you weren't their puppet?"
The anger that surged through him was white-hot, immediate.
But she didn't flinch. Didn't back down.
Just watched him with those calculating eyes, waiting to see if he'd prove her right about the weak-minded part.
He forced himself to breathe. Forced the rage down into something cold and controlled.
"What makes you think I'm interested?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
"Your body is," she said bluntly, glancing down.
And damn it, she wasn't wrong. The season had him primed whether he wanted it or not, and the proximity to a receptive female was making that abundantly clear.
"A reaction doesn't mean interest," he growled.
Her lips twitched, not quite a smile, but close. "No. But it's honest."
She circled him slowly, evaluating. He tracked her movement, tense, waiting for-what? An attack?
"You can deny me," she said after a moment. "I'm not desperate enough to force the issue. But I'll be in the kelp beds east of here for the next three days. If you change your mind."
She started to drift away.
Then paused, glancing back over her shoulder.
"For what it's worth," she said, and her tone lost some of its sharp edge. "What they did to you was... unfortunate. But you survived it. That counts for something."
Unfortunate.
Like it was bad weather. A minor inconvenience.
She disappeared into the kelp before he could respond, leaving him alone with the word echoing in his head.
He wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or both.
Instead, he just floated there in the swaying kelp, staring at the space where she'd been, his traitorous cock pulsing in the open and his mind a tangled mess of anger and something that might have been temptation.
Three days.
She'd be there for three days.
----
He told himself he wouldn't go.
He told himself a lot of things over the winters.
Apparently, this was just another lie to add to the collection.
He found her in the kelp beds on the second day, because waiting three would've felt like proving a point he didn't care about anymore.
She didn't look surprised when he appeared. Just looked up from where she'd been running her fingers over a cluster of shells embedded in the rock, and tilted her head.
"Changed your mind?"
He didn't answer. Didn't need to.
His presence was answer enough.
What followed was exactly what he should've expected. What he'd seen every time in the breeding grounds before his capture, before everything went wrong.
She initiated -baring her throat in that age-old invitation, her scent flooding the water between them- then went through all the courting steps, only to fight him in the end.
Hard.
Claws raking across his ribs. Limbs wrapping around his, trying to make him lose balance. Her teeth sank into his shoulder when he got too close, drawing blood that clouded the water darkly.
It wasn't playful or gentle.
It was a test. Pure and brutal.
Prove you're strong enough. Prove you can overpower me. Prove you're worthy of what I'm offering.
So he did.
He caught her wrists when she tried to claw his face. Pinned her against the rocks when she tried to twist away. Used his weight and his limbs to hold her still, to force compliance even as she thrashed and snarled beneath him.
And when he finally pushed inside her -when her body yielded- there was no tenderness in it.
Just friction. Pressure. The mechanical drive to satisfy the biological imperative screaming through both their bodies.
She stopped fighting completely. Went still beneath him, her pupils blown wide as her body responded even if her pride wouldn't let her acknowledge it.
He didn't stop.
Couldn't.
The season had him in its grip now, and his body knew what it needed even if his mind was somewhere else entirely.
----
They'd separate only for the briefest of times -resting, tending wounds- and then the need would rise again, sharp and undeniable, pulling them back together.
She'd initiate sometimes, other times he'd be the one to seek her out, his body overriding whatever reluctance his mind tried to maintain.
And every single time, it was the same. Fighting and fucking.
Sometimes she drew more blood than he did. Sometimes it was the other way around.
By the second week, they were both covered in healing bites and claw marks, their skin mottled with bruises that bloomed dark against flesh.
It didn't stop.
The season wouldn't let them stop.
And somewhere in the third week, when his body was buried deep inside hers and she'd finally gone still beneath him, her claws still dug into his shoulders but no longer trying to push him away-
He wondered again if there was more than this. If this was all their kind had. All they'd ever have.
Violence and release. Strength proven through domination. A connection that lasted only as long as their bodies demanded it.
She'd leave when the season ended. Would swim away without looking back, and if they crossed paths again next year, they might repeat this, or she might choose someone else, a male with a more impressive mark.
It didn't matter either way. That's what he told himself. Wishing for anything else would be weakness.
The word surfaced in his mind like something poisonous, and he shoved it down violently.
