RoneAroundBlindly is an 18+ only blog!
Click "all-age fic" in my bio if you are a minor or if you simply enjoy lighter content. (You can follow @ronearoundlightly for updates, too.)
Not sure where to start? Check out the Top 10 List for my highest-ranked works.
Just want graphics? -> click here!
Romance 🔥 || Smut 🦆 || Author Fave 🍀 || Angst ⛈️ || Fluff 🌼 || Dark Fic 🌘 || *** denotes work for all ages || MainStory Complete ✅
(VARIOUS FANDOMS AND CHARACTERS; listed in order of most recent)
The 2468 Sleepover Celebration
'Who Would...' Asks
Fic Title Only Asks
Shipper Asks
Dirty Headcanon Asks
Valentine's 2024 (2025)
Comfort Drabble Asks
BY CHARACTER --
STEVE ROGERS SERIES (Masterlist)
STEVE ROGERS ONE-SHOTS (Masterlist)
RANSOM DRYSDALE--
Pretty Desperate Thing (smutty one-shot) 🦆🌘
The Root of All Ransom (Masterlist) ✅
Ransom x rich!reader; enemies-to-lovers
For Show (Ran x poor!soulmate!reader) ⛈️🔥🦆
Seasons (headcanon) 🌼
Behind the Mask (fic title only ask; soft!Ran) 🌼***
ARI LEVINSON (Masterlist)
LLOYD HANSEN (Masterlist)
JAKE JENSEN (Masterlist)
JOHNNY STORM--
Phantom Pleasure (Masterlist)
Johnny x ghost!reader mini-series
Dirty Headcanons: ABCD 🔥🦆; V 🔥🦆
Two Can Play That Game (fic title only ask) 🌼🔥
4 Fantastic Rejections (a 3 + 1 ask) ⛈️🌼🔥***
JIMMY DOBYNE--
Common Education (Masterlist)
Jimmy x professor!reader series
The Worst Valentine (headcanon) ⛈️🌼***
CURTIS EVERETT--
A Nice Relaxing Bath (drabble prompt) 🌼🔥🦆
Dirty Headcanon (alone time, kissing, and zones) 🔥🦆
Firefighter!Curtis (headcanon) 🌼🔥
Only One Bed (political candidate!Curtis x staffer!Reader) 🔥🦆
JAMES MACE--
A Kiss Without Motive (Valentine's prompt) ⛈️🔥***
Mace x best friend!reader (expansion ask) ⛈️🌼🔥***
I Love You (a 3 + 1 ask) 🌼***
BUCKY BARNES (Masterlist)
List of Planned Future Works to be updated as things are finished!
tumblr staff will not contact you through anything other than email or their official accounts, which will all have this badge:
DO NOT ENGAGE WITH THIS OR SIMILAR ACCOUNTS AND ABSOLUTELY DO NOT CLICK ANY LINKS FROM IT.
report and block. i'd also appreciate it if you shared this post, bc that blog was JUST created and was already tagging a LOT of people, and i know not everyone has the scam-sensing instinct, even if this might seem obvious to some.
i need data for a statistics project for school, so be my sample data, worms. i need thirty people minimum so if there aren't enough voters yet i'd love if you could help. thank you very much. worms.
take this test (https://www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd/), then come back here:
what's your JND?
.00030-.00099
.0010-.0017
.0017-.0024
.0024-.0031
.0031-.0038
.0038-.0045
.0045-.0052
.0052-.0059
.0059-.0066
.0066-.0073
.0073-.0080
.0080 or greater
Voting ended onMay 13
it doesnt have to be a good score, you dont have to take it multiple times, you dont have to get on a good screen, etcetera. just gimme your score please this is my final project grade :)
MCU MASTERLIST | STEVE ROGERS MASTERLIST | gif: @stevenvrogers
Summary: Steve is asked to look out for a young woman who had to move to the tower to avoid a bad situation. He ends up accidentally making life better for everyone in the tower, too.
Words/warnings: 4k / 1 reference to a bad ex. This is a comfort fic!
Aphelion / Perihelion
The point at which a body orbiting the Earth's Sun is furthest from/closest to the Sun.
Excerpt:
The next day is Saturday, always a day off from group dinners, but Steve swings by at noon, driven by the delicious cookies he knows one of his new friends have left in the fridge. He stops short at the doorway when he sees you sitting at the kitchen island with one of his books open beside the plate of cookies he’d come to pilfer from.
His heart unexpectedly starts racing. You’re faced away from him, body language relaxed, but he knows that his presence will alter that for you, disrupting this rare alone time outside of your comfort zone.
Steve suddenly realizes that he’s going through a bizarre role reversal. He’d stopped being a nobody so long ago he forgot what it even felt like until this moment, when he’s approaching a person he’s unintentionally built up as an almost mythical figure in his own mind. You don’t know that he’s spent time worrying about your happiness, whether you’re comfortable in your new place. Is this what it feels like when others meet him?
CELESTIAL
I see the light shining through the rain
A thousand colours in the brighter shade
Needed to rise from the lowest place
There's silver lining that surrounds the grey
You make me feel
Like my troubled heart is a million miles away
You make me feel
Like I'm drunk on stars, and we're dancing out into space
~Selections from Celestial by Ed Sheeran
Aphelion
Steve smiles as he wrings out his dishrag and attaches it to a tentacle of the octopus clip hanging above the sink. The new gadgets and innovations (both large and small) since he’d first walked the Earth are really a delight. Media on demand? A genius idea. Step counters, force indicators on his punching bag, easily obtainable high quality drawing supplies, sweat-wicking workout clothes… and cell phones! A sickly child stuck in bed had a world of books, videos, and people to interact with, nowadays. He hopes they made as big a difference to these new generations as he imagines it would have for him.
Maria Hill’s voice breaks through his reverie. “Woolgathering?”
“There are probably machines for that now, too,” he muses. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Stark keeps the good coffee up here, so yes,” she says, stepping past him to start a brew. “--but you’re right. I’ve got a mini mission for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“A couple of months back, Sherrie over in Facilities Management put in an emergency request for her niece; she was in dire need of a place to live. In a secure building.” The look on Hill’s face is instructive. “Stark approved a six month lease and she’s physically safe now, but--” she breaks off to quick-swap a mug under the newly brewed stream of coffee, expertly replacing the pot once it’s full enough. “It’s not our business to notice, but it looks like she doesn’t go anywhere but to work and back. She hasn’t been to the gym, she makes all her food in-unit, even gets her groceries delivered. I’m worried about this woman, Steve.”
“So you’re asking me to knock on her door and ask for the sugar, as a kind of welfare check? What about her aunt?” he asks, nodding toward the tray of hot beverage supplies.
“Sherrie was offered a job working for the new governor’s homelessness initiative in Albany. It’s a can’t-pass-it-up opportunity.”
“All right, what floor is this woman on, and how close is her place to the communal kitchen?”
Steve starts his mission by laying the groundwork. His apartment is on a restricted floor, only one away from his Primary, who he’s decided to name ‘Comet’ in his head. Since he started catching up with pop culture and science in the years since he went into the ice, he’d become fascinated by near-Earth objects, especially Halley’s Comet. It had arrived before he was born and appeared again while he was incapacitated, meaning that he’ll probably never get a chance to see it, despite being nearly 100 years old. Just like a comet, this young woman will be around for a short time before moving on. That’s the only way he feels comfortable interfering as much as he’s been asked to.
As luck would have it, Comet’s apartment is only one door down the hall from the common-space living room/dining area/kitchen on her floor. He sets up a grocery delivery, and after a week of gathering aromatic recipes, he assembles his ‘troops.’
Simply put, every other day, Steve makes himself too much food. The neighborly thing to do is to offer some to others.
Comet doesn’t answer her door that first week, but she does call out a polite little ‘Thanks, but I’m good’ through the door the next two times. After that, Steve just raps his knuckles on her door as a little reminder to go with the scent of home-cooked food.
Instead of drawing her out, Steve ends up creating a popular gathering that gains momentum over the next few weeks. A couple of his new acquaintances even bring their laptops to finish up their workday and help him taste test things, and one or two offer to make their favorite recipes for the group. Occasionally he sees a hesitant figure standing in the doorway of the communal area, but by the time he’s able to disengage and come over, you’ve already stepped back into the shadows.
Steve’s eating the crust of Aly’s fantastic cherry pie when Maria Hill comes over and nudges him with an elbow. “Well, this appears to have backfired spectacularly.”
“Oh?” he tries, but she isn’t having it.
“It’s only been four weeks. Did you know that two other floors have started their own recurring ‘block party?’ Including ours? I’m impressed,” she says, lifting her own slice of cherry pie in a plated salute. “It seems like everyone needed a little community spirit in their lives.”
He gets up and slides the tall stool back under the kitchen island. “Not everyone. Not yet.”
Maria nods her head toward a jumbled stack of newspapers, magazines, and books by the doorway to the common area. “What does that sign say? I don’t think there’s anything like that on our floor.”
“Stark sent me a bunch of science subscriptions, to catch up with advancements. Seems like a waste to let them gather dust in the apartment once I’m done with them.”
“Some of those look a little dog-eared,” she notes. “Using your own library as bait, I see— but did it work?”
The look of admiration on her face makes Steve uncomfortable. “This tower wouldn’t be much of a refuge if we kept tabs on everyone’s reading material, now, would it?”
“Message received, Captain,” Hill smiles.
Later, on his way back up to his own floor, Steve retrieves one of his favorite books from the pile. It’s about the scientists who figured out that an asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs, thanks to an element found at the same layer in time across the world. The very fact that so much iridium exists there signaled that something notable happened, an interaction that left its mark on the whole world.
