Hey it’s me, Poodle. I write about people making choices under impossible constraints. Sometimes I write about the mechanisms of power and sometimes I write satire. That’s what you will find here.
☁️ Masterlist 🌙✨
Knight & Lady in the Cup (On-going)
Bucky Barnes x immortal female OC
Infinity Saga rewrite. Bucky gets deprogrammed via fairy wine. Z is a cosmic diplomat who is orchestrating the defeat of Thanos via galactic supply chain. Space convoys. Cursed teddy bears. Defeating fascism through product distribution. Two people who understand what it means when your body isn't yours.
[Also on AO3]
Project Bloodline (Completed)
Bucky Barnes x Widow! Reader
You've infiltrated black sites. Seduced oligarchs. Killed a man with a shoe. And now you're in a vent above the Avengers' gym with a vial of drain water, testing it for super soldier jizz.
[Also on AO3]
🐙🪴 Bucky & You 🥪🐦 (Completed)
Bucky Barnes x Reader
Except "Reader" is a roomba, a houseplant, a pigeon, a machine gun and... two octopi. A parody of second-person fic tropes that accidentally became a meditation on trauma recovery through caring for small, non-judgmental things. No actual romance, just Bucky being nice to animals and non sentient objects.
[Also on AO3]
Soft Landing (On-going)
Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes
Post-Endgame and Flag-smasher rewrite. Steve comes home after returning the stones but he wouldn't say why, only: "Got my dance." Now Bucky has to figure out if he's the one Steve wants or just what's left. Real slow burn, like Nat Shermans.
[Also on AO3]
My Own Orders (Completed)
Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers
CATWS rewrite. When the Asset learns that Steve Rogers is still alive through a phone call Alexander Pierce was having in front of him, he decides to break himself out of HYDRA’s hold by using the trigger words and becoming his own handler.
[Also on AO3]
📈🔺MARKET CORRECTION🔻📉 (Completed)
Crack Treated Seriously, Avengers ensemble cast
Loki calls New York a pump and dump. Tony Stark mints Infinity NFTs. The Collector insists the SEC has no jurisdiction in Knowhere. Thanos describes erasing half of all life as "rebalancing the portfolio." Scott Lang saves the universe because he grabbed a shiny rock while stressed. (The Inifinity Saga as a Netflix style financial crime documentary.)
[Also on AO3]
Thank you anon for the marriage story, I got it. It's going to be hugely helpful to me in writing Steve and Bucky's interiority for Thin Places. It's the exact key I needed.
The only thing left is I have to figure out the pacing and structure to fit the reception into this fic. 💕
What kills me about this is Bucky doesn’t WANT to die. That look isn’t rage or defiance or even resignation, that’s legitimate fear. The man who was broken and turned into death itself doesn’t want to die. This isn’t the reaction you expect from someone who has up to this point been a killing machine. He looks trapped and scared and YOUNG. It’s a look you didn’t even seen on Bucky when he WAS young. He thinks Steve is coming over to finish him, I mean it’s what HE would do. But for someone so intimately acquainted with death, he’s scared of it. Because all he’s known of people for the last 70 years is pain and abuse and it’s a look that expects more from Steve because that’s what people DO to him. People hurt him when he doesn’t function right and he KNOWS he’s not functioning right and if Steve doesn’t kill him, HYDRA will because he’s past his expiration date of usefulness and he’s failing…
But Bucky’s a survivor. He’s got more resilience than any other character is asked for. His drive is to live. When the machine is broken enough that a little bit of Bucky can get back through, even in the midst of an existential crisis and confused and frustrated, that bit of Bucky wants to live.
That’s what Sebastian brought to the character. He brought the humanity in the machine. The victim trapped in metal and leather who doesn’t WANT to be there. Who’s NOT a stone cold assassin. Who was kind and gentle and protective, not a death weapon. The part who has no idea why this was done to him and didn’t deserve any of it and is so confused as to why people are HURTING him.
The Winter Soldier is terrifying because Sebastian let you see the humanity in him. The part of him that we know would never be choosing to do what HYDRA made him do. They broke him and twisted him and he had no choice in the matter. Nothing that was done to him was deserved. Bucky’s tragic because he was the innocent victim who wasn’t just abused and had terrible things happen to him, but who was literally turned into his worst nightmare and who couldn’t do anything about it.
And this is the moment that changes Steve’s mind, too. I’m convinced that the sound of Bucky’s scream as the beam falls on him is what makes Steve decide not to kill himself. He orders Hill to fire, and he just sits there as the destruction begins—and then Bucky screams, just like he did as he fell (never forget that’s the last sound Steve thought he’d ever hear from Bucky, and it has unquestionably haunted his nightmares ever since). And Steve looks down, and his expression shifts from resignation to his oh-God-Bucky face (he makes it when he finds Bucky on the table too), and he climbs down there to save Bucky. Even though they’re probably going to die anyway, Steve chooses to spend his last few moments of life trying to bring Bucky back, trying to save him. And because of these little flickers of humanity, nobody in the audience doubts that it’s the right and natural thing to do. Because of course there’s a human being in there. Of course he’s worth saving.
And Steve will get off his ass and climb down there, while bleeding to death from gunshot wounds, to save Bucky even when he won’t bother to save himself. Because Bucky is worth it to Steve, and the audience never for an instant thinks otherwise.
I WANT TO SEE HIM DO THIS WITH THE WINTER SOLDIER.
Except the Winter Soldier is actually able take Steve’s weight (especially since if Steve does it like in the gif it’ll be the metal arm getting most of it)
and the two of them just freeze
Steve slowly realizing he’s being carried bridal style
Bucky the Winter Soldier blinking like MY PROGRAMMING DID NOT COVER THIS???
and there’s a bunch of camera sound effects as Natasha flips past with her phone out
If we disregard Endgame (Steve isn’t characterized correctly even one single time), it’s the other way around. Bucky DID leave Steve. For two years. And Steve chased him. Steve chased Bucky into war, into death, into the future, across countries for two straight years, against the law, into hiding. Over and over Steve is shown to be the one who pursues, who searches for and finds Bucky. And he does it easily. He doesn’t see it as a hardship, he doesn’t even think about it.
But because of one (1) singular movie (and Fiege finding out about the ship and getting pissy) everyone ignores that. Steve wouldn’t leave. Just pretend Endgame and its 180 bullshit it pulled to retroactively no-homo their relationship never happened
I wrote a scene for my Stucky Texas roadtrip fic and I need to talk about it
Here's the passage:
They arrive on a paved lot on East Cesar Chavez.
Las Trancas is a white trailer the length of a semi, sporting a red bronco as its logo. Next to it, blue picnic tables sit under a covered structure strung with bulbs. The Austin skyline sits behind it to the northwest, close enough to see but not close enough to matter. The menu is on a board mounted to the side of the trailer: asada, pastor, lengua, buche, tripas, cabeza, barbacoa, chorizo, carnitas, campechano. No descriptions. Just the cuts.
Torres goes up to the window.
Bucky watches him.