He thought of Steve. Of that soft tone in his voice when he'd talked about her. About choosing to leave the ocean, to deny their kind of strong offspring, to degrade himself-
He drove harder into the female beneath him, chasing away the idea with the familiar rhythm of taking and being taken.
This was right. This was natural.
This was all there could ever be.
----
Hours later, maybe longer, the desperate edge faded.
He spilled inside her one last time and pulled away, his body finally, temporarily satisfied.
They floated in the kelp, not touching, both breathing hard.
Blood drifted in lazy spirals between them, his and hers both, from the bites and scratches that came with mating.
Mating season wasn't over yet. There would be more of this.
But for now, the urgency had subsided into something manageable.
She examined a particularly deep set of claw marks on her hip, prodding at it with clinical detachment.
He watched her, this female he'd spent weeks inside, whose name he didn't know and hadn't asked for.
And felt nothing.
Nothing except that same hollow ache that never quite went away, no matter how many times he tried to fill it.
----
Eventually, near the end of the moon cycle, something changed.
He woke one morning -afternoon? time still moved strangely- and realized the pull wasn't there anymore.
The constant need that had driven him to her again and again had... faded. Not gone entirely, but dulled to something ignorable.
He floated in the kelp where he'd been resting, and the thought of seeking her out felt less like instinct and more like obligation.
And then, worse, almost repellent.
His skin crawled at the idea of it. Of the fighting, the biting, the feral rutting that his body had demanded.
She was nearby. He could sense her presence in the water, that familiar chemical signature he'd been attuned to for weeks.
But she didn't approach.
Usually by now -after a few hours had passed- one of them would've initiated. She'd appear with that burgundy flush, or he'd find himself drifting toward her without consciously deciding to.
He wondered if she felt it too. The sudden absence of need. The way instinct had simply... released them.
Hours passed.
Then a full day.
Neither of them sought the other out.
On the second day, he saw her in the distance, weaving through the kelp. Hunting, probably. Her movements were purposeful and completely unbothered by his presence.
She didn't acknowledge him.
He didn't acknowledge her.
It was like the past moon cycle had simply... ended. Whatever contract their bodies had made was fulfilled, dissolved, irrelevant now.
On the third day, she left.
He didn't see her go, but he felt the absence. The way her chemical signature faded from the water, growing distant and then disappearing entirely.
She hadn't said goodbye, hadn't said anything. As if those weeks had meant nothing.
Because they hadn't.
That was how it worked.
So why did the kelp forest -where he'd spent the entire mating season with her- suddenly feel too empty?
He told himself the hollowness would fade, that it always did, that this was just his body readjusting to the absence of the breeding chemical flood.
But as he swam through the open ocean, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Not with the mating itself, that had been exactly what it was supposed to be.
But with him.
Maybe the human magic had scrambled his brains for good. But… he had felt this before them. The emptiness.
He didn't have an answer about whether there was supposed to be more to all.
Didn't know if there even was one.
----
A week later, he felt them.
The water carried disturbances too deliberate to be natural: currents shifting in patterns that spoke of coordination, of intent. Multiple presences moving through the depths, not quite close enough to see but near enough that his skin prickled with awareness.
They were hunting him.
He'd been drifting through open water, no destination in mind, when the first telltale pressure changes reached him. Then another. And another.
Four, maybe five.
Circling.
Bucky stopped swimming and let himself float, limbs spreading slightly in the water. His eyes tracked the movements he couldn't quite see yet, cataloging positions, calculating angles of approach.
They wanted him to know they were there.
Wanted him to feel trapped.
Eventually, they materialized from the gloom. Four males, each one positioning themselves to cut off an escape route. Larger than average, their marks visible even in the filtered light. Not exceptional, but competent enough to think they had a chance if they worked together.
His gaze moved slowly from one to the next, his expression neutral.
"Didn't realize there was a council scheduled," he said, his tone dry.
None of them acknowledged the comment. Their faces remained hard, cold.
One of them -the largest, with mottled gray limbs and a mark that crawled up his right arm in angular patterns toward his elbow- drifted slightly forward.
"I knew it was your mating mark I smelled on Miriel when I crossed paths with her," he said, his voice carrying equal parts disgust and disbelief. "Still can't believe she lowered herself that much."