In a way, he knows what that feels like.
Steve’s next plan involves some of his savings, an unused section of the roof deck, and some pieces of furniture he’s been offered for use in his ‘continued beautification project,’ as one neighbor called it. He’d stammered his thanks, trying not to wince at the mental comparison between his real mission and the perceived one. In retrospect, setting up a gathering place for shared meals and lively conversation was nice and all, but probably not what Comet would be drawn to.
This next idea has more solo potential.
Bruce helps him set the three telescopes up, and when Steve goes up to check on them a few days later, he’s surprised to find that his collection of reading material (and some books he doesn’t recognize) has been re-located to a glass-enclosed bookshelf. There are some deck chairs, some well-placed strings of white fairy lights, and a cheerful outdoor rug adorned with stylized constellations.
It’s a welcoming way to enjoy the new spring weather, but he has no non-creepy way of monitoring whether Comet has been there yet. There’s a strange dichotomy to this modern world, where everyone is much more connected, yet much more comfortable connecting at a distance. There aren’t any front porches in the tower, and the walk to the nearest park is a lot different now, but he’s helped blur the lines between isolated camaraderie and the in-person kind. Steve hopes that’s been good for everyone, not just Comet.
The next day is Saturday, always a day off from group dinners, but Steve swings by at noon, driven by the delicious cookies he knows one of his new friends have left in the fridge. He stops short at the doorway when he sees you sitting at the kitchen island with one of his books open beside the plate of cookies he’d come to pilfer from.
His heart unexpectedly starts racing. You’re faced away from him, body language relaxed, but he knows that his presence will alter that for you, disrupting this rare alone time outside of your comfort zone.
Steve suddenly realizes that he’s going through a bizarre role reversal. He’d stopped being a nobody so long ago he forgot what it even felt like until this moment, when he’s approaching a person he’s unintentionally built up as an almost mythical figure in his own mind. You don’t know that he’s spent time worrying about your happiness, whether you’re comfortable in your new place. Is this what it feels like when others meet him?
As he stands there pondering his own celebrity, you turn your head and freeze, making surprised eye contact with him for a long moment.
Then you grab a cookie to hold it up. “Want one of these? They’re amazing.”
“I’d love to, thanks.” He swallows down the lump of anticipation in his throat; somehow he’d spent zero time thinking about this inevitable meeting, and it’s sizzling in a completely different place than he expected. Steve walks around to the other side of the island and reaches over to introduce himself. “Steve Rogers.”
Instead of shaking his hand, you give him a cookie. “It’s an honor to meet a man who’s spent so much time saving the world. You deserve much more than a cookie for it, but at least these are the best cookies I’ve ever tasted!”
“I agree with you,” Steve says, taking a bite before his brain catches up to the rest of what you’d said. “About the cookie, I mean.”
“Mm hmm.” Your vocal tone is amused, almost skeptical, reminding him of the way Natasha likes to tease him. There’s an overall warmth and playfulness to you that he hadn’t anticipated. He stands there appreciatively chewing, his mind racing with a dozen embarrassing responses. The second he swallows, the Assemble alarm goes off.
“Gotta go!” he says, cramming the rest of the cookie in his mouth as he jogs off toward the elevators. Before the doors close, Steve sees a glimpse of you with your head bowed, fingers pressed to your forehead like you’ve developed a headache. There’s no time to even attempt to decipher that before he’s thrust into an 13 hour hostage situation involving stolen Stark Industries tech.
It’s dark when he gets back to the tower. Unable to sleep yet, Steve puts on his jogging clothes, but ends up taking the elevator up instead of down. He steps out onto the roof deck to see that their little Astronomy Tower area has expanded since his last visit.
He walks quietly over to a telescope and sees that Clint has laminated some simple instructions on how to use the devices, complete with a tinyurl link to a site explaining what’s visible at what time of year for their specific location. It’s delightful in the same way that the fairy lights, starry rug, and the motley assortment of deck chairs are: a physical representation of good people offering up something to make other people happy. Steve leans his head back and looks up at the clear April sky unaided, letting the last day’s troubles out on a long exhale.
After a few minutes, he hears the elevator whirr. Something makes him step back into the shadows; whoever would come up at this hour of the night is likely hoping for solitude. His resolve to slip away unnoticed melts away when he sees you step out of the elevator car looking tired but lovely.
You tip your head toward the sky, eyes shut, arms clasped around yourself. It’s a lonely stance, and he aches to see it. Steve remembers how alone he’d felt when he’d first woken up in a new place he wasn’t certain he could navigate. He’d joked about whether there was a gadget that magically helped him learn how to fit in, how to feel at home here— and then someone had given him a cell phone.
He knows in his century-old bones that no gadget or book will help you feel safe again, but of all the men in this modern world, he might have the right reputation to try.
Perihelion
After tossing and turning half the night, you’d decided to just get up. There’s a lot on your mind, and there are things visible in the post-midnight sky that you usually don’t get to see. Even JARVIS seems to understand; as soon as you step into the elevator, he says ‘Observation Deck’ and doesn’t close the doors until you murmur in agreement.
Your remote job contract is expiring next week, and you’ve gotten an offer for what amounts to your dream job: a consulting position with SHIELD. It’ll involve a ton of travel, but you’d be able to keep your apartment, along with a ton of benefits and perks that most people would be delirious with joy over. You’re not, though. You’re delirious with indecision.
The problem is, you’re not sure you should have been allowed to apply in the first place. You feel a little bit like a stalker with connections, pulling strings so you can be closer to your ‘ideal man.’ It’s not like that, not really, but you’d already thought Steve Rogers was the best man to walk the Earth before you lived in the same building as him. Before he’d filled the hallways with the smells of home-cooked food and the sounds of found family. Before he’d inspired each floor to curate mini lending libraries; before he used his own money to kit out a roof deck with multiple little nooks where a person could read, stargaze, or be refreshed by warm, healing sunshine.
When you’d first learned about Captain America, you’d been a child and he’d been frozen in ice. You’d decided to specialize in geology to find out what else, who else might be lost to time. In the deepest, hidden part of your heart, you’d hoped that knowledge might help the frozen hero someday. Not for notoriety but to bring some semblance of goodness back into the world. To your teenage self, Steve Rogers was the symbol of someone incorruptible, a man who wouldn’t cheat on his wife, who wouldn’t abandon his daughter. Every boyfriend through college argued that you had unrealistic expectations, so you’d lowered them and gotten burned. Every time, a specific phrase repeated in your mind:
Steve Rogers would never have hurt you like that.
He became a talisman, a larger-than-life figure, and now that you live in the same building, now that you’ve briefly met him, you understand how colossally unfair that was. You’re honestly ashamed of yourself. You do want to see him as a man, of course, a good man, but as a person first, not an unrealistic ideal. You sigh. Should you say no to your dream job in case your favorite human might think you’re creepy?
It’s not like you’d ever tell him this stuff even if you did get to spend any time with him, right?
It’s with these consequential thoughts bearing down on you that you head up to the roof deck looking for some celestial solace. The area looks empty at first glance, so you walk up to one of the telescopes and follow the laminated instructions. You’re hoping to see something timeless and relatively immovable, something that will last beyond your current troubles.
After ten minutes of thwarted attempts, you step back, saying to yourself, “The clouds have it in for me tonight. Too bad I don’t know any Avengers who could yell at them for me!”
That’s the joke, of course. You don’t know where Thor is, but besides something Stark might have on NDA from the government, you doubt anyone can or should do anything about the local cloud cover in New York City. You’re smiling at how easily a girl can turn into an entitled weirdo in close proximity to superpowers, when you hear a familiar male voice.
“Is that an ‘old man yells at cloud’ joke?”
“Oh my God,” you choke out. Your embarrassed brain stutters through the phrase ‘of all the gin joints in all the world’ before realizing that Steve Rogers probably saw Casablanca in the theater. The man himself is walking over from a shadowed alcove on the other side of the roof. Had he been standing there the whole time?
“Is it that unbelievable that I could have seen The Simpsons?” he asks, his tone relaxed and friendly. He even has one hand resting in the pocket of his sweatpants.
“Not at all,” you rasp out. Your throat is covered in ohshit phlegm, which is absolutely what you’ve always wanted to happen right after meeting Captain America. “You were locked down for months when you first woke up. I always figured they gave you a DVR and the Library of Congress’s archive of stuff to watch, listen to, and read. The Simpsons is a no-brainer in that situation.”
“You’re right, actually.” Rogers’ posture had turned wary as you spoke, and you don’t blame him. What normal person has info on what his first few thawed months looked like? It’s time to get out of here before you make him feel hunted.
“You know, they film proshots of musicals to archive in there, without ever releasing them to the public,” you tell him, pulling in a steadying breath. “You’re probably one of the only people to get to see them.” Then you clutch at your pocket and pull out your cell phone, feigning disappointment and urgency. “Oh, shit. I gotta go.”
“Wait!” Rogers calls out, and suddenly there he is, stern and worried, blocking your path to the elevator thanks to his super speed. “It’s the middle of the night. You don’t have to talk to anyone at this hour unless you want to, all right?”
You’re so flustered you drop your phone, and when Rogers picks it up for you, he can see that it’s off completely. You watch as his facial expressions travel from concern to confusion and on to understanding. He hands it to you and steps away, his expression soldier-blank.
“I meant what I said,” he says in a voice so apologetically kind your heart breaks in situ. “You don’t owe anyone your time. I’m going to head downstairs; I can ask JARVIS to keep anyone else from coming up to this floor if you like.”