The Spanish comes out fast and easy, because Torres probably grew up doing this. Probably learned Spanish before he learned English. Knows the difference between how you talk to the window and how you talk to everyone else. Buenas noches. Cuatro tacos de buche, dos de lengua, uno de barbacoa, uno de campechano. A pause, something Bucky doesn't fully catch, then Torres laughing at the response, sí, sí, con todo.
The woman behind the window jots it down without looking up.
Bucky gets most of it but not all of it. His Spanish is operational, assembled over decades from missions he is still excavating the details of, from Guatemala and Chile and places that don't appear in any official record. He knows how to ask for things and how to understand answers and how to follow a conversation if it doesn't move too fast. He knows the vocabulary of urgency. He knows the vocabulary of threat assessment. The vocabulary of two men at a taqueria window on a Saturday evening in Austin is warmer than anything he was trained for and he follows it without effort, which is its own strange thing to notice.
Torres comes back.
"Twenty minutes," he says. "They're busy."
He sits down across from Bucky. Sam is at the drinks cooler near the trailer, pulling a Topo Chico from the ice. Torres gets up again and comes back with a lime Jarritos for himself, the glass cold and sweating immediately in the August air. He nods at the cooler. "Get the Mexican cola. Glass bottle. Cane sugar."
Steve is already reading the label on the bottle he's holding.
"Cane sugar," Steve confirms.
"Trust," Torres says.
Bucky gets one. He twists the cap off with his metal hand and takes a drink. The cola is cold and real, sweet without being sharp, the cane sugar doing something different from what corn syrup does, rounder, more complete. He takes another drink.
"Yeah," he says.
Torres nods. His recommendation confirmed.
The breeze coming through carries music from the trailer's speaker, brass and clave, a Cuban dance band. The cadence warm and insistent in the August dark. Bucky listens without meaning to. The texture of it reaches for a rhythm in his body but doesn't quite find a category. Big band. Dance halls. Glenn Miller on a radio somewhere in 1943. This is none of those things and all of them slightly.
The lot has filled up since they arrived. A family sits at the table behind them, two men on bicycles who've locked up and joined the order queue, a woman eating alone at the far table with her phone face down and her food in front of her like she's decided to be present for this specifically.
Sam looks at the menu board.
"What's campechano," Sam says.
"Steak and chorizo mixed," Torres says. "Best of both. You want it."
"I was going to get that," Sam says.
"I know."
The order comes up in parts, tacos in paper-lined baskets, the salsas already on the table in small cups, green and red, and Torres adds lime from the wedges in the basket at the center without asking if anyone wants lime because everyone wants lime.
The buche arrives on two tortillas, the filling dark and tender, braised until the fat has rendered into itself and the whole thing has become something deep and porky. Bucky looks at it for a moment and then eats it.
It tastes like sense. Like the logic of using everything, of nothing going to waste, of the cheaper cuts treated with enough time and attention that they become the reason you came. His grandmother—his father's mother, Mecklenburg County roots, German Lutheran, a woman who kept a spotless kitchen and believed wasting food was a moral failing—would have understood this taco completely. The specific economy of it. The patience of it.
He reaches for a second one before he's finished the first.
Steve watches this happen.
"Good?" Steve says.
Bucky doesn't answer because the answer is obvious.
Steve picks up his own buche taco.
Across the table Torres is watching Steve take the first bite like he's waiting for a verdict that matters to him. Steve chews. His face softens and he makes the pleased sound only Bucky's ears can pick up when food lands true.
"Yeah," Steve says.
Torres looks satisfied and goes back to his own food.
Sam is already most of the way through his campechano. He puts it down for a moment and looks at Torres. "Your cousin really just handed over his camping gear."
"He offered," Torres says. "I told him we were going to Big Bend and he said take whatever you need."
"He didn't want to come."
"He worked a double shift." Torres wipes his hands. "He'll come next time."
Sam nods. He picks his taco back up.
The string lights do their warm work in the dark. The lot grows louder, more tables filled, the trailer window steady with orders. A kid at the family table behind them declares his love for quesadillas with loud enthusiasm. Down Cesar Chavez a car passes with the bass turned up.
He had spent time here before. Not here specifically, not this lot, but in neighborhoods like this in cities he can't fully remember, moving through them fast and without appetite. Latin America had been consistent work across the sixties and seventies and into the eighties, the Cold War's southern theater, the whole architecture of interventions that left countries in configurations that still haven't resolved themselves. He had moved through places like this and not been able to stay.
From the trailer’s speaker, the music shifts into something slower. The first line after the interlude, Tu Precio… the brass soft and the clave steady, a romantic bolero that feels made for warm nights even if the lyrics speak of heartbreak and fleeting romance.
Bucky drinks his cola. The cane sugar, the lime, the buche, and the warm night combine into something that has no name except this: East Austin, August, the four of them at a blue table under string lights the night before the drive west.
When they are done eating, Sam and Torres take the baskets to the bin near the trailer, Torres already talking about drive times tomorrow. Their backs are turned.
Bucky hears the clave drop into the next phrase and acts before the decision fully forms. He catches Steve’s hand as they stand in the middle of the lot, spins him out once—light and easy, matching the slow sway of the song—and brings him back in. Steve makes a surprised sound that is almost a laugh. Bucky catches him at the waist, holds him there in the gentle rhythm of the bolero, and kisses him quick and sure, the August night warm around them and the singer's voice curling through the air like an old promise.
Steve smiles. Right at him. Like he couldn't help it, and Bucky's heart can't help but do a flip.
Sam turns around from the trash bin.
He doesn't say anything. He just smirks, slow and deliberate, making sure both of them have seen it.
Torres looks over. His face breaks into a grin he doesn't try to contain.
For this scene, I was trying to look for the song they were dancing to. I landed on a bolero:
Here's my annotation of the lyrics:
Your price
(War)
Tu précio
I could have paid it
(He would have gone to war twice so Steve wouldn't have to. He was always capable of this level of sacrifice.)
Pude haberlo pagado
Without having to give you
Sin tener que entragar-te
My heart
(He lost himself for 70 years)
El corazon
Your cravings
(The machine of war swallowed him)
Tus ansias
I could have savored
(His youth before the vastness of war came, the years before spent happy with Steve even though they were poor)
Pude haber saboreado
I didn't know you were
(Couldn't see clearly the nature of the machine in his youth)
No sabia que eras
A fleeting romance
(Patriotism)
Romance de ocasion
Wicked
(HYDRA, the machine)
Malvada
You have shattered my soul
(Turning him into the Winter Soldier)
Mi alma has destroçado
The love I gave you
(Patriotism, fighting for his country)
El amor que te di
You exchanged for another
(The reality of procurement)
Por otro lo has cambiado
Your price
(Turning exceptional men into soldiers)
Tu précio
I could have paid it
(He would die for Steve, still would die for Steve)
Pude haberlo pagado
It's too late
(They both paid it. Irrevocably changed.)
es demasiado tarde
You've charged too much
(Both super soldiers with blood on their hands. The machine grinds on.)
mui caro lo has cobrado
---
And suddenly Bucky is not a character anymore. He's a person who paid too much and knows he paid too much and would pay it again and is dancing anyway on a warm night in August with Steve smiling at him like he couldn't help it.