Bucky's lips pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile.
“Maybe you should ask yourself what it says about the rest of you, if lowering herself to me was still an upgrade.”
The words landed exactly as intended. He watched the way their limbs darkened, colors bleeding through in aggressive displays of pigments.
The one who'd spoken about Miriel bristled, his tentacles coiling tight.
But before he could respond, another male cut in, this one with rust-colored limbs that had already flushed nearly black with aggression.
"You killed our kind on human orders," he snarled, drifting closer. "And you dare speak without shame. Dare to mate like you have any right-"
"Strength gives me the right," Bucky interrupted, his voice cold and even. His eyes moved deliberately from one male to the next, making sure they all felt the weight of his gaze. "And it's the reason there are four of you, and one of me."
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut.
He'd just called them cowards. Called them weak. Told them to their faces that they knew -knew- they couldn't take him alone.
The water between them practically vibrated with tension.
Bucky kept his expression neutral and unbothered, but inside…
Inside, he was so fucking tired of this.
He didn't want to fight. Didn't want to prove anything. Didn't want to add more violence to the endless catalogue already burned into his memory.
But they were going to make him.
He could see it in the way their bodies tensed, in the way their claws flexed, in the way they exchanged those brief glances that meant they were coordinating.
They were going to attack.
And he was going to have to put them down.
----
They attacked as one.
No warning. No posturing. Just coordinated violence.
The first came from above, limbs reaching to grapple. The second from below, trying to pin his tentacles. The other two flanked, claws extended, aiming for vulnerable points: throat, sides, anywhere that would bleed profusely.
Bucky moved.
He'd fought like this before. Multiple opponents. Coordinated attacks. His body remembered even when his mind wanted to forget.
He caught the one coming from above by two of his limbs and twisted, using the momentum to swing him directly into the path of another. They collided in a tangle of limbs and curses.
The third raked claws across his ribs, painful but shallow. Bucky's elbow cracked into his face in response, and he felt bone give way beneath the impact.
They regrouped fast. He'd give them that.
Came at him again, learning, adjusting.
One wrapped around his limbs, trying to immobilize him. Another lunged for his throat. Bucky twisted aside and drove his claws into the one holding him, felt flesh tear and the grip loosen.
He was stronger. Faster. Better.
But they knew that.
They were counting on attrition. On exhaustion. On the fact that even he couldn't fight four at once forever without taking damage.
And they were right.
Claws found purchase on his shoulder. Teeth sank into his forearm. A limb wrapped around his throat from behind, squeezing.
Bucky drove himself backward into the rock face, crushing whoever had him against the stone. The grip loosened. He turned sharply, claws flashing through the water, and opened a deep gash across someone's chest.
Blood clouded the water between them.
They didn't stop.
The one with the mottled gray skin -the largest- came at him again, and this time Bucky saw the glint of metal too late.
A blade.
Human-made. Old but sharp, the edge catching what little light filtered down.
It pierced into his side, just below his ribs.
Not too deep -Bucky twisted away before it could sink fully- but deep enough.
Pain flared hot and immediate.
The male pulled back, brandishing the dagger, and Bucky saw the satisfaction in his eyes. Thought he'd just gained the advantage. Thought the weapon made him dangerous.
His hand shot out, fast as a striking eel, and closed around the male's wrist. Then squeezed.
Bones ground together. The male's eyes went wide, his grip spasming open.
The dagger tumbled free.
Bucky caught it.
And smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
The water around them went very, very still.
Then they'd just armed him.
And they all knew -knew- what he'd been trained to do with weapons.
The first one lunged at him again, stupid with aggression.
Bucky moved as one with the water and slipped under the attack, bringing the blade up and dragging it across the male's torso. Not deep enough to kill, but deep enough that blood poured freely into the water, enough that the pain would take him out of the fight.
One down.
The others came at him together, trying to use numbers to overwhelm him before he could pick them apart one by one.
He didn't give them the chance.
The second got close -too close- and Bucky reversed his grip on the dagger, driving the metal pommel into his temple with precision.
The attacker’s eyes rolled back, and he went limp before beginning to sink.
Two down.
The third wrapped around him from behind, trying to restrain his arms, keep him from using the weapon.
And he let him think he had control for just a second.
