Summary : Benjamin Poindexter was hired to eliminate you, a former Red Room Widow. Unfortunately, he keeps putting it off because he likes going on dates with you a little too much.
Pairing : DDBA! Benjamin Poindexter x Black Widow! reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : freak 4 freak (?), Violence, Explicit Content (Dex is a munch and kinda has an oral fixation), Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Manipulation, lowkey gunplay, crying during sex, The Red Room is mentioned to use food as a form of control, alcohol consumption. (Let me know if I miss anything.) set between DDBA s1&s2 (let me know if I missed anything!)
Word Count : 17.7k
Requested by : anon
Notes : This was written before I watched the season finale, and also inspired by a song of the same title by Gang of Youths. Enjoy!
Dex was trying to be good.
It sounded ridiculous, even in his own head. It was as if he had borrowed this part of his conscience from someone else’s life, someone who hadn’t been made into a weapon, manipulated and exploited over and over again. But still, he tried.
Being good, as it turned out, wasn’t something you could just decide. There was no moment where goodness just clicked into place, there was no sudden clarity where he understood how to live without the violence that had always defined him. He didn’t have the tools for that, so he simplified it.
He only knew how to aim, how to follow through, how to kill. So he told himself that if he pointed all of that in the right direction, it would count. It had to count.
Bad people existed. That much was obvious. And if bad people were gone, then… that had to count for something, right?
The Anti-Vigilante Task Force were easy enough to categorize as bad. They hunted vigilantes, tried to shut down the kind of people Dex had convinced himself were doing something close to good. And vigilantes were good. They had to be.
So if he removed the ones hunting them, if he cut those threads before they tightened around someone else’s throat, then that meant he was helping. It meant he was balancing something, somewhere, even if no one was there to see it. Even if no one thanked him. Even if the city didn’t change at all.
That was how he justified it. The only problem was that no one paid him for being good.
His rent didn’t care about intention. His bills didn’t pause because he was trying. The notice on his counter sat there, the very proof that the world moved even as he was laying down the foundations of whatever moral framework he was trying to build. Dex had been ignoring it for days, like it might disappear if he didn’t acknowledge it.
He was staring at it when his phone buzzed.
The sound was unsettling, mostly because Dex knew that people only messaged him for one of two reasons nowadays: to threaten him (best possible outcome, he could handle it) or to give him a job. When he looked at the notification, he knew it was going to be the latter.
The text came from an unknown sender. It was encrypted, of course. Dex picked it up slowly, thumb hovering for just a second. He frowned. He really shouldn’t. This was the part of his life he was supposed to be moving away from. He opened it anyway.
The file loaded quickly. As he suspected, it was an anonymous contract labeled high priority, with a bounty of… oh.
2.5 million dollars.
Dex leaned back slightly, exhaling through his nose as that figure settled into place. It was much more than rent or bills. This kind of money would give him… breathing room. It would fund his good deeds for years. It would help his progress, right?
His eyes moved down to the target profile: a Former Red Room Widow.
Objective: extract intel regarding active Red Room operatives.
Secondary objective: termination upon completion.
Dex’s knuckles shifted slightly as he kept reading, attention narrowing the deeper he went. This wasn't a surface-level hit, like the usual contracts pushed into his number. He usually got the odd job of eliminating a business man’s biggest competitor (he never took those anymore) or a mother giving most of her life savings to him to kill her abusive husband (he did those ones more often than not), but this wasn’t it. Whoever had put this together knew what they were doing. They layered intel, cross-referenced sightings, stitched fragments of reports into something coherent enough to act on.
And then there was the ledger. Not labeled that way, but Dex knew what he was looking at.
Target Activity Log (Condensed):
Kiev — 12 confirmed targets, political dissidents turned assets. Execution, no witnesses.
Istanbul — Arms broker extraction turned termination. 7 additional casualties during exfiltration.
Lagos — Undercover infiltration of rival weapons trafficking ring. Operation successful. Entire network eliminated. Collateral: high.
Madripoor — Unverified mission overlap with Yelena Belova. Outcome classified.
Buenos Aires — Diplomatic attaché poisoning. Death delayed 48 hours to avoid suspicion.
Moscow — Internal Red Room purge survivor. Multiple handlers eliminated.
Dex’s thumb paused against the screen as he read through it again. The pattern was obvious to him in a way it wouldn’t be to anyone else. This wasn’t chaos. This wasn’t someone losing control. On the contrary, this was someone who was terrifyingly in control.
This target was a dangerous killer, and Dex didn't arrive at the conclusion lightly.
He liked patterns, needed them. They made the world more predictable to the point where he could sort through without it splintering into noise. And this file was full of patterns.
He scrolled back up, then down again, slower this time, eyes catching on the details most people would skip over: the timings, the methods.
The target made clean exits where possible and didn’t care much about collateral. Every action fed into the next like it had been mapped out long before the target ever stepped into the room.
Dex’s jaw tightened slightly as he read through the Kiev entry again. Twelve victims. It was not a firefight. It was twelve decisions. Twelve moments where the target could have stopped and didn’t. Istanbul, seven more added during exfiltration. They were not part of the objective, but handled anyway.
He understood that, and that meant he also understood what it took to do it.
You didn’t rack up a body count like that by accident. You didn’t walk away from operations like Madripoor, with entire networks wiped out and “high collateral” written off like a footnote, unless something in you had already accepted the outcome before it happened.
Dex leaned back slightly, phone still in his hand, thumb hovering but unmoving now.
People liked to pretend there was a line. A moment where someone chose to be good or bad and stuck to it. But that wasn’t how it worked. It was smaller than that. It was in the repetition. And this file read like repetition, over and over. It might happen in different cities and to different victims, but it always had the same result.
Dex couldn’t find signs of deviation or hesitation. There was no indication that the target ever stopped to question it.
His eyes flicked back to the ledger, this time reading the latest additions, entries that hadn’t had time to settle into history yet.
Recent Activity:
Prague — Corporate intermediary tied to OXE shell accounts. Interrogation lasted 18 minutes. Target terminated. Two security casualties. No witnesses.
DODC Supermax Prison — Perimeter sweep. Three armed contacts neutralized before engagement escalated. Surveillance equipment disabled. Exit undetected.
New York — Intelligence courier intercepted en route to New Avengers safehouse. Package recovered. Courier terminated. Civilian exposure: none.
Right.
The target was still active.
“Yeah,” Dex muttered, more to himself than anything else.
That was what tipped it for him.
Because even now, even with everything he’d done, Dex felt the resistance. The part of him that tried, however poorly, to redirect what he was into a force for good. The file didn’t show that.
It showed someone who had been made into a weapon and never really tried to put it down. That meant the target wasn’t in the same place he was. This target wasn’t trying to balance the scales like he was.
And that made this person not a good person in a way he could act on.
His eyes looked to the image of the target, like he was trying to reconcile the almost fragile and delicate-looking features with everything he’d just read. It didn’t match. It never did. Faces rarely carried the weight of what they’d done. But the file didn’t lie. The patterns didn’t lie.
Dex exhaled slowly, and decided this person was bad.
Not because of one mission. Not because of one mistake. But because of all of it stacked together.
And at this point, in order to preserve what precious progress he had made, he’d rather kill a killer for rent than his landlord. That would be inconvenient.
His thumb moved, tapping the file open fully, letting the image expand across the screen.
And for the first time, Dex really looked at you.
—
Dex expected you to be harder to find.
Most people with a body count like yours didn’t settle. They didn’t usually stay anywhere long enough to be known, didn’t leave behind anything that could be traced twice in the same way. He expected burner phones, rotating safehouses, and multiple fake ids that dissolved the second they were used.
But you hadn’t done that.
You were… easy. He found your address almost immediately. He found your number, your card details, and your passport quite quickly.
It took him a couple of hours to accept that it wasn’t an error in the data. Financial records were always messy, layered under shells and proxies, but not impossible. He followed the money the same way he followed anything else— patiently, methodically, letting the inconsistencies stand out instead of forcing them to make sense too quickly. One payment turned into a trail, then into repetition.
But still, he found nothing out of the ordinary. You were just a regular person living in New York, paying rent on time. Unlike him this month.
He stared at the screen longer than he needed today. The more he followed it, the clearer it became that this wasn’t temporary, wasn’t a waypoint or a cover that would disappear in a week. You weren’t passing through. You weren’t hiding. You were living here.
The rest of the records only reinforced it. He found your utility bills, with groceries spaced out in a way that suggested routine. He found nothing excessive, nothing careless. It was almost jarring, how normal it looked on paper, for someone with a history soaked in blood.
Next, Dex visited your building and expected that to be where the illusion broke, maybe an indication that this was all a front.
There wasn’t anything.
It was just a building. Unremarkable, forgettable in the way most of the city was. There were no visible security upgrades, no controlled access beyond the standard high rise. There was nothing that suggested someone with your file should be walking in and out of it every day.
He watched long enough to be sure. You came and went at predictable times, no visible countersurveillance, no adjustments to your movements that suggested you thought you were being watched. You carried your own groceries up the steps. You held the door open for someone once, an older man who thanked you without hesitation, like you were just another tenant, just another face he recognized in passing.
Dex didn’t like that it didn’t fit the rest of you. So he kept digging, because if there was going to be a crack, it would be in the routine and… you had one.
It took him three days to map it out in full, not because it was complicated, but because it wasn’t. You woke early. You jogged through Central Park along the same route almost every morning at the same pace, like it was muscle memory. You didn’t scan constantly, didn’t treat every passerby like a potential threat. You just ran.
After that, you hadcoffee at the same place every time, the same order.
Dex watched all of it from a distance, writing it down in his little notebook. He told himself it was for this job, that he needed to remember things accurately if he was going to finish the job.
By the fourth day, he knew watching wasn’t enough. It never had been. Patterns only got you so far before they started turning into assumptions, and assumptions got people wrong.
The problem was, he didn’t have a plan for that. He wasn’t a spy. He didn’t build relationships, didn’t ease his way into proximity.
But standing across the street, watching you disappear into the crown like you’d done every morning that week, he understood one thing clearly enough: He didn’t know how he was going to do this. He just knew he had to get closer.
—
The next day, he “accidentally” ran into you on that jogging trail in Central Park.
He already knew the exact time your foot would hit the gravel. All he had to do was figure which way you were going: was it the route you’d take when you wanted to clear your head, or the one you’d take when you wanted a challenge?
He waited outside your apartment today and…. You were taking the hard route.
He followed, and his plan of taking you until you got to the cafè, where he would sit next to you, would’ve been perfect until… Dex timed it wrong.
He knew he did the second he adjusted his pace to match yours and felt the rhythm slip. He was too fast for a clean pass, too close for it to look incidental.
This wasn’t what he was good at. There was no distance. Only proximity and the vague, uncomfortable awareness that if you were anything like the file said you were, you’d clock him immediately.
You didn’t. You just kept running.
He tried to correct it, cutting slightly across your path like he meant to pass you, like he belonged in your space. The movement was off by half a second, just enough to turn clumsy. His shoulder clipped yours, momentum carrying him forward a step too far. You caught before you could trip and looked at him like, what the hell, man?
“—shit, sorry,” Dex said quickly, breathing unevenly. He turned back, forcing himself to meet your eyes. “I didn’t… are you okay?”
Up close, everything went a little sideways.
He’d seen your photo. But a still image didn’t account for the way you actually were when you looked at him. You were focused, yes, but there was no immediate suspicion or recalculation behind your eyes. He could tell you were doing a quick assessment and—
“You’re fine,” you huffed, brushing it off like it really had been nothing.
Dex blinked once, recalibrating, trying to drag himself back to the whole point of this endeavour: Intel.
Simple, right?
Except now you were standing there, waiting just long enough that it demanded a response.
Right. Say something. Anything.
“Uh… there’s a coffee place just up ahead,” he heard himself say, the words coming out before he could fully filter them. “I can make it up to you. Buy you one or something.”
There was a lull of silence where even he registered what he’d just done.
That wasn’t part of any plan. That was stupid.
Dex forced himself not to react to it outwardly, even as his chest tightened in irritation. This wasn’t how he should’ve handled a target like you. He shouldn’t’ve improvised like this. What was he thinking, basically asking you out like some idiot who didn’t know what he was doing?
But you were still just looking at him.
And up close, all he could think about was how… disarming you were.
That was the word his brain landed on, unhelpfully. You made him lower their guard without realizing he was doing it.
Dex swallowed, keeping his expression neutral, like this was intentional, like this was just another step in a plan he actually had control over.
This is for intel, he told himself, firmly. Just intel via proximity. That’s all this is.
You tilted your head slightly, considering him in a way that made him feel, for a split second, like he was the one being assessed.
“Coffee?” you repeated.
“Yeah,” he said, a little more steady now. “Least I can do.”
“For what?” you managed an amused chuckle, and Dex could’ve sworn that hearing you make that noise lit up the world around him. “bumping into me? Is this a line?”
“I just…” he stammered, and bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ve seen you around.”
I’ve seen you around??? He mentally slapped himself. What kind of fucking stupid explanation is that? What does that have to do with anything?
Surprisingly, though, all you did was tilt your head and said, “Okay.”
Oh?
Dex forced himself to nod once, like he’d expected it, like this hadn’t just gone completely off-script.
“Okay,” he echoed, turning slightly to fall into step beside you as you started moving again.
He kept his focus forward, matching your pace, already running through what he needed to ask, what he could realistically get without pushing too hard, how to steer the conversation where he needed it to go.
And still, somewhere in the back of his mind, something felt off. Dex ignored it, because this was a job. You were a target.
And this was just the easiest way to get what he needed. Nothing more.
—
The café was small, tucked between a bookstore and a laundromat.
On the way there, you exchanged your names— he said he was “Tony,” and you, surprisingly, had given him your real name. You were easy to talk to, and you talked about the weather, the park, the surprisingly little snow last winter.
When you got to the café, Dex was relieved to see that it wasn’t too crowded, just a couple of people on laptops, a murmur of conversation, the hiss of the espresso machine every so often. Fewer variables, Fewer eyes.
You ordered first: iced latte, like you’d done it a hundred times. He followed with an Americano, mostly because he panicked and it sounded normal enough.
Now he sat across from you, fingers loosely wrapped around the glass cup, watching the condensation bead along the outside of your glass as you stirred your drink with your straw. You looked… relaxed.
You took a sip, then glanced at him over the rim, and there was mischief in your expression. A second later, you let out a giggle, tapping the straw lightly against the lid.
“So,” you said, dragging the word out just a little. “Why does Bullseye want to take me out to coffee?”
Dex choked.
It wasn’t subtle. The coffee went down the wrong way, and he had to turn his head slightly, coughing into his fist. For a split second, he thought he might actually spit it out all over you, which—thank fuck—the café being mostly empty made slightly less of a disaster.
His eyes snapped back to you.
“…You knew?” he asked.
You blinked at him like that was the stupidest question you’d heard all day, then shrugged, taking another sip like this was a casual conversation. “Of course,” you said. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know me.”
There was no accusation in it. You said it as if it was a fact.
Dex just stared at you. His brain tried to catch up, running through possibilities, angles, trying to figure out where this had gone wrong. Had you clocked him earlier? On the run? Before that? Had he missed an obvious tell?
You didn’t look alarmed. You didn’t look like you were about to bolt or reach for a weapon. If anything, you looked… curious.
“Oh,” he said, because that was all that came out at first.
Great. Perfect. Real smooth.
He forced himself to take another sip of his coffee, buying a second to gather his thoughts, to shove everything back into place where it belonged.
She’s a target. This is a job.
“Yeah,” he added, steadier now, nodding once like this hadn’t just blindsided him. “I mean—yeah. I just…” His teeth tightened for half a second before he settled on the first thing that felt even remotely usable. “I’m a fan of your work.”
You didn’t react immediately. You watched him over your drink, eyes narrowing slightly.
Dex held your eyes, forcing himself not to overcorrect, to let it breathe. Let it land.
“Right,” you said finally. You didn’t sound entirely convinced, but you let it go.
The silence stretched, but not too uncomfortably. It was just charged. You knew there was no chance of going back to a civilian conversation as you leaned back slightly, exhaling.
“Alright. No, we’re not doing this version,” you decided, more to yourself than him. Then you straightened again, meeting his eyes properly. “Can we start over?”
Dex blinked, thrown just enough to answer honestly. “I… yeah.”
You nodded once, resetting playfully.
“Hi. You already know my name, so I’m skipping that part,” you said, gesturing vaguely with your cup. “I’m a former Red Room Widow. I live in New York now.”
You said it like a random woman introducing themself as an accountant.
Dex opened his mouth, then closed it to filter through the responses. “Hi,” he tried again, because apparently that was all he had today.
You waited.
“Hi,” he repeated, then dragged a hand down his face, exhaling through his nose. “I’m Dex. Not—” he made a vague, frustrated gesture, “not Tony, I don’t…”
Your lips twitched. “I got that.”
“Right. Yeah.” He nodded once, a bit too quickly. Then, as if he was forcing the words out his throat. “I’m… a good guy.”
The second it left his mouth, he knew how weird it sounded. You blinked at him. Then, to his surprise, you chuckled, and it was not unkind.
“Hi, Dex Not Tony,” you said, teasing him. “That’s a strong introduction.”
His mouth pressed into a thin line, but his shoulder reluctantly eased a fraction. “It’s… yeah,” he muttered. “Workshopping it.”
That earned him a small huff of laughter, and just like that, the tension changed. It was not gone completely, but it loosened enough to breathe around.
“Mm,” you hummed, tapping your straw against the rim of the glass. “Maybe workshop faster.”
That earned you the smallest exhale that might’ve been a laugh.
“So,” you went on, glancing at his drink. “Americano?”
He looked down at it like he’d forgotten it existed. “Mmm.”
“Do you actually like that,” you took a sip of your own drink, “or did you panic-order?”
Dex hesitated, but decided against lying. “Panic-order.”
You grinned. “Thought so.”
“Yours?” he asked, nodding toward your cup.
“Iced latte. Always.”
He nodded once, filing it away without thinking. “Predictable,” he said.
“Consistent,” you corrected.
“Same thing.”
“Not even a little.” Your smile tugged a little wider, and for a second, it made your whole face look gentle in a way that didn’t match anything he’d read.
The conversation after that was not awkward, even as it came in uneven starts. You both drifted out half-finished sentences, small corrections, circling around what you weren’t saying more than what you were. But eventually, it found a rhythm.
You talked about nothing, mostly. The weather again, somehow. The park. The café. You made an offhand comment about the coffee being great here but the pastries were better two blocks over, and Dex filed that away without meaning to. He asked a question that sounded almost normal, and you answered it like it was.
For some reason, he could not bring himself to ask about intel. Still, neither of you got up as time stretched right before your eyes.
“Okay,” you said after a moment, glancing at your drink, then back at him. “For the record, this is the weirdest coffee I’ve had in a while.”
“Same,” he said.
“And I’ve had coffee in worse places.”
“Same.”
You narrowed your eyes slightly, amused. “You’re just copying me now.”
There was that pause again. This time, neither of you rushed to fill it.
You checked your phone briefly, then sighed, like you didn’t actually want to say what came next. “I should probably…” you started, gesturing vaguely toward the door. “…go.”
Dex nodded immediately. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
You stood, grabbing your jacket, then hesitated just slightly. You looked at him, like you were weighing your options, then reached into your pocket and pulled out your phone. “Give me your number.”
Dex tilted his head. “…What?”
You held it out, unfazed. “In case you decide to bump into me again,” you said. “Might as well schedule it next time.”
He stared at you for a second, like he was trying to find an explanation, a reason not to…
Then he took the phone.
“Right,” he nodded. “Yeah.”
He put it in and handed it back. After all, he had convinced himself that it was just so he could get the intel he was supposed to do today.
“See you around, Dex Not Tony.”
“Yeah,” he said, quieter now. “See you.”
You turned, heading for the door. The bell chimed again as you left.
Dex stayed where he was for a moment longer than necessary, staring at the space you’d just occupied, the echo of your laugh still sitting somewhere in the back of his mind.
Something about that had gone very, very wrong. Or very right
—
That night, Dex had trouble sleeping.
The apartment was too quiet, the city noise bleeding faintly through the windows, the weight of the day sitting wrong in his chest. He laid there for a while, staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation in fragments: your voice, your eyes, the way none of it lined up with the file. Eventually, he gave up trying to sleep at all.
He sat up, reached for the notebook on his nightstand, and flipped it open. The logs he had on you were already there: Times, routes, and observations.
He stared at it for a moment, pen hovering. Then he added a new line, pressing just slightly harder than necessary:
Likes iced lattes
—
Two days later, Dex’s phone buzzed.
He didn’t get messages he wanted to open. He didn’t need another contract— he got his hands full as is. So for a second, he just stared at it from across the room, letting it vibrate once. Unknown number.
His jaw tightened before he picked it up and unlocked it.
There was a photo of a newspaper, slightly crumpled, held down by what looked like your hand. The headline was clear enough:
THREE ANTI-VIGANTE TASK FORCE AGENTS FOUND DEAD IN ALLEY
Below it, you had texted:
is this you?
Dex stared at the screen, figuring out exactly who it was. He read it again, trying to wrap his mind around this. His thumb hovered over the keyboard.
You knew. Or you suspected. Or you were testing him. All three were problems.
Dex exhaled slowly through his nose and typed.
Dex: no. Why would you think that?
He was lying, but then again, he was the one who’s supposed to do the interrogation here. It would be stupid to give anything away.
He hit send before he could overthink it. Three dots appeared almost immediately.
You: just thought I’d ask
Dex frowned. That was it? No pushback? No follow-up? Did you not think he was interesting enough?
Dex: You just ask people that? “hey did you kill three people”?
There was a pause this time. Dex found himself watching the screen, shoulders slightly tense without realizing it.
You: not usually, but you don’t usually “accidentally” run into me either so
Dex’s grip on the phone tightened just a fraction.
Right. You weren’t letting that go.
Dex: I said I’ve seen you around.
He only had to wait a few seconds
You: sure
He could hear the tone in it. That same almost-amused voice from the café. Not hostile, but curious. Dex leaned back against the wall, phone still in his hand, mind already thinking about what you knew, what you were pretending not to know.
You sent another message before he could respond.
You: also for the record, if it was you, I know you’d say no anyway
Dex managed a smile.
Dex: Probably.
You texted back just as quickly
You: so I’m choosing to believe you 🙂
You: congrats
He huffed, a dry laugh catching in his throat. This was… strange.
You weren’t pushing. You weren’t backing off either. You were just… there, talking to him like this was normal.
Dex stared at the screen for a moment longer, then typed again.
Dex: Why’d you actually text me?
The typing bubble came and went once. Then, it stayed.
You: because I wanted to
You: ???
You: do I need a better reason than that
Dex frowned slightly. That answer didn’t fit neatly anywhere that his brain could categorize,
Dex: People usually have reasons.
This time your reply took longer. Long enough that Dex caught himself rereading the earlier messages, analyzing tone, punctuation, timing, looking for something he might’ve missed.
You: okay, fine
You: I was bored
You: and you’re interesting
You: better?
Dex froze.
Interesting. Was that what you thought of him?
Dex: You don’t seem like you get bored.
He could almost picture you rolling your eyes
You: wow. you are a fan
He stared at the screen for a second, then forced himself to snap back into place.
You were a target, he had to remind himself. Nothing more. He needed intel to pay rent, and he could only get that after he eliminated you, so…
Dex: if you’re bored, we could go on another date
He hit send and immediately had what did you just do moment. This wasn’t part of the job. This wasn’t… date wasn’t the word he should’ve used.
The typing bubble popped up, disappeared, and came back within three seconds.
You: is that what that was the first time? a date??
Dex blinked.
“…No,” he muttered under his breath, already typing.
No. It was—
He stopped. What was it?
Dex: maybe?
That was all he could send. Oh, he was never playing spy after this job was done. Not ever again.
You: right
You: with a guy who “sees me around”
You: very normal
Dex pressed his lips together.
Dex: Do you want to go or not?
During the wait, Dex felt something unfamiliar settle in his stomach. It was something he could only describe as butterflies.
You: yeah sure
His grip on the phone loosened slightly.
You: same place? or are you gonna “accidentally” run into me again?
Dex huffed.
Dex: how about the pastry place you were talking about?
Oh so now he was paying attention to your recommendations?
You: okay. Friday?
The only thing he had on his calendar was killing task force, and that could wait, so…
Dex: Friday works.
He tapped on his phone screen, anxiously waiting for confirmation.
You: cool
You: try not to kill anyone before then. It ruins the vibe
Dex stared at that one for a second.
Dex: No promises.
There was no reply after that.
That night, in his notebook, he wrote another thing about you:
Initiates contact.
—
The second date felt different before it even started.