Tu precio. Your price.
Bucky Barnes who spent seventy years as a procurement system's most refined product, dancing to a bolero about a love that charged too much. On a warm night in Austin. The night before they drive to the border.
And the song is addressed to the faithless lover. The thing that took everything and gave back nothing. And in my reading that's HYDRA, the Cold War's southern theater, the whole machine of war. The thing he gave his heart to without knowing what it was. No sabía que eras romance de ocasión. I didn't know you were a fleeting romance. I didn't know you were going to cost this much. I didn't know you were going to shatter my soul.
But here's what breaks me about the lyrics annotation.
Pude haberlo pagado. I could have paid it.
He's not saying he regrets it. He's not saying he wouldn't. He's saying the price was real and knowable and he was capable of paying it. Which means somewhere underneath everything, underneath the seventy years and the asset and the procurement and the conditioning, there was still a person who could have chosen this. Who had the capacity for this level of cost.
The machine didn't make him capable of paying that price. He brought that capacity with him.
That's the thesis. That's what separates my characterization from the standard "broken soldier" reading. Most Bucky narratives treat him as something that was destroyed and is being rebuilt. I am saying something more specific and more devastating: he was always this person. The capacity for that level of sacrifice was his before HYDRA touched him. The machine didn't create a weapon out of nothing. It found someone who would have burned himself down for love and country and redirected that. That's the horror. That's also the dignity.
No sabía que eras romance de ocasión. The faithless lover as patriotism, as the abstract ideal he gave everything to before he understood what it actually was. That's a classical structure, the beloved who turns out to be faithless, but I've made it political and personal simultaneously. He didn't know. He was twenty something and he didn't know what the machine was going to ask for. That's not naivety to be embarrassed about. That's just youth, and what war does to it.
And then es demasiado tarde. It's too late.
Which is true. You can't unpay what's been paid. The machine charged what it charged and took what it took and the years are gone and the people he knew are mostly dead and Steve came back through ice and time and that's a miracle but it doesn't refund the seventy years.
Too late. Too much. Cobrado. The transaction closed.
And he spins Steve out anyway.
That's the dance as theological defiance. Or something quieter than defiance. The acknowledgment that the price was real and too high and paid in full and here, anyway, is what survived the paying. Here is Steve smiling like he couldn't help it. Here is August in Austin. Here is the clave steady underneath everything.
The bolero is the tragedy. The dance is what tragedy looks like when it doesn't get the last word.
And Sam sees it. Sam who knows everything, who was there for the tarmac and the pardon, who watched these two men be unable to say a true thing to each other in the middle of a firefight. Sam turns around from the trash bin and smirks, slow and deliberate, making sure both of them have seen it.
Because Sam understands what he's watching. He's watching a man dance to a song about what it cost and choose to be here anyway. He's watching the price get paid forward into something that isn't tragedy anymore.
Torres grins and doesn't contain it because Torres is young enough to just feel the joy of it without the full weight of what's underneath.
Sam knows the weight. Sam smirks anyway. Because the weight and the joy are both true and this moment contains both and Sam Wilson has learned to hold both without flinching.
The song plays. The clave is steady. The August night is warm.
Mui caro lo has cobrado.
You charged too much.
And here we are anyway.
---
I already have two chapters of this fic published on AO3, if you are interested, here's the link:
Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes
Steve comes home after returning the stones but he wouldn't say why, only:
"Got my dance."
Now Bucky has to figure out if he's the one Steve wants or just what's left.
Real slow burn, like Nat Shermans.
(Post-Endgame and Flag-Smasher rewrite.)
Tags: Domestic Fluff, Mutual Pining, Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Idiots to Lovers, Found Family, Institutional Critique
Rating: Mature
Chapters: 16/26
Word Count: 4.5 k
[AO3 Link]
divider art by @pixopix, @saradika-graphics
Chapter 16: Tarmac
The apartment is too quiet.
Steve's been sitting with it for three days now. The low-grade wrongness of it feels like a cracked tooth before it breaks and it never goes away no matter how much you ignore it. The silence isn't peaceful. It's aggressive. It presses against his eardrums like atmospheric pressure before a storm.
Alpine sits on the windowsill, tail twitching, watching the street below. She's been doing that since Bucky left. Sitting in that exact spot, waiting. Cats know things. Steve's pretty sure she knows Bucky's not coming back on schedule.
He checks his phone for the hundredth time today. No new messages. No missed calls. The last text from Bucky is from three days ago, sent from the car on the way to Fort McNair: Got picked up. Talk soon.
Steve sets the phone down on the kitchen counter, carefully, like it might shatter. His hands are steady but they don't feel steady. Everything in his body is running too fast. Heart rate elevated, muscles tense, that coiled-spring feeling of adrenaline with nowhere to go.
He should eat something. When's the last time he ate? Yesterday? This morning? The sourdough bread is still on the counter, half a loaf left. Bucky made it three days ago, the night before he left. Steve cuts a slice, forces himself to chew. It tastes like sawdust in his mouth, even though objectively he knows it's good bread. Bucky's gotten really good at the bread.
The starter sits next to it, bubbling quietly in its jar. Steve fed it this morning. Twelve hours ago, like Bucky showed him. Every twelve hours. The routine helps. Gives his hands a physical task while his mind spins through worst-case scenarios on repeat.
Alpine jumps down from the windowsill, winds around his ankles. Steve picks her up, nuzzles his face in her fur. She tolerates it, purring, and for a moment the tightness in Steve's chest eases slightly.
"He's fine," Steve tells the cat. "He's fine. Five to seven days, he said. It's only been three."
Alpine's purr doesn't change. She doesn't believe him either.
Steve sets her down, pulls out his phone again. Opens his contacts. He's already tried the official channels. Called the DOD yesterday, got transferred three times before someone finally told him they couldn't discuss active operations. Tried again this morning, got the same runaround.
His security clearance is still active. He checked. Logged into the system, confirmed his credentials are valid, his access level unchanged. He could, theoretically, request operational briefings. Could find out where Bucky is, what he's doing, who's running the operation.
Except every time he tries, he hits a wall. Can't discuss active operations. You're not cleared for that briefing. Perhaps you should submit a formal request through proper channels.
They're stonewalling him. Deliberately.
Steve knows bureaucratic resistance when he sees it. This isn't standard operational security. This is someone, somewhere, deciding Steve Rogers doesn't get to know what they're doing with Bucky Barnes.
Which means whatever they're doing, they know Steve won't like it.
His phone buzzes in his hand. Steve's heart kicks up before he can stop it, but it's not Bucky. It's Sam.
Sam: You around? Need to talk. Important.
Steve's already typing back. Yeah. Where?
Sam: Your place. 20 minutes.
Steve looks around the apartment. Dishes in the sink. Bucky's jacket still hanging on the back of the chair. The bed they share unmade since Steve gave up pretending to sleep last night and just laid there staring at the ceiling instead.