“Holy shit, that’s not what I—” you gasp. “Captain Rogers, I’m trying to scram because I’m a threat to you, not the other way around. Can you just—”
He holds his hands up, brows furrowed, but you can see the barest twinkle of mischief in his eyes. “They had reality TV in the archive too, but I feel like JARVIS would have warned me if there was one filming up here.”
Despite your embarrassment, you crack a smile. “I’m serious. I’ve wanted to save you from the ice since I was 8 years old.” He does a little double take of surprise and you speed through the rest of what you need to say. “I picked geology because the college I wanted to go to has partnerships with oil companies studying the arctic sea bed. When I ran away from a really nasty situation a few months ago, I had to leave just about everything behind, including a replica of one of the shields you used while selling War Bonds.” You stop to take a long breath, swallowing back the memory of seeing your heinous ex boyfriend’s video of setting that precious piece of memorabilia on fire.
Rogers says your full name in a quiet voice, but you wave him off, hating how shaky your voice is.
“No, listen. I’m basically a stalker, okay?”
“I’ve been trying to get you to come out of your apartment for six weeks,” he interrupts bluntly. You stare at him as he continues; “Your aunt’s worried about you, and she told a mutual friend of mine, Maria Hill. Maria asked me to figure out how to get you to feel more comfortable in the apartment.” Rogers lets his hands fall to his sides helplessly. “My first few tries fell a little flat, I think?”
You’re stunned. “Wait, so you’re saying those cookies were bait?”
“The books and telescopes, too,” he says, but a shadow of doubt crosses his face. You inwardly wince at the way you’re certain you know why.
“No one but my mom knows how Captain America obsessed I am,” you rush to reassure him. “Well, her and my ex,” you sigh. “My aunt has no idea. I only agreed to move here because I was desperate to get away from him.”
“He did something to that shield, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
He lets out a long breath. “Do you want to start over?”
You don’t know what to think. “Come on, Rogers, is that even possible? I just told you I spent elementary school dreaming of being the person to pull you from the ice!”
“Steve,” he corrects sternly. Your entire nervous system practically flatlines in delight, but he’s so deep in thought that he misses it, thank God. “So you’ve known about me for at least a decade and a half, and I’ve known about you for three months, right?” he asks.
“So…” you dangle, unable to figure out where he’s going with this.
“So, I’ve been trying to help you out for as long as I’ve known you exist, and vice versa. If you don’t mind, I don’t mind.”
“You’re too good for humanity, you know that, right?” It’s grace you’re certain you don’t deserve, but that’s the most Steve Rogers-ish a man could be.
“Not at all,” he murmurs, scrubbing a hand over his face in a recognizable symbol of sleepiness. “How about this: you join me at the group dinner on my floor tomorr— uh, tonight?”
Sleep deprivation and shock glue you to the floor for a few seconds as you stare at him. With a crooked smile, Rogers waves his hand in front of your face in the universal signal of ‘is anyone home?’
“Oh, trust me, no one’s home,” you tell him earnestly. “My entire system re-booted.”
“Ah,” he says, clearing his throat and stepping directly in front of you. “That right there, that’s called being star-struck. The best remedy for it is familiarity.”
You wince, given how much you know about the man in front of you, but unbelievably, he reaches down and takes one of your hands in his.
“Listen to me: you already know the— what does Thor call it? The lore? You know the lore. Time to, well,” his crooked smile is absolutely blinding, even in moonlight. “Get to know the man?” You pull in a breath to respond, but he rushes on, squeezing your hand gently and nodding over toward the telescopes. “You’d be doing me a favor. If this hadn’t worked, I was pretty much out of ideas.”
He actually looks sheepish, and you have to laugh. “It is the most Captain America thing ever to think you’re overstepping by being too kind, you know that, right?”
“No such thing.”
“Fair enough,” you say, releasing his hand and stepping back. “Thank you for everything. Sleep well?”
“I will now,” he says with mock sternness. “Do you want me to come pick you up?”
The elevator doors open, and you step in quickly, nodding your assent with what you hope isn’t embarrassing enthusiasm. All too soon, the doors close and you’re headed back down to reality, but you indulge yourself by answering him aloud. It’s a sentiment you’ve held for more years than you want to admit, but for the first time ever, it’s actually true.
What books do Steve/Tony/Bucky like to read, when they're reading for pure pleasure? Do they read for pure pleasure? Or are they like my husband and their beach-read is "Stalin and the Bomb"?
Hilariously wrote so much that was not really on brief for this, so thank you indirectly for the inspo, hah. This turned out absolutely perfect though, I think, so enjoy!
Gif by @captainsamerica
Steve's on a goodwill PR tour post-Battle of New York, and today it's Comic Con. 1200 words. I wrote a whole-ass smut section of this fic that feels like situating a brothel next to a daycare, lol. I'll post it and link back later this week.
Media Training
“Captain Rogers, my question is this: is there anything mundane you have access to now that has made a big difference in your life? Not fancy technology or super soldiery stuff, that is.”
Steve can’t quite see the woman with the mic. He leans forward in his chair, glad to get a question that’s different than the norm. To his left, the ‘host’ of the panel here at Comic Con makes a quip he can’t quite hear properly, but he’s glad he has a bit of time to think about his answer. When most of the scrutiny is back on him, he offers a sheepish smile.
“To be honest, books,” he says, hearing a ripple of surprise go through the crowd. “I’ve heard that attitudes varied around the people who couldn’t or wouldn’t serve in the military during WWII, but in New York City, people could be brutal. You may have seen pictures of me pre-serum—” Steve pauses for the inevitable reaction before continuing; “I got picked on a lot, alongside other more able-bodied looking men who weren’t in uniform. Sometimes they’d ask if I starved myself to avoid the draft. Made it hard to go to the library as often I’d have liked.”
From the crowd, some hotshot yells out, “Wait, the beefcake Captain likes to read?”
“You’re darned right I do,” Steve calls back, mentally tallying off the $10 he’d just earned from Natasha Romanoff for using the word. He’d have earned $50 for ‘damn,’ but there are kids in the audience. “I spent a lot of time in bed as a kid. You might not know this, but there were no pocket computers in the ‘30s. Kid me would have loved to have a Kindle or an iPad.”
He winces, remembering too late that he’s not supposed to bring up any specific brands. To smooth that over, he lifts his mic back up, conscious that the facilitator in the crowd is walking over to another person with a question.
“I know I sound like a PSA you’d see at any high school, but reading really is important. It let a sickly kid from Brooklyn watch Frankenstein create a monster, travel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and devour the life story of Frederick Douglass or the works of the Brontë sisters.”
“Does that mean you saw Sir Lawrence Olivier in Wuthering Heights?” the host breaks in with a laugh. “Would you say it’s better than the Kominsky version?”
“Sir, I may not have much media training, but I know better than to answer that,” Steve says, resolving to give his newly-earned $10 right back to Nat to pay her for suggesting that line. He’s more than a little annoyed that his plea to appreciate reading has been dismissed with a joke about films, but he’s able to hide that with what training he does have.
The next person to ask a question must have changed theirs on the fly, and Steve can’t help but favor them with a broad smile.
“Cap, what are your top 3 favorite books, and have any of them changed for the 21st century? Oh! No, I didn’t mean it like that!” the woman protests immediately. She leans into the mic before the facilitator steps away with it to add, “Newer books that weren’t published back then! No offense.”
“None taken,” he says, holding his hands out to quiet those in the crowd who might be upset on his behalf. “Promise you won’t feel bad when someone tweets out a brand tie-in to that this weekend, okay?” Everyone laughs, and Steve leans back in the chair to think. “There are some new books I have enjoyed, but one thing that I find fascinating is the way some older books have a whole new meaning for me now— take Frankenstein as an example.”
That gets a reaction, and there’s a bit of a back and forth between Steve, the host, and some people in the audience. His favorite part is when a fan wearing the whole tights and winged helmet getup stands and announces, “Beware! I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” Steve gets a chance to really drill down into the concept of bravery, as a result, and it seems to be a surprise to many when he says he can be quite fearful in heroic situations.
“The powerful part is doing the things anyway. Because they need to be done, and sometimes you’re the only one who can do them.”
The reaction in the auditorium isn’t at all what he would have expected; the whole group of them stand up and give him an ovation. He doesn’t know whether to stand up too, so Steve just sits there with a wholly genuine sheepish look on his face, tensing his leg muscles so hard they ache by the time everyone sits down. The host is called offstage, so he decides to continue answering the question.
Clint was right. If he’s got to do this modern version of War Bond stageplay, he’s going to be himself this time.
“I used to love reading poetry and drawing how it made me feel. Emily Dickinson— oh! Florence Earle Coates. ‘A coward is man, yet a hero / Whose will overmasters his fear,’” he recites from memory.” The reaction to this is predictable too, and Steve is antsy, so he stands up to roam the stage. “Sorry it's so difficult to remember more answers. Some of my earliest favorites were made into movies that blew me away when I watched them last year.”
The host makes a ‘wrap up’ gesture, and Steve is able to watch the the discernible sadness that ripples through the assembly. It’s then that he realizes he had one job, and he’d almost forgotten to do it.
“I tell you what, if you wanted to ask me something and didn’t get the chance, can you send me a postcard with it? I might be able to get some of those posted with answers on the website they’re cooking up.”
The crowd surges to their feet with thunderous applause, and in the alcove beside the stage, Steve sees the media handler grin and give him two thumbs up. There’s a strange sense of unreality as he takes a few bows, remembering one of the verses from Dickinson that helped him through the most miserable of those days as Colonel Phillips’ dancing monkey. It’s still applicable all these decades later.
“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.”