You were standing at the counter of the bakery when he saw you, pointing at something in the display case, smiling at the cashier like this was the easiest thing in the world. “Hey, Dex.”
You ended up at a small table by the window, a couple of plates between you. A flaky and golden croissant, a banana-flavoured donut-like dessert dusted in powdered sugar (his choice), a molten-in-the-middle pain au chocolate, and one with custard that looked like it might fall apart if you breathed too hard near it.
Adorably, he knew you had picked too many things. Dex didn’t comment on it, but he noticed then, how you pointed without overthinking, how you changed your mind halfway through, how you added one more at the last second “just in case.”
It felt indulgent in a small, contained way. Like this was the only thing you let yourself have.
The plate between you looked excessive now, but you nudged it toward him anyway.
“Try that one,” you said, already reaching for another.
Dex picked it up without arguing. It was… good, but he didn’t say that out loud.
You watched his face anyway, like you were waiting for the reaction.
“It’s fine,” he said.
You snorted. “Liar.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t pretend it’s just fine,” you rolled your eyes, though you had said it with your mouth full, so it sounded more like downt pwetend it's jusft fwine.
“I’m not pretending.”
“You are.”
He hesitated, then let you win this one. “It is good,” he admitted begrudgingly.
“There it is.”
The conversation slipped into place easily after that. It was not smooth, but it didn’t catch as often. You didn’t circle each other as much. You just… talked.
You even went on for a good fifteen minutes about watching a squirrel in the park yesterday. You said something about how it would grab something, run halfway up the tree, stop, look around like it forgot what it was doing, then go back down and start over. You went on saying, it did this, like, five times, I think it lost the nut at some point but just committed to the bit.
Dex was surprised a former Red Room operative would even concern herself with things as trivial as a little rodent. He was even more surprised that he let you go on and on about it. It was as if he liked listening to you, no matter what you said.
You reached for the sweeter pastry next, taking a bite, and Dex’s eyes automatically tracking the movement. A small smear of custard caught at the corner of your lip.
You didn’t notice. You kept talking, mid-sentence about the squirrel again, something about it being “committed to chaos, like hoarding random park objects were its hobby,” and—
Dex raised his hand before he could stop it. “Hold on,” he said, almost a whisper.
You paused. “what…”
His thumb brushied lightly at the corner of your mouth, wiping the custard away, before licking the liquid off on his own tongue. The contact was brief and altogether too gentle for a man like him. For a second, neither of you moved.
His hand dropped back to the table. “You had…” he gestured vaguely. “Custard.”
“Oh.” You blinked once, then let out a small, surprised laugh. “Thanks.”
“Yeah.” Dex looked down at his hands. That felt… Unfamiliar.
He didn’t know when the last time he’d done something like that was. He didn’t know when the last time he’d wanted to.
There was this strange warmth sitting in his chest now, almost weightless. He didn’t even have a name for it.
And while he wasn’t sure he liked that, he definitely didn’t hate it.
You were the one to break the silence, coughing awkwardly like you couldn’t stand another second of silence.
“Ummm speaking of hobbies?” you echoed, wiping your mouth just in case. “You… don’t strike me as a hobbies person.”
“I had some,” he said, easing back into the chair. Thank fuck you could carry the conversation for the both of them, because his brain had just fully stalled.
“Past tense is concerning.” You leaned forward just a little. “What, like, knitting?”
“No.”
“Scrapbooking?”
“No.”
“Be honest,” you taunted, “I can see it.”
He almost smiled, and looked down when he said it. “Baseball.”
You paused, then nodded, like that made perfect sense.
“Yeah, I can see that,” you said, then added casually, “I used to do ballet.”
Dex blinked. He looked at you differently now. like he was trying to fit that into everything else he knew. “Oh,” he managed to say.
Oh, this was it. This was what he came for. This was the thread he needed. This was the confirmation that you had been trained in HQ, right? If you had survived it, then there were doors inside you that led back to places he couldn’t access any other way.
These were not guesses, not patterns he had to infer from distance, but direct proximity to the Red Room itself, to its methods, its remnants, its current reach. He just needed to keep you talking, keep you close, long enough to pull it apart piece by piece. So he asked, “What does that mean?”
You froze, as if a flash of memories ran through the back of your eyes. Then shook your head once. “Mm—nope.”
“What?”
“Not here,” you said lightly, but there was an immovable conviction underneath it now. “I’m not getting into that here.”
Dex watched you as held his hazel eyes. Then, just as quickly, you leaned forward, resting your chin lightly against your hand, expression shifting back from dark to a lighter tone. “Come by my place on Saturday,” you said, like it had just occurred to you. “We’ll call it our third date.”
Dex blinked. “What?”
You shrugged, completely unfazed. “If you’re really curious,” you added, a small tilt to your head. “There’s… fewer people.”
He stared at you, his eyes empty and calculating at the saw time, fingers anxiously tapping the underside of the table. This was… this was not in the plan. This was not one of his controlled outcomes. This was not…
“Okay,” he said anyway. The answer seemed to have left his mouth before he fully processed it.
“Okay,” you echoed.
And somewhere between the pastries, coffee, and conversation, he realized, a little too late…
This doesn’t feel like a job.
—
Dex had expected a decoy. A secondary location, maybe a shell apartment. He was expecting something stripped down and impersonal, designed to be burned the second it was compromised.
Not this. Not the exact place he had already mapped out in his notebook.
So yeah, you had given him your real address.
For just a second, he wondered if this was the play. If you knew how much he knew. If this was some test he hadn’t caught onto yet.
The building was exactly what he expected. It was a high-end high rise. The doorman glanced at him once, then nodded like he’d already been cleared.
“You’re expected,” he said simply.
Dex didn’t respond, already moving past him. The elevator took him straight up.
By the time he reached your door, he had an uneasy feeling in his chest. Was this… a trap?
He knocked, and the door opened almost immediately.
“Hi,” you said.
Dex opened his mouth to respond, but you interrupted his train of thoughts by pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, right at the scar.
Dex froze. By the time you pulled back, his brain still hadn’t caught up.
You smiled like nothing had happened, stepping aside to let him in. “Come in.”
He couldn’t find words to say, because apparently, his brain was on pause now.
Still, Dex stayed half a step behind you as you pushed the door open, his eyes already scanning past your shoulder and realised…
The place was… expensive.
Not in a loud, gaudy way. You had no gold fixtures or ridiculous statement pieces. It was intentional. It had floor-to-ceiling windows stretching across the far wall with a view that swallowed half the city. It had two bedrooms, if he researched it right.
“How…” he started, then cut himself off. What he meant to say was, how can you afford this? But decided against it.
You didn’t seem to notice. “Make yourself comfortable,” you said, already shrugging off your jacket and tossing it onto a chair like it wasn’t worth more than half the furniture in his apartment. “I just need the bathroom. I’ll be quick.”
And just like that, you disappeared.
Dex stood there for a second longer than necessary, processing everything.
You lived here. And not as a cover, not temporarily. There were no signs of rotation, no packed bags, no readiness to leave at a moment’s notice.
“That’s stupid,” he muttered under his breath. Or reckless. Or you were just arrogant to a fault. Maybe you just didn’t think anyone could touch you.
Dex stood still for a second, listening to the water running. He heard the slightly delayed pipes and realised you weren’t rushing. Good.
His eyes tracked the room the way they always did, scanning for inconsistencies. He didn’t try to look for what was there, but what didn’t belong. Because people like you didn’t leave things out.
Which meant if anything existed, it would be hidden. His gaze slowed down and shifted… There. A section of the wall paneling near the shelving was barely misaligned. It was not enough for anyone else to clock, but Dex didn’t miss patterns like that.
He stepped closer, fingers brushing lightly over the seam. There must be a pressure point. Eventually the panel gave just enough of a click to confirm it. Dex didn’t hesitate before easing it open.
Inside was a compact hidden compartment.
The first thing he saw was a keycard, worn at the edges. The insignia was barely visible, but he didn’t need it to be clear. He knew what it was the second he saw it: Hydra.
“Of course,” he muttered under his breath.
Red Room had a historical overlap with Hydra. Old, but not irrelevant.
It surely was a small enough thing that you wouldn’t miss it, right?
He pocketed it and moved on to the only other thing hidden in the panel: Documents. It wasn’t exactly a full archive, but it was enough.
He flipped through them, scanning fast. Inside were names of Red Room operatives. The dead ones were labeled. He assumed the ones who didn’t have a red Xs on their files were still active.
You had annotated them too, with locations, partial intel, and movement patterns.
This was the kind of access people killed for.
His thumb moved, grabbing his phone. He flipped through quickly, taking a picture of each page, each note, each annotation. He made sure, of course, that it was legible.
This was high-level access, closer than anything he’d gotten from a distance. This… This was the job.
Then he heard the sound of water shutting off.
Shit. Dex froze. Then, he moved. He closed the folder immediately, sliding it back in.
Everything went back exactly as it was, the panel sealed until the seam disappeared into the wall again like it had never existed. By the time you stepped back into the room, he was already on the couch.
“Sorry,” you said, drying your hands casually, completely unbothered. “That took longer than I thought.”
Dex looked up at you. There was a split second, where something in his expression didn’t line up. The. it was gone.
“You’re fine,” he said evenly.
You nodded, like that settled it, and stepped closer. You dropped down onto the couch beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his, as if this was normal. As if he wasn’t here to dismantle you piece by piece. He didn’t even realise that you had a bottle of wine and two glasses on your hand.
You leaned back slightly, turning your head toward him, “…So,” you said, more direct. “What do you want to know?”
—
It can’t be this easy right? Dex thought.
Turns out, it was.
Which was weird, because people like you didn’t just… hand things over. So either this was the cleanest setup he’d ever walked into, or you really didn’t think he was a threat. Neither option sat right with him.
His fingers flexed slightly against his knee as he watched you pour two glasses of red. You handed one to him, and Dex took it quickly. “Thanks,” he said, smaller than usual.
He didn’t even usually drink anymore. He turned the stem slightly between his fingers, watching the liquid catch the light. For a brief second, his mind did what it always did: it ran through possibilities.
It might be a sedative. It could be poison. He could handle most of that, maybe. And if he couldn’t… Well.
He huffed quietly to himself. What the hell.
Dex took a sip. It burned a little on the way down. Not unusual, just normal wine.
The first sign that it wasn’t poison was that you were drinking it, too. The second sign was that you didn’t react; you didn’t watch him like you were waiting for something to happen. You just leaned back into the couch and tucked your leg under yourself.
It was cute, Dex thought. You looked like a bird, nesting. He liked it.
Then, he took a deep breath and started asking questions. At first, it was light, like where did you grow up? Where were you trained?
You answered, and you sounded detached for the first couple of sentences. It was as if you were testing the limits and throwing pieces out to see what stuck.
But when the alcohol kicked in and your cheeks turned rosy pink, you spoke more candidly. About the Red Room. About being taken. About being trained.
Even Dex, who was starting to feel more bubbly, didn’t interrupt.
At first, he listened like he always did. He filtered, sorted, and pulled out what mattered. But somewhere along the way, that changed. Because you started giving less intel and more… context.
“You don’t really realize it when you’re in it,” you said, staring into your glass like the answer might be somewhere at the bottom. “It just feels normal. Like this is what life is supposed to be. You don’t question it because there’s nothing else to compare it to.”
Dex’s grip tightened slightly, and you kept going.
“They don’t just train you. They… build you. Strip everything out first. Then put back only what they need.” You gave him a small laugh.“Honestly? It’s basically a cult. You have no idea what it’s like to be manipulated like that.”
Dex looked down, and exhaled slowly through his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
You glanced at him then, and your eyes shifted. You were not shocked at all, but you recognised it as well as you would recognise kin. “Oh,” you looked down. “Right.”
Dex poured himself another glass without thinking. You kept talking, but slower now. It was less like you were explaining, more like you were… unloading. Like you didn’t have anywhere else to put it.
That’s when it clicked: This must not be a trap or a strategy, he concluded, because the reason you were telling him all of this on a third date was… because, like him, you had no one else.
You might have neighbors, maybe even actual friends. But surely, you had no one else who could possibly understand you the way he did, because who else could you possibly know in this line of work?
That was why you decided that he was the safest place to put it.
Dex stared at the rim of his glass for a second too long. That was stupid of you. And dangerous. And—
“…And you?” you said suddenly, nudging his knee lightly with yours. “C’mon.”
He blinked, pulled back into the moment.
“If we’re trauma dumping,” you added, a crooked smile pulling at your mouth, “we might as well commit. This is probably our only chance to say it out like.” You took another sip, then shrugged. “Doesn’t exactly look like either of us go to therapy.”
Dex huffed. “Yeah,” he muttered. His brain caught up half a second later.
He shouldn’t, though, right? He shouldn’t tell you anything about him that could possibly be compromising but… The booze was getting to him.
And, besides, what harm could trauma dumping to you be? The job ends one way: with you dead after he got all the intel. So did it really matter what you knew about him?
Dex leaned back slightly, exhaling a little.
And then, before he could stop himself, the extra bit of liquid courage bypassed his brain, and he told you everything.
The words came out flat at first. But the more he drank, the less he cared about what he gave away and what he did not.
You didn’t interrupt him. You just listened. And that, more than anything, kept him talking.
At some point, the wine started to blur the edges for you, too. Your shoulders leaned closer. Your knee stayed pressed against his. Your laughter came easier as he cynically explained being in prison, and because you felt bad when you did, you gasped and covered your mouth.
Dex didn’t seem to mind. He even smiled, the corner of his mouth warping the pronounced scar on his cheek. At one point, you tilted your head slightly, watching him with an understanding that hadn’t been there before.
“God,” you said, almost to yourself. “We’re so fucked up.”
Then, unexpectedly, you giggled. Dex, for once, cannot help but chuckle himself.
“Yeah.” He took another sip, “You more than me,” he added, almost immediately.
Your head snapped toward him immediately. “Excuse me?”
A faint smirk pulled at his mouth. “Y’know,” he said, “Child soldier and all.”
You stared at him for a second, before letting out a disbelieving laugh. “Really?” you shot back, leaning closer, eyes narrowing in mock offense. “I’m more fucked up?”
He lifted a shoulder slightly in a shrug.
You pointed at him with your glass. “Your boss broke your spine and you lived.”
Dex managed to roll his eyes.
“You got thrown off a roof and you lived,” you continued, leaning in further now, your voice picking up energy. “Sounds like you’re pretty far from normal.”
Dex huffed again. “Didn’t say I was normal.”
“Mm,” you hummed, satisfied. You sipped again.
The space between you closed without either of you noticing when it happened. Your knee pressed against his. Your shoulder brushed his arm. Neither of you moved away.
The wine kept going. Half a glass. Then another.Words came easier after that, less filtered, less controlled.
You interrupted each other more. You laughed more. You even talked over the ends of sentences like it didn’t matter who finished them. At some point, you were both smiling for no reason.
Dex didn’t realize when the room started to feel warmer. He didn’t realize when your voice started to blur slightly at the edges. He didn’t even realize when he stopped thinking about the job entirely. He just knew, at this point, that you were close. Really close.
And you looked… Pretty.
That was a stupid word. It was too simple. It didn’t cover the gnawing claws that were starting to take over his heart.
But it was the only word his brain gave him. You were smiling at something (he didn’t even remember what) and it made you look… harmless.
Dex felt a warmth shift in his chest. As unfamiliar as it was, he didn’t pull away from it. For a second, you looked at him, too.
Dex swallowed the last of the wine, mostly because it was the only distraction that could possibly take up all the space you had started to occupy in his mind.
The room had dimmed at the edges in that deceptive way alcohol always did. The lights seemed warmer.
Dex didn’t usually get to this point. He knew that with uncomfortable clarity. He also knew he should stop.
You were sitting too close, closer than before, closer than necessary, your shoulder pressed lightly into his as if neither of you had noticed the distance shrinking over time.
Your voice had gone gentler, words starting to come in slower waves instead of quick exchanges. There was less explanation, more confession disguised as conversation. And he was doing the same, even if he wouldn’t have admitted it out loud.
Parts of him he usually kept locked down were just… loosening, one by one, without permission.
You laughed at something he said, he didn’t even remember what it was, and the sound stuck in his head longer than it should have.
“You’re smiling,” you observed suddenly, tilting your head slightly like it was a fossil discovery.
“I’m not,” he said automatically.
You hummed, unconvinced. “You are.”
He should’ve corrected you. Instead, his eyes drifted without meaning to, down to your mouth when you spoke again. The way your words drooped at the edges when you were tired, or tipsy, or both. For the love of god, he could not get over you the way you kept licking your lip absentmindedly, like you weren’t even aware of it.
It made something in his brain go pop.
You noticed. “…What?” you asked, pouting adorably.
Dex didn’t answer right away. Because, really, there was no tactical reason for him to be looking at you like this. There was no intel angle. No extraction logic. No job framework he could hide behind.
It was just you. And him. And the space between you that didn’t feel like space anymore.
He leaned in before he could reassemble himself. He hadn’t planned on doing it. It wasn’t even a decision he consciously made, really.
It was, for lack of better word, gravity. As if he was a meteor falling into your orbit.
For a while, you didn’t move away.
Your breath caught in your throat, but you stayed there, watching him come closer instead of stopping it. Your eyes flicked down once, like you were considering it too.
Dex stopped just short of you. He wanted, no needed— to know you wanted it, too.
Still, he was close enough that he could feel your breath now. Close enough that if either of you moved even a fraction—
That would be it. The line would be crossed.
You lifted your hand slowly, but you were not pushing him away. You weren’t pulling him closer, either. Your palm was hovering for a moment against his chest like you were testing whether this was real.
Dex didn’t move. Neither did you.
You exhaled. It was a small, almost reluctant sound. “…Dex,” you murmured, and his name sounded different like that. His eyes flicked to yours again.
Too close. This was way too close.
Your eyes dropped again to his mouth again, and stayed there. For a second, he could clearly see that fraction of hesitation where neither of you could pretend anymore that you weren’t thinking the same thing.
Dex leaned in that final inch… but you didn’t meet him halfway. Gently, your hand pressed into his chest.
“Mm,” you murmured softly, almost like you were trying to convince yourself this was wrong. Then you pushed him back.
“No,” you said, breath hitching slightly, but your smile was still there, playful, light. “It’s only our third date.”
Dex blinked, still a little too close, like he hadn’t fully processed the words.
You laughed under your breath, giving him a small shove to create space.
“Besides,” you added, eyes flicking down to his mouth for just a second before meeting his again, “I want you to kiss me when you’re sober.”
Oh.
He leaned back this time, letting out a deep breath. There was only one way he could describe how he felt, and that was disappointment.
Oh, well. What else can he do?
“Yeah,” he managed to say. “Okay.”
Still, he didn’t move far, and neither did you.
And of course, his thoughts, intrusive as they always are, decided to ruin the only tender moment he had in years.
You have enough. Kill her.
Honestly, he had more than enough intel on the Red Room. Even the old Hydra keycard was a welcome addition to his anonymous employer’s request. It would most definitely make up for anything else they could have possibly wanted.
What are you waiting for? Kill her.
It was definitely more than what that had bargained for. So yeah, he could do it now.
He had clocked many sharp objects he could throw at you— from your vase to a cheese knife you left out on the island kitchen. He didn’t even need a gun.
Kill her.
And no, you wouldn’t even see it coming. His fingers flexed slightly against his leg.
Kill her.
But then he made the mistake of looking at you. And from there on out, all he could think was…
I want another date.
No. He shouldn’t want that, right?
Kill her.
He didn’t want that either.
But… he needed the money, and you had a body count higher than the Empire State Building. Killing you would make sense right? It would help balance the scales, right?
Right?
Would it still make sense, even after you laid your heart and soul to him? Would it still make sense, even after he realised you were brought up as an enslaved child soldier?
Kill her.
No, he told himself, Not yet.
I want just one more date.
And to Dex, that was reason enough not to kill you. Yet.
—
Dex didn’t go to rest when he got home.
The second the door shut behind him, he frowned, burying his head in his hands before pulling himself together. He had called forth the part of him that knew what to do, what this was, what it had to be.
He pulled the notebook out before he’d even taken his jacket off.
He sat down, pen moving across paper. It started the way it always did: Structured and efficient. Intel, in detail.
He wrote of the interior of your apartment; top floor, two-bedroom, open sightlines, minimal obstruction points. Entry points limited. Windows large but not easily accessible from exterior. Security: building-controlled, doorman compliant, prior clearance confirmed.
He flipped the page. He wrote about the hidden compartment: wall panel, right side of shelving unit. Pressure point activation. Contents: Hydra-era keycard, confirmed overlap with Red Room operations. Documents: active survivor list, partial intel, movement logs. Photographic evidence captured.
Another page. This was where he started writing about your routine vulnerabilities, your Behavioral patterns. Trust threshold: high. Counter-surveillance: minimal to non-existent. Open, disarming, prone to disclosure under informal conditions.
His handwriting stayed tight.
2.5 million dollars would only come after you were dead. That would fund his makeshift crusade for years to come. It was important work he was doing, balancing the scales.
Dex paused, just for a second. Then he kept going.
Timeline: Saturday meeting. Entry granted without resistance. Physical proximity established quickly. Target displays—
His pen slowed to a stop. It hovered there, a warmth blooming in his chest. Dex frowned slightly, staring at the page like it had changed on him.
Then, almost absentmindedly, he wrote… she kissed me on the cheek, right on the scar.
The pen froze again.
That wasn’t— He exhaled, teeth clenching. —this wasn’t important.
But still, he crossed nothing out. He just moved on.
Target displays lowered threat perception in close proximity. Conversational drift toward—
His handwriting had changed. Not messy, just less rigid.
… her past. She smells like vanilla. not perfume. Most likely clean laundry and sugar from baking.
Dex blinked. He looked at the lines then at the rest of the page.
What the fuck.
He flipped to the next page like that would fix it.
Red wine is her favourite.
His grip on the pen tightened slightly.
He should stop. This wasn’t relevant. None of the last couple sentences was relevant. Dex leaned back slightly in his chair, staring at the notebook in his lap.
He had everything he needed. He didn’t need to write anything else.
Dex scoffed quietly under his breath. Had he gone soft?
Then, without really deciding to, he added one more line underneath it…
She laughed when she said “we’re so fucked up.”
He stared at it for a second longer than necessary. Then he snapped the notebook shut.
—
The restaurant for the fourth date was nicer than most places he even bothered to go to nowadays. But if this was going to be your last meal, he might as well make it memorable.
It had soft blue lights, a low hum of voices, the whoosh of knives behind the counter. Dex noticed all of it the second he stepped in, cataloguing angles and exits, the reflective panel behind the chef that gave him a partial view of the room without turning his head.
You need to kill her today.
He exhaled slowly through his nose and followed the host to the table.
When you sat down across from him, smiling like you hadn’t just walked straight into the middle of your own funeral, the room blurred at the edges for Dex.
“Hi,” you said with a smile
Kiss her.
He blinked once, forcing his brain back into place. “Hi.”
You tilted your head slightly, studying him like you always did, like you were trying to solve a puzzle with a missing piece. “You look like you’ve been here for a while.”
“I haven’t.”
“You definitely have.”
“Maybe five minutes.” That was a lie. He had been there for more than ten, cataloging what he could possibly use to finish the job.
You smiled, pleased. “Knew it.”
She’s faking it. She actually likes me. Kill her.
Dex picked up the menu just to give his hands something to do. “You’re late.”
“I’m two minutes late,” you corrected, leaning forward slightly to peek at what he was looking at instead of opening your own. “And I brought personality, so it cancels out.”
He huffed, hiding a smile. “That’s not how that works.”
“It is.” You insisted, tapping the menu. “Also, you picked sushi? I didn’t think you were a sushi person.”
“I’m not.” He immediately said.
You blinked. “Then why…”
“Seemed efficient.” What he meant was; it’s a nice meal. You deserve a nice meal for the last day of your life. It’s efficient for him, who had an array of ceramic and silverware to kill you with.
You stared at him for a second, then broke into a grin. “You picked it based on efficiency.”
“Yes.”
“That is the least romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty.
He didn’t do either.
“You’re still here,” he pointed out instead.
“Yeah,” you said easily, settling back in your seat. “Because I actually like you.”
Liar. Kill her.
Somewhere between you stealing sushi off his plate and laughing at how aggressively he held chopsticks, you asked, almost casually, “You know anything about the ports here?” Dex paused slightly at that, eyes flicking up to yours over his glass.
The question should’ve put him more on edge than it did, but you just looked curious, relaxed, like this was normal conversation. “Not much,” he admitted after a second. “Fisk uses them to move things through there sometimes.”
You hummed thoughtfully, listening closely, and Dex found himself talking a little more than he probably should’ve just because you kept looking at him like that.