Then he drove his head back, felt the bone shatter beneath the impact, and when the grip loosened, he twisted and slashed. The blade caught limbs, opened flesh, carved through muscle and cartilage with the ease of something made for exactly this purpose.
The male recoiled, clutching at the stumps where tentacles had been severed halfway down their length.
Not gone. Not dead.
But out of the fight.
The last one -the one with rust-colored limbs, now flushed almost black- hesitated.
Bucky could see the calculation in his eyes. The moment of doubt.
He was the only one left standing. The others were bleeding, wounded, one of them drifting unconscious.
And Bucky was standing there with a human blade in his hand, barely fatigued, and most of the blood in the water wasn't his.
"You want to keep going?" he asked, his voice quiet and cold.
The male's limbs coiled tight. His claws flexed.
For a moment, Bucky thought he might actually be stupid enough to try. Then his eyes dropped -just slightly, just enough- and Bucky recognized it for what it was: Submission.
He didn't lower the blade.
"Leave," he muttered.
The male didn't need to be told twice.
He turned and disappeared into the gloom without a word, or looking back at the others he was abandoning.
No loyalty. No sentiment.
Bucky's gaze focused on the three that remained. The one with the gash across his chest, still bleeding freely. The one missing half his limbs, curled around himself in pain. The unconscious one, drifting slowly with the current.
They were helpless.
Pathetic.
"If you ever try to come for me again," he said, his voice low and cold, "you'll get more than scars and shame."
None of them responded.
He watched them for another moment -broken, defeated- and left them there to figure out their own survival.
As it had always worked.
----
The adrenaline was fading.
That's when he felt it: the sharp, burning pain in his side where the blade had pierced him. Deep enough that blood was seeping steadily into the water around him.
He pressed his hand against the wound and felt the torn flesh beneath his palm.
There were other injuries, too. Claw marks across his shoulder, still bleeding. A gash on his forearm where teeth had found purchase. Bruises blooming across his ribs where he'd been squeezed.
The water carried the scent of his blood outward, broadcasting his injury to anything with the sense to smell it.
He needed to get away from here before something else decided he was easy prey. Or before more of his kind showed up, drawn by the promise of finishing what the others had started.
His limbs coiled beneath him, and he pushed off from the rock face.
He didn't know where he was going. Didn't care. Just needed distance from this place, from the blood in the water, from the reminder of how easy it had been to tear them apart.
The pain in his side flared with each movement, but he ignored it. North. West. Wherever the currents took him, as long as it was away.
The water around him grew colder. Darker.
Good.
He dove deeper, following the pull of the abyss, letting the pressure build around him until his ears ached and his vision narrowed.
Hours passed. Maybe days.
Time blurred together the way it always did when he pushed himself like this, injured, exhausted, running on nothing but the desperate need to be somewhere else.
The wound in his side had stopped bleeding, finally, but it throbbed with every movement. His shoulder ached, and his head-
The headache was back.
But stopping meant thinking. And thinking meant acknowledging what he'd just done. How easily he'd dismantled them. How comfortable the blade had felt in his hand.
Eventually -he didn't know how long- his body simply gave out.
His muscles seized, and his limbs stopped responding. The pain in his head crested into something unbearable, and his vision went completely dark.
He was sinking.
Distantly, he knew he should care about that, do something.
But his body had nothing left to give.
The current caught him and dragged him sideways, carrying him through water that tasted different somehow. Colder. Emptier. And carried him wherever it wanted.
----
He didn't remember finding it.
One moment, he was drifting, half-conscious, and the next, he was aware of shallow water beneath him. Rock. The scrape of stone against his skin as the tide pulled him forward and then back, like the ocean couldn't decide whether to keep him or spit him out.
His limbs dragged across a rocky floor. Not sand, though there was some scattered between the larger stones. Boulders, some of them. Big enough to break the surf, to create tidal pools that never fully drained.
He forced his eyes open.
Darkness. But not complete.
Pale light filtered down from somewhere above, shafts of silvery illumination cutting through gaps in the stone ceiling. Moonlight, he realized distantly. Chimneys in the rock, natural vents that let it through.
A cave.
He'd washed into a cave.
His body had wedged itself into one of the deeper pools near the back, away from the mouth where the waves still crashed against rock. The water here was calmer. Still. Cold.