How about either Steve or Bucky going out of their way to prove old-school romance is superior 😊😍😘
MCU MASTERLIST | BUCKY MASTERLIST | STEVE MASTERLIST
Summary: Bucky Barnes knows he's been invited to the State Department gala as a trophy wife without the perks. When you show up, he decides to give the government what it wants, but in a way they can't use for PR.
WC/Warnings: 3200 / femme-presenting AFAB Reader
This was fun, it's definitely Part I of II though! Smut planned for the next oneeeeee 🧡
Old-Fashioned Statecraft
Diplomacy requires a special kind of caution, careful deliberation for every single movement, and today’s conference had involved a special kind of diplomacy. Dozens of countries, special interest groups, and honored guests, and as the assistant to a senior State Department official, you’d been in the thick of it. The multi-day event is almost over, but if you have to rattle off your boss’s tongue-twister title more than once at the gala tonight, you just might cry.
You’ve got just over an hour to scarf down something quick and change into the evening’s finery, and most of that will be spent on making your hair look awesome. You’re secretly glad your stodgy boss always asks you to dress vintage for events like this, because the 1950’s silhouette of your crimson dress makes you feel absolutely gorgeous. It doesn’t hurt that you’ve color-matched your lipstick to the same shade. If you can get your hair to behave, the curls you’re planning will set everything off perfectly.
“Not subtle,” Steve mouths from across the room, lifting his wine glass in a salute to Bucky’s dimly-lit, solitary alcove. For his part, Bucky holds the eye contact as he leans back against the wall and crosses his arms. Steve’s disapproving frown is a victory of sorts, and Bucky lets himself feel that, his lip curling up in his first smile since they’d been forced to attend this stupid fancy dress party.
He knows how he’s meant to act, but it’s been a long, stupid day, and he doesn’t much like being treated like a trophy wife without the perks. The State Department had gotten their photo ops, but they haven’t purchased him or the suit he’s wearing. He doesn’t intend to stick around and sell the modern equivalent of war bonds: the priceless public relations 'get' of the legendary Captain America or his best friend Sgt. Barnes yukking it up with some socialite.
A flash of red catches his eye, and Bucky turns to scan the room, bracing himself on the stone wall. A woman straight out of his long-dormant daydreams is making her way down the staircase. Her rich red dress is off the shoulder and tight to her chest, skirt flaring to just past her knees, filled out by satin-edged black crinoline. Every beaded, full-length gown in the room instantly looks tacky in comparison. As he watches, two well-dressed men approach her, one grey-haired and halting, the other overeager, standing too close, smiling with too many teeth.
The marble protests under his metal hand as he pushes off. His sudden surge of annoyance doesn’t dissipate when she rebuffs the younger man and settles her hand on the older man’s offered arm.
“Dial it down, Buck. You look like you’re about to take a hostage.”
Steve’s low admonition breaks through, and Bucky blinks, pushing back his collar-length hair and swearing at the gel now coating his fingernails. He never should have agreed to ‘touch-ups’ for those photographs.
“Maybe I am.”
He’d been speaking flippantly, but the thought has merit. The months following the defeat of Thanos were taken up by Steve’s rough return, rejected by Peggy in favor of the family he knew she’d build. When the two men had ventured out into the world again, Steve had found his joy in teasing Bucky about his unexpected celebrity. Women who find Captain America’s morals intimidating seem to be thrilled by the idea that somewhere deep inside James Buchanan Barnes, there’s a depraved lack of them. He notoriously hates the charade of being a so-called superhero.
He doesn’t want to give their government ‘handlers’ what they want. He wouldn’t mind leading them on, though. How infuriating would it be to know their pet hero was conducting a charm offensive out of sight of the news media?
There’s a vase nearby with a lavish flower arrangement. None of the flowers are the right kind of red, so he picks up a white lily.
“You sure you’re not just taken by the idea of a girl in a vintage dress? Not to be disrespectful, but this looks like bait.”
Bucky’s watching the woman offer a dazzling smile at a group of diplomats. “Good.”
Steve actually stops him with a hand at his chest. “Whether or not this woman’s been put up to it, she’s still a person. Might even be as much of a marionette on strings as we are.”
“I’d be walking over there if this was a USO event in ’43 or right now.”
“Wasn’t that the last time you’ve hit on a woman?”
“What’s that thing about glass houses?” Bucky shoots him a pointed look.
Steve is undeterred. “I’m just saying, gals nowadays aren’t looking for the old fashioned approach.”
Bucky turns away from the room full of players and pawns to offer his friend a rare grin. “I bet you no one’s ever tried.”
Your feet hurt, but professionalism in your line of work means never showing discomfort. The room blurs into small clusters of people your boss stops to speak with, and as usual, you seem little more than window dressing for his own image. No one pays attention to the arm candy… but by tomorrow, you’ll have written up a detailed analysis of the conversations that may help further your department’s agenda.
After a half hour of this subtle teamwork, your boss leaves you to dance with a stately woman from France. His grateful squeeze of your hand tells you he’s pleased and that you’re free for the rest of the evening. A quick scan of the room tells you three things. All of your close acquaintances in the business have left or are engaged in more physical diplomacy, a contingent of playboy nepo-babies are on the prowl, and it seems that the State Department has convinced some Avengers to attend the gala.
Conclusion: spend twenty minutes weaving through the crowd to refresh your international contacts and get the hell out. Perhaps standing near Captain America would repel the worst of the sex hounds, now that your boss isn’t there to stare disapprovingly at them.
You finish up a conversation a few steps away from the dance floor when an attractive man pauses nearby. He’s twirling a lily by its stem in rhythm with the flourishes in the music, and you feel a little thrill when you recognize him as one of the Avengers. Without armor or tac gear you can’t immediately recall his name, which is a unique experience. Knowing everyone at a glance is part of your job.
“There’s an elegance to that dip and sway,” you say to the man, nodding at the lily.
“Missing a partner, though,” he observes, without looking over.
You realize that every Avenger must be used to near constant public scrutiny, so you decide to offer him the novel experience of standing in companionable silence. It takes considerable effort not to look over, not to gather data, but you fight this by closing your eyes, quieting your mind.
“Does it hurt?”
Your eyes fly open, expression still schooled to be neutral instead of befuddled, but the man looks just as he did before.
He gestures. “Politely hiding what you feel.”
“It helps to know your job and national security is on the line.”
His grunt carries a wealth of understanding to it, even some humor, and you let yourself really look at him. He’s handsome as hell, and despite having a fighter’s build, the tuxedo suits him, especially with the overlong locks of hair that pulled free of the hair gel to curl attractively at his temple. You decide to employ your training on one statement, and hope he doesn’t mind if his reaction gives anything away.
“So you’re saying you don’t hide what you feel?”
This gets a reaction, albeit a controlled one. The man looks over, captivating you with an admiring gaze that hints at the truth of his following statement. “Not always.” After a long few seconds, he tips the lily toward you and says, “It’s for you.”
His eyes are blue and his hand is silver, and you realize who he is.
Barnes, that’s his name. You’ve seen the news reports; he’s a literal super soldier. Mind racing, heart racing, you tell yourself sternly that there isn’t any intel you know that he couldn’t get just by asking someone higher up, and for fuck’s sake, you are wearing a vintage dress. This doesn’t need to be complicated.
You take the lily, lifting it up to your nose to smell its sweet scent, but also to hide your face for a few shell-shocked seconds.
“James Barnes, a pleasure to meet you,” he says, holding out his hand a little higher than normal, to pull your focus. It’s a gentle rebuke, but you know this man’s decades of training would put your skills of observation and manipulation to shame.
“The pleasure is mine,” is the standard reply, but you mean it. You reach out, but at the last minute he takes the tips of your fingers in a light grip to kiss the back of your hand. You can’t help but catch your breath when he looks up at you before straightening back to a stand.
Barnes (your brain short-circuits at the simple moniker. It’s Bucky. Steve Rogers’— Captain America’s best friend. The hundred-year-old master assassin. Somehow here, with you) looks over at the dance floor, and just then, as if that were some sort of pre-arranged cue, the music shifts to something slower.
“May I have this dance?” The slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes turns his formal request into an in-joke about timing.
“I’d love to,” you say. It’s another customary response threaded through with genuine happiness. “Just one small—” you break off, fixing the lily into your curls thanks to a pre-existing hairpin, then doing a little twirl to see if it will dislodge with movement. The hem of your skirt brushes against his tuxedo pants, and he looks down with the ghost of a smile that tarnishes your intention to dance and run away right afterwards.
As a dancer, Barnes is light on his feet, enough to take away with your breath in surprise and maybe your heart just a little bit. You’d never expected to be near the man, much less have him holding your hand gently in his metal one as he leads you in a dance in front of everyone important in your ‘industry.’ It’s only your training that has you so poised, but even then, you have to make yourself make eye contact with him. Each time, you feel like he’s sharing the energy his body uses to power his robotic arm.
“Penny for your thoughts, unless the price has gone up?”
It’s a clever nod at the elephant in the room, and you tip your head in acknowledgment before responding, “I was appreciating our initial silence. At an event like this, it’s almost a luxury, given how little time anyone gets to make an impression, a deal, or—”
“A threat?” he interrupts, his steel gaze on someone coming up behind you. Barnes makes a decisive little ‘no’ head shake and deftly guides you away from the local airspace, turning slightly so you can see who’s been avoided. It’s the handsy, petulant son of an oil magnate.
“Thank you, I hate that guy, and I don’t mind saying it aloud, even here,” you say in disgust.
“I don’t know if tapping in is a thing anymore, but I wasn’t about to find out.” Barnes’ right hand shifts at your back, drawing you closer in a way that feels protective and exciting.
“I’m sure he was only doing it so he could boast that he took something away from you,” you joke— but when you move your gaze from the surrounding dancers back to your dance partner, his expression is full of blatant attraction.