After a while, though, he managed to change the topic. Work was getting a little old. He found himself wanting to talk about you. “You always order too much.”
You lit up like he’d just handed you a piece of chocolate. “Oh, we’re judging now?”
“I’m observing.”
“Rude,” you said, already scanning the menu. “Also, it’s not too much, it’s strategic.”
“Strategic how?” He tilted his head, genuinely curious.
You shrugged, but there was a stillness underneath it. “You ever go hungry enough that your brain just… rewires? Like you don’t trust ‘enough’ anymore?”
Dex had never felt that way before. He wondered if you were indulgent because you had gone through missions with little food. Would you have gotten days without it, a week maybe? Your Buenos Aires mission was six days, your Lagos mission was seven days. Was it those missions?
How did you even survive?
She’s a widow. She’s a weapon. She’s a person.
“…Yeah,” he said anyway.
Your eyes flicked up to his, and recognition passed between you. “Yeah,” you echoed. Then you nudged the menu toward him. “So I’ll over-order. It’s fine. We deserve it.”
We’re so fucked up. Kill her. Kiss her.
He nodded once. “Okay.”
You spent the next ten minutes ordering together, leaning over the table, arguing quietly over rolls like it mattered.
“Okay, this one,” you said, pointing. “We’re getting this.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“It has too much…. whatever that is.”
“That is eel,” you squinted.
“Exactly,” he shrugged.
“It’s just eel,” you pointed out. “You’ve eaten weirder things.”
He paused. “That’s not the point.”
You grinned. “I have enough of an appetite for the both of us.”
Kill her. Kiss her.
“…Fine,” he said, pushing his intrusive thoughts away.
You beamed.
By the time the food arrived, the conversation had settled. You didn’t hold back when you ate, and you never did. You leaned forward, talking between bites, pointed things out like it mattered that he experienced them properly.
“Try this,” you said, holding your chopsticks out toward him without thinking.
Dex looked at it, then at you. You didn’t even realize what he was going to do to you.
Kiss her. Kill her.
He leaned forward and took the bite. Your eyes stayed on his face, waiting.
“It’s good,” he admitted.
“I know,” you said immediately, all too pleased with yourself.
He shook his head slightly.
She’s dangerous. She could kill you. Kill her first.
You wiped a bit of sauce off your thumb absentmindedly and kept talking. “We used to have this thing—training-wise—where they’d reward you with food if you hit certain targets.”
Dex’s attention shifted immediately.
There it is. Focus.
“Targets?” he repeated.
You winced slightly. “Okay, that sounded worse out loud.”
He didn’t respond.
You laughed, a little self-aware. “I mean—it was worse. But at the time it felt like a game, you know? Like ‘hit this, get that.’ Pavlov, but with putting bullets between your classmates' eyes.”
You popped another piece into your mouth like you hadn’t just said that.
She’s a monster. She’s a victim. She’s both. Kill her.
“Do you ever miss that?” he asked before he could stop himself.
You tilted your head, chuckling at the absurdity of the question. “The food or the brainwashing?”
“Either.”
You smiled faintly. “Sometimes I miss knowing exactly what I was supposed to be.”
That…. He understood.
Kill her. Ask her about OXE. Ask her about the DODC. Kiss her.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me too.”
You didn’t make a big deal out of it. Instead, you just nudged his foot under the table. “Hey,” you said, lighter now. “At least now we get sushi instead of, like… boiled cabbage or whatever.”
His lips formed the ghost of a smile. “I didn’t get cabbage.”
“Oh, sorry,” you deadpanned. “Did your government program have better catering?”
“No.”
You grinned. “Then you get it.”
He did. He really, really did.
You started talking about stupid things again—bad takeout, a guy you saw trying to fight a pigeon, the way you animated everything just enough to make it feel real.
Dex found himself watching your mouth when you talked.
Kiss her. Kill her. She’s faking it. She actually likes me.
He picked up his chopsticks again, turning them slightly between his fingers. These would be a good weapon to finish you off. He had calculated the angle, trajectory, and distance. He could do it from across the table. It would be clean, straight through the throat.
You wouldn’t even—
You laughed suddenly, bright and unguarded, and it snapped the thought clean in half.
“Earth to Dex?”
He blinked, refocusing on the world around him.
You were looking at him like you’d caught his mind somewhere far away.
“What?” he said.
“You spaced out,” you said, narrowing your eyes slightly. “That was intense. Should I be concerned?”
Kill her. Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty.
“No,” he said, coughing a little
You leaned forward slightly, studying him. “You do that a lot. Go somewhere else.”
He held your stare, feeling like an utter fucking coward. “I’m here,” he said. It came out quieter than he meant it to.
Your eyes softened. After that, you kept talking, and he kept listening, but the thoughts didn’t stop.
Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s a Black Widow. She’s killed for corrupt governments. She’s taken down entire networks. She could kill you. Kill her. Kiss her.
He watched the way your fingers curled around your glass, the way you leaned closer when you got excited about a topic, the way your voice softened when you cared.
He imagined reaching across the table, but this time not to put a piece of cutlery through your windpipe.
Instead, he imagined reaching out with his hand, touching your wrist. He imagined pulling you closer, kissing you.
—
When the bill landed between you, Dex felt his chest pulled tight, like a thread being yanked too hard.
His hand moved first, grabbing it before you could even look properly. “I’ve got it,” he said, but it came out quieter than he meant, like the words had to push past thorns lodged in his throat. You started to protest, but he cut in, “I want to.”
That part slipped out, honest in a way he didn’t like. His fingers fumbled just slightly as he pulled his card out, a barely-there tremor that shouldn’t exist in a man like him, and he focused hard on the motion—insert, wait, sign—because that was simple, and that was something he understood.
Kill her.
He could do it after this. He would. After all, that was the plan. But when he glanced up, you were watching him. and it threw everything off balance in a way that made his chest feel too full.
His thoughts only sped up after that.
Kill her. She needs to go. She’s a monster. She’s a widow. She’s a fucking Black Widow. She could kill you. Kill her. She’s faking it. She’s dangerous.
He signed the receipt, but his grip was wrong. It was too tight, the paper crinkling under his thumb. When he set the pen down, his eyes betrayed him. They dropped to your mouth without permission.
It wasn't strategic. It wasn’t calculated. It was instinct, human and stupid all the same.
He imagined leaning forward instead of walking away, closing the distance instead of planning your doom, your lips against his instead of blood on his hands.
Focus.
His breath caught, and he looked away like that would fix it, like he could force himself back into the job he was supposed to do.
He needed to do it. Now. Outside.
He slipped a metal chopstick into his pocket.
But the idea of ending it before he knew what your lips taste like made him recoil.
Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty. Kiss her. Kill her. She’s a bad person. She’s dangerous. She’s so fucking pretty. She actually likes you. Kiss her. Kill her. Focus.
He stood too quickly, the chair scraping harshly against the floor, and reached for his jacket like movement might help ground him. It didn’t. You stood too, close enough that your arm brushed his.
He could still do it but his eyes betrayed him again, flicking to your lips like he was starving for something he didn’t deserve.
The realization hit all at once: he didn’t want to kill you before he kissed you.
He needed that first. Just once.
“I’ll walk you home,” he said, and the words came out before he could stop them. You looked up at him, surprised. When you said “Okay,” it didn’t make anything easier. It just gave him more time to ruin himself, one step at a time, chasing something he shouldn’t want before he did what he came here to do.
Kiss her. Then kill her.
—
The street outside your building felt eerily quiet, like the world had thinned down to just the two of you and the glow of the lobby lights behind glass. The doorman had the day off, you mentioned. There were no footsteps. No interruptions.
Good. No witnesses.
Dex barely registered the thought this time. It flickered and passed, swallowed immediately by the thundering anxiety brewing in his mind.
Kill her.
“Hey,” you said. It was absurd, really, how shy you sounded.
He gulped. “Hey.”
His heart melted when a smile tugged at your mouth.
“I think,” you started, stepping just a little closer, your voice lowering like it was meant only for him, “you earned it.”
Dex didn’t get to ask what that meant, because you stepped in, closing that last inch of space like it meant nothing, and your lips met his…and everything in him just gave way.
His hand dropped from his pocket instantly, the weapon forgotten as his fingers caught your waist instead, pulling you closer like he was afraid you’d disappear. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was only warm for half a second before it deepened, before he leaned into it with a careful urgency that didn’t belong to him.
Kiss her like you mean it.
When you pulled back slightly, just to breathe, just to smile that pleased smile that made your whole face light up, he followed. He actually chased your lips, closing the distance again before you could get far, like he couldn’t stand the idea of it ending already. His hand slid higher, thumb brushing your jaw, tilting your face just enough to kiss you again. It was slower this time but no less hungry, like he was trying to memorize it.
You tasted… fuck! Sweet.
His brain latched onto it immediately, irrational and completely useless: Strawberries and cream. Probably lip gloss, but it didn’t matter to Dex.
Kiss her like you fucking mean it.
He smiled into it. It felt wrong on him, but he couldn’t stop it, not when you leaned into him like that, not when your fingers curled into his jacket like you wanted him just as much.
Kill her.
The thought slammed back in hard enough to almost make him flinch. His hand paused at your side. He knew the metal chopstick was still in his pocket.
Do it now.
He could, theoretically. You were right there. You were more than close enough. More importantly, you were trusting enough.
One movement, and you would be dead. He would cradle your lifeless body in your arms and the last thing you would ever do was… kiss him.
“I’ll see you soon?” you asked hazily when you finally pulled back, your voice carrying the echo of the kiss.
Dex froze.
You were smiling at him. You were not suspicious or guarded. You were just… hopeful. And all he could think about was the way you’d kissed him. The way you’d let him.
Kill her.
His fingers curled in his pocket, brushing the metal again. He imagined it: a quick thrust, handled efficiently…
No. Not like that. I can’t kill her like that.
It was too slow, too messy. You’d bleed. You’d feel it. You’d die a slow, painful death…
She didn’t deserve that.
That was it. That was his excuse this time.
You deserved to die a quick, painless death. Maybe a shot in the back of the head when you weren’t looking. Just… bang!
His chest ached at the thought. He was still leaning toward you, like part of him hadn’t caught up yet, like he might kiss you again if you gave him half a second more.
“I—yeah,” he said, voice, rougher around the edges. “You will.”
You smiled like that was enough. Like he hadn’t just made a decision that should’ve gone the other way.
Dex stood there for a second longer than necessary, like he was trying to memorize you again. He thought about your mouth, your eyes. the way you were still a little flushed… Then he stepped back, because if he didn’t—
Kiss her.
He almost did.
Instead, he let you go. And when he got home, all he wrote in the notebook was:
She tastes like strawberries and cream.
—
The park on a Sunday felt too bright for what Dex had come to do.
Sunlight filtered through the trees in shifting patterns, the grass warm and uneven beneath the blanket he had brought.
It was your idea, “a picnic!” said so casually over the phone, like it was something people like you did, like it didn’t involve him sitting across from you with a gun tucked under his shirt, pressed against his side like a second heartbeat.
He’d decided before he even got there, that today, he was going to kill you.
It ends today. Kill her.
Then you showed up. And the world tilted for him.
You were wearing a sundress that moved with you when you walked. It wasn’t tactical, it wasn’t anything like the person he’d read about in that file. You looked… beautiful.
Kill her.
He swallowed it down. “You look…” he started, then stopped, like the word wouldn’t come out right.
You tilted your head, smiling. “What?”
His eyes dragged over you again before he could stop himself. “Nice,” he settled on.
It was insufficient. He knew it.
You laughed anyway, pleased, like you hadn’t just undone him.
Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s a weapon.
He swallowed, hard, forcing himself to look away, to move, to do something before he stood there staring like an idiot. He dropped down onto the blanket he’d set up, hands already busy unpacking what he’d brought.
You noticed immediately. “You brought strawberries and cream?” You asked in disbelief.
Dex shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, like he hadn’t thought about it too much. “You like sweet things.”
You went quiet for a second. “I…” you started, “I do.”
He didn’t look at you. If he did, he’d…
Kiss her. Kill her. Focus.
You sat across from him, smoothing your dress under your legs, and that was so normal it made his chest ache.
For a while it was just conversation, the kind that didn’t feel like work. You started with small things, normal things. Then, maybe out of morbid curiosity, you asked him about Fisk, almost casually, like it was something you were only half-remembering. Dex hesitated before answering, more out of instinct than suspicion.
Red Hook came up next, and that made him pause longer, because it wasn’t the kind of thing people usually asked about in passing. Still, he gave you what he had, watching you the whole time for a reaction that never really came. You just nodded along like it made sense to be talking about it like this, and that made him talk more than he should have.
But how could he focus on any of that when his mind…
Shoot her in the head.
“I’ve never done this before,” you said after a moment, glancing around. “A picnic, I mean.”
That caught Dex off guard. “What?”
You huffed a small laugh, a little embarrassed. “Yeah. Not like this, anyway.” You picked at the edge of the blanket. “We used to pretend, though. In the Red Room.”
You said it so lightly. Like it wasn’t something that should gut him. “In the basement of the facility I was raised in,” you went on. “Some of the girls would lay out scraps of cloth, call it grass.” You smiled, but it was fragile. “We’d share whatever we could steal from the kitchen and pretend it was… nice.”
Dex stared at you.
Kill her. She’s a Black Widow. She’s killed people. She’s—
“You deserved better,” he said.
You looked up at him, surprised. Then you smiled. “Yeah,” you said, after a second of consideration. “I think so too.”
Make it quick, coward.
He grabbed a strawberry just to have something to do with his hands, dipped it into the cream, and held it out toward you. It was an imitation of what you had done with sushi the other night.
You chuckled, then leaned forward, taking it gently, your lips brushing his fingers just slightly.
Kiss her.
He watched you bite into it, watched the way your mouth curved, the way your eyes closed like you were enjoying it. Cream caught at the edge of your lips, but you didn’t notice. And that was it.
Kiss her. Indulge.
He leaned in because he couldn’t help it. He did it slowly, like he was giving you time to stop him.
You didn’t.
Your lips met his, and it was not rushed, not desperate like before. His hand came up to your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek as he tilted your face slightly, deepening it just enough to feel you respond, just enough to feel you lean into him.
You don’t deserve her. Kill her. Get it over with.
His chest tightened painfully as he pulled back, breathing uneven, forehead almost brushing yours.
You smiled at him, a little dazed, and he knew. He couldn’t do it here. Not like this.
He leaned back fully, dragging a hand through his hair, trying to put himself back together. “I don’t…” he started, then stopped.
You tilted your head. “What?”
He looked at you again, and felt his heart break in real time. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said.
You were now confused and a little unsure. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” he said immediately, more panicked than he meant to. “No. It’s not that.”
Kill her. Do it right.
He let out a deep breath. “Come back to mine,” he said.
Fucking coward. What are you waiting for? She’s a terrible person. She’s killed more people than you.
Your brows lifted slightly. “Your place?”
He nodded once.
If he did it there, it would be quiet. He would still make it quick and painless. And afterwards… he could mourn you in peace. He could hold your body as he cried into your neck. And maybe, some part of you would stay with him forever.
“Yeah,” he said, voice smaller now. “I just… want more time with you.”
That part wasn’t a lie.
You studied him for a second, then you smiled the same trusting smile. “Okay,” you said.
And just like that, you followed him home.
—
The walk should have been simple. It was a straight line, a familiar route, nothing Dex hadn’t done a hundred times before without thinking.
But inside his head, his thoughts were deafening.
Kill her.
It wasn’t a thought anymore. It was a command, pressing in from all sides until it felt like it might split him open from the inside.
Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s lying. She’s done this before. You know what she is.
His jaw tightened, teeth grinding together as he kept walking, forcing his steps to stay even. You were beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his every few strides, like you hadn’t noticed the tension winding tighter and tighter in him.
Kill her. Do it before she does it first.
The words didn’t fade after they came anymore. They repeated, layered and stacked on top of each other until they stopped sounding like language and started sounding like pressure.
Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.
But then, another voice cut through.
Kiss her.
It didn’t argue. It pulled.
Kiss her again. Don’t let this end. She chose you. She’s still here.
His breath hitched slightly, chest tightening as the two sides collided, over and over, faster now, louder now, until there was no space between them.
Kill her. Kiss her. KILL HER. KISS HER.
It built and built, escalating into unbearable noise. They clawed and scraped and demanded all at once. His fingers twitched at his side, curling slightly like they were reaching for an answer, like his body was trying to decide for him.
One pull of the trigger. That’s all it would take, that’s—
Then, he felt your hand slip into his.
And for the first time in a long time, his brain was… quiet.
It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t forceful. It was almost tentative at first, how your fingers trace his thumb lightly before settling into his palm like you’d done it a thousand times before. Like you hadn’t even considered that you shouldn’t.
Dex stopped breathing. His step faltered, just slightly, like his body didn’t quite know how to move without the noise driving it forward.
The commands that had been screaming seconds ago, the overlapping voices, the relentless pressure…they just ceased. As if you had reached inside his head and flipped a switch.
Dex stood there for half a second too long. His mind, which had been a constant storm of instruction and contradiction, felt… clear.
His fingers closed around yours slowly, almost cautiously, like he was afraid the moment would shatter.
You didn’t pull away. You didn’t even hesitate. You just… walked with him.
And the quiet stayed. Step after step, it stayed.
By the time you reached his building, a fact had already settled into place inside his chest. He didn’t have to argue with himself about it. There was no internal debate, no weighing of outcomes or consequences.
He just knew he wasn’t going to kill you anymore.
Not tonight. Not later. Not at all.
Good person be damned. Bad person be damned. Rent be fucking damned. Whatever fragile system he’d built to justify what he did, none of it held any weight here, not anymore.
He wasn’t looking for redemption, and he wasn’t chasing some shallow kind of bliss that killing you might give him. That had never really been the point, no matter how many times he told himself it was. He just wanted you.
And it was a primal, wild want.
He wanted your mouth on his again. He just wanted you to kiss him deeply and show him everything he’d missed, everything he’d never been given.
Dex slowed as he reached his door, keys already in his hand, but he didn’t unlock it right away. Instead, his eyes dropped briefly to where your fingers were still threaded with his. Then he looked at you. And there was nothing in his head telling him what to do anymore.
His thumb brushed lightly over your knuckles, a small, almost absent motion, before he finally unlocked the door. “Come in.”
—
His apartment was nothing like yours. In was just one open space, a bed pushed too close to the wall, a kitchen that barely separated itself from the rest of the room. No personality, no indulgence other than you.
You didn’t say anything, though. No teasing comment, no subtle comparison, just that same acceptance you always gave him, like this was enough. Like he was enough.
Dex barely gave you time to take it in. The second the door shut behind you, he lost any semblance of restraint.
His hand caught your waist and pulled you into him, his mouth crashing against yours with a kind of hunger that didn’t belong to a man who was ever in control. The kiss was messy, as if he was trying to take something he didn’t know how to ask for.
You gasped against him, your hands coming up to his chest, then his shoulders, leveling him and undoing him all at once.
He walked you backward without breaking contact. One step, then another, until the back of your knees hit the bed and you fell onto it with. He followed instantly, like space between you was unbearable.
His hands were everywhere, your neck, your sides, your thigh, like he needed to confirm you were real, that you were still here, that you hadn’t disappeared the second he let himself want you this much. And then you felt him shudder just a bit, shoulder shaking.
You pulled back just enough to look at him, your breath uneven, your hands coming up to his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones.
“Dex?” you whispered, concern threading through everything. “What’s wrong? ”
“Nothing,” he insisted, almost defensive. “Nothing.”
But his eyes were glassy. He swallowed hard, like he was trying to force it down, trying to push it away before you could see it. After all, he didn’t know how to explain it.
How would he even begin to explain that you made his head quiet? That just being near you feels like something he’s never had before? That he doesn’t know what this is, but it’s too much and not enough at the same time?
“I’m fine,” he added, but it didn’t sound convincing. Not even to himself.
You said his name again, gentler this time.
And that was it. That was the last thing holding him together.
“I wanna taste you,” he said honestly, almost reverently.
You were caught slightly off guard. A small, breathy laugh escaped you. “You’ve kissed me before.”
But he shook his head, his big hands already frantically bunching the fabric of your sundress with an urgency that didn’t feel casual anymore. It felt like a need. Like an instinct he couldn’t hold back even if he tried. One hand gripped on your ass as the other hooked on the waistband of your panties, tugging it down desperately.
“No,” he said, voice deeper now. “I want to taste you.”
Oh.
Your breath hitched, but you didn’t stop him. You didn’t pull away. You let him move closer, let him guide you, let him fall on his knees like he was praying to a goddess in the altar of an ancient temple. You let him take that space between your legs as he wondered how much sweeter you could get.
Here, he could at least pretend that he hadn’t been thinking about killing you not that long ago.
Dex sank lower, slower now, like he was trying to learn you, not take from you. His hands steadied himself against your thighs, his forehead dipping for just a second like he needed to breathe you in. He felt… wrecked.
His breath hitched softly as he leaned closer, the space between your heat and him shrinking until there was almost nothing left and then—
click.
It was quiet, but unmistakably the sound of safety coming off.
Every instinct he had lit up at once, snapping back into place so violently it almost hurt. His body froze, breath catching.
He lifted his head slowly. And there you were, with a gun pointed at his head.
It was small, and easy to hide, the red room insignia etched to the side. You probably pulled from that little purse you always carried like it was just an accessory.
Of course.
Dex didn’t reach for anything. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even try to put space between you. He just… looked at you.
And instead of anger, his chest folded in on itself. What he felt was closer to heartbreak than it was rage. Because for one stupid, moment he had naively believed you felt safe with him.
“…Oh,” he said softly.
The gun wasn’t the most horrifying part. It was the fact that even now, even with the metallic click of the safety still ringing in his ears, even with death staring him directly in the face, Dex could not stop looking at you.
You were sprawled beneath him on his bed, dress dragged up your thighs by his own hands, your breathing still uneven from the way he had kissed you seconds earlier. Your lips were swollen and puffy. Your chest rose and fell too quickly. One of your sandal straps hung loose around your ankle where he’d nearly pulled you apart getting you onto the mattress. And somehow… he still wanted you so badly it physically hurt.
How could he be this fucking stupid?
He should’ve known. Especially with questions about Red Hook. The ports. Fisk. That was why you kept asking.
Every little question over food and coffee and pastries. Every casual mention between laughter. Every moment he thought you were trying to know him better—
No. You were working. Just like him.
Your employer wanted information, and you had been sent to pull it out of him piece by piece while he sat there completely fucking mesmerized by you.
And now you had what they needed. Or maybe they realised he didn’t know enough to be valuable. That was worse, because it meant that he was just another loose end.
His stomach twisted hard enough to hurt. Not because you’d played him, because some pathetic, starving part of him had genuinely believed this had stopped being a job somewhere along the way. That maybe the way you kissed him outside your building had been real. That maybe when you held his hand and silenced every screaming voice in his head, it had meant something to you too.
Humiliating. Absolutely humiliating.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered.
It you had looked cold, detached, amused, even cruel, this would have been easier. He would have known where to put it. Would have known how to hate you properly. But you looked devastated.
Your hand trembled slightly around the weapon pointed at him, and your eyes kept betraying you, flicking down to his mouth before snapping back up again. You looked like you hated this.
“I…” You swallowed. “You’re not useful to OXE anymore.”
He had known something felt off. He just hadn’t cared enough to stop. He just wanted you more than he wanted to survive.
Dex let out a shaky breath that almost sounded like laughter. “Fuck,” he murmured softly, and you twitched, feeling his breath on your naked core.
You flinched immediately. “No. Don’t do that.”
His eyes flicked back to yours.
“Don’t act like this was just me manipulating you,” you said, and your voice cracked slightly now. “I know there was a contract on me. I know you got sent it. I know about the gun under your shirt. Don’t you dare pretend like you weren’t planning to kill me too.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. Because what could he even say? You were right.
The notebook was sitting in his apartment right now, pages and pages documenting your routines, your apartment, your vulnerabilities.
He had memorized the ways to kill you before he ever memorized the sound of your laugh.
And all this time, you had let him follow you, let him think he was in control in that “accidental run in” in Central Park, when you were planning to eliminate him, too.
And somehow, the two of you still ended up tangled together on his bed, half-dressed and breathing hard from kissing each other like starving people.
Dex’s gaze dropped involuntarily to your thighs, to the skin exposed beneath the ruined hem of your dress. To the way your body was still open for him despite the gun in your hand.
Fuck.
His fingers tightened unconsciously where they still gripped the fabric pooled around your hips.
You looked vulnerable.
And the absolute worst fucking part was that he still wanted to bury himself between your legs so badly he could barely think straight. Even now. Even knowing this was the end.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
“You know what’s pathetic?” he asked quietly.