He does the dishes. Gives himself something to do. The hot water scalds his hands but he doesn't adjust the temperature. Just scrubs plates and forks and the coffee mugs they used three mornings ago, when Bucky was still here, when Steve could still pretend everything was normal.
The mug Bucky used still has a faint coffee ring on the bottom. Steve scrubs it away and hates himself a little for the symbolism.
Eighteen minutes later, someone knocks. Steve's across the apartment and opening the door before the second knock falls.
Sam's there, and behind him is Torres, the Air Force lieutenant Steve met a few times, young guy, good instincts. Both of them look grim.
"Come in," Steve says, stepping aside.
Sam walks in, takes in the apartment, the half-loaf of bread, the starter, Alpine on her windowsill perch. "Bucky still gone?"
"Yeah."
"You heard from him?"
"No." Steve closes the door, turns to face them. "What's going on, Sam?"
Sam and Torres exchange a look. Torres is carrying a tablet, and he sets it on the kitchen table, opens it up.
"We've been doing some digging," Sam says carefully. "After I got back from the Flag-Smasher recon mission. Some things weren't adding up."
"What things?"
Torres pulls up files on the tablet. Financial records, transaction logs, pages of data Steve doesn't immediately parse. "The serum," Torres says. "The super soldier serum. We confirmed the Flag-Smashers have it—at least eight of their core members are enhanced. But we couldn't figure out where they got it."
"So we started tracing," Sam continues. "Looking at black market chatter, financial transactions, anything that might indicate serum changing hands."
Steve's stomach is sinking. He knows where this is going.
Torres highlights a series of transactions. "These are payments from a DOD black budget account. Routed through three shell companies, but I traced them back. They're purchasing serum. From a black market broker."
"The US government," Sam says slowly, "is buying super soldier serum on the black market."
Steve stares at the numbers on the screen. Dates, amounts, transaction IDs. All official. All deniable.
"They're using it for Walker," Steve says. His voice sounds distant to his own ears.
"Probably," Sam agrees. "But that's not all." He swipes to another screen. "We also found communications between DOD and CIA about operational deployment of enhanced assets against Flag-Smasher targets."
"Bucky," Steve says.
"Yeah." Sam's expression is tight. "Steve, I don't think they sent him on a consultation. I think they sent him to—"
"To kill them." Steve's hands curl into fists. "They're using him as an assassin."
"We don't know for sure—"
"Yes we do." Steve can feel his pulse in his temples, adrenaline flooding his system. "That's why they stonewalled me. That's why I can't get information. They knew I'd try to stop them."
Torres looks uncomfortable. "There's more. The Flag-Smashers hit a GRC facility in Berlin last week. Twelve casualties. Intel suggests they're planning a bigger hit—possibly the GRC summit in two days."
"And they sent Bucky alone." Steve's voice is flat. "Against eight to twelve enhanced individuals."
"According to the deployment orders we found, yes."
The room tilts slightly. Steve grips the edge of the table. They sent Bucky, one person, one asset, deniable and off-books, against a dozen super soldiers. Set him up to fail or die or both.
His phone buzzes. All three of them freeze.
Steve pulls it out. News alert.
BREAKING: US Embassy in Vilnius bombed. Multiple casualties. Flag-Smasher group claims responsibility.
The timestamp says twenty minutes ago.
Steve reads it twice. Three times. The words don't change.
"Jesus," Sam breathes.
Steve's already moving, pulling up more news coverage. The embassy is a crater. Smoke and flames. Early casualty reports say at least nine dead, dozens injured.
"Bucky was there," Steve says. His voice sounds strange. "He was there and he couldn't stop it."
"Steve—"
"They sent him to assassinate the leadership and he tried—he must have tried—and they bombed the embassy anyway." Steve's hands are shaking now. He sets the phone down before he crushes it. "Where is he? Is he hurt? Is he—"
"We don't know," Sam says quietly. "Communications are locked down. CIA's running the operation. We can't get confirmation on Barnes' status."
Steve crosses to the window, looks out at the street. The world is just going about its business. People walking dogs. Cars passing. Someone laughing on the sidewalk.
And in Vilnius, an embassy is burning. People are dead. And Bucky is somewhere in that city with no backup, no support, probably bleeding, definitely alone.
Steve's vision narrows. The edges go red.
"Steve," Sam says carefully. "I know what you're thinking. Don't."
"They used him." Steve's voice is very quiet. "They put a leash on him and used him as a weapon and now people are dead and he's—"
His phone buzzes again. Another news alert.
DoD deploys US Agent John Walker to Lithuania following embassy attack. Enhanced operative to lead counter-terrorism operation.
Steve reads it. Reads it again.
Walker. They're sending Walker. Not to help Bucky. To clean up after him. To do the job Bucky apparently couldn't do.
"I'm going," Steve says.
"Steve—"
"I'm going to Lithuania. I'm getting Bucky out of there."
"You can't just—" Sam stops. Tries again. "Look, I get it. I do. But if you deploy without orders, they can court-martial you. Your clearance won't protect you from that."
"I don't care."
"Steve—"
"Sam." Steve turns to face him. "They sent him alone. They set him up. And now they're sending Walker to finish what Bucky started, and Bucky's going to think—he's going to think he failed. He's going to think he wasn't good enough. And I can't—" His voice cracks. "I can't let him think that. I can't leave him there."
Sam's quiet for a long moment. Then he says, "okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay. You're right. This is bullshit. They used him, they set him up, and someone needs to go get him before this gets worse." Sam pulls out his phone. "I'll see what I can do about transport. But Steve—if you do this, there's no taking it back. You'll be deploying without authorization. They can bring you up on charges."
"Let them try."
"Alright." Sam starts making calls. "Give me an hour."
Steve nods. Tries to think. He needs gear. Needs to move. Needs to—
"I should go," Torres says quietly. "I'll keep digging, see if I can find anything else."
"Thank you," Steve tells him.
Torres nods, grabs his tablet, heads out.
Steve stands in the kitchen and tries to breathe. His heart is hammering. His hands won't stop shaking. The apartment is too quiet and too loud at the same time. The buzzing of the refrigerator, Alpine's breathing, the blood rushing in his ears.
Bucky's out there. Hurt, maybe. Alone, definitely. Thinking he failed, thinking he wasn't enough, thinking—
Steve doesn't let himself finish the thought.
He moves to the bedroom, pulls out his uniform from the back of the closet. Navy blue, white star, armor panels that fit like a second skin. He hasn't worn it since the Pentagon. Hasn't needed to. Hasn't wanted to.
He puts it on now. Piece by piece. The underlayer, the armor, the utility belt. Each buckle and strap and clip familiar from a hundred missions, a thousand drills.
The shield is in the closet too, propped in the corner where he left it after the Pentagon briefing. Vibranium, perfectly balanced, the paint worn at the edges from years of use. He picks it up. The weight settles across his back like coming home.
In the mirror, Captain America stares back at him.
Steve looks at his reflection and thinks: I said I was done with this.
But Bucky's in Lithuania. Bucky's hurt and alone and being used by the same government that's been using Steve for seventy years.