“‘Something,’ as in the most beautiful woman in the room?”
Cinematically, the slower music piece ends. Drunk on the way James Barnes has made you feel since the moment you met, you slide your hand from its dance position on his shoulder over to touch his face. It’s overtly personal, perhaps even shocking, but he doesn’t flinch at all.
“You’re gallant to say so,” you tell him in a hushed voice; “—but I’m afraid I’m turning into a pumpkin without leaving you a shoe to remember me by.”
Barnes moves back smoothly, his demeanor respectful, but intent. “He uses it to find her again, and I will. Goodnight, then.”
“Bucky!” a voice nearby calls out. You nod a ‘go on’ to Barnes, but he keeps his attention on you, lifting his eyebrows in question.
There’s no way he’s actually interested interested, but you do the diplomatic thing and nod a ‘Yes.’ The slow smile that turns one side of his mouth upward is as heated as an actual kiss, and you bite your lip, your second blatantly ungoverned action of the night.
“Good,” Barnes says, turning to walk away just as the voice calls his name again. It’s Steve Rogers, but you’re not equal to anything he might ask you about his closest friend, so you aim yourself toward the exit and get out of there as decorously as you can manage.
Before you know it you’re in the elevator again, but this time you’re not alone, not really. Bucky Barnes inhabits your thoughts so thoroughly that you wouldn’t be surprised to see the silver wall of the elevator display his reflection beside you.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Steve says under his breath in their own elevator, “—but you’re unusually quiet. Could it be the—”
“Yes it could, and fuck off,” Bucky says good-naturedly.
“Glad to see none of the diplomacy from tonight rubbed off on you,” Steve laughs.
“Oh, it did.”
The resulting silence lasts until the floor dings and they both step out.
“I’m glad, Buck. Did you get her number, then?”
“Nah. Going to ask around and show up with flowers.” Just thinking about it makes something anticipatory swell in his chest. Bucky pulls out his wallet to find his key card, and Steve shoulders up on the wall to face him.
“I get the impression people think that’s creepy nowadays.”
Bucky pulls the hotel door open and steps inside before he says, “Not the way I’m going to do it.” Steve’s laugh drifts through as the door shuts, warm and familiar. In an odd way, it makes Bucky feel safe, but only recently has either of them felt like that safety might last awhile. Long enough, maybe, to show up to ask a gorgeous doll of a girl out with a bouquet of flowers.
Two days later, Bucky’s ready to implement his plan. He’s been talked out of a suit (Maria Hill had laid it straight. ’It’s either a suit or flowers, Barnes. Both together will make a woman think ‘restraining order,’ especially before the first date’), but Bucky found a florist that sells a bouquet of white lilies and red roses. His home base is the rebuilt Avengers Compound, but there’s still a presence in D.C., and he’s told the higher-ups that he intends to stay for a few weeks. He steps out of the car Ms. Potts strong armed him into borrowing and heads in to charm the person at the reception desk.
Bucky ends up being the one charmed. The kindly grey-haired lady guarding the front desk knows who he is, even to the point of knowing he’d spent five long years in limbo just like her son. Instead of trying to make him feel guilty for not preventing it, or railing at fate, as many have done in the past, she just tells him about the wonderful day her son came back. Bucky ends up pulling one of the red roses out of the bouquet to give her, and just as he’s taking a long steadying breath, he hears your voice and turns around.
“Rose, what is the emergen—” You break off and blink at him, obviously taking in the bouquet and the expensive, tailored clothes he’s wearing. There’s a touch of excitement hovering behind your professional exterior, and given what he’s heard about your unflappable demeanor, it’s a compliment. “Sergeant Barnes, what an unexpected surprise!”
“I stopped by to ask the pleasure of your company for dinner,” Bucky says, proffering the bouquet. “Whatever works with your schedule, of course.” Fuck. Back before the war, he’d watched motion pictures to perfect his approach, even practiced in the mirror sometimes. He supposes he could have asked Steve for advice, but that would’ve cost too much goddamned dignity, besides the fact that he probably still has more game than Rogers.
As if you can sense his thoughts, your eyes narrow just a touch. “This isn’t a wager of some sort, is it?”
“Not at all,” he says to the accompaniment of Rose’s tutting behind them. Bucky holds his hand out to gesture that you step to the side, dropping the formal tone he’d been using. “I enjoyed the dance. I didn’t want to just call.”
You’ve got your face buried in a white lily, which he hopes is a convenient way to hide excitement. “Oh, I’m appreciating the moment, I assure you! I just didn’t expect, well…”
“Humphrey Bogart?”
“A little, yeah. Not that I’m not gratified, I just didn’t know if you were being you.”
“It’s been a while,” he concedes.
“Do I want to know how long, exactly?”
Bucky focuses his gaze on the flowers. “Nope.” Without looking up at you, he murmurs, “Is tonight too soon?”
He can hear the way your breath catches in your throat. “Not at all.”
“Good.” He pulls out the business card Maria Hill had insisted on ordering for him months ago, handing it to you. “How about seven tonight? Pick you up at your place?”
You’re frozen, eyes on his, the ridiculous ‘Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes, Avenger’ business card in one hand and the bouquet in the other. “You know where it is?” you say, the barest hint of self-censure crossing your expression before you expertly school it away.
Bucky feels a surge of unexpected lust at the thought of using pleasure to break that practiced discipline of yours, someday. He tips his head toward you in respect, stepping back to angle toward the door.
“I have my ways,” he teases you, allowing the softness of anticipation to creep into his voice.
“I’ll look forward to it, then,” you tell him, meeting his change of tone with a warm sweetness of your own. Then you draw yourself up, tucking the business card away in the inside pocket of your blazer. “Thank you for the flowers and invitation, Sgt. Drive safely until tonight.” Without waiting for him to respond, indeed, without even meeting his eyes again, you walk away, tapping gently on Rose’s desk as you walk past toward the elevator.
It’s then that he notices that you’re wearing actual stockings, the kind with a seam up the back of the legs. The kind held up with garters, not waist-hugging elastic. The kind a man can roll down slowly, dragging his lips along each exposed inch of skin.
It’s something you’d worn without even knowing he would show up.
Fuck, Bucky thinks to himself for the second time in five minutes, as he walks stiffly off to the car. Why the hell had he let Steve goad him into showing off with the slow, old-fashioned approach?
How about either Steve or Bucky going out of their way to prove old-school romance is superior 😊😍😘
MCU MASTERLIST | BUCKY MASTERLIST | STEVE MASTERLIST
Summary: Bucky Barnes knows he's been invited to the State Department gala as a trophy wife without the perks. When you show up, he decides to give the government what it wants, but in a way they can't use for PR.
WC/Warnings: 3200 / femme-presenting AFAB Reader
This was fun, it's definitely Part I of II though! Smut planned for the next oneeeeee 🧡
Old-Fashioned Statecraft
Diplomacy requires a special kind of caution, careful deliberation for every single movement, and today’s conference had involved a special kind of diplomacy. Dozens of countries, special interest groups, and honored guests, and as the assistant to a senior State Department official, you’d been in the thick of it. The multi-day event is almost over, but if you have to rattle off your boss’s tongue-twister title more than once at the gala tonight, you just might cry.
You’ve got just over an hour to scarf down something quick and change into the evening’s finery, and most of that will be spent on making your hair look awesome. You’re secretly glad your stodgy boss always asks you to dress vintage for events like this, because the 1950’s silhouette of your crimson dress makes you feel absolutely gorgeous. It doesn’t hurt that you’ve color-matched your lipstick to the same shade. If you can get your hair to behave, the curls you’re planning will set everything off perfectly.
“Not subtle,” Steve mouths from across the room, lifting his wine glass in a salute to Bucky’s dimly-lit, solitary alcove. For his part, Bucky holds the eye contact as he leans back against the wall and crosses his arms. Steve’s disapproving frown is a victory of sorts, and Bucky lets himself feel that, his lip curling up in his first smile since they’d been forced to attend this stupid fancy dress party.
He knows how he’s meant to act, but it’s been a long, stupid day, and he doesn’t much like being treated like a trophy wife without the perks. The State Department had gotten their photo ops, but they haven’t purchased him or the suit he’s wearing. He doesn’t intend to stick around and sell the modern equivalent of war bonds: the priceless public relations 'get' of the legendary Captain America or his best friend Sgt. Barnes yukking it up with some socialite.
A flash of red catches his eye, and Bucky turns to scan the room, bracing himself on the stone wall. A woman straight out of his long-dormant daydreams is making her way down the staircase. Her rich red dress is off the shoulder and tight to her chest, skirt flaring to just past her knees, filled out by satin-edged black crinoline. Every beaded, full-length gown in the room instantly looks tacky in comparison. As he watches, two well-dressed men approach her, one grey-haired and halting, the other overeager, standing too close, smiling with too many teeth.
The marble protests under his metal hand as he pushes off. His sudden surge of annoyance doesn’t dissipate when she rebuffs the younger man and settles her hand on the older man’s offered arm.
“Dial it down, Buck. You look like you’re about to take a hostage.”
Steve’s low admonition breaks through, and Bucky blinks, pushing back his collar-length hair and swearing at the gel now coating his fingernails. He never should have agreed to ‘touch-ups’ for those photographs.
“Maybe I am.”
He’d been speaking flippantly, but the thought has merit. The months following the defeat of Thanos were taken up by Steve’s rough return, rejected by Peggy in favor of the family he knew she’d build. When the two men had ventured out into the world again, Steve had found his joy in teasing Bucky about his unexpected celebrity. Women who find Captain America’s morals intimidating seem to be thrilled by the idea that somewhere deep inside James Buchanan Barnes, there’s a depraved lack of them. He notoriously hates the charade of being a so-called superhero.