Your brows pulled together slightly.
Dex looked up at you from between your thighs, eyes dark and wet and unbearably earnest. “I still want to taste you.”
Your breath caught audibly.
“There’s a gun pointed at my head,” he whispered in disbelief. “and all I can think about is that I never got to know what you taste like.”
“Dex…” you breathed shakily.
But he shook his head immediately. “No, listen,” he said quickly. “I know what this is. I know what happens next.”
You looked away for half a second. That almost destroyed him, because he realized then that you didn’t actually want to kill him either. And that made him want you even more.
God, I’m so sick.
“I know you’re gonna kill me because it’s the job,” he continued. “Fine. I get it.” His eyes dropped again helplessly to the way your thighs trembled around him, then back up. “But Christ…” His voice cracked. “Just let me have this first.”
Dex looked humiliated and ruined all the same. And still completely sincere.
“I could die happy,” he admitted. “Just… let me taste you first, sweetheart.”
Your hand trembled. Not enough to miss, but just enough that Dex noticed.
The barrel of the gun was pressed against the center of his forehead now, cool metal against flushed skin, and still he didn’t move away from you.
“Do it, then,” you whispered.
You swallowed hard, trying to steady yourself, trying to force your hand not to shake while he knelt there between your thighs looking at you like this was the closest thing to worship he had ever known. Amazed that even like this, you were soaked for him.
“Fucking do it,” you said again, almost pleading now. “Before I…”
Before you what? Changed your mind? Cried? Dropped the gun?
Dex could see every possibility running through your brain all at once.
His hands slid down your thighs reverently. “You’re shaking,” he murmured quietly.
“So are you.”
That almost made him smile.
The apartment felt impossibly small around the two of you. The warm yellow light above the kitchen sink made you look divine, coupled by the sound of your uneven breathing. The mattress dipped beneath your weight every time you shifted. Dex tilted his head slightly against the gun like he was accepting his fate. Accepting you.
That should have terrified him. Instead, all he could think about was how beautiful you looked above him— dress ruined, eyes glossy with tears you clearly didn’t want him seeing.
He had wanted you from the beginning, even if he hadn’t admitted it. But this was something else entirely. This hurt.
Dex tilted his head just enough to press a slow kiss against the inside of your thigh, and the sound you made nearly destroyed him.
His eyes flicked up immediately, watching your reaction with awe. He couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch you like this. Like he couldn’t believe you were reacting to him this way.
Dex kissed higher, and your hand flew to his hair immediately, fingers tangling there hard enough to pull a rough sound from his throat in return. He moaned against you.
The vibration of it shot through you so suddenly your back arched off the mattress, breath breaking apart, embarrassingly needy.
Dex's eyes kept fluttering shut every time you touched his hair, every time your thighs trembled around him, every time another helpless sound escaped you. He looked less like a man in control and more like a vampire feeding on his first prey. It was overwhelming.
Every time you twitched or gasped or tried to pull away from how intense it felt, he noticed immediately. He adjusted immediately, making you feel good mattered more than breathing. Like your pleasure mattered more to him than the gun pressed to his skull.
And fuck, did his tongue feel so fucking good. You could barely think straight. The room blurred at the edges, your thoughts dissolving one by one. Every nerve in your body felt lit raw, burning hotter and hotter every time he moaned pathetically against you again like he couldn’t help himself.
Dex sounded addicted to you already. He was too consumed by you and the sounds you were making now. They were small broken noises you clearly hated letting out but couldn’t stop anymore. Too consumed by the way your body kept reacting stronger and stronger beneath him despite your obvious attempts to stay composed.
Your hands tightened helplessly in his hair as another wave hit you, harder this time, your thighs trembling violently around his shoulders. “Dex—” you gasped brokenly.
He looked up instantly at the sound of his name. His eyes were blown wide. His lips swollen from kissing your skin. Hair ruined beneath your fingers.
Then he sank back down, a man eating his last meal. He needed it to be a feast.
Too much. It was too much.
Your body tightened all at once, every nerve pulling taut as pleasure crashed through you so hard it hurt. A sob tore from your throat before you could stop it, your entire body shaking as you finally came apart beneath him. Dex held onto you through all of it.
Your fingers slipped from his hair eventually, weak now, trembling as you tried desperately to catch your breath. Tears blurred your vision completely by the time the waves finally started easing enough for you to think again.
Dex pulled back immediately the second he realized you were crying harder.
“Hey,” he whispered instantly, breathing unevenly as he came back up toward you. His hands slid shakily to your waist, then higher, like he didn’t know where to touch to make sure you were okay. “Hey— look at me.”
You were still trembling beneath him, chest heaving as you struggled to come down from the drug-like high of the orgasm he gave you, the barrel of your gun on his temple now.
His thumb brushed shakily beneath your eye, catching tears against the pad of his finger. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, like the idea genuinely horrified him.
“Fuck—no,” you sputtered immediately, breath still wrecked as you stared at him through blurred vision. “Dex, fuck! How could you even say that?”
The concern on his face was so raw it physically ached to look at.
You were still shaking, your body trembling, your thighs dripping with spit and arousal like neither of you knew how to stop this anymore.
You could trace every conversation backward now, see all the moments you carefully guided him toward the information you needed while he sat across from you like some fucking idiot who came to the conclusion you actually liked him. Except…
You had fallen utterly in love with him.
Somewhere between the pastries and the wine and him writing down your coffee order in that stupid little notebook of his, the job had become real. Somewhere between him kissing you and him looking at you like your body wasn’t shameful or weaponized or ruined… you had stopped wanting this to end.
And now here he was. Kneeling between your thighs with your gun to his head and your taste still on his mouth, looking at you like he’d die grateful if you asked him to.
It was as if, somewhere deep down, Benjamin Poindexter truly believed that if loving you ended in death, then maybe that was simply the closest thing he would ever get to being loved at all. That thought almost made you vomit from grief.
Your breathing broke unevenly as you stared down at him.
He still had one hand on your thigh, so fucking gentle.
“I don’t understand you,” you admitted shakily.
A sad smile ghosted across his mouth at that. He was exhausted. “I don’t either.”
You let out this awful sound halfway between a laugh and a sob as tears spilled harder down your face. “Fuck, Dex,” you choked out, “you were supposed to be a job.”
“So were you.”
You swallowed hard enough it hurt. “I should kill you,” you whispered suddenly. The sentence sounded wrong coming out now, like it was collapsing under its own weight before it even reached his ears.
Dex lowered his forehead slightly more firmly against the barrel of the gun, offering himself to you. He readjusted it, making sure that if you shot him now, it would be painless, like he was going to do to you.
“Do it,” he whispered. “It’s what you were sent to do.” He sounded like he genuinely believed his life was worth less than your mission.
Your vision blurred hard. “I can’t,” you whispered.
He exhaled through his nose. “Yes, you can.”
“No!” You shouted out, panicked. “Don’t fucking… don’t even try to make this easier!”
When your finger jerked against the trigger, Dex still wouldn’t move. Fuck, he really trusted you to end it quick, did he? Even with doom pressed cold against his skin.
Your eyes squeezed shut hard enough to ache. You tried to force yourself back into training, back into discipline, back into the little girl who would get extra pieces of scrap food if she finished her mission well enough.
But all you could feel was him. His mouth on your skin. The way he’d looked at you while you fell apart beneath him. The way he kept loving you despite knowing exactly what you were. “I’m gonna…” you whispered shakily, but you couldn’t finish the sentence.
You didn’t want to kill him. And that was the first truly selfish thing you had ever wanted.
You pulled the trigger anyway, and the gun went off.
The sound exploded through the apartment violently enough to shake the walls, but the bullet slammed into the floor behind him instead. You had missed a point blank shot intentionally.
Your hand dropped. You stared at the damage of the splintering wood, breathing hard, horror rushing through your body all at once like ice water. “Oh my god,” you choked.
Dex thought he was dead.
For one longs excruciating second. He truly thought you had killed him. When he realised he wasn’t, he said your name immediately, climbing up the bed toward you “Hey, look at me.”
You genuinely couldn’t. Your entire body started shaking harder now, all the adrenaline and terror and grief finally catching up at once. “I can’t fucking do this,” you sobbed. “I can’t… I can’t—”
Dex cradled your face in both hands immediately.
“I’m a monster,” you whispered brokenly. “Dex, I’m a fucking monster.”
Dex said nothing. He only leaned forward slowly and kissed the tears from your cheeks one by one, like guilt itself had become holy.
And suddenly you understood something terrible about him: He does not love cautiously, nor rationally.
Every ounce of affection he gave came directly from the part of him that had been hurt the most. His soul had been beaten bloody and kept reaching anyway. The heart is a muscle, and his had torn itself apart trying to hold both of you afloat.
“You don’t get to say that like you’re different from me,” he whimpered against your skin.
Your breath hitched and that was when he kissed you like he was trying to pour every shattered piece of himself into your mouth before the world took it away again.
When his mouth parted against yours, you could still taste yourself on him. That made it more devastating. This ruined, trembling man was still carrying evidence of your pleasure on his tongue while he kissed you like you were worth saving.
Dex made a small sound against your mouth when you started crying harder, and suddenly his hands were everywhere, trying to hold you together physically because he didn’t know how else to do it.
His forehead dropped against yours when he pulled away. “We’re both monsters,” he whispered.
But it didn’t sound cruel. It sounded heartbreakingly close to love.
fbi!ben poindexter has this bad habit of referring to you as his. it comes off weird to outsiders, occasionally, because you obviously aren't an object to be owned; you know, though, he doesn't mean it like that. in his mind, it's an equivalent exchange—he's as much yours as you are his.
my girl, he introduces you to colleagues sometimes. my perfect baby, he breathes into the space between you at night, sweat-slicked chest pressed to yours. so good to me, for me. in the mornings, while cooking breakfast: my pretty girl sleep well? mine, mine, mine.
and then, other nights, he's begging you to say it back, pleading for you to acknowledge that he belongs to only you, pressing your hands to his neck 'til your fingers wrap around it and euphoria fills his veins and you lean down to kiss him and call him yours. when he's bored, maybe at the checkout queue in the grocery store, or waiting in his car at a red light, he presses kisses to each of your knuckles, murmuring something against them you never quite seem to catch—i'm yours. my benjamin poindexter, you say once, in passing, and he's always hated his name, but he's just so flustered, cheeks flushed the prettiest pink, and just this one time, just this once, he might be okay with it.
or he overhears you talking to your friends when he's working in the other room—he doesn't mean to, really, he's just attentive, a good boyfriend—and you say you don't know how you got so lucky; you don't deserve your beautiful boy, and his brain short-circuits, because how dare you say that first part, and what did you call him? you don't make the correlation, though, that night, when he's somehow even more devoted to you than usual, telling you how obsessed with you he is, his gorgeous, gorgeous girl. must be a little pent up, you think, but you don't know how wrong you are.
after the events of s3 you don't expect him to come home, of course not. who walks out of that?
your boyfriend, apparently. much stronger than the last time you saw him, twice as built—you don't know what to expect from ddba!dex. he's obviously different, because that shit back there changes you, and not always for the better, right?
and yes, he's still your boyfriend, whether you're single or dating someone or you have a ring on your finger—not that it matters much, because if there is someone, he'll take care of them before he comes back home to you. neither of you will have to worry about them anymore.
and you're his girl, after all; even if you're scared or horrified or disgusted by his actions, you'll find yourself completely uncaring by the end of the night, when he's holding you in a headlock, firm bicep pressing into your airway and his chest pushed up right against your back. you're in tears, overwhelmed by everything you're feeling, everything you know is wrong (he's an escaped convict, for heaven's sake), and his breathless words are low and urgent in your ear—who do you belong to, c'mon, say it, that's right, my good girl—
and maybe he's a little scared that you'll still leave him after this, maybe he's gone too far. but you're lying under him, boneless, and his arms are braced on either side of you, and you push yourself up on your elbows (with considerable effort) and say, if he's still really yours, won't he kiss you again? and he smiles the biggest he has in a while, because he knows he won—and with you, he always will.
hi im back. sorry. i hate myself too. this man will be the death of me. 0.6k words
The hand beneath your chin guided you along with his voice. "Open your mouth, you lazy thing." Your eyes stayed closed as you melted against the palm beneath your jaw. With your mouth obediently open, you let your lover brush your teeth for you.
You were standing but your brain looked at the act of walking the way it would a distant, foggy memory. Completely open to being guided, like a puppet. To him though, it was the complete opposite. You were adorable.
"Lower your head now." he said while rinsing the toothbrush under water and setting it aside. With eyes barely cracked open, you allowed him to slowly lean you over the sink and bring the half handful of water in his palm to your mouth.
"Rinse." The gentle command never fully reached your brain. Instead, you swallowed the water and suddenly, with a harsh shake at the back of your neck, whatever remained was forced back out into the sink.
Like a raccoon caught in headlights, you blankly stared into the mirror while he muttered under his breath and wiped the toothpaste stained water from your mouth and neck with a cloth. "Tastes disgusting…"
At your half mumbled complaint, he let out a faintly amused sigh. "Of course it tastes disgusting. You drank something you weren't supposed to." He tilted you back toward his palm again and pushed water into your mouth once more. Bent down close enough to your face, he watched you with complete focus. "This time, rinse."
You lazily swished the water around in your puffed cheeks, your eyes already beginning to drift shut again. Eventually growing tired of it, you spat the water out. With a cupped handful of water, he gently washed your mouth. Something soft brushed against your lips, leaving behind the fading trace of warmth.
"Come on let's go back to bed, big panda." You grumbled as if protesting the teasing tone but still allowed him to pick you up. Your legs dangled off to the side while your arms lazily wrapped around his neck without even bothering to open your eyes.
As he carried you away with him, you tucked yourself beneath his chin for the soothing feeling of his pulse. No matter what happened, having a man who would take care of you felt as lovely as a soft breeze.
𝑺𝑴𝑰𝑳𝑬 𝑭𝑶𝑹 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑻𝑬𝑫𝑫𝒀 Bucky Barnes has been secretly obsessed with you for months, the soft-spoken, innocent-looking Avenger who blushes at dirty jokes, so he gifts you a teddy bear with a hidden camera inside, convincing himself it’s just for protection.
new avenger!bucky barnes x fem!new avenger!reader
word count : 10.9k
warnings 18+ : porn with very little plot, no use of y/n, significant age gap (bucky is over 100, reader is early 20s), non-consensual filming (hidden camera in teddy bear), mutual corruption, innocence kink with fake innocence, size difference, praise/degradation, rough sex, face riding, deepthroating, creampie, cum play, exhibitionism, risky public sex, spanking, choking, possessive behavior, dirty talk, power-play dynamics, reader is portrayed as younger, soft, and “innocent” on the surface while being highly sexually proactive, slight anal play, sex tapes
author’s note : hii!! this was based on two requests I got so I just combined them into one bigger fanfic <33 hope you don’t mind and enjoyyy!!
Bucky couldn’t stop staring.
The compound kitchen was quiet this afternoon, sunlight slanting through the tall windows and catching on the steam rising from your mug. You were perched on one of the high stools, legs tucked under you, completely absorbed in the mission report glowing on your tablet.
That oversized cream sweater you loved so much had slipped off one shoulder again, exposing the soft curve of your collarbone and the delicate strap of whatever tiny top you wore underneath. Every time you reached for your pen or stretched slightly to grab the mug, the hem of those tiny sleep shorts rode higher up the backs of your thighs, just enough to make his mouth go dry.
You bit your lip in concentration, a small furrow forming between your brows as you highlighted something important. So focused. So unaware.
Or at least… that’s what he kept telling himself.
Bucky’s metal fingers flexed around his own coffee mug, the ceramic creaking under the pressure. His cock had been half-hard for the last ten minutes, straining against his jeans from nothing more than the sight of you looking soft and sweet and far too young for the kind of thoughts running through his head.
He was over a century old. The Winter Soldier. A man with more blood on his hands than most people could comprehend. And here you were, in your early twenties, the youngest recruit to join the newly reformed Avengers team after the chaos following the Thunderbolts.
You’d come in like a quiet storm six months ago. Recruited straight out of a specialized training program after displaying rare tactical intuition and an almost eerie calm under pressure during a hostage situation in Eastern Europe. Yelena had vouched for you personally, impressed by how you’d de-escalated a room full of armed mercs without firing a single shot. The team had welcomed you with open arms, but Bucky… Bucky had felt something twist in his chest the moment he saw you.
You were so damn soft. You had a gentle voice and blushed at almost everything. You always wore those big oversized sweaters, like you were trying to hide inside them. The team loved teasing you and calling you the “baby Avenger.” Every time they did, Bucky’s protective instincts kicked in hard. He started stepping in more than he should, getting between you and any roughhousing during training, draping his jacket over your shoulders when the room got too cold, and glaring at anyone who made jokes that went too far.
He told himself it was because you needed protecting. The world was too sharp for someone like you.
But late at night, alone in his room, he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. It wasn’t just protection. It was obsession. The way you moved, the way you smiled shyly when someone praised you, the way those innocent little habits made his blood run hot.
It was becoming a problem.
A few days later, Bucky finally cracked. He went looking for advice but he did it in the most roundabout way possible.
He’d cornered Yelena in the training room after sparring, both of them dripping sweat. She was wiping her face with a towel when he asked.
“So, Belova,” he said, trying to sound casual. “You’ve spent more time with the kid than most of us. She… like plushies? Stuffed animals? That sort of thing?”
Yelena slowly lowered the towel, one perfect eyebrow arching high. Her smirk turned sharp and knowing.
“Ohhh,” she drawled, clearly amused. “What’s this, Barnes? You got a little crush on our sweet baby Avenger?”
Bucky’s ears burned instantly. “Jesus, no,” he grunted, scowling. “It’s not like that. She’s young. The compound gets quiet during missions. I just thought something soft might help her sleep better.”
Yelena let out a sharp, delighted laugh.
“Sure, sure,” she teased, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Totally innocent. You’re just being a big protective grandpa, right? Nothing to do with the way you stare at her every time she walks into a room.”
Bucky crossed his arms, metal plates whirring. “You gonna help me or just give me shit?”
Yelena grinned wider. “She does like plushies. Soft ones. Get her something cute and innocent-looking. She’ll light up like a Christmas tree… and maybe you’ll finally stop pretending you’re not completely obsessed with her.”
That was all the excuse he’d needed.
The next afternoon, Bucky had slipped out alone and driven into the city. He’d spent nearly an hour in a quiet little boutique that sold handmade plush toys, the kind with premium soft fur and stitched, friendly faces. He’d stood there like an idiot, picking up bear after bear until he found the perfect one: medium-sized, warm brown fur, a gentle stitched smile, and big innocent button eyes that somehow reminded him of you when you were focused.
He’d paid cash, tucked it carefully into a plain bag, and told himself again that this was protective. Just something soft for you to hold when the team was scattered across the globe. Nothing more.
That same night, during the team’s weekly movie night, he found his moment.
The lights were dim, some loud action flick droning on the big screen. You were curled up at the end of the massive sectional in yet another oversized sweater, knees drawn to your chest, looking smaller and sweeter than ever. When a lull hit and someone complained about how empty the compound felt during long missions, Bucky cleared his throat.
“Hey, doll,” he said, voice low and casual. He pulled the plush bear from behind the couch where he’d stashed it. “Saw this in a shop the other day. Thought it’d keep you company when I’m gone on missions. Something soft to hold onto.”
Your eyes lit up instantly, that bright, genuine sparkle that always hit him like a gut punch. You sat up straighter, the sweater slipping further off your shoulder as you reached for it.
“Really? For me?” Your voice was soft, delighted, almost shy.
Bucky nodded, throat tight. “Yeah. Figured you might like it.”
You took the teddy bear and hugged it tight to your chest, pressing its plush head right between your breasts without thinking. The sight made his mind blank for a second, the soft fur sinking into your curves, the way your body curved around it so naturally.
You rose up on your toes right there in front of everyone and pressed a shy little peck to his cheek. “Thank you, Bucky. I love it already.”
The innocent brush of your lips against his stubble sent heat flooding straight to his groin. He had to shove his hands into his pockets and clench his jaw to stop himself from pulling you closer. His cock twitched hard, already leaking at the simple, sweet contact.
He almost came in his pants like a damn teenager.
Later, back in the privacy of his own room, Bucky locked the door, killed the lights, and set up the feed.
The hidden camera he had installed inside the teddy’s left eye was top-of-the-line, crystal-clear resolution, night vision and a wide-angle lens. He’d bought the bear, taken it straight back to his room, carefully pried open the stitching behind the left eye, and embedded the tiny device with steady hands. He’d even tested the feed twice to make sure the angle was perfect. Then he’d neatly re-stitched it so no one would ever notice.
Now he sat back in his chair, heart hammering against his ribs, laptop balanced on his thighs.
He told himself it was protective.
Just to keep an eye on his soft, young teammate. Make sure you were safe when no one else was around. You were too trusting. Too breakable.
That was the lie he repeated as the feed flickered to life and the image sharpened into perfect, devastating clarity.
There you were.
Fresh from the shower, skin still flushed pink and dewy, with nothing but a thin white towel wrapped loosely around your body. Bucky’s breath caught as you padded barefoot into frame, humming a soft little tune under your breath. The camera captured every detail in razor-sharp clarity, water droplets clinging to your collarbones, the way the towel barely clung to the swell of your breasts, threatening to slip with every step.
You stopped beside the nightstand, glancing down at the teddy bear with a gentle smile. Without hesitation, you unwrapped the towel and let it drop to the floor in a careless heap. Completely naked now, you looked so soft and vulnerable under the warm glow of your bedside lamp.
Bucky’s mouth went dry. His cock throbbed painfully in his sweatpants as he drank in the sight of your bare body, the gentle curve of your waist, the fullness of your breasts, the smooth plane of your stomach leading down to the soft patch of hair between your thighs. You were even more perfect than his fantasies had allowed.
You picked up the teddy bear with both hands, cradling it like something precious.
“Hey there, little guy,” you murmured, voice sweet and sleepy, barely above a whisper. “Bucky gave you to me today. Isn’t that nice? He’s always looking out for me… even when he thinks I don’t notice.”
You climbed onto the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under your weight and settled back against the pillows. With a contented sigh, you pulled the teddy tight against your chest, pressing its soft plush head right between your full, bare tits. The high-resolution camera caught everything in devastating detail, the way your soft breasts spilled and squished around the bear’s face, enveloping it completely, your nipples already tightening into stiff little peaks from the cool air and the gentle friction.
You squirmed a little, hugging the bear closer, nuzzling your cheek against its fuzzy head. “Mmm… you’re so soft. Just like I imagined he’d be. Warm and safe… I bet his arms would feel even better though.”
A small, innocent giggle escaped you as you adjusted the bear, pushing it deeper between your tits until only its ears poked out. Your fingers stroked its back absentmindedly while you continued talking to it in that soft, dreamy voice.
“Night missions are scary sometimes… but with you here, I won’t feel so alone. You’ll keep my secrets, right? Like how I think about Sergeant Barnes when the lights go out…” You yawned, eyelids growing heavy, and pressed one last gentle kiss to the top of the teddy’s head. “Goodnight, little bear. Tell Bucky I said thank you again… and that I feel safer already.”
Within minutes, you were asleep, completely naked, cuddling the teddy bear tightly between your breasts like it was the most natural thing in the world. Your breathing evened out, chest rising and falling in slow, peaceful rhythm, the bear still nestled warmly in your cleavage.
Bucky sat frozen in his chair, laptop screen glowing on his face. His hand had slipped into his sweatpants without conscious thought, wrapping around his aching cock. He stroked himself slowly, almost reverently, eyes glued to the feed.
“Fuck…” he muttered hoarsely, voice rough with disbelief and raw lust. “So innocent… yet so perfect.”
He watched the gentle rise and fall of your tits around the teddy’s face for what felt like hours, thumb brushing over the head of his cock with every slow pump. The contrast between your sweet, whispered words and the filthy images burning into his brain made his head spin. You looked so pure, talking to the bear like it was a friend, confessing little pieces of your feelings for him while pressing it between your bare breasts.
His protective instincts warred violently with the dark, possessive hunger clawing inside him.
She’s too young. Too soft. I shouldn’t be watching this.
But he couldn’t look away. His hand moved faster, breath coming in ragged bursts as he imagined replacing the teddy with his own face, burying himself between those soft tits while you whispered his name in that same gentle tone.
By the time he came, hard, spilling over his fist with a choked groan, he was shaking.
And he already knew he’d be back for more tomorrow night.