So maybe Steve's not done after all.
He packs a go-bag. Tactical gear, first aid supplies, spare ammunition. Everything he might need for a combat deployment in a foreign country without official sanction or backup.
Everything he needs to get Bucky out.
Sam calls back thirty minutes later. "Walker's deploying from Fort Benning. Wheels up at 0200 Eastern."
"Then that's where I need to be," Steve says.
"Steve, you know what this means. You show up there, you're going rogue. No authorization, no orders. Just you deciding to deploy yourself into an active operation."
"I know."
Sam's quiet for a moment. "Okay. Then I'm coming too. I'll meet you there."
"Sam—"
"Don't argue. You're going to need backup. Plus someone's got to keep you from doing something stupidly noble. Well, more stupidly noble than you're already doing."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. We're both probably going to get court-martialed for this." Sam pauses. "How are you getting there?"
"I'll figure it out."
"You're just going to show up at an airbase in Captain America gear and ask for a ride?"
"Probably."
Sam laughs, short, but genuine. "Yeah. That'll probably work. See you at Benning."
The line goes dead.
Steve looks at his reflection one more time. Captain America in full tactical gear, shield strapped to his back, go-bag at his feet.
But first—
He looks at Alpine, still on her windowsill. At the sourdough starter on the counter, bubbling away. At the apartment he and Bucky have been building into something like a home.
Someone needs to take care of these things. If Steve doesn't come back. If this goes sideways.
He picks up Alpine, scratches behind her ears. "Come on, cat. Let's go see Mrs. Kim."
Mrs. Kim answers on the second knock. She's in her seventies, tiny, with sharp eyes that speak of a woman whose family survived the Korean War, who emigrated with nothing and built a life through sheer stubborn will. She takes one look at Steve in his uniform, at the shield on his back, at Alpine in his arms, and her expression doesn't change.
"Come in," she says.
Steve follows her into her apartment. It smells like ginger and green tea, and there are photographs on every surface. Children, grandchildren, a life well-lived.
"I need to ask a favor," Steve says.
Mrs. Kim gestures to the kitchen table. Steve sits. Alpine jumps onto his lap, purring.
"You're going to get him," Mrs. Kim says. Not a question.
Steve's throat is tight. "Yes ma'am."
"Good." She reaches across the table, covers his hand with hers. Her skin is thin, spotted with age, but her grip is firm. "He's a good boy. Too serious, but good. He needs you."
"I need him too," Steve says quietly.
"I know." Mrs. Kim pats his hand. "You think I don't see? You think I don't know what you are to each other? I've been alive seventy-three years, Captain. I know what love looks like, even when the people in it are too stubborn to say it."
Steve can't speak.
"So you go," Mrs. Kim continues. "You go get him. Bring him home. I'll take care of the cat and the bread and the apartment. Everything will be here when you get back."
"What if I don't—" Steve stops. "What if we don't come back?"
Mrs. Kim's expression is fierce. "Then I will be very angry at both of you. So you make sure you come back."
Steve manages a smile. "Yes ma'am."
He shows her the apartment, where Alpine's food is, how to feed the sourdough starter. Mrs. Kim nods along, asks clarifying questions, writes nothing down because she doesn't need to.
At the door, she stops him. "Captain Rogers."
"Steve. Please."
"Steve." She looks up at him, this tiny woman who barely reaches his shoulder. "Bring him home safe. Both of you."
"I will," Steve promises.
He means it.
He pulls out his phone, books a rideshare to McGuire.
While he waits on the stoop, he watches a couple walk past with a dog, laughing about something, completely unaware that nine people just died in an embassy three time zones away. The world keeps doing that. Just keeps going.
The rideshare pulls up three minutes later. Steve gets in. The driver looks in the rearview mirror and says, "Holy shit."
"McGuire Air Force Base," Steve says. "Jersey."
"Yeah. Yes sir. Absolutely."
The driver doesn't say anything else, which is good, because Steve is not capable of conversation right now. He turns to the window and watches Brooklyn slide past and tries to think instead of feel, because feeling right now is a live wire and he can't afford it.
Nat would have seen this coming.
He can hear her so clearly sometimes it's almost cruel. That particular flatness she used when she was trying not to sound impatient with him, when she was explaining for the second or third time how the world actually worked versus how Steve wanted it to work.
Deniable asset, Steve. He can picture her at a safe house kitchen table somewhere, coffee going cold, hair in foil bleaching blonde, walking him through it like a chess problem. That's what provisional status means in practice. It means if this goes wrong, he never existed. No uniform, no unit, no official deployment. Just a man with a complicated legal history who was in the wrong place.
After the Accords, on the run, she'd had a lot of time to explain things like this. The gap between institutional language and institutional intent. The way "cooperation as needed" in a legal document translated to "available for use" in an operational one. Steve had been a slow student. Too much of him still wanted to believe the machinery was basically good, just occasionally mishandled.
It's not mishandled, Nat had said once, somewhere in Romania, rain against the windows. It's working exactly as designed. The design is just not what they told you it was.
He thinks about the stonewalling. The three transfers, the can't discuss active operations, the perhaps submit a formal request. That's not standard operational security. Operational security would be a clean no. What he got was deliberate friction, designed to slow someone down long enough for events to become irreversible.
Someone made a decision. Keep it covert. Keep it CIA. Because a military deployment means Congressional notification, means diplomatic friction with NATO allies, means questions about what American forces are doing in Lithuania chasing refugees with a super soldier. Too visible. Too many signatures required.
So they used Bucky instead. Who doesn't require signatures. Who exists in a legal gray space specifically designed to make him useful in situations like this.
The leash isn't a compromise, Nat's voice says in his head. It's the point.
Steve presses his forehead against the cold window glass.
The worst part isn't that they used him. The worst part is that Bucky probably knew. Probably understood exactly what was happening and went anyway, because the alternative was losing the provisional status entirely, and losing that means losing everything he's rebuilt. The apartment. The cat. The sourdough and the slow, painstaking work of becoming a person again.
They built the trap and then made it comfortable enough that walking into it felt like a choice.
The George Washington Bridge appears ahead, stark against the clear blue sky. Steve watches it and thinks about nine people in a burning embassy, and Bucky somewhere in that city alone, and the clinical line in whatever classified briefing Walker is reading right now: engagement unsuccessful.
As if Bucky failed. As if the system didn't fail him first.
The driver exits toward McGuire without being asked. Muscle memory, maybe, or just reading the situation. Either way Steve is grateful.
He takes a breath. Puts Nat's voice away, gently, the way you set something fragile down.
He can grieve later. Right now he has a flight to catch.
At the base, he walks through the terminal to the military annex. People stare. Someone pulls out their phone to take a picture.
Steve ignores all of it. Walks up to the military transport desk where a young airman is processing paperwork.
The airman looks up. His eyes go wide. "Captain Rogers?"
"I need transport to Fort Benning, Georgia. Immediately."
"Sir, I—do you have orders?"
"No."