He doesn’t want to give their government ‘handlers’ what they want. He wouldn’t mind leading them on, though. How infuriating would it be to know their pet hero was conducting a charm offensive out of sight of the news media?
There’s a vase nearby with a lavish flower arrangement. None of the flowers are the right kind of red, so he picks up a white lily.
“You sure you’re not just taken by the idea of a girl in a vintage dress? Not to be disrespectful, but this looks like bait.”
Bucky’s watching the woman offer a dazzling smile at a group of diplomats. “Good.”
Steve actually stops him with a hand at his chest. “Whether or not this woman’s been put up to it, she’s still a person. Might even be as much of a marionette on strings as we are.”
“I’d be walking over there if this was a USO event in ’43 or right now.”
“Wasn’t that the last time you’ve hit on a woman?”
“What’s that thing about glass houses?” Bucky shoots him a pointed look.
Steve is undeterred. “I’m just saying, gals nowadays aren’t looking for the old fashioned approach.”
Bucky turns away from the room full of players and pawns to offer his friend a rare grin. “I bet you no one’s ever tried.”
Your feet hurt, but professionalism in your line of work means never showing discomfort. The room blurs into small clusters of people your boss stops to speak with, and as usual, you seem little more than window dressing for his own image. No one pays attention to the arm candy… but by tomorrow, you’ll have written up a detailed analysis of the conversations that may help further your department’s agenda.
After a half hour of this subtle teamwork, your boss leaves you to dance with a stately woman from France. His grateful squeeze of your hand tells you he’s pleased and that you’re free for the rest of the evening. A quick scan of the room tells you three things. All of your close acquaintances in the business have left or are engaged in more physical diplomacy, a contingent of playboy nepo-babies are on the prowl, and it seems that the State Department has convinced some Avengers to attend the gala.
Conclusion: spend twenty minutes weaving through the crowd to refresh your international contacts and get the hell out. Perhaps standing near Captain America would repel the worst of the sex hounds, now that your boss isn’t there to stare disapprovingly at them.
You finish up a conversation a few steps away from the dance floor when an attractive man pauses nearby. He’s twirling a lily by its stem in rhythm with the flourishes in the music, and you feel a little thrill when you recognize him as one of the Avengers. Without armor or tac gear you can’t immediately recall his name, which is a unique experience. Knowing everyone at a glance is part of your job.
“There’s an elegance to that dip and sway,” you say to the man, nodding at the lily.
“Missing a partner, though,” he observes, without looking over.
You realize that every Avenger must be used to near constant public scrutiny, so you decide to offer him the novel experience of standing in companionable silence. It takes considerable effort not to look over, not to gather data, but you fight this by closing your eyes, quieting your mind.
“Does it hurt?”
Your eyes fly open, expression still schooled to be neutral instead of befuddled, but the man looks just as he did before.
He gestures. “Politely hiding what you feel.”
“It helps to know your job and national security is on the line.”
His grunt carries a wealth of understanding to it, even some humor, and you let yourself really look at him. He’s handsome as hell, and despite having a fighter’s build, the tuxedo suits him, especially with the overlong locks of hair that pulled free of the hair gel to curl attractively at his temple. You decide to employ your training on one statement, and hope he doesn’t mind if his reaction gives anything away.
“So you’re saying you don’t hide what you feel?”
This gets a reaction, albeit a controlled one. The man looks over, captivating you with an admiring gaze that hints at the truth of his following statement. “Not always.” After a long few seconds, he tips the lily toward you and says, “It’s for you.”
His eyes are blue and his hand is silver, and you realize who he is.
Barnes, that’s his name. You’ve seen the news reports; he’s a literal super soldier. Mind racing, heart racing, you tell yourself sternly that there isn’t any intel you know that he couldn’t get just by asking someone higher up, and for fuck’s sake, you are wearing a vintage dress. This doesn’t need to be complicated.
You take the lily, lifting it up to your nose to smell its sweet scent, but also to hide your face for a few shell-shocked seconds.
“James Barnes, a pleasure to meet you,” he says, holding out his hand a little higher than normal, to pull your focus. It’s a gentle rebuke, but you know this man’s decades of training would put your skills of observation and manipulation to shame.
“The pleasure is mine,” is the standard reply, but you mean it. You reach out, but at the last minute he takes the tips of your fingers in a light grip to kiss the back of your hand. You can’t help but catch your breath when he looks up at you before straightening back to a stand.
Barnes (your brain short-circuits at the simple moniker. It’s Bucky. Steve Rogers’— Captain America’s best friend. The hundred-year-old master assassin. Somehow here, with you) looks over at the dance floor, and just then, as if that were some sort of pre-arranged cue, the music shifts to something slower.
“May I have this dance?” The slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes turns his formal request into an in-joke about timing.
“I’d love to,” you say. It’s another customary response threaded through with genuine happiness. “Just one small—” you break off, fixing the lily into your curls thanks to a pre-existing hairpin, then doing a little twirl to see if it will dislodge with movement. The hem of your skirt brushes against his tuxedo pants, and he looks down with the ghost of a smile that tarnishes your intention to dance and run away right afterwards.
As a dancer, Barnes is light on his feet, enough to take away with your breath in surprise and maybe your heart just a little bit. You’d never expected to be near the man, much less have him holding your hand gently in his metal one as he leads you in a dance in front of everyone important in your ‘industry.’ It’s only your training that has you so poised, but even then, you have to make yourself make eye contact with him. Each time, you feel like he’s sharing the energy his body uses to power his robotic arm.
“Penny for your thoughts, unless the price has gone up?”
It’s a clever nod at the elephant in the room, and you tip your head in acknowledgment before responding, “I was appreciating our initial silence. At an event like this, it’s almost a luxury, given how little time anyone gets to make an impression, a deal, or—”
“A threat?” he interrupts, his steel gaze on someone coming up behind you. Barnes makes a decisive little ‘no’ head shake and deftly guides you away from the local airspace, turning slightly so you can see who’s been avoided. It’s the handsy, petulant son of an oil magnate.
“Thank you, I hate that guy, and I don’t mind saying it aloud, even here,” you say in disgust.
“I don’t know if tapping in is a thing anymore, but I wasn’t about to find out.” Barnes’ right hand shifts at your back, drawing you closer in a way that feels protective and exciting.
“I’m sure he was only doing it so he could boast that he took something away from you,” you joke— but when you move your gaze from the surrounding dancers back to your dance partner, his expression is full of blatant attraction.
“‘Something,’ as in the most beautiful woman in the room?”
Cinematically, the slower music piece ends. Drunk on the way James Barnes has made you feel since the moment you met, you slide your hand from its dance position on his shoulder over to touch his face. It’s overtly personal, perhaps even shocking, but he doesn’t flinch at all.
“You’re gallant to say so,” you tell him in a hushed voice; “—but I’m afraid I’m turning into a pumpkin without leaving you a shoe to remember me by.”
Barnes moves back smoothly, his demeanor respectful, but intent. “He uses it to find her again, and I will. Goodnight, then.”
“Bucky!” a voice nearby calls out. You nod a ‘go on’ to Barnes, but he keeps his attention on you, lifting his eyebrows in question.
There’s no way he’s actually interested interested, but you do the diplomatic thing and nod a ‘Yes.’ The slow smile that turns one side of his mouth upward is as heated as an actual kiss, and you bite your lip, your second blatantly ungoverned action of the night.
“Good,” Barnes says, turning to walk away just as the voice calls his name again. It’s Steve Rogers, but you’re not equal to anything he might ask you about his closest friend, so you aim yourself toward the exit and get out of there as decorously as you can manage.
Before you know it you’re in the elevator again, but this time you’re not alone, not really. Bucky Barnes inhabits your thoughts so thoroughly that you wouldn’t be surprised to see the silver wall of the elevator display his reflection beside you.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Steve says under his breath in their own elevator, “—but you’re unusually quiet. Could it be the—”
“Yes it could, and fuck off,” Bucky says good-naturedly.
“Glad to see none of the diplomacy from tonight rubbed off on you,” Steve laughs.
“Oh, it did.”
The resulting silence lasts until the floor dings and they both step out.
“I’m glad, Buck. Did you get her number, then?”
“Nah. Going to ask around and show up with flowers.” Just thinking about it makes something anticipatory swell in his chest. Bucky pulls out his wallet to find his key card, and Steve shoulders up on the wall to face him.
“I get the impression people think that’s creepy nowadays.”
Bucky pulls the hotel door open and steps inside before he says, “Not the way I’m going to do it.” Steve’s laugh drifts through as the door shuts, warm and familiar. In an odd way, it makes Bucky feel safe, but only recently has either of them felt like that safety might last awhile. Long enough, maybe, to show up to ask a gorgeous doll of a girl out with a bouquet of flowers.
Two days later, Bucky’s ready to implement his plan. He’s been talked out of a suit (Maria Hill had laid it straight. ’It’s either a suit or flowers, Barnes. Both together will make a woman think ‘restraining order,’ especially before the first date’), but Bucky found a florist that sells a bouquet of white lilies and red roses. His home base is the rebuilt Avengers Compound, but there’s still a presence in D.C., and he’s told the higher-ups that he intends to stay for a few weeks. He steps out of the car Ms. Potts strong armed him into borrowing and heads in to charm the person at the reception desk.
Bucky ends up being the one charmed. The kindly grey-haired lady guarding the front desk knows who he is, even to the point of knowing he’d spent five long years in limbo just like her son. Instead of trying to make him feel guilty for not preventing it, or railing at fate, as many have done in the past, she just tells him about the wonderful day her son came back. Bucky ends up pulling one of the red roses out of the bouquet to give her, and just as he’s taking a long steadying breath, he hears your voice and turns around.