The next morning, Bucky was already in the compound kitchen nursing a black coffee when you padded in, still soft-eyed from sleep and wearing yet another oversized sweater that nearly reached mid-thigh. Your hair was slightly messy, cheeks carrying that fresh, just-woke-up flush, and in your arms you carried the teddy bear like it was the most precious thing in the world.
You spotted him immediately and your whole face lit up with that shy, genuine smile that always made his chest tighten.
“Bucky!” you called softly, hurrying over with bare feet whispering against the tile. You stopped right in front of him, hugging the teddy tighter to your chest, the same chest he’d spent half the night watching spill around that very bear. “Good morning. I just wanted to thank you again for this little guy.”
You lifted the teddy slightly, pressing its head against your sternum as you looked up at him with big, sparkling eyes. “I cuddled him all night. He’s so soft… exactly what I needed. I even talked to him a little before I fell asleep. Told him how nice it was that you thought of me.”
Bucky’s grip on his mug tightened until the ceramic threatened to crack. Heat flooded his face and his groin, at the innocent reminder. He could still see it so clearly in his mind: your naked body curled around the bear, tits enveloping its face, nipples hard, voice sleepy and sweet as you whispered confessions to it.
He forced a casual shrug, voice coming out rougher than he intended. “It’s nothing, doll. Really. Just didn’t want you feeling lonely when the team’s scattered on missions. Figured something soft to hold onto might help.”
You tilted your head, still smiling that pure, trusting smile, and stepped a little closer. The hem of your sweater brushed against his thigh as you stood between his spread legs where he sat on the stool.
“Well, it did help,” you said softly, almost shyly. “I slept better than I have in weeks. He felt… safe. Like having a tiny piece of you watching over me.” You gave the teddy a gentle squeeze, then rose up on your toes and pressed another light, grateful kiss to his cheek, dangerously close to the corner of his mouth this time. “Thank you, Sergeant. You’re always looking out for me.”
The word “Sergeant” in that sweet voice hit him like a live wire. Bucky swallowed hard, fighting the sudden urge to grab your waist and pull you into his lap right there in the kitchen. His cock was already stirring again, memories of last night’s footage flashing behind his eyes, your breasts spilling around the bear, the way you’d sighed and squirmed while talking to it.
He cleared his throat, trying to sound normal. “Anytime, kid. You need anything… you just tell me, alright? I’ve got you.”
You nodded happily, still clutching the teddy, and gave him one last bright smile before turning to grab a yogurt from the fridge. As you stretched up on your toes to reach it, the sweater rode up just enough to flash the curve of your bare ass under the hem.
Bucky looked away quickly, jaw clenched, blood roaring in his ears.
Too young. Too soft. Too fucking pure.
But the lie was getting harder to believe with every passing second.
He already knew he’d be watching the feed again tonight.
And deep down, a darker part of him hoped you’d do more than just cuddle the bear this time.
That night, Bucky barely made it through dinner. His mind kept replaying the morning, your soft “thank you,” the way you’d kissed his cheek, the teasing flash of bare skin when you reached for the yogurt. By the time he locked himself in his room and pulled up the feed, his cock was already throbbing and leaking in his sweatpants.
The camera flickered to life.
You stepped into the room fresh from the shower, skin flushed pink and still glistening with droplets. Without hesitation, you let the towel drop to the floor the second the door shut, standing completely naked under the warm lamplight. Your full tits swayed gently as you moved, nipples already tight, and the soft patch of hair above your pussy caught the light.
Bucky’s mouth went dry.
You glanced at the teddy bear on the nightstand, a small, almost shy smile tugging at your lips. You climbed onto the bed, lay back against the pillows and spread your legs wide for the camera. With one hand you grabbed the teddy and tossed it carelessly onto the sheets beside your hip.
Your other hand immediately slid down your body. Fingers trailed through the slightly hairy mound above your slick cunt, then dipped between your puffy folds. You were already dripping. Two fingers pushed inside your tight hole with a wet, obscene sound, pumping slowly while your thumb rubbed messy circles over your swollen clit.
“Mmm… fuck,” you sighed, eyes fluttering half-closed. Your hips rolled lazily as you fingered yourself, the wet squelching noises filling the quiet room. The teddy lay ignored on the bed while you worked your pussy open, juices coating your fingers and dripping down toward your ass.
Bucky’s hand was already fisted around his thick cock, stroking in rhythm with every thrust of your fingers.
After a minute, you pulled your soaked fingers out with a filthy pop. You picked up the teddy again, biting your lip like you were embarrassed by how nasty you were about to get. Then you gave the teddy’s eye, the hidden camera the shyest little smirk, cheeks burning pink.
You pressed the bear’s plush face directly against your dripping cunt.
The second the soft fur touched your slightly hairy pussy, you squealed loudly, a high, pathetic sound that made Bucky’s cock twitch hard in his grip.
“Oh my god… that feels so fucking dirty,” you whimpered, voice breathy and trembling with shame and lust. You rocked your hips, grinding the teddy’s stitched mouth and nose right along your slick folds and through the soft hair covering your mound. The fur quickly grew dark and matted with your juices. “It’s so soft against me… but it’s so wrong. Using the bear he gave me like this…”
You moaned louder, pressing the plush face harder against your pussy, rubbing it up and down your slit. Your free hand grabbed one of your tits roughly, pinching and tugging your nipple while you humped the bear’s face with increasing desperation. Shy little squeals turned into needy, slutty moans as the fur dragged over your swollen clit again and again.
“So dirty… humping his innocent little gift… getting it all messy with my wet pussy…”
The embarrassment melted away completely. You shifted positions, straddling the teddy’s plush body properly. Bracing your hands on the mattress, you lowered your dripping cunt onto its soft belly and started riding it like a desperate whore.
Slow at first, rolling your hips in filthy circles, letting your slick pussy lips spread wide over the fur. Then faster. Harder. You fucked the innocent-looking bear like it was Bucky’s thick thigh, grinding your clit against the plush surface with wet, obscene sounds.
Your moans grew louder, thighs flexing as you humped faster and faster.
“Fuck… feels so good…” you gasped, back arching.
Your orgasm slammed into you without warning. Your thighs shook violently, a broken cry tearing from your throat as you ground down hard against the teddy’s belly. Your pussy clenched and pulsed, gushing slick all over the soft brown fur and leaving a big, shiny wet spot that soaked deep into the plush. You kept riding through the aftershocks, hips jerking erratically, small whimpers and squeaks spilling from your lips until your body finally collapsed forward, panting and trembling, the ruined teddy still trapped beneath your soaked, hairy pussy.
Bucky came with a guttural groan at the exact same moment, thick ropes of cum spilling over his fist as he stared at the obscene wet mess you’d made on his gift.
“Jesus Christ, doll…” he rasped to the empty room, chest heaving. “What the hell are you doing to me?”
He kept watching as you caught your breath, your naked body still draped over the teddy, the fur between your legs dark and glistening with your cum.
Bucky didn’t stop at the live feed.
After you collapsed panting on the bed with the teddy still trapped beneath your soaked cunt, he immediately rewound the footage. He watched both nights back-to-back on a loop, the first night’s soft, innocent tit-cuddling mixed with the filthy second night: you fingering your dripping pussy with the bear tossed aside, shyly smirking before pressing its plush face between your legs, grinding it desperately against your cunt while whimpering about how dirty it felt, then straddling and riding the innocent-looking bear like a desperate little slut until you left a big, shiny wet spot soaked into its fur.
He jerked off furiously to both clips, hand flying over his thick cock, metal fingers digging into his thigh hard enough to dent the skin. His breathing was ragged, low growls escaping his throat as he stroked himself raw.
“Fuck… look at you,” he muttered hoarsely, eyes glued to the screen. “Sweet little thing… humping the gift I gave you like a filthy girl.”
He came harder than he had in decades, the first orgasm ripping through him with a choked groan as he watched you grind the teddy’s face on your hairy pussy, thick ropes of cum spilling over his fist and onto his stomach. He didn’t stop. He kept stroking through the sensitivity, chasing a second release while the footage played again, this time focusing on the way your thighs shook and your slick dripped down the bear’s belly.
The second orgasm hit him even harder, leaving him shaking and breathless, chest heaving as he slumped back in his chair.
For a long moment, the only sound in his room was his ragged breathing and the faint wet sounds still playing from the laptop.
Then, on the screen, you slowly sat up after your own climax. Your naked body glistened with a light sheen of sweat, thighs shiny from your release. You caught your breath, staring down at the ruined teddy between your legs with a small, satisfied smile.
You leaned forward, looking straight into the teddy’s eye, directly into the hidden camera and gave it a wicked little smirk that sent ice down Bucky’s spine.
Your lips moved clearly, mouthing the words with deliberate slowness:
“Goodnight, Sergeant.”
You reached out, turned off the bedside lamp and the feed went dark.
Bucky froze.
His hand was still loosely wrapped around his spent cock, cum cooling on his skin, but every muscle in his body locked up. The room felt suddenly too quiet. His heart hammered against his ribs as the realization crashed over him.
Did you just…?
Had you known the camera was there the entire time?
You’d known Bucky was watching you for weeks.
It started small, innocent enough that anyone else might have missed it. But you were an Avenger. You’d been trained to notice the little things: the way his metal fingers would twitch against his thigh when you “accidentally” bent over in one of your short skirts to pick something up, the subtle shift in his stance, the way his jaw clenched like he was fighting a war inside his own head.
You noticed how his eyes would darken, pupils blowing wide, whenever you licked whipped cream slowly off your finger during movie nights, letting your tongue drag deliberately along the pad of your thumb while maintaining soft, shy eye contact with him. He always looked away first, pretending to focus on the screen but you caught the way his breath hitched every single time.
So you leaned into it.
You played the part of the sweet, innocent little recruit perfectly, the youngest on the team, soft-spoken, always hiding in oversized sweaters that made you look even smaller and more delicate than you already were. You blushed on command at dirty jokes, giggled shyly when someone teased you, and acted like you’d never had a filthy thought in your life.
But behind closed doors? You were anything but innocent.
In the privacy of your room, you destroyed yourself thinking about him. You’d ride your biggest dildo for hours, the thick, veined one that stretched you open and made you cry out while imagining it was Bucky’s cock. You’d read the filthiest Bucky fanfics on your tablet late at night, touching yourself to stories where the Winter Soldier pinned you down and ruined his soft little teammate. You even recorded voice memos on your phone: moaning his name breathily while you fingered yourself, whispering things like “Bucky… please, Sergeant… I’m so wet for you” just so you could listen back to them later and come again.
You were a menace in private and you loved every second of it.
The teddy bear had been the perfect opportunity.
The moment Bucky handed it to you that night, you’d clocked the hidden camera. Your trained eyes had spotted the tiny lens glinting inside the left button eye almost instantly, Avengers-level observation skills mixed with your own natural tech-savvy side. The weight was just slightly off, the stitching around the eye a little too precise. You knew exactly what he’d done.
And instead of calling him out or smashing the damn thing, you’d smiled sweetly, hugged the bear to your chest, and decided to give Sergeant Barnes the show of a lifetime.
You started “innocent” on purpose.
The first night you’d dropped the towel, climbed into bed naked, and cuddled the teddy tightly between your bare tits, pressing its soft plush head right into your cleavage, letting your nipples harden against the fur while you sighed and talked sweetly to it. You wanted to tease him. To make him think you were still his pure, soft little girl.
But the second night? You escalated.
You’d fingered yourself with the bear tossed aside, then shyly smirked right into the camera before grinding the teddy’s face against your pussy until you were squealing and whimpering about how dirty it felt. Then you’d straddled it and ridden the innocent-looking plush like a desperate slut, soaking its belly with your cum while moaning for the camera.
All of it calculated.
All of it for him.
You wanted to see how long it would take the big, protective super-soldier to break. How long before his “I’m just keeping her safe” excuse crumbled and he admitted how badly he wanted to ruin the sweet young thing he’d been obsessing over.
So far, it was working better than you could have hoped.
The next morning, when you’d walked into the kitchen still carrying the teddy and thanked him again with that shy little kiss on the cheek, you’d seen the hunger in his eyes. You’d felt the way his body had tensed when you mentioned cuddling the bear all night.
He was already cracking.
And you couldn’t wait to push him further.
The next day, the gym was mostly empty after the afternoon training session.
You’d just finished sparring with Ava and were wiping sweat from your neck with a towel when you felt that heavy stare burning into your back.
Bucky was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed, metal fingers drumming restlessly. His jaw was tight, eyes darker than usual. He’d been watching you the entire time.
You pretended not to notice at first, bending slowly to pick up your water bottle and letting your tight workout shorts ride up. When you straightened and turned, he was already moving toward you.
He cornered you near the mats, using his larger frame to shield you both from view. His voice dropped low and rough, almost strained.
“That teddy…” he started, eyes flicking down to your lips before locking back on yours. “You like it?”
You blinked up at him with wide, innocent doe eyes, cheeks flushing a perfect shade of pink. One hand came up to twirl a strand of your damp hair around your finger as you tilted your head sweetly.
“Oh, I love it Bucky,” you said in the softest, most angelic voice. “It’s so cuddly and warm. I slept with it between my boobs the first night… all soft and squished right there against my bare skin.” You bit your lip shyly, letting your gaze drop for a moment like you were embarrassed, then looked back up at him through your lashes. “And the second night… I had it between my legs.”
Bucky’s metal arm twitched hard at his side, fingers curling into a tight fist with a quiet mechanical whir. His breath hitched visibly.
You continued in that same sweet, breathy tone, leaning in just a little closer.
“It makes me feel really good, you know? So soft rubbing against me… I kept moving it around until it felt even better. I didn’t want to stop.”
His brain completely short-circuited.
You watched the exact moment it happened, his pupils blew wide, his mouth parted slightly, and the muscle in his jaw jumped violently. He looked like he was picturing every second: your naked tits hugging the bear, then your slick pussy grinding desperately against its soft belly.
“I… fuck,” he rasped, voice hoarse and low. “Doll, you can’t just- you shouldn’t be telling me that.”
“But it’s true,” you replied innocently, blinking up at him with big eyes. “It felt so nice and warm between my legs. Made me all tingly and wet. You picked such a good one, Bucky. Thank you again.”
He looked like he was two seconds away from pinning you against the wall right there in the gym.
From that moment on, the tension between you became unbearable, at least for him.
During the evening briefing, when you “accidentally” dropped your pen under the table, you made sure to brush your ass slowly against the front of his pants as you straightened back up. Bucky stiffened behind you, a low growl rumbling in his chest.
Later, when the team was reaching for files on the high shelf, he stepped in close behind you, pressing his much larger body flush against your back “to help.” His metal hand settled on your waist, gripping a little too tightly, while his hips aligned perfectly with the curve of your ass. You felt the thick, hard outline of his cock twitch against you.
You didn’t pull away. Instead, you arched your back just slightly, pressing your ass back into him with a soft, innocent hum as you grabbed the folder.
“Thanks, Bucky,” you whispered sweetly, glancing over your shoulder. “You’re always so helpful… and so warm.”
His fingers dug into your waist for half a second before he forced himself to step back, breathing ragged.
“Careful, doll,” he muttered under his breath, voice strained. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
You just smiled shyly and twirled your hair again. “I don’t know what you mean, Sergeant. I’m just being grateful.”
By the end of the day, Bucky was losing his goddamn mind.
You could see it in the way he kept clenching and unclenching his metal fist, the way his eyes followed your every movement like a man slowly realizing he’d been outplayed by the sweet, soft girl he thought he was protecting.
And you were loving every single second of it.
Back in his room that night, the lights were off and the only glow came from his laptop screen. He sat on the edge of his bed, sweatpants shoved down just enough, cock already hard and leaking as he obsessively rewatched both clips on loop.
First the soft innocent night, your naked body curling around the teddy, pressing its plush head deep between your full, bare tits until they spilled and squished around its face, nipples hardening against the fur while you sighed and talked sweetly to it.
Then the filthy second night, you fingering your dripping pussy with the bear tossed aside, that shy little smirk right into the camera before you pressed the teddy’s face between your legs, grinding its soft fur against your slightly hairy cunt and whimpering about how dirty it felt. The way you straddled it afterward, riding the innocent plush like a desperate slut, hips rolling faster and faster until you soaked its belly with a shiny wet spot.
He couldn’t stop.
His hand flew over his thick cock, stroking himself raw, metal fingers occasionally joining to squeeze his balls as the footage played again and again. Low, broken groans filled the room.
“Fuck… look at you, doll,” he rasped, eyes glued to the high-res shot of your tits hugging the teddy. “So sweet and soft… and then you turn into such a filthy little thing.”
He rewound to the riding session, watching your pussy drag wetly over the bear’s belly, thighs trembling as you humped it harder. His strokes grew frantic, thumb smearing the steady leak of pre-cum over the head.
“Making my gift all messy… grinding that pretty hairy cunt on it like you needed to be fucked…”
He came hard the first time, spilling over his fist with a guttural groan, but he didn’t stop. He kept stroking through the sensitivity, chasing another release while the clips looped. The contrast between your innocent “I love it, Bucky” smile in the kitchen and the way you’d moaned while riding his gift was driving him insane.
He was still panting, cock half-hard again in his slick fist, when a soft knock sounded at his door.
Before he could even pull his sweatpants up properly, the door opened.
You slipped inside wearing nothing but his oversized black hoodie, the one he’d left in the laundry room days ago and thigh-high black socks that hugged your legs. The hoodie swallowed your smaller frame, the hem barely reaching mid-thigh, and it was obvious you had nothing underneath. Your hair was loose, cheeks still slightly flushed.
You closed the door behind you with a quiet click, then walked straight to his bed without hesitation. Bucky froze, laptop still open beside him, the paused footage of you riding the teddy glowing on the screen.
You pushed him back gently but firmly until he was sitting against the headboard, then climbed onto his lap, straddling his thighs. The moment your bare pussy pressed against the hard line of his cock through his sweatpants, you felt him twitch violently beneath you.
You cupped his face with both hands, thumbs brushing over his stubble, and looked him dead in the eyes with a wicked little smile.
“Saw the little red light in my teddy’s eye, Sergeant,” you purred, voice sweet but dripping with teasing satisfaction. “Naughty, naughty boy.”
Bucky’s breath caught, his metal hand instinctively gripping your waist under the hoodie. His eyes were wide, pupils blown, caught completely off guard.
“You… knew?” he rasped, voice rough and strained.
You leaned in closer, lips brushing the shell of his ear as you rocked your hips once, slowly, letting him feel how wet you already were.
“Mhm,” you whispered. “I knew the second you gave it to me. But I decided to give you a show instead… starting all sweet and innocent with my tits, then riding it like a desperate little slut the next night. Did you like watching me make your gift all messy?”
You pulled back just enough to meet his gaze again, still cupping his face, your voice dropping into that soft, angelic tone you knew drove him crazy.
“Every time I pressed its soft little face between my legs and rode it… I closed my eyes and pretended it was you underneath me. Your tongue, your mouth, your stubble rubbing against my wet pussy.”
You didn’t give him time to recover.
Still straddling his lap, you started grinding slowly on his clothed cock, rolling your hips in lazy, deliberate circles. The oversized hoodie rode up your thighs as you moved, and the only thing between your bare, wet pussy and his throbbing erection was the thin fabric of his sweatpants. You could feel every thick inch of him twitch and harden further beneath you.
Bucky’s metal hand tightened on your waist, the other gripping your hip like he was trying to anchor himself.
“Tell me the truth, Sergeant…” you purred, still grinding your soaked pussy slowly over his clothed cock, “how many times did you cum watching your sweet, innocent little teammate hump the teddy you gave her like a needy whore?”
He groaned, head falling back against the headboard, but you grabbed his chin and forced him to look at you.
“Don’t get shy now,” you whispered, grinding harder, letting your clit rub against the ridge of his cock. “I know you watched both nights. Tell me… how many times did you jerk off to me cuddling your gift between my tits? All soft and bare, nipples getting hard while I hugged it tight?”
Bucky’s breath hitched, his cock jerking hard under you.
“And then the second night…” You leaned in, lips brushing his ear as you rocked faster. “How many times did you stroke that big cock while I rode it like a desperate slut? Grinding my wet, little pussy all over its soft belly until I left a big shiny mess? Did you come when I squealed about how dirty it felt?”
“Fuck… doll-” His voice was wrecked, raw and broken.
You smiled innocently, still grinding slow and filthy on him. “Use your words, Bucky. Be honest. How many loads did you spill watching your sweet, innocent girl turn into a filthy little hypocrite on the teddy you gave her?”
He swallowed hard, eyes dark with lust and shame. “Three… maybe four,” he admitted hoarsely. “Couldn’t stop. Kept rewinding to the part where you pressed its face between your legs… fuck, the way you whimpered ‘so dirty’ while you humped it-”
You rewarded him with a particularly slow, wet grind, letting him feel how soaked you were.
“Good boy,” you cooed. “See? Wasn’t so hard to confess.”
Before he could say anything else, you climbed higher up his body, knees bracketing his head. You reached over to the nightstand where you’d dropped the teddy when you first entered, and placed it carefully on the pillow beside his head, its camera eye pointed straight at the action.
Bucky’s eyes widened when he realized what you were doing.
You lowered yourself onto his face without warning, smothering him with your dripping pussy. His groan vibrated straight through your core as you settled your weight on him, thighs framing his face.
“Mmm… that’s it,” you moaned, already rocking your hips. You reached down and threaded your fingers through his long hair, holding him in place. “You wanted innocent? I’ll give you innocent… while I fuck your face.”
You started riding him slowly at first, dragging your slick folds and soft pubic hair over his mouth and tongue. Bucky didn’t hesitate, he dove in like a starving man, tongue licking broad stripes through your pussy, sucking on your clit with filthy, wet sounds.
You moaned louder for the teddy’s camera, voice breathy and sweet.
“Look at you, Sergeant… buried under your soft little teammate’s cunt. Does it taste as innocent as you thought?” You rolled your hips faster, grinding down harder, smothering him with every movement. “I bet you jerked off thinking about this exact thing while you watched me on that teddy.”
Bucky growled into your pussy, the vibrations making your thighs tremble. His metal hand came up to grip your ass, metal fingers digging into the soft flesh as he pulled you even closer, tongue fucking into your tight hole while his nose rubbed against your clit.
You whimpered, riding his face with increasing desperation, the wet sounds echoing in the room.
“That’s it… eat it just like that. Show the camera how much you love your naughty little liar’s pussy.”
Three days had passed since that first explosive night in Bucky’s room.
Three days of delicious, dangerous sneaking around.
You’d barely been able to keep your hands off each other. Quick, filthy kisses in the elevator when the doors closed. Bucky pinning you against the wall in the training room after everyone else left, metal fingers slipping under your skirt to tease your soaked panties while you tried not to moan loud enough for the team to hear. You’d sent him a short video clip during a briefing, your fingers buried in your pussy while whispering his name and watched him nearly choke on his coffee across the table.
The tension was unbearable. The secret made everything hotter.
Tonight, you’d both finally snapped.
You’d slipped into Bucky’s room after midnight, heart racing with the thrill of almost getting caught by Alexei on the way over. The moment the door locked, clothes started coming off but not before you pulled out the cameras.
“Tonight we do it right,” you whispered, eyes sparkling with wicked excitement. “Full performance. No holding back.”
You two set up the cameras together like twisted partners in crime. The teddy bear was placed on a chair in the corner like a perverted audience member, its red light blinking steadily. A proper tripod camera was positioned at the foot of the bed for a wide, clear angle, and you even added a smaller angle cam on the nightstand for close-ups. Both of you checked the framing, making sure every filthy detail would be captured perfectly.
Once everything was rolling, you turned to Bucky with a sweet, innocent smile that didn’t match the heat in your eyes.
“Sit on your hands, Sergeant. Don’t move them until I say.”
He obeyed, sliding his hands under his thighs, muscles straining with barely-contained need. His cock was already rock-hard and leaking against his stomach.
You stood in the center of the frame and began the slowest, most torturous strip tease imaginable.
Inch by agonizing inch, you peeled Bucky’s oversized black hoodie up your body, revealing every curve. When the fabric finally cleared your head, you were left wearing nothing but a tiny pair of baby-pink lace panties with a delicate little bow sitting right above your mound. The cameras caught everything, the way your full tits bounced softly as you moved, the gentle sway of your hips, the soft patch of hair peeking out from the edges of the lace.
You danced for the cameras like a filthy little performer.
Hands cupping and squeezing your breasts, thumbs circling your hardening nipples as you looked straight into the tripod lens.
“Remember when you first started watching me, Sergeant?” you asked in that soft, breathy voice, looking straight into the tripod lens. “I noticed it right away… the way your eyes would linger when my sweater slipped off my shoulder, how your metal fingers twitched every time I bent over in those short skirts.”
You turned slowly, arching your back and sliding your hands down your body.