The airman's mouth opens. Closes. "I... I can't authorize transport without—"
Steve leans forward slightly. Not threatening. Just present. "There's an operation deploying from Fort Benning in four hours. I need to be on the ground before wheels-up. Can you help me or do I need to find someone who can?"
The airman stares at him. Steve can see the internal struggle—regulations versus Captain America standing in front of him asking for help.
"I'll... let me make a call, sir."
"Thank you."
The airman picks up the phone, talks to someone in hushed tones. Hangs up. "There's a cargo flight leaving for Dobbins Air Reserve Base in fifteen minutes. They can divert to Benning. It's... not official, sir. I'm not supposed to—"
"I understand. Thank you."
"Gate 7, sir. They're expecting you."
Steve nods. Grabs his bag. Heads for Gate 7.
The cargo flight is a C-130, half-full of supplies and equipment. The loadmaster sees Steve coming and doesn't even ask for identification.
"Captain Rogers? Come on up. We'll get you to Benning."
Steve boards. Straps in. The flight is loud and cold and uncomfortable, but it's transport.
Four hours later, they touch down at Fort Benning.
The tarmac at Fort Benning is organized chaos at 0145 hours. The C-17's engines are warming up, maintenance crews running final checks. John's already loaded his gear, done his pre-flight checks twice. Lemar's securing his rifle case, methodical as always.
Around them, the rest of the team is loading up. Delta operators, CIA contractors, everyone moving with the particular habits of professionals who've done this a hundred times.
John does one more gear check. Shield secured. Sidearm loaded. Comms equipment tested. Everything exactly where it should be.
"You good?" Lemar asks.
"Yeah. You?"
"Always." Lemar hefts his pack. "Ready to meet the legend?"
John manages a tight smile. "As ready as I'll ever be."
They're halfway to the aircraft when someone shouts from the perimeter.
"Sir! Sir, you can't—"
John turns. There's commotion at the security checkpoint. Two MPs trying to block someone. But whoever it is, they're not stopping.
And then John sees him.
Captain America.
Steve Rogers walks onto the tarmac in full tactical gear, the shield strapped to his back catching the floodlights. He's not running. Not hurrying. Just walking with absolute purpose, and the MPs are stumbling after him looking like they don't know whether to tackle him or salute.
"Holy shit," Lemar breathes.
John can't move. Can't speak. Steve Rogers, the actual Steve Rogers, is walking straight toward their aircraft.
An officer jogs over, Major Hayes from logistics. "Captain Rogers! Sir, you're not on the manifest—"
"I'm going," Steve says. Not loud. Not aggressive. Just absolute certainty.
"Sir, this is a sanctioned operation. US Agent is mission lead. I can't authorize—"
"I don't care about authorization." Steve stops a few feet from the C-17's ramp. His eyes scan the tarmac, land on John. "My partner's in the field. Outgunned. I'm going."
My partner.
John's brain catches on that. Partner. Not "Sergeant Barnes." Not "a fellow Avenger." Partner.
"Captain Rogers," Hayes tries again, "if you deploy without authorization, there will be consequences. Court-martial, loss of clearance—"
"Then there will be consequences." Steve's voice is steel. "But I'm going."
Movement to John's left. Sam Wilson, the Falcon, walks onto the tarmac in his wingpack, coming from a different direction. He joins Steve, arms crossed.
"We're going," Sam says. "You want to court-martial us after, fine. But right now you've got an asset in hostile territory who needs backup."
Hayes looks between Steve and Sam, then at John. "Captain Walker, this is your operation. Do you want to—"
John should say no. Should follow protocol. Should stick to the mission parameters and let the chain of command handle Steve Rogers going rogue.
But he looks at Steve, at the exhaustion in his face, the barely-controlled desperation, the way his hands keep flexing like he's fighting the urge to just start running toward Lithuania on foot.
John knows that look. He's seen it on soldiers' faces in Afghanistan, in Colombia. The look of someone who's about to lose the person they love most and will burn the world down to stop it.
My partner.
"Sir," John says to Hayes, "Captain Rogers has more combat experience against enhanced targets than anyone on this team. If he wants to deploy, I'm not going to stop him."
Hayes stares at him. "Captain Walker—"
"And Mr. Wilson's assessment is correct. We have an operative in the field who may need backup. More assets is better than fewer." John turns to Steve. "You coming or standing there?"
Steve's expression shifts. Surprise, then something that might be gratitude. "Yeah. We're coming."
"Then load up. We're wheels-up in ten minutes."
Hayes opens his mouth to protest. John just walks past him, up the ramp into the C-17. Behind him, he hears Steve and Sam following.
Lemar catches up to John inside the cargo hold. "You know we're all going to get dragged into whatever shitstorm this becomes, right?"
"Probably."
"Just wanted to make sure you knew."
"I knew when I said it." John finds a seat, straps in. "We're going up against a dozen enhanced targets. Barnes already got hurt trying. Rogers has fought super soldiers, Hydra, Thanos. We need him."
"Doesn't mean you're happy about it."
"No. It doesn't." John buckles in, checks his gear for the third time. "But my job is to stop terrorists, not protect my ego. If Rogers can help do that, then I deal with the consequences later."
"Very mature of you."
"Yeah, well. We'll see if I still feel that way when we're all in front of a court-martial board."
Steve and Sam board. Steve secures his gear, sits across from John. For a moment, their eyes meet.
"Thank you," Steve says quietly.
"Don't thank me yet. We still have to actually get him out."
"We will."
Steve says it with such absolute certainty that John almost believes him.
The loadmaster calls out, "Secure for takeoff!"
The ramp closes. The engines roar to life. The C-17 starts taxiing.
Barnes got hurt. Barnes, who's survived everything from WWII to HYDRA to Thanos, got outgunned by these kids and couldn't stop the embassy bombing. nine people died. And now John's supposed to go in there with two months of serum experience and hope for the best?
He thinks about Olivia. About the conversation they had before he left. Come home safe. He promised he would.
Steve Rogers just increased his odds of keeping that promise.
Everything else, the chain of command, the optics, whether this makes John look weak, doesn't matter if he's dead.
They're wheels-up at 0152, six hours to Vilnius.
Six hours until this all either works out or goes catastrophically wrong.
Across from him, Steve Rogers sits with his eyes closed, hands gripping the shield in his lap, every line of his body tense.
John leans his head back against the bulkhead and tries not to think about what he's just done.
I have reworked the entire explicit section at the end of Soft Landing and I don't even know who to ask for feedback. Please help me. 🥲 (also obviously this is spoiler if you have not finished reading it on ao3. It's pure slow burn smut payoff)
The door closes behind them.
Streetlight comes through the window and spills onto the carpet in a long pale rectangle. The apartment is quiet. Alpine is somewhere in the office that was never a bedroom, doing whatever Alpine does when they're out, and the apartment feels like a place that has been waiting.
Steve is aware of the rings on both their hands.
He steps closer to Bucky in the dark of the entryway, wanting contact, his hands finding the lapels of Bucky's jacket and holding there without pulling.