He tried to move, and his side screamed in protest.
Right.
The wound.
He should tend to it. Clean it. Make sure it didn't fester.
But he just lay there in the pool, half-submerged, staring up at the thin streams of moonlight filtering through the stone above.
The cave was big. He could sense that much even through the haze of pain and exhaustion. Deep. Multiple exits leading back out to open ocean through the darker depths. The kind of place that would be easy to defend, easy to escape from if needed.
And completely empty.
No scent of other Thal'kyr or merfolk. No territorial markers. Nothing.
Abandoned, probably. Or just... unwanted.
----
He didn't leave. Not that day, or the next.
The wound in his side needed time to heal, and moving was a task he didn’t want to perform.
So he stayed.
By the third day, he dragged himself toward the mouth of the cave.
Just to see. Just to know where he'd ended up.
The opening was wide, facing out toward the water. Waves crashed against the rocks outside, spray misting the air. He moved onto one of the larger boulders near the entrance, his limbs splayed across stone still warm from the day's sun.
And that's when he saw them.
Lights.
Distant. Scattered across the darkness like stars had fallen to earth.
A human settlement.
Not close but visible. Undeniable.
He stared at those pinpricks of light for a long time, his jaw tight.
A settlement meant fishermen. Boats. Nets. People who would come and go from these waters, who might notice things they shouldn't.
No one in their right mind would claim territory this close to these creatures. His kind avoided the surface, avoided anything that might draw human attention, except to hunt them.
This place was worthless.
Unwanted.
His gaze moved from the distant lights back to the dark mouth of the cave behind him.
Perfect.
----
He claimed one of the deeper pools. The one farthest from the cave mouth, where the moonlight barely reached even when it streamed through the chimneys above.
And he stayed.
Because, where would he go?
Back to the open ocean, where others might find him? Where there was always a fight?
This place was exactly what he needed.
A tomb that still let him breathe.
Close enough to humans that no Thal'kyr would ever willingly come here. Deep enough, dark enough, isolated enough that he could simply... stop.
Stop running. Stop fighting.
He didn't know how long he'd stay, or if "stay" was even the right word for what he was going to do.
Existing, maybe.
His thoughts drifted back to Steve. To that conversation he'd tried so hard not to think about.
He had chosen a human over their kind.
Bucky's sharp teeth clenched in the darkness.
He wondered, distantly, if that human had given him something their kind never could.
That "more" he craved but never understood.
His fingers traced idle patterns against the stone floor, claws scraping quietly.
Maybe it existed. Maybe Steve had found it.
But if there was, it wasn't meant for him. This cave, this darkness, this was what he deserved. For his pride. For his weakness.
He let himself sink deeper into the pool, his body settling against the rocky bottom, his limbs coiling loosely around ancient stone.
The water cradled him, cool and undisturbed.
He closed his eyes.
And the years passed.
Then decades.
And all of it dissolved like salt in dark water.
smog & spirits [masterlist]
Marvel 1920s Gangster/Peaky Blinders Inspired Fantasy AU
mob!bucky x witch!reader
Bucky Barnes, the leader of Sootstone's Smog Boys, needs a favour. A nasty curse has been cast on him, and he needs a witch to help him break it.
Warnings: 18+ content minors dni, smut, fem reader, begging, orgasm denial, fingering, p in v, no aftercare, graphic wound description, blood/gore, graphic descriptions of stitching, religious punishment (lashings), mention of forced pregnancy (not to reader), mention of sa (not to reader), abortion (not to reader), mention of medical procedures, hospitals, angst, angst no comfort, comfort/fluff, sex magic, blood magic, potion for arousal, curses and hexes, criminals & crime, 1920s street gangs, witchcraft, possession, mediums, ghosts, hauntings, horror, smoking, brothels, pubs, gambling, alcohol, mention of death/violence/torture, bucky barnes has issues, bucky barnes is a dick, bucky barnes needs a hug, police brutality, vaguely british setting??, sexism, classism, no use of y/n, lmk if i've missed anything
main masterlist
CHAPTERS [9/11]
spirit-raiser pony club the premonition bloodties a drink with deceit the rat king an eye for an eye a favour for a friend lucky's choppery