“I started touching myself more after that. Humping my pillows at night, riding my biggest dildos while moaning your name… pretending it was you.”
Bucky’s breath hitched audibly from the bed.
“Dildos?” he rasped, voice strained.
You gave the camera a shy little smirk, then glanced back at him with big, innocent eyes.
“Mhm,” you hummed sweetly, sliding one hand down to rub slow circles over your panties, letting the cameras see the growing wet spot. “Big ones. The kind that stretch me open and make me cry. I’d fuck myself for hours thinking about you… and then you gave me that teddy.”
You spread your legs wider, still playing with yourself over the thin lace. “So I decided to give you a real show instead.”
Your fingers rubbed slow, teasing circles over your panties, letting both cameras clearly see the growing wet spot darkening the fabric.
“I got so fucking wet knowing you were watching me, Bucky,” you breathed, voice sweet but dripping with lust. “Knowing that my big, protective Sergeant was stroking his cock raw to his sweet little teammate acting like a filthy whore.”
That was it.
Bucky snapped like a rubber band.
With a deep, animalistic growl, he lunged forward. His metal arm shot out and pinned both your wrists high above your head against the wall. His flesh hand wrapped around your throat, squeezing just enough to make your pulse flutter and your pussy clench.
“You’re worse than me, doll,” he snarled, voice low and dangerous, lips brushing your ear. “Filthy little liar. Walking around the compound acting all soft and innocent while you’ve been corrupting me for weeks.”
He ripped the tiny lace panties off with one brutal yank, the delicate fabric tearing loudly. The cameras caught the moment perfectly, your bare, hairy pussy now on full display, already glistening with arousal.
Bucky dropped to his knees and buried his face between your thighs like a starving man.
He ate you out with loud, sloppy, obscene enthusiasm. His tongue dragged through your slick folds, sucking noisily on your swollen clit, growling and moaning into your cunt for both cameras to record. Wet, filthy sounds filled the room as he devoured you, tongue fucking deep into your hole, lips sucking your clit, metal arm still pinning your wrists while his flesh hand spread you open wider so the cameras could see everything.
“Fuck, this pussy tastes even better than it looked on that teddy,” he growled against your clit, the vibrations making your thighs shake. “So fucking wet and hairy… my sweet little hypocrite is dripping for me.”
You moaned loudly, hips grinding shamelessly against his face, riding his tongue while the cameras captured every second.
After several long, devastating minutes of him eating you like he wanted to drown in you, you tugged desperately at his hair.
“My turn, Sergeant.”
You dropped to your knees in front of him, eyes locked on the tripod camera as you pulled his thick, heavy cock free. It was veined, leaking steadily, the head flushed dark.
You looked straight into the lens with a sweet, angelic smile while you took him into your mouth.
You looked straight into the lens with a sweet, angelic smile while you took him into your mouth.
“Smile for the camera, Bucky,” you purred, lips brushing the swollen head. “Show everyone how the big bad Winter Soldier looks when his innocent little teammate chokes on his fat cock.”
You swallowed him down in one smooth, greedy motion, taking him to the hilt. Bucky groaned loudly, one hand tangling tight in your hair.
“Fuck- that’s it,” he rasped. “Take every inch, doll. Let them see how deep you can go.”
He started face-fucking you, slow and deep at first, then rougher. Without warning, he shoved his cock all the way down your throat and held it there.
“Hmpf!” you choked out around his thick length, eyes watering instantly.
Bucky groaned in pleasure at the sound. “Yeah? You like that? Choking on my cock for the camera like a good little whore?”
He pulled back just enough to let you breathe, then started playing with it, dragging his slick cock across your tongue, slapping the heavy head against your swollen lips, and pushing it back down your throat again.
You were drooling everywhere, spit running down your chin and dripping onto your tits.
Bucky finally pulled out with a wet pop, breathing hard.
“Get the balls too, baby,” he ordered, voice low and commanding. “Don’t be lazy.”
You whined, voice hoarse. “Buckyyy…”
He smirked, tapping his wet cock against your cheek.
“Huh? What’s wrong, princess? You don’t like doing all the work?” He gripped your jaw, forcing you to look up at him. “I watched you ride that teddy for hours like a desperate slut, and now you can’t even lick my balls? Open your fucking mouth.”
You whimpered but obeyed, leaning in to suck one of his heavy balls into your mouth, tongue swirling.
“That’s more like it,” he groaned, stroking his cock above your face. “Look at the camera while you do it. Show them what a filthy girl you really are.”
After a few moments he yanked you up by the hair, eyes dark with lust.
“Enough. Get on the fucking bed. Right now.”
You gave him that sweet, innocent little smile you knew drove him insane and crawled onto the mattress on all fours, ass swaying deliberately for both the tripod camera and the perverted teddy bear sitting on the nightstand, its hidden lens no doubt capturing every second of your dripping, needy cunt.
He didn’t give you time to settle.
Bucky flipped you onto your back like you weighed nothing, hooking your trembling legs over his broad, muscular shoulders and folding your smaller body in half until your knees nearly touched your ears. The angle was downright obscene, your soaked pussy completely exposed, lips puffy and glistening, clit swollen and twitching under the harsh lights of the cameras.
His cold metal hand wrapped tightly around your throat, squeezing just enough to make your vision spark with dizzy pleasure. The thick, veiny head of his cock nudged against your dripping entrance, smearing your slick all over himself.
“Beg for it,” he growled.
“Please, Bucky… fuck me. Ruin me for the cameras.”
He pushed in slowly, inch by brutal inch, stretching your tight walls until he bottomed out, heavy balls pressed flush against your ass. You moaned loudly, eyes rolling back as he filled you completely.
“Look at the camera, baby,” he ordered, voice low and rough. He started thrusting in deep, powerful strokes that made your tits bounce violently with every snap of his hips. “Smile pretty for them. Show the world how innocent you pretend to be while you’re creaming all over Sergeant Barnes’ cock like a desperate little whore.”
He stared straight into your eyes, then glanced at the lens, metal fingers flexing tighter around your throat.
“Look how pretty you are getting absolutely ruined. Thought you were such a sweet, soft little thing… so pure. Now look at you- legs folded like a pretzel, pussy stretched obscenely around my fat cock, leaking all over the sheets.”
The wet, filthy squelching sounds of your soaked cunt filled the room as he pounded into you harder. Your juices dripped down to your asshole, making everything slick and messy.
But Bucky still wouldn’t let you cum.
You were losing your mind.
“Bucky- please,” you whimpered, voice cracking. “Please, I need it. I’m so close-”
He smirked, slowing his thrusts to a lazy grind, keeping you right on the edge. “What’s that, babydoll?”
You sobbed, desperation clawing at you. “Please, Buck… I need it. Please fuck me properly. I can’t- fuck- I need to cum so bad.”
Your hand slipped between your bodies, two fingers frantically rubbing your swollen clit before dipping lower, trying to push inside yourself around his thick cock.
Bucky’s eyes darkened.
“Don’t be pathetic,” he growled, metal hand snapping down to yank your wrist away. “Take those fingers out. Right now.”
You whined at the loss, but he didn’t let you suffer long.
He pulled your soaked fingers up to his mouth, sucking them clean with a low, filthy groan, tongue swirling around your digits like he was savoring every drop of your taste.
“Good girl,” he murmured against your skin. “Now keep your eyes on the camera.”
Then he slammed back into you, hard, deep, and relentless. The new angle had his cock dragging perfectly against that spot inside you with every brutal thrust. His metal hand stayed locked around your throat while his flesh hand pinned your wrist to the mattress.
“Begging and trying to fuck yourself on camera? Such a needy little slut,” he taunted, voice rough with arousal. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ve got you.”
He fucked you like he was trying to break you, fast punishing strokes that made your whole body shake. Your moans turned into broken cries as the orgasm he’d been denying you finally crashed over you, hard enough to make your vision white out.
He yanked his cock out with a lewd pop, flipped you over roughly, and shoved your face down into the mattress. He yanked your hips up high, forcing your ass up in the air, the perfect humiliating angle for the tripod camera behind you.
“Arch your fucking back. Present that cunt like the slut you are.”
The second you obeyed, his metal hand came down hard on your ass with a loud, stinging crack. He spanked you mercilessly, again and again, turning your soft skin bright red and hot while he lined his throbbing cock up and slammed back inside you in one brutal, balls-deep thrust.
You screamed into the sheets as he railed you, hips snapping forward so violently the entire bed creaked and slammed against the wall. His metal hand kept spanking you in perfect rhythm with every punishing thrust, the sharp, burning sting blending into the deep, toe-curling pleasure of his cock dragging mercilessly against your g-spot.
“Fuck- yes, Sergeant!” you wailed, pushing back desperately to meet every savage stroke. “Harder! Mark me up- make my ass red and purple!”
He growled like a beast, gripping your hip bruisingly with his flesh hand while the metal one delivered another vicious slap that made your pussy clench hard around him.
“They’d fucking lose their minds if they knew their sweet little teammate was getting destroyed like a cheap whore from behind,” he snarled, voice dark and venomous. “Ass up high, pussy dripping down your thighs, begging to be bred while two cameras record every filthy second.”
Your cunt was making the most obscene, wet, sloppy sounds now, loud squelches every time he bottomed out, your creamy arousal coating his balls and dripping onto the sheets in messy strings.
You were shaking, desperate for control before you lost your mind completely.
You shoved Bucky onto his back and climbed on top, first turning away from him in reverse cowgirl so both cameras got the perfect, nasty view. You hovered over his massive cock, then sank down slowly, moaning like a pornstar as every thick inch disappeared into your greedy, slightly hairy pussy. The cameras captured it all in high definition: your puffy outer lips stretching obscenely around his girth, your ass cheeks spreading wide as you took him to the hilt, your tight little asshole winking above his slick-covered shaft.
You started riding him hard, bouncing up and down with wet, filthy slaps, letting the lens see his cock sliding in and out, shiny and creamy with your juices.
“Feel that?” you panted breathlessly, looking back over your shoulder directly at the tripod camera. “That’s how fucking wet your little stalker made me. My cunt is soaked and sloppy because I knew you were watching me hump that teddy bear like a desperate, horny whore for days.”
You spun around to face Bucky and the main camera, planting your hands on his firm chest. Now you rode him properly, grinding your clit against his pelvis, bouncing so your tits jiggled obscenely while you stared straight into the lens with hazy, lust-filled eyes.
“You rode my teddy like a pathetic little slut,” Bucky groaned beneath you, hands finally free to grip your hips hard enough to bruise. “Now ride the real thing, doll. Show the camera exactly how you fuck when you think no one’s watching.”
As you bounced faster on his cock, Bucky licked two of his flesh fingers, coating them generously with spit. He reached behind you and pressed the pads of his wet fingers right against your tight little asshole, tapping and rubbing teasing circles over your puckered hole.
“Look at this greedy little pucker,” he sneered, voice low and filthy, eyes locked on where his fingers were playing with you. “Been teasing this tight ass the whole time you were humping my teddy, huh? Such a nasty girl… acting all innocent while you wanted both your holes filled.”
You whimpered loudly, clenching around his cock as his fingers continued tapping and pressing against your asshole, not pushing in yet just teasing, promising.
You rode faster, harder, your swollen clit rubbing perfectly against him with every grind. Your pussy was creaming so much that white, frothy rings of your arousal coated the base of his cock and matted the dark hair there.
“I’m gonna come- fuck, Bucky- I’m creaming all over your cock!” you cried out shamelessly.
Bucky suddenly sat up, wrapping his strong arms around your waist and holding you down on his cock as you shattered. Your pussy clenched and pulsed violently around him, gushing clear slick in messy squirts that soaked his pelvis and dripped down his balls.
With a deep, possessive growl that vibrated through your chest, he thrust up hard and came deep inside you, thick, hot, endless ropes of cum flooding your spasming cunt. He held you pinned down, grinding up into you as he pumped every last drop into your womb while both of you moaned filthily for the cameras.
When he finally pulled out with a wet, creamy sound, a thick, obscene stream of his pearly white cum immediately poured out of your ruined, gaping hole, running down your folds and asshole in heavy globs.
Bucky didn’t let you close your legs even for a second.
“Keep them open for me, baby,” he murmured, voice low and rough with satisfaction. “Spread them wider. I want the camera to see exactly how full you are.”
Face burning with humiliated arousal, you obeyed. With shaky fingers, you reached down and gently spread your puffy, well-fucked folds, opening yourself completely. You pushed softly, and a thick, warm trickle of his cum began to leak out of you, slow and creamy, dripping down onto the ruined sheets while the cameras captured every second in sharp detail.
Bucky’s eyes darkened with raw hunger as he watched. He couldn’t look away from the sight of his release slowly spilling from your stretched pussy.
“That’s it… fuck, look at you,” he breathed, almost reverent. “So pretty like this. All full of my cum. I love seeing it drip out of you.”
He stayed like that for a long moment, just staring, mesmerized by the messy, intimate sight. His hand gently stroked your thigh, thumb brushing soothing circles over your skin.
Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, the intensity melted away.
Bucky pulled you gently into his arms, kissing you deeply, slow, tender, loving kisses that felt worlds away from how brutally he’d just destroyed you. He grabbed a warm, damp cloth from the bathroom and carefully cleaned between your legs, wiping away the sticky mixture of your combined fluids while pressing soft kisses to your forehead, your flushed cheeks, and your swollen lips.
“We’re both so fucking twisted,” he murmured against your skin, voice warm and possessively affectionate as he tucked you against his broad chest. “And I wouldn’t change a single filthy thing. My pretty little pervert.”
You smiled sleepily, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, already plotting the next time you’d corrupt him even further.
“Good,” you whispered, voice hoarse from moaning. “Because I’m nowhere near done with you, Sergeant. Next time… we’re bringing the teddy into the bed with us while we film.”
Two weeks later, the team was deep in an abandoned Hydra facility buried in the Romanian mountains.
The lower levels were freezing cold, pitch-black in places, and eerily silent except for the constant drip of water and the low groan of settling metal beams. The air smelled of rust, mildew, and old blood. Every footstep echoed like a gunshot through the concrete corridors.
You and Bucky had been paired to sweep the sub-basement. The rest of the team was three floors above but their voices kept crackling through comms, far too close for comfort.
The second you rounded a corner and lost sight of the staircase, the tension snapped.
Bucky grabbed your wrist and yanked you into a derelict interrogation room. The heavy metal door slammed shut with a deafening clang that echoed down the hallway. Old restraint chairs were bolted to the floor, broken glass and rusted chains littered the corners, and a single flickering fluorescent light buzzed overhead.
“Fuck the mission,” he growled, shoving you against the cold concrete wall, teeth scraping your neck. “I’ve been hard since we landed. Been imagining bending you over one of these tables the whole flight.”
Heart hammering, you pulled the small body cam from your vest and clipped it to a rusted shelf at the perfect angle. The red recording light blinked on.
Bucky’s eyes darkened with pure lust.
“Risky little slut,” he muttered, voice low and rough. “John and Yelena are only three floors up. They could walk in any second.”
“That’s what makes it so fucking hot,” you whispered, already unzipping your jacket and letting it drop. “Imagine if they heard me moaning your name while you’re balls-deep inside me.”
He spun you around, bent you over the old metal interrogation table, and kicked your legs apart. The icy surface pressed against your chest as he yanked your tactical pants and panties down in one rough motion. The freezing air hit your soaked pussy like a slap.
“Look at the camera, doll,” he ordered, freeing his thick cock and rubbing the fat, leaking head through your dripping folds. “Smile pretty while I fuck you raw in a Hydra base like the desperate little whore you are.”
You moaned, pushing back desperately. “Hurry, Sergeant- please, before someone comes-”
Comms crackled loudly.
“Barnes, status report,” John’s voice came through, clear and close. “You two good down there?”
Bucky didn’t stop. He thrust into you in one brutal stroke, burying himself to the hilt. You had to bite your own arm to keep from crying out as he immediately started pounding you hard, the old metal table scraping noisily against the concrete floor with every thrust.
He pressed the comm button with his metal hand while still railing you.
“All clear,” he answered, voice impressively steady. “Just clearing the last sector. Give us five more minutes.”
The second the comms cut, he fucked you even harder, metal hand spanking your ass red.
But it didn’t stop.
Comms crackled again, even closer.
“We are coming down to assist!” Alexei’s booming voice echoed through the speaker. “Yelena says she saw heat signatures moving near your position!”
Bucky growled and kept thrusting deep, grinding against that perfect spot inside you while answering calmly:
“Negative. False alarm. We’ve got it handled.”
The moment the comms went silent, you came violently, pussy gushing around his cock as you bit down hard on your arm to muffle your scream. Bucky followed right after with a deep, guttural groan, pumping you full of thick, hot ropes of cum until it was leaking down your thighs onto the dusty floor.
You barely had time to catch your breath.
Comms crackled a third time, right outside your corridor.
“Barnes?” Yelena’s sharp voice cut in. “We’re at the bottom of the stairs. You better not be hiding anything down there.”
Heavy footsteps, two sets, were now thundering down the metal staircase toward your room.
“Shit,” Bucky hissed, pulling out quickly. Cum was still pouring from your ruined pussy as you both frantically yanked your clothes back on. You grabbed the body cam with shaking hands while Bucky wiped down the table.
The footsteps reached the end of the hallway.
The door handle rattled.
Alexei’s loud voice boomed from the other side:
“Barnes! Open up! We are here to help!”
Bucky shoved you behind the large restraint chair just as the door creaked open. He stepped forward casually, looking far too calm.
“Yeah, we’re here,” he said smoothly. “Found some old files. Nothing major.”
Alexei stepped inside, flashlight sweeping the room, Yelena right behind him. Yelena’s sharp eyes immediately narrowed on you, flushed cheeks, messy hair, legs still trembling.
“You both look… very red,” she said slowly, tilting her head. “And sweaty. Did you find enemies?”
Alexei grinned. “Yes! You are both breathing hard! Like you were fighting!”
You forced your sweetest smile, heart still racing.
“Just a lot of stairs,” you lied, voice slightly hoarse. “Very steep ones.”
Yelena stared at you for one long, suspicious second… then smirked like she knew exactly what she was looking at.
“Mm. Sure.”
As they finally turned to leave, Bucky’s eyes met yours across the room, dark, filthy and full of dark promise.
But you both knew the truth.
Yelena definitely suspected something.
And the game had just gotten a lot more dangerous.
Later that night, back at the compound, you and Bucky locked yourselves in his room, lights low and played the new tape.
The footage was raw, filthy, and terrifyingly hot. You could hear every wet slap, every muffled moan, every time Bucky growled in your ear while John, Alexei, and Yelena’s voices kept cutting in through the comms.
Bucky pulled you into his lap halfway through, already hard again.
“Fuck, doll,” he rasped against your neck, watching the screen as Yelena’s voice came through right as he was balls-deep inside you. “Listen to that. They were right outside the door while I was filling you up. You came so hard when Alexei said they were coming down.”
You shivered, grinding slowly against him.
“I know,” you whispered, biting your lip. “If they had opened that door two seconds earlier…”
Bucky’s metal fingers tightened on your hip.
“Next time,” he murmured, voice dark with lust, “we’re doing it in the quinjet bathroom while the whole team is strapped in for takeoff. I want to fuck you while they’re all sitting ten feet away.”
You turned in his lap, eyes sparkling.
“Or the training room after hours,” you countered, nipping at his jaw. “Right on the mats where we spar. I want you to bend me over the weight bench while the security cameras are still recording.”
Bucky groaned, gripping your ass and pulling you harder against him.
“You’re gonna get us caught one day, you filthy little minx,” he rasped, kissing you deep and hungry. “But I don’t care. I’m never stopping this.”
You smiled against his mouth, already wet again.
“Good. Because I’m nowhere near done corrupting you, Sergeant.”
requested by anon : heyy first req! could you do bucky x reader sex tape smut👀 (feel free to ignore if not comfortable!)
requested by anon : how are we feeling about pervyyyyyyyy!bucky and a reader who seems innocent... but is worse better than him?
**read touch and go here**
✮ synopsis: steve rogers has spent two years keeping you at arm’s length. but when a mission goes wrong and his skin meets yours, suddenly every wall he’s built starts crumbling.
(or: the soulmate fic where touch is the one thing captain america can’t fight.)
✮ pairing: steve rogers x soulmate!reader
✮ warnings: gunshot wound, severe blood loss, near-death experience, touch starvation/deprivation, PTSD, panic attacks, grief, hospitalization, steve's crippling self-destructive tendencies, some bone-deep yearning, angst with HEA, explicit sexual content
✮ word count: 17.2k (ur girl doesn't know how to shut up)
✮ a/n: this was supposed to be a drabble. like. idk. (I think I might like it more than 'touch and go' WHO SAID THAT)
series masterlist
bonus drabble 1
bonus drabble 2
The first time you see Steve Rogers cry, you're not supposed to be there.
The SHIELD medical bay at 2:47 AM is meant to be empty—just you, a dislocated shoulder from a mission gone sideways in Prague, and the ice pack you're too stubborn to ask someone else to help you position. But there he is, Captain America himself, hunched forward in the uncomfortable plastic chair beside bed seven with his face in his hands, shoulders shaking in that particular way that says everything hurts and I'm trying to be quiet about it.
You freeze in the doorway, good arm holding your bad arm, heart suddenly hammering against your ribs like it's trying to break free. The fluorescent lights hum overhead, too bright, making everything look sharp-edged and surreal. Your mouth goes dry. There's a metallic taste on your tongue—adrenaline, maybe, or just the copper-tang of exhaustion that's been following you since your transport touched down six hours ago.
He's still in his tactical gear—dirt-streaked and blood-spattered from wherever he's been. You'd heard whispers in the hallways. A Hydra facility. The Winter Soldier, recovered. Captain Rogers, who never fails, who never breaks, bringing his best friend home after seventy years. You'd seen him from a distance when they'd brought Barnes in, shield on his back like it weighed a thousand pounds, and thought what you always think: beautiful and untouchable as a monument.
Now, though. Now he's just a man in a room that smells like antiseptic and grief, crying over—
The bed. There's someone in the bed.
Barnes. James Barnes. The Winter Soldier. Bucky. Whatever name he's wearing today. This is your first time seeing him up close, seeing him as something other than a ghost story whispered in SHIELD corridors. He looks smaller than the legends suggest, more human than weapon.
He's unconscious, or close to it, hooked to machines that beep in rhythms that must mean something to someone who isn't you. But what catches your attention—what makes your stomach twist and drop like you've missed a step going downstairs—is the woman curled against his side.
You don't know her, have never seen her before, but you know what she is. It's in the way she fits against him, like two pieces of something broken made whole. The way even unconscious, his body angles toward hers, his metal arm—and God, that's the arm that's killed presidents—draped protectively across her waist. The way her hand rests over his heart, monitoring his breathing even in sleep.
His soulmate. The Winter Soldier has a soulmate.
And Steve Rogers is crying over them.
Your shoulder throbs, sending white-hot spikes down your arm, and you bite the inside of your cheek hard enough to taste blood. You should leave. This is private, sacred, none of your business. But when you try to shift backward, your shoulder screams—a sharp, electric agony that races down your spine and makes your vision go spotty at the edges. The small sound that escapes your throat—half-gasp, half-whimper—cuts through the quiet like a gunshot.
Steve's head snaps up.
His eyes are red-rimmed, devastated, the blue of them turned dark and stormy with an emotion so raw it feels like looking directly at an exposed nerve. There are tear tracks on his cheeks, catching the harsh fluorescent light, and his lips are parted like he's forgotten how to breathe properly. For a second, neither of you moves. You're caught in the doorway like a deer in headlights, your pulse thundering in your ears, and he's frozen mid-grief, and the moment stretches taut as wire between you.
The air feels charged, like the moment before lightning strikes. Your skin prickles with it, every hair on your arms standing at attention.
Then his face closes off. All that naked emotion disappears behind the Captain America mask, so fast you'd think you imagined it if your heart wasn't still trying to claw its way out of your chest from the impact of seeing it.
"You need help?" His voice comes out rough, scraped raw, gravel and exhaustion and something else threaded through it. He clears his throat, stands, and suddenly the room feels smaller, the walls pressing in. He's always so much—six feet of genetically enhanced perfection that makes your body confused about whether it wants to fight or flee or something else entirely that you refuse to examine.
"I—" Your voice catches, sticks in your throat like you've swallowed glass. You force yourself to look at your shoulder instead of his face, but that means looking at the way his hands flex at his sides, the way his weight shifts like he's fighting the urge to move toward you. "Dislocated. From Prague. I can manage."
"You can't." Matter-of-fact, not unkind, but there's something underneath it—a tension that makes your stomach flip. He crosses the room in three strides, and you have that thought again—monument—but monuments don't usually smell like gunpowder and sweat and something cedar-sharp that makes your hindbrain light up with interest you absolutely cannot afford.