“Rose, what is the emergen—” You break off and blink at him, obviously taking in the bouquet and the expensive, tailored clothes he’s wearing. There’s a touch of excitement hovering behind your professional exterior, and given what he’s heard about your unflappable demeanor, it’s a compliment. “Sergeant Barnes, what an unexpected surprise!”
“I stopped by to ask the pleasure of your company for dinner,” Bucky says, proffering the bouquet. “Whatever works with your schedule, of course.” Fuck. Back before the war, he’d watched motion pictures to perfect his approach, even practiced in the mirror sometimes. He supposes he could have asked Steve for advice, but that would’ve cost too much goddamned dignity, besides the fact that he probably still has more game than Rogers.
As if you can sense his thoughts, your eyes narrow just a touch. “This isn’t a wager of some sort, is it?”
“Not at all,” he says to the accompaniment of Rose’s tutting behind them. Bucky holds his hand out to gesture that you step to the side, dropping the formal tone he’d been using. “I enjoyed the dance. I didn’t want to just call.”
You’ve got your face buried in a white lily, which he hopes is a convenient way to hide excitement. “Oh, I’m appreciating the moment, I assure you! I just didn’t expect, well…”
“Humphrey Bogart?”
“A little, yeah. Not that I’m not gratified, I just didn’t know if you were being you.”
“It’s been a while,” he concedes.
“Do I want to know how long, exactly?”
Bucky focuses his gaze on the flowers. “Nope.” Without looking up at you, he murmurs, “Is tonight too soon?”
He can hear the way your breath catches in your throat. “Not at all.”
“Good.” He pulls out the business card Maria Hill had insisted on ordering for him months ago, handing it to you. “How about seven tonight? Pick you up at your place?”
You’re frozen, eyes on his, the ridiculous ‘Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes, Avenger’ business card in one hand and the bouquet in the other. “You know where it is?” you say, the barest hint of self-censure crossing your expression before you expertly school it away.
Bucky feels a surge of unexpected lust at the thought of using pleasure to break that practiced discipline of yours, someday. He tips his head toward you in respect, stepping back to angle toward the door.
“I have my ways,” he teases you, allowing the softness of anticipation to creep into his voice.
“I’ll look forward to it, then,” you tell him, meeting his change of tone with a warm sweetness of your own. Then you draw yourself up, tucking the business card away in the inside pocket of your blazer. “Thank you for the flowers and invitation, Sgt. Drive safely until tonight.” Without waiting for him to respond, indeed, without even meeting his eyes again, you walk away, tapping gently on Rose’s desk as you walk past toward the elevator.
It’s then that he notices that you’re wearing actual stockings, the kind with a seam up the back of the legs. The kind held up with garters, not waist-hugging elastic. The kind a man can roll down slowly, dragging his lips along each exposed inch of skin.
It’s something you’d worn without even knowing he would show up.
Fuck, Bucky thinks to himself for the second time in five minutes, as he walks stiffly off to the car. Why the hell had he let Steve goad him into showing off with the slow, old-fashioned approach?
How about either Steve or Bucky going out of their way to prove old-school romance is superior 😊😍😘
MCU MASTERLIST | BUCKY MASTERLIST | STEVE MASTERLIST
Summary: Bucky Barnes knows he's been invited to the State Department gala as a trophy wife without the perks. When you show up, he decides to give the government what it wants, but in a way they can't use for PR.
WC/Warnings: 3200 / femme-presenting AFAB Reader
This was fun, it's definitely Part I of II though! Smut planned for the next oneeeeee 🧡
Old-Fashioned Statecraft
Diplomacy requires a special kind of caution, careful deliberation for every single movement, and today’s conference had involved a special kind of diplomacy. Dozens of countries, special interest groups, and honored guests, and as the assistant to a senior State Department official, you’d been in the thick of it. The multi-day event is almost over, but if you have to rattle off your boss’s tongue-twister title more than once at the gala tonight, you just might cry.
You’ve got just over an hour to scarf down something quick and change into the evening’s finery, and most of that will be spent on making your hair look awesome. You’re secretly glad your stodgy boss always asks you to dress vintage for events like this, because the 1950’s silhouette of your crimson dress makes you feel absolutely gorgeous. It doesn’t hurt that you’ve color-matched your lipstick to the same shade. If you can get your hair to behave, the curls you’re planning will set everything off perfectly.
“Not subtle,” Steve mouths from across the room, lifting his wine glass in a salute to Bucky’s dimly-lit, solitary alcove. For his part, Bucky holds the eye contact as he leans back against the wall and crosses his arms. Steve’s disapproving frown is a victory of sorts, and Bucky lets himself feel that, his lip curling up in his first smile since they’d been forced to attend this stupid fancy dress party.
He knows how he’s meant to act, but it’s been a long, stupid day, and he doesn’t much like being treated like a trophy wife without the perks. The State Department had gotten their photo ops, but they haven’t purchased him or the suit he’s wearing. He doesn’t intend to stick around and sell the modern equivalent of war bonds: the priceless public relations 'get' of the legendary Captain America or his best friend Sgt. Barnes yukking it up with some socialite.
A flash of red catches his eye, and Bucky turns to scan the room, bracing himself on the stone wall. A woman straight out of his long-dormant daydreams is making her way down the staircase. Her rich red dress is off the shoulder and tight to her chest, skirt flaring to just past her knees, filled out by satin-edged black crinoline. Every beaded, full-length gown in the room instantly looks tacky in comparison. As he watches, two well-dressed men approach her, one grey-haired and halting, the other overeager, standing too close, smiling with too many teeth.
The marble protests under his metal hand as he pushes off. His sudden surge of annoyance doesn’t dissipate when she rebuffs the younger man and settles her hand on the older man’s offered arm.
“Dial it down, Buck. You look like you’re about to take a hostage.”
Steve’s low admonition breaks through, and Bucky blinks, pushing back his collar-length hair and swearing at the gel now coating his fingernails. He never should have agreed to ‘touch-ups’ for those photographs.
“Maybe I am.”
He’d been speaking flippantly, but the thought has merit. The months following the defeat of Thanos were taken up by Steve’s rough return, rejected by Peggy in favor of the family he knew she’d build. When the two men had ventured out into the world again, Steve had found his joy in teasing Bucky about his unexpected celebrity. Women who find Captain America’s morals intimidating seem to be thrilled by the idea that somewhere deep inside James Buchanan Barnes, there’s a depraved lack of them. He notoriously hates the charade of being a so-called superhero.
He doesn’t want to give their government ‘handlers’ what they want. He wouldn’t mind leading them on, though. How infuriating would it be to know their pet hero was conducting a charm offensive out of sight of the news media?
There’s a vase nearby with a lavish flower arrangement. None of the flowers are the right kind of red, so he picks up a white lily.
“You sure you’re not just taken by the idea of a girl in a vintage dress? Not to be disrespectful, but this looks like bait.”
Bucky’s watching the woman offer a dazzling smile at a group of diplomats. “Good.”
Steve actually stops him with a hand at his chest. “Whether or not this woman’s been put up to it, she’s still a person. Might even be as much of a marionette on strings as we are.”
“I’d be walking over there if this was a USO event in ’43 or right now.”
“Wasn’t that the last time you’ve hit on a woman?”
“What’s that thing about glass houses?” Bucky shoots him a pointed look.
Steve is undeterred. “I’m just saying, gals nowadays aren’t looking for the old fashioned approach.”
Bucky turns away from the room full of players and pawns to offer his friend a rare grin. “I bet you no one’s ever tried.”
Your feet hurt, but professionalism in your line of work means never showing discomfort. The room blurs into small clusters of people your boss stops to speak with, and as usual, you seem little more than window dressing for his own image. No one pays attention to the arm candy… but by tomorrow, you’ll have written up a detailed analysis of the conversations that may help further your department’s agenda.
After a half hour of this subtle teamwork, your boss leaves you to dance with a stately woman from France. His grateful squeeze of your hand tells you he’s pleased and that you’re free for the rest of the evening. A quick scan of the room tells you three things. All of your close acquaintances in the business have left or are engaged in more physical diplomacy, a contingent of playboy nepo-babies are on the prowl, and it seems that the State Department has convinced some Avengers to attend the gala.
Conclusion: spend twenty minutes weaving through the crowd to refresh your international contacts and get the hell out. Perhaps standing near Captain America would repel the worst of the sex hounds, now that your boss isn’t there to stare disapprovingly at them.
You finish up a conversation a few steps away from the dance floor when an attractive man pauses nearby. He’s twirling a lily by its stem in rhythm with the flourishes in the music, and you feel a little thrill when you recognize him as one of the Avengers. Without armor or tac gear you can’t immediately recall his name, which is a unique experience. Knowing everyone at a glance is part of your job.
“There’s an elegance to that dip and sway,” you say to the man, nodding at the lily.
“Missing a partner, though,” he observes, without looking over.
You realize that every Avenger must be used to near constant public scrutiny, so you decide to offer him the novel experience of standing in companionable silence. It takes considerable effort not to look over, not to gather data, but you fight this by closing your eyes, quieting your mind.
“Does it hurt?”
Your eyes fly open, expression still schooled to be neutral instead of befuddled, but the man looks just as he did before.
He gestures. “Politely hiding what you feel.”
“It helps to know your job and national security is on the line.”