He thinks about a Friday night ninety years ago and more. The pool hall on Flatbush, or the pictures, or whatever was cheap and close. That tiny cold-water flat they shared, the one with the window that didn't close all the way and the radiator that made sounds like it was dying. Bucky always had the key. Always got to the door first and unlocked it and Steve was small and half a step behind, and there was something about the width of Bucky's shoulders in the doorway, the way he'd turn back to check Steve was there.
Steve had wanted to lean into him then. Every time. Put his forehead against Bucky's shoulder and pretend he was more drunk than he was and stay there.
He never did.
He gets to now.
He doesn't even finish the thought before Bucky's mouth finds his.
It starts soft and goes somewhere else almost immediately, the urgency rising fast, Bucky kissing him like he's been patient all evening and the patience is done now. Steve makes a sound against his mouth, embarrassing, something he doesn't try to stop, and Bucky swallows it whole.
He has me. Bucky has me. He's always had me.
Bucky's hand comes up his side, finds the small of his back, pulls him in until there's no space left between them, their hips pressed together, and Steve feels exactly how much Bucky wants him. Bucky is not being subtle about it. Bucky is letting him feel all of it, the press of it unmistakable, and something in Steve's chest and lower reacts by instinct when Bucky stops being careful.
The kiss turns rougher and Steve's hands tighten on the lapels.
Everything feels like fire that doesn't burn, like stepping into a bath so warm your whole body exhales at once, the heat everywhere, the urgency no less real for the warmth of it and no less demanding. He is completely present in his body in a way that doesn't always come easy and tonight it's effortless, tonight there is nowhere else to be.
Bucky's hands move, expert and deliberate. The button of Steve's jeans gives without fuss.
Bucky pulls back just enough. His voice is rough and low, dropped down to something that lands directly in Steve's sternum.
"Gonna take you apart tonight."
Not a question, not a threat. A promise.
Steve looks at him in the streetlight coming through the window. At this man. At the yellow gold band on his own hand and the platinum band on Bucky's. At Bucky's face in the dark, certain and present and wanting him, specifically him.
"Yeah," Steve says, and his voice comes out rough too. "Okay."
Steve reaches for the jacket. Bucky lets him, stands still in the low light while Steve pushes it back off his shoulders and down his arms and lets it drop somewhere. Then the shirt. Steve's fingers work the buttons slowly, not performing patience. He just wants to do this himself, wants the specific task of uncovering Bucky.
The shirt falls open and Steve's hands still.
The arm catches the light. The left arm, the vibranium and the gold Wakandan accent, the design running along the plates in the low streetlight coming through the window, gleaming. It has always been part of Bucky—Steve understood that a long time ago, made his peace with it and then past peace into something else, into just this is Bucky. All of it. The flesh and the metal and the gold and the man underneath looking at Steve with his bangs falling across his forehead and his eyes half-lidded and dark and focused entirely on Steve.
Steve's mouth is watering.
Then he's sitting on the edge of the bed and Bucky puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back and Steve goes, lets himself be moved because Bucky is moving him and they are a matched set, two sides of the same thing, and Bucky's hand on his chest knows exactly where Steve's center of gravity is because Bucky has always known that.
Steve is big now, has been for eighty years. The serum made him broad and strong and capable of carrying more than a body should carry and he has carried it, all of it, for a very long time.
Bucky can still make him feel small.
Not small like before, not the asthma and the cold winters and the body that kept failing him. Small like kept. Small like belonging completely to someone who knows exactly what they have. Bucky is looming over him in the low light, the vibranium arm braced beside Steve's head, hair falling forward, and Steve is underneath him feeling wonderful, like being inside something warm that was built for him, like the whole world has narrowed down to this bed and this man and the weight of him, and Steve doesn't have to hold anything up right now, doesn't have to be anything except here.
He just has to be Bucky's.
He reaches up and pushes the hair out of Bucky's face, and Bucky turns his head slightly and presses his mouth to Steve's palm and looks at him.
Steve thinks, ninety years. We took the long way.
Bucky's mouth finds his throat. Teeth first, then the flat of his tongue, then teeth again at the soft spot under his jaw, and Steve's whole body arches up toward it without permission. He's already hard, has been since the bridge probably, since the door, since Bucky's hand on his chest pushing him back onto the bed like Steve was something to be arranged, something worth arranging, and he gets harder.
"Bucky—"
He hears himself say it and doesn't quite mean to, his voice doing something embarrassing, and Bucky makes a sound against his ear that is low and pleased, like he got exactly what he wanted and intends to keep getting it.
Then Bucky's hand is inside his boxers.
The center of his palm makes contact first, slow and knowing, pressing against the tip, and Steve's breath leaves him completely. Then Bucky's fingers wrap around him and Steve breathes out something that is barely a word.
Yes.
Bucky works him slow and thorough, the way he is thorough about everything that matters, that same focused attention he gives bread dough and security assessments and the exact placement of objects on a shelf. Steve is something worth tending to properly.
Steve lets go.
He can hear the sounds coming out of his own throat and he's also somewhere else, floating just above himself, watching Steve Rogers come completely undone on a Saturday night in April in a Brooklyn bedroom with streetlight on the carpet and a vibranium arm gleaming in the dark. It should feel like too much. It feels like exactly enough.
Bucky's mouth moves down his throat, biting words into his skin like he's writing them there, leaving marks that will fade by morning because of what they are, but that doesn't matter because Bucky will just write them again.
Mine, the teeth say.
Always, the tongue says after.
"God I want to taste you." Bucky's voice is rough against his jaw, muffled, his hand still moving. "I want to fucking taste you."
The words land somewhere low and direct and Steve's hips roll up.
"Then taste me," Steve says, and his voice doesn't sound like his voice. "Buck. Come on."
Bucky doesn't wait.
His hand moves from Steve's chest, palm flat, trailing down his sternum, his ribs, the plane of his stomach, slow and deliberate, taking inventory of something that belongs to him now because it's official and irrevocable, and Bucky is going to take his time about it. Steve watches him.
Bucky settles lower. His mouth finds the trail of hair below Steve's navel and he just stays there, cheek pressed low, not rushing, breathing him in. This is the thing Bucky does, has always done in these months of learning each other, this specific thing that undoes Steve faster than anything else: Bucky smelling him, taking his time about it, like he wants to savor Steve before he begins. It's always intoxicating. Steve cannot look away.
Then Bucky's lips are on him, just a flick of tongue against the soft spot where everything meets.
Steve jumps, his whole body startling at that single point of contact, oversensitive already, too wound up from the hand and the mouth on his throat and the months of Bucky learning exactly where to go. Bucky knows. He's always known, has been cataloguing Steve's responses with the same patient thoroughness he brings to everything, memorizing what makes Steve's breath hitch and what makes him lose language entirely.
Steve's hand goes into Bucky's hair.
Bucky makes a low sound against him, pleased, and Steve is saying something, he can hear himself, but he doesn't know what the words are anymore, doesn't know if they're words at all, just sound coming out of him while Bucky takes his time in the dark.
Bucky's mouth takes him deep.