He stops just short of you, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off him, close enough that you have to tilt your head back to meet his eyes. The movement makes your shoulder scream, and you can't quite suppress the way your breath hitches.
"Really, I'm—"
"Stubborn?" There's something almost like amusement flickering across his face, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth, but it makes your chest go tight and warm. "I know. You once tried to extract yourself from a building collapse with three broken ribs and a concussion."
You blink, stomach doing something complicated and uncomfortable. He knows that? He noticed that? Your skin feels too tight, like your body's trying to contain something that won't fit.
"Sit." He gestures to one of the beds, and when you don't move immediately—frozen by the way he's looking at you, intent and focused like you're a problem he needs to solve—his head tilts slightly. "That's an order, agent."
"You're not my CO," you point out, but you're already moving, because arguing with Steve Rogers while your shoulder feels like it's full of ground glass and your body is betraying you with all these inconvenient reactions seems like a losing proposition.
He follows, and you're hyperaware of him in that way you always are—the space he takes up, the way air seems to bend around him, the way your skin prickles with awareness even though he hasn't touched you. When you sit on the bed's edge, the paper crinkles beneath you, too loud in the quiet. He stands in front of you, and you have to focus on the SHIELD logo on his chest because looking at his face feels dangerous right now, like staring directly into the sun.
"This is going to hurt," he says, and his voice is lower now, closer. You can feel it rumble through the space between you.
"I know." Your good hand is gripping the edge of the bed so hard your knuckles have gone white. Your heart is doing something irregular and concerning in your chest.
"I mean it's going to—"
"Captain Rogers." You finally look up at him, find him watching you with an expression you can't parse—something intense and careful and guarded all at once. The fluorescent light catches in his hair, turns it more gold than blonde. There's a smudge of dirt on his jaw. "I've been in the field for six years. I know what a shoulder reduction feels like."
Something shifts in his jaw, that little muscle tick you've catalogued along with a hundred other Steve Rogers tells. Your breathing has gone shallow, and you don't know if it's from the pain or the way he's looking at you—like you're something he needs to be careful with.
Finally, he reaches for your arm.
He's wearing tactical gloves.
Of course he is. Steve Rogers always wears gloves on missions, black leather that make his already large hands look even more capable. You've never thought about it before—lots of agents wear gloves. Protection, grip, a hundred practical reasons.
But now, with him this close, with his hands carefully bracketing your injured arm, you notice the deliberateness of it. The way the leather covers every inch of skin from fingertip to wrist. The way he's careful, even now, not to let any exposed skin above the glove brush against you. There's a gap, barely an inch, where his sleeve has ridden up, revealing a strip of pale skin. You stare at it, pulse jumping in your throat for reasons you don't understand.
"On three," he says, and his voice is closer now, quieter. You can feel the heat of him, the solid presence that makes your good hand want to reach out and—
Your fingers twitch on the bed. The paper crinkles.
"One."
He adjusts his grip, and even through the leather, even through your tactical shirt, your nerve endings light up like a circuit board. Your breath catches, stops, starts again too fast.
"Two."
You're watching his face because you have to look somewhere, and that's when you see it—a flicker of something that looks like resignation. Like loss. Like he's steeling himself for something that's going to hurt. The tendons in his neck are taut, and there's a bead of sweat trailing down from his temple despite the cool air.
"Three."
The world whites out. Pain floods your system, sharp and immediate, and your vision goes sparkly at the edges. Your good hand flies up instinctively, searching for something to anchor you, and finds—
His vest. Your fingers curl into the tactical fabric, knuckles brushing against the solid wall of his chest beneath. You're falling forward, or maybe he's moving closer, and suddenly your forehead is almost touching his chest, and his hands have shifted to your shoulders—careful, still gloved, but holding you steady.
"Breathe," he says, and maybe it's the pain, but his voice sounds different. Softer. Rougher. His thumb moves in a small circle against your shoulder, probably meant to be soothing, but it sends electricity racing down your spine. "You're okay. Just breathe."
You realize you're making small, hurt sounds into his vest, and his body has curved around you slightly, protective, blocking you from the rest of the room. Your working hand has somehow fisted completely in his tactical vest, and you can feel the rise and fall of his breathing, too controlled to be natural. His heart beats against your knuckles, faster than you'd expect for someone with enhanced everything.
"I'm good," you manage, though your voice comes out embarrassingly breathy, wrecked. "I'm—thank you."
You pull back, look up, and freeze.
He's so close. Close enough that you can see the flecks of green in his blue eyes, the way his pupils have dilated slightly. Close enough to count individual eyelashes, to see the faint scar on his lower lip. Close enough that when his lips part slightly, you feel his exhale ghost across your face.
His eyes drop to where your hand grips his vest, and there's something almost stricken in his expression. His throat works as he swallows, and you track the movement helplessly.
Then his gaze snaps to your face, and for a second—just a second—his eyes drop to your mouth.
The air between you goes electric.
His hand on your shoulder tightens infinitesimally, leather creaking, and you're suddenly aware that your bodies are still curved toward each other, that if you just leaned forward an inch—
He jerks back. Takes three full steps back, actually, like he needs the distance. Like proximity to you is somehow dangerous. His breathing is slightly uneven, and there's a flush high on his cheeks that wasn't there before.
"You should get that x-rayed," he says, and his voice is too loud in the quiet room, just slightly unsteady. He's Captain America again, professional and distant, but his hands are clenched at his sides and he won't quite meet your eyes. "And ice. Twenty minutes on, twenty off."
"I know the drill." Your voice sounds strange to your own ears, throaty and affected. Your good hand is still raised slightly, fingers tingling from where they'd gripped his vest.
He nods, sharp and efficient. Turns to go back to his vigil beside Barnes's bed. But something makes you speak, words tumbling out before your brain can catch up with your mouth.
"He's lucky."
Steve stops. His shoulders go rigid, the line of his spine straightening like someone's put electricity through it.
"Barnes," you clarify, though you shouldn't. Your tongue feels thick in your mouth, clumsy. "To have someone who—to have her. His soulmate. They're both lucky."
When he turns to look at you, there's something hollow in his eyes, something that makes your chest ache with recognition you don't want to examine. The muscle in his jaw is working again, and his gloved hands clench and unclench at his sides.
"Yeah," he says quietly, and the word comes out like it's been dragged over broken glass. "Lucky."
He says it like the word tastes like ash, like something burned and bitter on his tongue.
"Steve—" You don't know what you're going to say, don't know why his name feels like something precious in your mouth, why your body is still leaning toward him like a plant toward sunlight.
"You should rest." He cuts you off, gentle but firm, and there's something almost desperate in the way he's not looking at you. "That shoulder needs—"
An alarm goes off. Not the gentle chime of a normal medical alert, but the sharp, angry wail that means something's wrong. Steve's already moving, heading for Barnes's bed where machines are screaming and the woman—his soulmate—is sitting up, hands pressed to her temples, saying "Something's wrong, something's—"
Barnes jackknifes upright with a sound that isn't quite human, metal arm swinging blindly, and his soulmate catches his hand without flinching. The moment their skin connects, some of the wildness bleeds out of his eyes.
"Bucky." Her voice is steady despite the chaos. "You're in medical. You're safe. I'm here."
You should leave. This is definitely not for you to witness. But you're frozen, watching how Barnes's entire being reorganizes itself around her touch, how his breathing slows to match hers, how the machines gradually stop their shrieking as his vitals stabilize. The way she runs her fingers through his hair, and he melts into it, face pressing into her palm like he's trying to absorb her through skin contact alone.
And you watch Steve watch them, standing two feet away but somehow miles distant, his gloved hands clenched so tight at his sides that the leather creaks.
You've never wanted a soulmate. The odds are astronomical, the chance of finding them slim to none, and you've seen what happens to people who lose them—the hollow-eyed grief that never quite fades. Better to never have one than to lose them. Better to be whole on your own than broken in half of a pair.
But watching Barnes fold into his soulmate's arms like coming home, watching her hold him together with nothing but touch and presence and fierce, protective love—
Your chest aches with want so sharp it steals your breath. Your skin feels too tight, too hot, like your body is trying to tell you something your mind won't acknowledge.
When you look at Steve, he's already looking at you. For just a second, you see your own longing reflected in his eyes, the same hollow ache of watching others have what you'll never possess. His gaze drops to your hand—the one that had gripped his vest—and something flickers across his face, too fast to read.
Then he looks away, jaw tight, and the moment breaks, and you're just an injured agent who needs to stop projecting feelings onto a superior officer who barely knows you exist.
"Get some rest," he says without looking at you, voice carefully controlled. "That's an order."
This time, you don't argue. You leave him to his vigil, to his grief, to whatever it is that makes Captain America cry in hospital chairs over other people's happy endings.
Your shoulder throbs in time with your heartbeat as you walk away, and you tell yourself that's the only reason your chest hurts. That's the only reason your skin feels like it's burning where he almost touched you. That's the only reason you can still feel the ghost of his vest under your fingers, the phantom heat of him curved around you.
You're very good at lying to yourself at 3 AM.
But your traitorous body remembers the way he'd jerked back from you, the way his eyes had gone wide with something that looked like fear when he'd realized how close you were.
Whatever Steve Rogers is afraid of, you're starting to think it might be you.
The next time you see him is three days later, and your body knows he's in the room before your brain catches up.
You're bent over a terminal in the east wing surveillance room, trying to make sense of intel that feels like it's been encrypted in ancient Sumerian, when every hair on the back of your neck stands at attention. Your spine straightens involuntarily, muscles tensing like an animal sensing a predator—or worse, like iron filings responding to a magnet.
"Agent."
Just that. Just your title in his Captain America voice, all professional distance and careful neutrality. But your treacherous body reacts like he's whispered something filthy in your ear—pulse jumping, skin flushing hot, stomach doing that uncomfortable flip that's becoming alarmingly familiar.
You don't turn around. Can't. Not when you know what you look like right now—haven't slept in thirty-six hours, hair in a messy bun that's listing severely to the left, yesterday's coffee staining your SHIELD-issued crewneck. Not when you can feel him taking up all the oxygen in the room just by existing in it.
"Captain Rogers." You're proud of how steady your voice comes out, even as your fingers have gone white-knuckled on the edge of the desk. "Something I can help you with?"
Silence. Long enough that you almost turn, almost give in to the gravitational pull of him. Then: footsteps. Measured, deliberate. He's moving closer, and your body tracks his approach like sonar, every nerve ending pinging with proximity alerts.
He stops just outside your peripheral vision—close enough that you can smell him (soap, leather, that cedar-sharp scent that makes your hindbrain whimper), far enough that there's no chance of accidental contact. You notice he does that a lot. Maintains exact distances like he's calculated the precise minimum safe zone between bodies.
"The Brussels intel." A pause. You hear him shift, leather jacket creaking. "Fury wants us to run point together."
Your hands still on the keyboard.
Us.
Together.
Run point.
"Us," you repeat, carefully neutral, still not turning around because if you look at him right now your face will do something stupid. Something that reveals how your stomach just dropped through the floor at the prospect of working closely with him. Of being in proximity to Steve Rogers for an extended period when just standing in the same room makes you feel like you're about to vibrate out of your skin.
"Is that a problem?"
There's something in his voice—a challenge maybe, or a test. Like he's waiting for you to admit what you both know: that whatever this thick, electric tension between you is, it's becoming harder to ignore.
"No, sir." You turn then, because not looking is starting to feel more obvious than looking, and immediately regret it.
He's in civilian clothes—dark jeans that shouldn't be legal on someone with his thighs, a navy shirt that clings to his chest in ways that make your mouth go dry. The leather jacket that does things to his shoulders that ought to be classified. But it's his face that kills you—that careful, composed expression that doesn't quite hide the way his eyes darken when they meet yours, the way his jaw ticks when you unconsciously wet your lips.
"Good." He steps closer—just half a step, but your body reacts like he's pressed you against the wall. Your breathing goes shallow, chest rising and falling too fast, and his eyes track the movement before snapping back to your face. "Briefing's at 0800."
"I'll be there."
He should leave. The conversation's over, message delivered. But he doesn't move. Just stands there, looking at you with an expression you can't read, and the air between you feels like it's getting thicker, harder to breathe. Your skin prickles with heat despite the aggressive air conditioning, and you can feel your pulse in your throat, your wrists, between your legs—
"Your shoulder." The words come out rough, like he's had to drag them from somewhere deep. "How is it?"
"Fine." Your voice sounds breathy, affected. You clear your throat, try again. "Good. It's good. Thanks to you."
Something flickers across his face at that—almost pained, like you've said something that hurts. His hand comes up, and for a heart-stopping second you think he's going to touch you. Your whole body goes still, waiting, wanting, every cell screaming yes, finally, please—
But he just runs it through his hair, a gesture that's so uncharacteristically unguarded it makes your chest ache.
"Steve—"
"I should go." He cuts you off, already stepping back, and the loss of proximity feels like someone's turned off the sun. "Early morning."
He's halfway to the door when you speak, words tumbling out without permission.
"Why do you do that?"
He stops. Doesn't turn. "Do what?"
"Pull back." Your heart is hammering so hard you're sure he can hear it with his enhanced everything. "You get close, and then you just—" You make a frustrated gesture he can't see. "It's like you're afraid of me."
His shoulders tense, and when he turns to look at you, there's something raw in his eyes for just a second before he shutters it away.
"I'm not afraid of you."
"Then what—"
"I'm afraid of what I want from you."
The words hang in the air between you like a grenade with the pin pulled. Your breath catches, stops entirely. Your body goes hot and cold at once, skin too tight, like you're having an allergic reaction to honesty.
He looks as surprised as you feel, like the admission escaped without his permission. His hands clench at his sides—you notice he's not wearing gloves, and for some reason that feels significant. Dangerous. His fingers are long, elegant despite their strength, and you have the sudden, visceral thought of what they'd feel like on your skin.
"Captain—"
"Steve." His voice is rough, wrecked. "Just... when it's just us, call me Steve."
Your throat feels like you've swallowed glass. "Steve."
He makes a sound—small, strangled—and takes a step toward you before catching himself. The muscle in his jaw is working overtime, and his hands—Jesus, his hands are actually trembling.
"This isn't—" He stops. Tries again. "I can't—"
"Can't what?" You stand, and your legs feel like water but you need to be closer to him, need to understand what's happening in the space between his words. "Steve, what—"
"0800," he says, and it sounds like surrender. "Don't be late."
He's gone before you can respond, leaving you alone in a room that feels too cold without him in it. Your skin feels raw, oversensitized, like you've been flayed open and exposed to the elements. You sink back into your chair, legs finally giving out, and press your palms against your burning cheeks.
I'm afraid of what I want from you.
Your body is still humming, vibrating at some frequency that feels like it's going to shake you apart. You can still smell him in the air—leather and soap and something unmistakably Steve that makes your hindbrain want to follow him down the hall, pin him against a wall, and find out exactly what he wants from you.
But you don't. You sit in your chair, stare at intel you can't process, and try to convince yourself that whatever's happening between you and Steve Rogers is just chemistry. Just proximity and adrenaline and two people spending too much time dancing around each other in small spaces.
You're getting better at lying to yourself.
But your body remembers the way his eyes had gone dark when he watched you breathe. The way his hands had trembled. The way he'd said your name like it was being torn out of him.
0800 can't come fast enough.
The briefing room is too small.
That's your first thought when you walk in at 0755, coffee clutched like a lifeline, to find Steve already there. He's studying a holographic map of Brussels, one hand braced on the table, the other holding a tablet. The morning light from the floor-to-ceiling windows turns his hair gold and throws his profile into sharp relief, and your step falters in the doorway because he looks like something out of a Renaissance painting—all strong lines and perfect angles and terrible beauty.
He doesn't look up, but his shoulders tense slightly. He knows you're there.
"Morning," you manage, proud when your voice doesn't crack.
"Agent." Back to titles, then. Back to distance. But when he glances up, his eyes catch yours and hold for a beat too long, and you see him swallow.
You take your seat—across from him, with the whole width of the table between you like a demilitarized zone. But it's not enough. The room's too small, the air too thin. You can see the rise and fall of his chest, the way his thumb taps against the tablet in a rhythm that matches your elevated pulse.
"The target's a bioweapon," he says without preamble, swiping something on his tablet that makes the hologram shift and expand. "Hydra remnants, we think. They're moving it through Brussels tomorrow night."
You force yourself to focus on the intel, not on the way his hands move when he talks, precise and economical. Not on the fact that his sleeves are rolled up, revealing forearms that make your mouth water—all corded muscle and prominent veins and a dusting of hair that catches the light.
"Extraction point?"
"Here." He rounds the table to point at a specific building, and suddenly he's beside you, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off him. Close enough that when you breathe in, you get a lungful of his scent that makes your head spin. "Warehouse district. Minimal civilian presence after dark."
You turn your head to look at the map, but that's a mistake because now his face is inches from yours. You can see the barely-there freckles across his nose, the way his lips part slightly when he breathes. His eyes drop to your mouth for a fraction of a second before he jerks back, stepping away so fast you feel the displacement of air.
"We'll go in quiet," he says, voice rougher than before. His hand comes up to rub the back of his neck, a gesture you're starting to recognize as his tell for when he's affected. "Two-person infiltration. Quick and clean."
"Just the two of us?" The words come out more breathless than you intended.
He nods, still not looking at you. "Fury wants it kept small. Discreet."
Discreet. Right. You can be discreet. You can be professional. You can absolutely handle being alone with Steve Rogers on a mission without doing something stupid like wondering what his hands would feel like in your hair, or how his voice would sound saying your actual name in the dark, or—
"Questions?"
You realize you've been staring at him, and your face goes hot. "No. No questions."
"Good." He's already moving toward the door, eager to escape, but he pauses at the threshold. When he looks back, there's something almost vulnerable in his expression. "We leave at 1400. Quinjet bay three."
"I'll be there."
He nods, starts to go, then stops again. His hand tightens on the doorframe, knuckles going white.
"You should wear tactical gear," he says without turning around. "Full coverage. It's going to be cold."
There's something about the way he says it—careful, deliberate—that makes you think he's not really talking about the temperature. But before you can respond, he's gone, leaving you alone in a room that still smells like him.
You spend the rest of the morning trying to focus on mission prep, but your mind keeps circling back to the way he'd looked at your mouth. The way he'd jerked back like you'd burned him. The way he'd specified full coverage like he was trying to minimize the chance of—what? Of skin contact? Of touching?
By 1400, you're wound so tight you feel like you might snap. The tactical gear feels heavy, constrictive, like it's pressing all your sensitivity inward. Every brush of fabric against skin feels amplified, every movement hyperaware.
You find him in the quinjet, running preflight checks with the kind of focus that suggests he's trying very hard not to think about something. He's in his Captain America suit—the deep blue that somehow makes his shoulders look even broader, red and white accents catching the cabin lights. No skin visible except his face and that thin strip at his neck where the cowl doesn't quite meet the collar, every inch of him covered like armor against something more than physical threats.
"Ready?" He doesn't look at you when he asks.
"Always."
The flight to Brussels takes six hours. Six hours of sitting across from each other in a quinjet that suddenly feels impossibly small. Six hours of trying not to stare at the way his hands move over the controls, sure and competent. Six hours of him studiously avoiding your gaze while the tension ratchets higher with every passing minute.
Halfway through, you shift in your seat, and your knee brushes his under the table. It's barely contact—layers of fabric between you—but you both freeze. His hands still on the tablet he's holding. Your breath catches in your throat. For a moment, neither of you moves, like you're both waiting to see what the other will do.
He pulls his leg back.
You curl your hands into fists and stare out the window at clouds that look soft enough to touch, trying to ignore the way your knee burns where it brushed his, trying to ignore the way he's breathing just a little too carefully across from you.
"You should get some rest," he says finally, voice neutral. "It's going to be a long night."
You don't tell him there's no way you could sleep, not when every cell in your body is hyperaware of his presence. Not when you can feel the weight of his carefully maintained distance like a physical thing.
Instead, you close your eyes and pretend, counting your breaths, trying to ignore the way your body hums with proximity to him. Trying to ignore the fact that in a few hours, you'll be alone with him in the dark, dependent on each other in the way that missions make necessary.
Trying to ignore the way your skin already aches for something you've never had.
When you fake-wake an hour later, he's watching you.
The look on his face—unguarded, soft, almost pained—makes your chest tight. But the second he realizes you're awake, his expression shutters, locks down, becomes Captain America again.
"Descending in twenty," he says, all business.
You nod, start checking your gear, and pretend you didn't see the way he was looking at you like you're something he wants but can't have. Pretend your heart isn't racing from that single, stolen moment of his true face.
Twenty minutes to Brussels.
Twenty minutes until you're alone with him in the dark.
Twenty minutes until whatever this is either snaps or shatters.
Your hands shake as you load your weapons, and you tell yourself it's just pre-mission adrenaline.
You're getting worse at lying to yourself.
The warehouse district in Brussels looks like every other warehouse district you've ever infiltrated—all concrete and shadows and too many places for things to go wrong. Your breath mists in the December air, visible for half a second before disappearing, and you're hyperaware of Steve beside you, the way his body heat seems to radiate even from three feet away.
Three feet. Always three feet.
You've been in position for forty minutes, watching the target building through night vision, and the tension between you has ratcheted so high you can practically taste it—metallic, electric, like the air before lightning strikes.
"Two guards, northwest corner," you murmur into comms, watching them through your scope. Your finger rests against the trigger guard, steady despite the way your whole body feels attuned to Steve's presence. "Rotation in approximately ninety seconds."
"Copy." His voice in your ear makes your stomach flip, low and authoritative. Through your peripheral vision, you catch him adjusting his shield, the movement precise, controlled. Everything about him is controlled. Has been since you touched down three hours ago. Maybe since before that. Maybe since that moment in the briefing room when he'd told you to wear full tactical gear like he was trying to armor you against something more than bullets.
The silence stretches, fills with things unsaid. Your skin prickles beneath the kevlar, every nerve ending hyperalert. Not from danger—not yet—but from proximity to him that feels more intimate than touch. You can hear him breathe, steady and measured. Can smell that cedar-sharp scent that cuts through the industrial stink of the district. Can feel the weight of his attention even when he's not looking at you.
"You know," you say quietly, because the silence is becoming unbearable, "for a stealth mission, you're thinking very loudly."
A pause. Then: "I'm not thinking anything."
"Liar." The word slips out before you can stop it, soft and knowing, and you feel him go still beside you.
"Agent—"
"You said when it's just us, I could—" You swallow, throat suddenly dry. "We're alone, Steve. You can use my name."
Another pause, longer this time. When he speaks, his voice is rougher. "The guards are moving."
He's right. You track them through your scope, watching them disappear around the corner, and try to ignore the way your name apparently burns in his throat, the way he can't seem to say it even when you've given him permission.
"Window's open," you confirm. "Ninety seconds, like clockwork."
"Let's move."
You're up and moving before the words finish forming, bodies falling into perfect synchronization. He goes high, you go low, covering angles with the kind of wordless communication that feels like dancing, like inevitability. Your breath syncs with his as you cross the open ground, and you tell yourself it's just tactical breathing, just professional compatibility.
You're getting worse at lying to yourself.
The side entrance is exactly where intel said it would be. Steve makes quick work of the lock while you cover him, and the domestic intimacy of it—you protecting his back while he works—makes something twist in your chest.
"Got it." The lock clicks open, and he pulls the door wide, weapon raised.
You follow him into darkness.
The warehouse is a maze of shipping containers and scaffolding, all deep shadows and blind corners. Your night vision paints everything in shades of green, turning Steve into something otherworldly as he moves ahead of you, all lethal grace and coiled power. You've seen him fight before, but there's something different about moving with him like this, just the two of you in the dark. Something that makes your body hyperaware of every gesture, every signal.
He holds up a fist—stop. You freeze instantly, trusting him implicitly. He tilts his head, listening to something you can't hear, and you watch the line of his throat, the way his pulse beats steady and strong beneath the skin.
Then you hear it too—footsteps, multiple sets, coming from the east corridor.
Steve looks back at you, and even through the night vision, you can see something pass across his face. He points to himself, then forward. Points to you, then to a stack of crates that would provide cover.
You shake your head. You're not letting him go alone.
His jaw ticks—that tell you've catalogued along with all his others. But there's no time to argue. The footsteps are getting closer.
You move together, silent as shadows, until the first hostile rounds the corner.
Steve takes him down in one fluid motion, shield connecting with a dull thud that the man doesn't get up from. But there are more—so many more—and suddenly the warehouse explodes into chaos.