His grunt carries a wealth of understanding to it, even some humor, and you let yourself really look at him. He’s handsome as hell, and despite having a fighter’s build, the tuxedo suits him, especially with the overlong locks of hair that pulled free of the hair gel to curl attractively at his temple. You decide to employ your training on one statement, and hope he doesn’t mind if his reaction gives anything away.
“So you’re saying you don’t hide what you feel?”
This gets a reaction, albeit a controlled one. The man looks over, captivating you with an admiring gaze that hints at the truth of his following statement. “Not always.” After a long few seconds, he tips the lily toward you and says, “It’s for you.”
His eyes are blue and his hand is silver, and you realize who he is.
Barnes, that’s his name. You’ve seen the news reports; he’s a literal super soldier. Mind racing, heart racing, you tell yourself sternly that there isn’t any intel you know that he couldn’t get just by asking someone higher up, and for fuck’s sake, you are wearing a vintage dress. This doesn’t need to be complicated.
You take the lily, lifting it up to your nose to smell its sweet scent, but also to hide your face for a few shell-shocked seconds.
“James Barnes, a pleasure to meet you,” he says, holding out his hand a little higher than normal, to pull your focus. It’s a gentle rebuke, but you know this man’s decades of training would put your skills of observation and manipulation to shame.
“The pleasure is mine,” is the standard reply, but you mean it. You reach out, but at the last minute he takes the tips of your fingers in a light grip to kiss the back of your hand. You can’t help but catch your breath when he looks up at you before straightening back to a stand.
Barnes (your brain short-circuits at the simple moniker. It’s Bucky. Steve Rogers’— Captain America’s best friend. The hundred-year-old master assassin. Somehow here, with you) looks over at the dance floor, and just then, as if that were some sort of pre-arranged cue, the music shifts to something slower.
“May I have this dance?” The slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes turns his formal request into an in-joke about timing.
“I’d love to,” you say. It’s another customary response threaded through with genuine happiness. “Just one small—” you break off, fixing the lily into your curls thanks to a pre-existing hairpin, then doing a little twirl to see if it will dislodge with movement. The hem of your skirt brushes against his tuxedo pants, and he looks down with the ghost of a smile that tarnishes your intention to dance and run away right afterwards.
As a dancer, Barnes is light on his feet, enough to take away with your breath in surprise and maybe your heart just a little bit. You’d never expected to be near the man, much less have him holding your hand gently in his metal one as he leads you in a dance in front of everyone important in your ‘industry.’ It’s only your training that has you so poised, but even then, you have to make yourself make eye contact with him. Each time, you feel like he’s sharing the energy his body uses to power his robotic arm.
“Penny for your thoughts, unless the price has gone up?”
It’s a clever nod at the elephant in the room, and you tip your head in acknowledgment before responding, “I was appreciating our initial silence. At an event like this, it’s almost a luxury, given how little time anyone gets to make an impression, a deal, or—”
“A threat?” he interrupts, his steel gaze on someone coming up behind you. Barnes makes a decisive little ‘no’ head shake and deftly guides you away from the local airspace, turning slightly so you can see who’s been avoided. It’s the handsy, petulant son of an oil magnate.
“Thank you, I hate that guy, and I don’t mind saying it aloud, even here,” you say in disgust.
“I don’t know if tapping in is a thing anymore, but I wasn’t about to find out.” Barnes’ right hand shifts at your back, drawing you closer in a way that feels protective and exciting.
“I’m sure he was only doing it so he could boast that he took something away from you,” you joke— but when you move your gaze from the surrounding dancers back to your dance partner, his expression is full of blatant attraction.
“‘Something,’ as in the most beautiful woman in the room?”
Cinematically, the slower music piece ends. Drunk on the way James Barnes has made you feel since the moment you met, you slide your hand from its dance position on his shoulder over to touch his face. It’s overtly personal, perhaps even shocking, but he doesn’t flinch at all.
“You’re gallant to say so,” you tell him in a hushed voice; “—but I’m afraid I’m turning into a pumpkin without leaving you a shoe to remember me by.”
Barnes moves back smoothly, his demeanor respectful, but intent. “He uses it to find her again, and I will. Goodnight, then.”
“Bucky!” a voice nearby calls out. You nod a ‘go on’ to Barnes, but he keeps his attention on you, lifting his eyebrows in question.
There’s no way he’s actually interested interested, but you do the diplomatic thing and nod a ‘Yes.’ The slow smile that turns one side of his mouth upward is as heated as an actual kiss, and you bite your lip, your second blatantly ungoverned action of the night.
“Good,” Barnes says, turning to walk away just as the voice calls his name again. It’s Steve Rogers, but you’re not equal to anything he might ask you about his closest friend, so you aim yourself toward the exit and get out of there as decorously as you can manage.
Before you know it you’re in the elevator again, but this time you’re not alone, not really. Bucky Barnes inhabits your thoughts so thoroughly that you wouldn’t be surprised to see the silver wall of the elevator display his reflection beside you.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Steve says under his breath in their own elevator, “—but you’re unusually quiet. Could it be the—”
“Yes it could, and fuck off,” Bucky says good-naturedly.
“Glad to see none of the diplomacy from tonight rubbed off on you,” Steve laughs.
“Oh, it did.”
The resulting silence lasts until the floor dings and they both step out.
“I’m glad, Buck. Did you get her number, then?”
“Nah. Going to ask around and show up with flowers.” Just thinking about it makes something anticipatory swell in his chest. Bucky pulls out his wallet to find his key card, and Steve shoulders up on the wall to face him.
“I get the impression people think that’s creepy nowadays.”
Bucky pulls the hotel door open and steps inside before he says, “Not the way I’m going to do it.” Steve’s laugh drifts through as the door shuts, warm and familiar. In an odd way, it makes Bucky feel safe, but only recently has either of them felt like that safety might last awhile. Long enough, maybe, to show up to ask a gorgeous doll of a girl out with a bouquet of flowers.
Two days later, Bucky’s ready to implement his plan. He’s been talked out of a suit (Maria Hill had laid it straight. ’It’s either a suit or flowers, Barnes. Both together will make a woman think ‘restraining order,’ especially before the first date’), but Bucky found a florist that sells a bouquet of white lilies and red roses. His home base is the rebuilt Avengers Compound, but there’s still a presence in D.C., and he’s told the higher-ups that he intends to stay for a few weeks. He steps out of the car Ms. Potts strong armed him into borrowing and heads in to charm the person at the reception desk.
Bucky ends up being the one charmed. The kindly grey-haired lady guarding the front desk knows who he is, even to the point of knowing he’d spent five long years in limbo just like her son. Instead of trying to make him feel guilty for not preventing it, or railing at fate, as many have done in the past, she just tells him about the wonderful day her son came back. Bucky ends up pulling one of the red roses out of the bouquet to give her, and just as he’s taking a long steadying breath, he hears your voice and turns around.
“Rose, what is the emergen—” You break off and blink at him, obviously taking in the bouquet and the expensive, tailored clothes he’s wearing. There’s a touch of excitement hovering behind your professional exterior, and given what he’s heard about your unflappable demeanor, it’s a compliment. “Sergeant Barnes, what an unexpected surprise!”
“I stopped by to ask the pleasure of your company for dinner,” Bucky says, proffering the bouquet. “Whatever works with your schedule, of course.” Fuck. Back before the war, he’d watched motion pictures to perfect his approach, even practiced in the mirror sometimes. He supposes he could have asked Steve for advice, but that would’ve cost too much goddamned dignity, besides the fact that he probably still has more game than Rogers.
As if you can sense his thoughts, your eyes narrow just a touch. “This isn’t a wager of some sort, is it?”
“Not at all,” he says to the accompaniment of Rose’s tutting behind them. Bucky holds his hand out to gesture that you step to the side, dropping the formal tone he’d been using. “I enjoyed the dance. I didn’t want to just call.”
You’ve got your face buried in a white lily, which he hopes is a convenient way to hide excitement. “Oh, I’m appreciating the moment, I assure you! I just didn’t expect, well…”
“Humphrey Bogart?”
“A little, yeah. Not that I’m not gratified, I just didn’t know if you were being you.”
“It’s been a while,” he concedes.
“Do I want to know how long, exactly?”
Bucky focuses his gaze on the flowers. “Nope.” Without looking up at you, he murmurs, “Is tonight too soon?”
He can hear the way your breath catches in your throat. “Not at all.”
“Good.” He pulls out the business card Maria Hill had insisted on ordering for him months ago, handing it to you. “How about seven tonight? Pick you up at your place?”
You’re frozen, eyes on his, the ridiculous ‘Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes, Avenger’ business card in one hand and the bouquet in the other. “You know where it is?” you say, the barest hint of self-censure crossing your expression before you expertly school it away.
Bucky feels a surge of unexpected lust at the thought of using pleasure to break that practiced discipline of yours, someday. He tips his head toward you in respect, stepping back to angle toward the door.
“I have my ways,” he teases you, allowing the softness of anticipation to creep into his voice.
“I’ll look forward to it, then,” you tell him, meeting his change of tone with a warm sweetness of your own. Then you draw yourself up, tucking the business card away in the inside pocket of your blazer. “Thank you for the flowers and invitation, Sgt. Drive safely until tonight.” Without waiting for him to respond, indeed, without even meeting his eyes again, you walk away, tapping gently on Rose’s desk as you walk past toward the elevator.
It’s then that he notices that you’re wearing actual stockings, the kind with a seam up the back of the legs. The kind held up with garters, not waist-hugging elastic. The kind a man can roll down slowly, dragging his lips along each exposed inch of skin.
It’s something you’d worn without even knowing he would show up.
Fuck, Bucky thinks to himself for the second time in five minutes, as he walks stiffly off to the car. Why the hell had he let Steve goad him into showing off with the slow, old-fashioned approach?