At the same time his fingers find him, teasing slow, no urgency in it, steady and patient like he has nowhere else to be. Steve feels himself relaxing by degrees, the light stretch of it, the intimacy of being known this way and tended to this way.
We have two weeks, some part of Steve thinks.
We have forever.
The thought arrives so simply and so completely that he almost laughs, would laugh, wants to laugh, the happiness of it rising up through everything else, this absurd overflowing feeling of being here, being this, together in their bed in their apartment with the rings on both their hands and two weeks of nowhere to be and forever after that.
Then Bucky's tongue does something.
The laugh doesn't happen. What happens instead is Steve's hips rolling up, thrusting into the wet heat of Bucky's mouth without deciding to, his whole body moving toward Bucky because his body has always known before his mind does, has always been trying to get to Bucky, has been trying for ninety years.
Bucky lets him. Takes it, holds him steady with both hands, the flesh and the metal, and takes everything Steve gives and asks for more, because he has planned this evening down to the parking spot and is not done with Steve yet.
Steve's hand tightens in Bucky's hair.
Bucky pulls back. Steve makes a sound of protest that he will not be acknowledging later, his hand tightening in Bucky's hair, and Bucky lifts his head anyway and looks up at him from the dark.
Not done, his eyes say. Not even close.
He gets up and crosses to the nightstand, opens the drawer. The shape of him in the low light, the arm catching it. He comes back with a small bottle, sets it on the bed beside Steve's hip, and Steve watches him tip it into his palm, set the bottle down, press both hands together and work the oil between them until it's warm. He doesn't rush this either. Of course he doesn't.
Then his hands are on Steve.
The oil arrives warm, which Steve wasn't expecting, and he exhales completely, Bucky's palm moving over him slow, coating him thoroughly, generous with it, more than once, until Steve can feel the slick of it everywhere, until he is gleaming in the dark, sensitive and slick.
Bucky's thumb moves. The base of him first, then lower, his hand cupping, fingers moving in slow patient circles, and Steve's head goes back. One hand drifts lower still, cupping him heavy, and he starts to play. Gentle at first, rolling and tugging lightly downward, then massaging in slow circles with his palm, kneading the sensitive skin behind and pressing just enough to make Steve's hips twitch. Every pull, every squeeze draws a low groan from deep in Steve's chest.
He's still making sounds and he knows it, can hear himself distantly, and cannot do anything about it and doesn't try.
Bucky pulls gently. A careful stretch, deliberate, feeling Steve's response before doing anything further, waiting for the exhale. Then again, and Steve's hips move without permission.
Bucky's mouth finds his inner thigh. Steve's whole body startles at the soft press of lips against that thin skin, oversensitive everywhere now, the contrast of the cool air and the warm mouth almost too much. Bucky does it again slower and then stays there. Steve's hand goes into his hair because he needs to hold onto something.
Then Bucky's thumb moves further, just brushing the soft tissue there, the skin between, and Steve stops breathing for a moment.
Bucky feels it. Feels Steve's whole body register what that touch means, what comes next, and he lifts his eyes, looks at Steve, then reaches for the bottle again.
Steve watches him. His whole body is anticipating.
Bucky's hands find his legs. No words, just the light pressure of his palms on the backs of Steve's thighs, moving them, and Steve lets himself be moved, lets Bucky fold him back and open him up and arrange him exactly where he wants him. The position is more exposed than anything before it. Steve can feel the air on him, can feel how completely he's been opened for Bucky's consideration, and he doesn't look away.
Bucky looks at him for a moment, taking in what he's arranged, then tips the bottle into his palm.
This is slower than the first time, more deliberate, Bucky working the oil warm between his fingers before he touches Steve there, that same patient gentleness, and Steve's breath goes shallow waiting for it.
When it arrives it's just one finger, barely, the pad of it circling without entering, learning the give of him. Steve's hands grip the sheets.
Come on, some part of him thinks. Come on, I can—
His hips tilt forward and Bucky's finger stills. His other hand finds Steve's cock without hurry, wraps around him easy like he'd been expecting this, and Steve's breath leaves him in a rush. Bucky works him slow, the slick drag of it, until Steve's hips settle, until he stops pushing.
Then back.
The finger again, circling, then the first careful press inward and Steve's mouth falls open at the stretch of it, the sensation of it like nothing else.
More, his body says. Faster.
He tilts his hips again and Bucky's finger stills again. The hand returns to his shaft, Bucky's thumb tracing the underside of him slow, while his other hand waits, patient as stone, patient like he's decided this is going to go exactly one way and Steve's impatience is not a variable he's accounting for.
Steve makes a sound that is almost a word.
Bucky looks up at him. His expression says nothing except I know and no and stay with me.
Steve exhales. He lets go of the sheets.
Bucky feels it, the moment Steve stops trying to manage this and actually receives it. His finger moves again, deeper, giving Steve the stretch properly, feeling his response before adding anything, waiting for the exhale before he moves again, and Steve's head goes back.
The sensation is different from what he'd braced for. Not the quick hard thing his body had been impatient for. Just as he was settling into the sensation of the fullness and the presence and the intimacy of being opened carefully by someone who knows you, Bucky withdraws.
Steve's breath catches at the absence of it, his body registering the loss before his mind does, leaving him bereft. Then Bucky is moving up his body, the warm weight of him settling over Steve, and Steve feels the heaviness of him, the hard length of him pressing against his own.
Bucky puts his mouth against Steve's ear.
"You're mine." His voice is rough, frayed at the edges, like it takes effort to keep it this low. "You've always been mine."
Steve's hands find his back.
Then Bucky's mouth is on his, tongue sliding slow against his, and at the same time the ghost of oil-slicked fingers returns to his entrance, circling, not entering, patient as ever, and Steve cannot locate a single coherent thought because there is only Bucky's weight and Bucky's mouth and Bucky's hand and the slow unbearable tease of it.
Buck—
The thought doesn't finish. There's nothing to finish it with.
When Bucky pulls back Steve feels the wider stretch, and his breath stutters.
His hips want to move and he holds them still this time without being redirected, the small hard work of it, staying where Bucky has put him.
Bucky notices. Something in his face shifts.
His hand moves back to Steve, not redirecting this time but rewarding, the gentle weight in his palm, massaging slow, while he enters Steve slow and steady, and Steve makes a sound he has never heard himself make before. Both sensations at once, the stretch and the pleasure, Bucky tending to all of him simultaneously, not one thing and then another but everything together, and Steve's whole body arches up into it helplessly.
"Buck—please—"
Bucky's eyes are on his face the whole time, watching, learning the exact sound Steve made and the exact moment he made it.
Steve looks back at him. At this man who has had a plan all evening, who warmed the oil in his hands, who will not be rushed and will not let Steve rush either, who is currently taking him apart with the same focus he gave the parking spot and the dresser drawer and the lint roller and the restaurant, all of it, every piece of this evening constructed so that Steve would end up exactly here: folded open, completely attended to, receiving it.
Bucky grinds his hips forward again.
Steve stops thinking entirely.
It's going to be a long night, and Steve doesn't mind at all.
If you want to read the full fic please head over to ao3 :)