"Contact!" you shout into comms that suddenly fill with static, jamming signals flooding the frequency. "Multiple hostiles—"
A muzzle flash in your peripheral. You pivot, fire twice, watch the figure drop. Steve's shield sings through the air, ricocheting off three targets in quick succession before returning to his hand. You move back to back without thinking, covering each other's blind spots, and the contact—even through layers of tactical gear—makes your skin burn.
"We need to move!" Steve shouts over the gunfire. "The bioweapon—"
"I know!" You drop two more hostiles, reload with practiced efficiency. "Northwest stairs, we can—"
The explosion knocks you sideways.
Your shoulder hits concrete hard, night vision flickering, ears ringing. Through the smoke, you see Steve fighting like something out of legend—shield and fists and absolutely ruthless efficiency. But there are too many. They keep coming, and you're separated now, a wall of hostiles between you.
"Steve!" You fight toward him, muscle memory and desperation driving you forward.
"Get to the weapon!" His voice cuts through the chaos. "I'll hold them—"
"Like hell!"
But more fighters flood in, and you're forced back, forced to watch him disappear behind a wall of bodies. Your chest goes tight with something that's not quite panic but close—the thought of losing sight of him, of something happening while you're not there to cover his six.
You fight harder, brutal and efficient, trying to close the distance. Your body moves on autopilot while your mind tracks him through glimpses—the flash of his shield, the sound of his voice calling out positions.
Then you hear it. His sharp intake of breath, pained.
"Steve?"
"I'm fine." But his voice is strained, and you catch sight of him favoring his left side, blood dark on his tactical suit. "The weapon—"
"Fuck the weapon." You slam a new magazine home, determination crystallizing into something sharp and desperate. "I'm coming to you."
"No!" The authority in his voice stops you short. "That's an order—get the bioweapon. I'll meet you at extraction."
Every instinct screams against leaving him, but he's right. The mission. Always the mission.
You run.
The stairs are clear—too clear. Your instincts scream trap, but there's no time. You take them three at a time, hip protesting from the earlier fall, listening to the sounds of fighting below. Steve's still engaged, still fighting, and you track his progress through the warehouse by sound alone.
The lab is exactly where intel indicated—third floor, northeast corner. Also exactly as unguarded as you'd feared.
Trap. Definitely a trap.
But the bioweapon is there, contained in a small metal briefcase that seems too innocuous for something that could kill thousands. You grab it, already turning back toward the stairs when you hear Steve's voice crackle through the static.
Not "Agent." Your name, sharp and desperate, and the sound of it makes your blood freeze. "Get out. Now. They're—"
The static cuts him off.
"Steve? Steve!"
Nothing.
You're already running, taking the stairs so fast you nearly fall, the briefcase clutched tight against your chest. The warehouse has gone quiet—too quiet. No more gunfire. No more fighting.
Just silence.
You round the corner into the main warehouse floor and see him.
He's surrounded, on his knees, blood running from a cut above his eye. Six hostiles have weapons trained on him, and his shield is nowhere to be seen. But what makes your blood turn to ice is the seventh figure—a man in tactical gear holding something that looks like—
"No!" The word tears from your throat as you recognize the device. Sonic disruptor, strong enough to disorient even a super soldier.
The man's finger depresses the trigger.
Steve convulses, hands going to his ears, and the sound he makes—
You're moving before conscious thought catches up, pure instinct driving you forward. The briefcase clatters to the ground as you raise your weapon, laying down cover fire that sends three hostiles scrambling. But you're exposed now, in the open, no cover between you and—
The first shot catches you in the vest.
The impact slams you backward, driving all the air from your lungs in a whoosh that whites out your vision. Your body armor holds—SHIELD makes good gear—but the force spins you sideways, and before you can recover, before you can breathe—
The second shot finds the gap.
Right where your vest meets your hip, that vulnerable slice of space where mobility trumps protection. The bullet tears through tactical fabric and skin and muscle like tissue paper, and the pain—
The pain is exquisite.
White-hot agony blooms from your hip, spreading like wildfire through your nervous system until every cell is screaming. You hear yourself make a sound—sharp, breathless, more surprise than scream—and then your legs are failing, and you're falling, and the concrete rises up to meet you like an old friend.
Your name rips from Steve's throat like something being torn from his chest cavity.
Through blurring vision, you see him move.
The sonic disruptor doesn't matter. The six weapons trained on him don't matter. He erupts from his knees with a sound that's barely human, pure rage and desperation, and bodies go flying. He fights like something mythical, like something out of the stories they tell about Captain America, except there's nothing heroic about this.
This is brutality. Devastation.
Your hands shake as they try to find the wound, fingers slipping on something warm and wet that's spreading way too fast. The pain is enormous, eating at the edges of your consciousness, white-hot and pulsing with each heartbeat. Your tactical pants are already soaked, the fabric clinging to your skin, and when you lift your hand it's painted crimson in the warehouse's emergency lighting.
That's... that's too much blood. Way too much.
Your body starts to shake—shock, probably, or blood loss, or just the simple animal recognition that you're badly hurt. Your teeth start chattering, and you can't make them stop, jaw clenched so tight you taste blood from where you've bitten your tongue.
"No, no, no, no—"
Steve crashes to his knees beside you so hard the concrete cracks. His hands—his bare hands, when did he lose his gloves?—hover over you for a fraction of a second before pressing against the wound. The pressure makes you scream, body trying to curl away from the pain, but he holds you down, holds you still.
"Hey, hey, look at me." His voice cracks completely, nothing like Captain America's steady authority. This is just Steve, terrified and desperate. "Look at me. Stay with me."
You try to focus on his face, but it keeps fracturing, splitting into doubles and triples before reforming. Your eyes won't track right, keep sliding away like they're too heavy. His face is covered in blood—from the cut above his eye, from other wounds you can't catalog—and there's something wild in his expression, something that makes your chest tight for reasons that have nothing to do with the bullet.
"Steve—" Your voice comes out wrong, too wet, copper flooding your mouth. When you cough, something warm splatters across your lips.
"Don't talk, don't—just stay still. I've got you." He's pressing so hard against the wound that new pain blooms, sharp and bright, making your vision white out at the edges. But his hands—his hands are shaking where they press against you, and that seems wrong somehow. Steve Rogers's hands don't shake. "Med evac's coming. Two minutes. Just two minutes, you have to—"
His voice breaks completely, and you realize he's crying. Captain America is crying over you, tears cutting clean tracks through the blood and dirt on his face.
"'S okay," you slur, though it's not, though nothing is okay. Your tongue feels thick, clumsy. "'M okay."
"You're not okay." It comes out harsh, angry, but his hands on your wound are so careful, desperately trying to hold you together. "There's so much blood. Why is there so much—"
That's when you see it. His bare hands are pressed against your wound, skin to skin where your tactical gear has been torn away, and you wait for something—for warmth, for electricity, for whatever cosmic sign is supposed to indicate a soul bond. But there's just the cold creeping up your limbs and Steve's devastated face above you.
"Please," he's saying, over and over, like a prayer or a plea. "Please, just hold on. Just—"
He reaches for your face with one blood-slicked hand, maybe to check your pupils, maybe to keep you conscious, and that's when it happens.
His palm cups your cheek, and the world explodes.
Not with pain this time, but with something else entirely. Something that races through your dying body like lightning finding ground, like coming home, like every cell suddenly remembering what they're made for. The bond slams into place with the force of a freight train, decades of waiting condensed into a single moment of contact that rewrites everything you thought you knew about existence.
The warmth that floods through you has nothing to do with healing and everything to do with recognition. With rightness. With the soul bond that's singing in your bones, drowning out even the pain, making everything else fade to background noise. You can feel him—not just his hand on your face but him, his emotions crashing into yours like a tidal wave. Fear and longing and desperate denial and—
He rips his hand away like you've burned him.
"No." The word comes out strangled, broken. He's staring at his hand like it's betrayed him, then at your face with something that looks like pure horror. "No, not—not like this. Not now—"
The loss of his touch hits worse than the bullet did. Your body convulses, a sob ripping from your throat that you can't control, can't stop. The bond—new and raw and screaming—feels like someone's reached into your chest and started pulling things out. Every nerve ending is firing wrong, confused, desperate for the contact that just got ripped away.
"Steve." Your voice breaks on his name, barely human. The world is going fuzzy at the edges but this—this burning absence where his hand was—this is crystalline. "Steve, please—you're—we're—"
"Don't." He's pressing against the wound with just fabric between you now, using torn pieces of his uniform to maintain pressure without skin contact. His whole body is shaking, violent tremors that make his hands unsteady. "This can't—I can't—"
"Please." The word comes out slurred, desperate, all your walls crumbling with your blood pressure. Your body moves without permission, trying to arch toward him, and the movement sends agony through your hip but you don't care, can't care, not when every cell is screaming for him. "Need—need you t'touch me. Please. Hurts—hurts so much without—"
A whimper escapes, high and broken, and you're crying now—real tears mixing with blood from where you've bitten through your lip trying not to beg.
"I can't." He's sobbing openly, pressing harder against the wound as your blood soaks through the fabric barriers he's maintaining. His face is wrecked, destroyed, tears cutting tracks through dirt and blood. "I can't do this to you. I can't—everyone I touch—everyone I—"
"'M dying." It's matter-of-fact, clear even through the growing fog. Your body knows it, feels it in the way everything's going cold and distant.
Your hand lifts, trembling so hard it's more spasm than movement, reaching for his face. He catches your wrist with fabric-covered fingers, holding you back, and the sound you make—wounded, animal, barely human—seems to physically hurt him.
"You're not dying." Fierce, desperate, a lie that cracks in his throat. "You're not. Med evac's thirty seconds out. You're going to be fine, you're going to—"
"Hurts." The word is pure anguish. Not just the wound but the rejection, the bond screaming, tearing, dying in your chest. Your body's shutting down but somehow the ache of his denial cuts deeper. "Steve, please—am I—did I do something wrong? Am I not—not what you wanted—?"
"No." The word rips from him with enough force to echo off the warehouse walls. He's shaking so hard the fabric between you vibrates with it. "No, you're perfect. You're everything. You're—Christ, you're everything I never let myself want. That's why I can't—"
"Don' understand." Your vision is tunneling fast now, darkness eating the edges. Your body won't stop shaking, violent tremors that make your teeth chatter. "'S supposed to—soulmates supposed to—to help. To make it better. Why won't you—why won't you just—"
Another sob tears from your chest, weaker this time. Your reaching hand falls, fingers still twitching toward him.
"Because I'll destroy you." Raw, bleeding, the words torn from somewhere deep and wounded. "Because everyone I've ever—because I'm not meant for this. For you. You deserve someone who—someone whole. Someone who isn't—"
"Jus' wanted—" Your voice is fading, each word a monumental effort. Your body feels like it's floating and sinking at once. "Jus' wanted to know what it felt like. To be yours. Steve—'m so cold—”
Your eyes are sliding shut, but you force them open one more time, finding his face. He looks shattered. Broken. Like watching you die is killing him too.
"'M sorry," you whisper, and you don't know what you're apologizing for. For dying? For being his soulmate? For not being enough to make him want to hold you? "Sorry I'm not—not worth—"
"Stop." His voice breaks completely. "You're worth everything. You're worth—"
But you're already going under, the last sensation being the phantom burn of where his palm touched your cheek for those thirty-seven seconds. The bond screams and screams and screams, and then—
The med evac arrives in a thunder of sound and motion, but you can't process it anymore. Hands are moving you, lifting you, but all you can focus on is Steve's face, the way he's looking at you like you're taking his soul with you.
"I'm sorry," he's saying, over and over, his voice following you into the darkness. "I'm so fucking sorry. You deserve better. You deserve everything."
The last thing you see is him standing there, your blood painting his bare hands red, looking like a man who's just given up the one thing he wanted most in the world.
The last thing you feel is the phantom burn where his palm touched your cheek, the bond screaming for a connection that's been severed, your body trying to reach for something that's already gone.
The last thing you think, with the last conscious part of your mind, is that you would have been good to him. You would have been so good to him, if he'd let you.
But maybe that's why he pulled away.
Maybe he knows something you don't—that good things don't last, that soulmates are just another pretty lie the universe tells to make the dying easier.
Your hand falls limp, still reaching for him, and the darkness takes you under.
The medbay ceiling has exactly 247 tiles. You know because you've counted them approximately forty-three times since waking up, which was—what? Two weeks ago? Three? Time moves differently when your body is trying to rebuild itself from the inside out and your soul is trying to tear itself apart looking for someone who won't come.
The gunshot wound is healing. Slowly, methodically, with the kind of grinding precision that modern medicine excels at. They'd had to do surgery twice—once to stop the bleeding, once to repair the mess the bullet made of your intestines. The scar will be ugly, they tell you with professional sympathy, as if that's what you're worried about. As if the external scarring could possibly compare to whatever the fuck is happening inside your chest where the bond lives.
Or dies. You're not really sure which anymore.
Your nights follow a pattern now, predictable as clockwork. At 10 PM, the ward goes quiet, lights dimming to that particular hospital twilight that never quite achieves darkness. At 11:47 PM—always 11:47, like he's calculated the exact time the night nurse finishes rounds—you hear it.
Footsteps in the hallway. Careful, measured, but with that particular weight that only belongs to him. Your body recognizes them before your mind does, skin prickling with awareness, the bond flaring to life like struck kindling.
The first night, you'd opened your eyes.
He'd frozen in the doorway, silhouetted by hallway fluorescents, and for thirteen seconds (you counted), you just stared at each other. His face was—God, his face was something you'd never seen before. Raw. Destroyed. Like someone had reached inside him and rearranged everything until it no longer fit right.
"I—" he'd started.
You'd waited, heart hammering so hard the monitors had started alarming, bringing nurses running.
By the time they'd cleared out, satisfied you weren't dying, he was gone.
Now you know better. You keep your eyes closed, breathing deep and even, and let him have whatever this is. Whatever he needs.
He sits in the chair by the window—always the same chair, the one that creaks slightly when he shifts his weight. For the first ten minutes, he just sits there, breathing. You match your inhales to his, careful to keep them sleep-slow even though your heart is racing, even though every cell in your body is screaming to reach for him.
Sometimes he talks.
"They're releasing you tomorrow," he says tonight, voice barely above a whisper. "Fury told me. Said you're healing well. That you'll be able to—that you'll be fine."
Fine. The word sits between you like a lie neither of you believes.
"I know you're awake."
Your breath doesn't catch. You've gotten very good at this game.
"I know you're awake," he repeats, softer. "Your heartbeat changes when I'm here. Just a little, but—" A pause. The chair creaks. "I memorized it. Before. The sound of your heartbeat. Didn't mean to, it just—happened. Enhanced hearing and all."
You want to open your eyes so badly it's physical pain, but you don't. Can't. Because if you do, he'll leave, and even this—this careful distance, this monitored proximity—is better than nothing.
"I'm being reassigned."
Now your breath does catch, just slightly. You hear him shift forward.
"Fury thinks it's best. For both of us. Different divisions, different missions. Clean break." His voice cracks on 'clean' like the word itself is cutting him. "It's better this way. You can—you can find someone else. Someone who isn't—"
Broken, you want to finish. Scared. Frozen in a past that no longer exists.
But you keep your eyes closed, keep your breathing even, keep pretending that your chest isn't caving in with every word.
"I watched Bucky with his soulmate," he continues, and you've never heard him sound like this. Lost. "Watched how easy it was for them. How she touched him and suddenly he was whole again, was himself again. How the bond just—fixed things. Made sense of them."
The chair creaks again. Closer now. You can feel the heat of him, smell that cedar-sharp scent that makes your body ache with want.
"I thought—" He stops. Starts again. "I thought if I didn't have a soulmate, I could pretend I didn't belong here. Could keep one foot in the past, you know? Keep waiting to go home to a time that doesn't exist anymore. But then you—"
Silence. Long enough that you almost open your eyes, almost give up the pretense.
"You make me want to stay," he whispers, and it sounds like a confession. Like something torn from him against his will. "You make me want to belong here. In this century. In this life. And that fucking terrifies me."
Your eyes burn behind closed lids. Your throat aches with words you can't say.
"So I'm leaving. Because you deserve someone who isn't terrified of wanting you. Someone who can touch you without feeling like the universe is ending. Someone who—" His voice breaks completely. "Someone who didn't let you bleed out rather than accept a bond."
You hear him stand, the chair scraping slightly against linoleum. Feel him hesitate, that particular stillness that means he's fighting himself.
Then warmth. Just for a second. The ghost of fingers near your hand where it rests on the blanket, not quite touching but close enough that you can feel the heat of his skin, the way the air shifts between you.
"I'm sorry," he breathes. "I'm so fucking sorry."
Then he's gone, and you finally let yourself cry—silent, body-shaking sobs that you muffle in the pillow so the night nurse won't come. The bond aches like a severed limb, phantom pain for something you had for exactly thirty-seven seconds in a warehouse in Brussels.
Tomorrow, they release you.
Tomorrow, you go back to a life where Steve Rogers is just someone you pass in hallways, someone who looks through you like you're a ghost, someone who touched your face once while you were dying and then decided you weren't worth the risk.
Tonight, though. Tonight you lie in a hospital bed and count ceiling tiles and pretend you don't know that he stands outside your door for another twenty-three minutes before he finally makes himself leave.
Your apartment feels like a crime scene you're returning to.
Everything is exactly as you left it three weeks ago—coffee mug still in the sink, laptop still open on the counter, the ghost of your normal life preserved in amber. Except you're different now. Hollowed out and reconstructed wrong, like someone took you apart and lost a few crucial pieces in the reassembly.
The first night is the worst.
You'd thought the hospital was bad, with its antiseptic smell and endless fluorescent twilight. But at least there, you could pretend Steve might appear. Could lie to yourself that the footsteps in the hallway might be his.
Here, in your own space, there's no such illusion.
The bond aches constantly. Not the sharp, immediate pain of the first few days, but a bone-deep throb that makes everything feel wrong. Food tastes like ash. Sleep comes in fragments, always interrupted by dreams of warehouse floors and the phantom warmth of a palm against your cheek. Your skin feels too tight, like your body is rejecting itself in the absence of touch it's only had once.
You try to go back to work after a week.
Fury takes one look at you—hollow eyes, hands that won't stop shaking, the way you flinch when anyone gets too close—and sends you home.
"Medical leave," he says, not unkindly. "Take the time you need."
You want to tell him that time won't fix this. That you could take a year, a decade, and you'd still be searching every room for a ghost who won't appear. But you just nod, gather your things, and pretend you don't see the pity in his eye.
The second week is when the anger arrives.
It starts small—irritation at the barista who makes your coffee wrong, frustration with the TV remote that won't work properly. But it builds, feeds on itself, until you're standing in your kitchen at 2 AM, hurling the mug Steve never saw you drink from against the wall, watching it shatter into pieces that still somehow hold more cohesion than you do.
How dare he.
How fucking dare he.
To touch you, to activate a bond you didn't even know existed, and then rip himself away like you're something toxic. To visit you every night but never when you're awake to actually see him. To make decisions about your life, your future, your soul without even asking what you want.
You track his missions through the internal SHIELD networks you're not supposed to have access to anymore. London. Moscow. Cairo. Always moving, always running, like distance could somehow break what's already broken. Your clearance hasn't been revoked yet—an oversight, probably—so you read his reports, clinical and detached descriptions of operations that tell you nothing about whether he's eating. Whether he's sleeping. Whether his soul feels as flayed as yours.
Probably not. He chose this, after all.
The third week is when you see him.
You're not prepared. How could you be? You're just buying groceries, standing in the cereal aisle like a normal person pretending to care about fiber content, when you feel it—that familiar prickle of awareness, the bond flaring to life like muscle memory.
You turn, and there he is at the end of the aisle. Frozen, like he's been caught. He looks—
He looks like shit.
Hollow eyes, sharp cheekbones like he hasn't been eating, a carefulness to his movements that speaks of bone-deep exhaustion. His hands are shoved in his pockets, probably to stop himself from reaching for you. Or maybe just to hide how they're shaking.
For a moment, you both just stand there, two people separated by twenty feet of fluorescent lighting and an unbridgeable chasm of his making.
You watch his mouth form your name. Not quite speaking it, just shaping it, like even that much is more than he's allowed himself.
Your body moves without permission, taking one step toward him, and he takes a step back.
Right.
The message is clear. Crystal fucking clear.
You turn around, leave your half-full cart in the middle of the aisle, and walk out of the store with as much dignity as you can muster. Make it all the way to your car before the shaking starts, before you have to grip the steering wheel just to keep yourself anchored.
Twenty feet.
He couldn't even stand to be within twenty feet of you.
That night, you draft seven different resignation letters. Because fuck this. Fuck playing this game where you pretend you're okay, where you pretend that seeing him doesn't make you want to scream or cry or claw your own skin off just to escape the constant ache of the bond.
You don't send any of them.
But you keep them, just in case.
Week four is when Natasha shows up at your door.
"You look like hell," she says without preamble, pushing past you into your apartment.
"Thanks. Great pep talk. You can go now."
She ignores you, taking in the disaster you've let your living space become—dishes piled in the sink, curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, the general apocalyptic ambiance of someone who's given up.
"He's not doing any better, you know."
You laugh, bitter and sharp. "Good."
"He sits outside your building sometimes." She says it casually, like it's nothing, like it doesn't make your heart stutter and race. "At night. When he thinks no one will notice. Just sits in his car and stares up at your window like a fucking Victorian ghost."
"He made his choice."
"He made a stupid choice," she corrects. "Because he's a stupid, self-sacrificing idiot who thinks he's protecting you."
"From what?" The words explode out of you, months of frustration and hurt finally finding voice. "From having a soulmate? From being loved? From fucking touching another human being?"
"From him." Her voice goes soft, which is somehow worse than when she's being cutting. "From what he thinks he is. What he thinks he'll do to you."
"That's not his choice to make."
"No," she agrees. "It's not."
She leaves after that, but not before placing a small piece of paper on your counter. An address. A time. Tomorrow, 3 PM.
"He won't be there," she says. "But you should go anyway."
You stare at the paper for a long time after she's gone, memorizing numbers you'll probably never use.
But when tomorrow comes, you go anyway.
Because maybe you're just as much of a self-sacrificing idiot as he is.
Or maybe you're just tired of being angry.
Maybe you're just tired, period.
The address leads to a small gym in Brooklyn, the kind that smells like old leather and determination. You expect it to be empty—Natasha said he wouldn't be there—but there's someone in the ring.
Barnes.
He's working the heavy bag with mechanical precision, each punch measured and brutal. The sound echoes in the empty space—thud, thud, thud—rhythmic as a heartbeat. He doesn't look up when you enter, but his shoulders tense slightly, that particular stillness of someone who's hyperaware of their surroundings but pretending not to be.
Your stomach does something complicated. You've seen him around the Tower these past couple months since Steve brought him in, but always at a distance. Always with her—his soulmate, the one who somehow reached through seven decades of programming to find the man underneath. The one who touches him like it's breathing, casual and constant and necessary.
"Natasha send you?" His voice is flat, careful.
"Yeah."
He stops punching, turns to face you. Takes you in with those winter-gray eyes that see too much, catalog too much. There's still something unfinished about him, like he's a sketch someone's only halfway through shading. Two months of freedom haven't quite erased seventy years of being someone else's weapon.
"You look like shit," he says, which isn't what you expected.
"Thanks. Everyone keeps telling me that."
His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but close. "Steve looks worse, if it helps."
"It does, actually."
This time he does almost smile, just a flash before his face settles back into its usual brooding. He unwraps his hands slowly, methodically, like he's buying time to figure out what to say. The motion is practiced, automatic—muscle memory that belongs to James Barnes, not the Winter Soldier. You wonder how many things like that he's had to relearn. How many small, human gestures he's had to excavate from under decades of conditioning.
"This is..." He stops. Runs a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up at odd angles. The gesture is so remarkably normal it makes your chest tight. "I don't usually do this. The talking thing. That's more—" A pause, like he's trying to remember who handles these things now, in this new life where he has friends instead of handlers. "That's not really my thing."
"Then why—"
"Because Steve's an idiot," he says bluntly. "And someone needs to explain why he's being an idiot, and apparently that someone is me." He tosses you a pair of wraps. "You know how to use these?"
"I'm on medical leave."
"Not asking you to fight. Just asking if you know how to wrap your hands. Gives you something to do while I..." He makes a vague gesture that somehow encompasses the awkwardness of the entire situation.
You do know how to wrap your hands. The familiar ritual of it—loop around the wrist, between the fingers, across the knuckles—gives your body something to focus on besides the constant ache under your ribs where the bond lives. He watches you do it, noting the slight tremor in your fingers that hasn't gone away since Brussels.
"He ever tell you about Peggy?" Barnes asks suddenly, like ripping off a bandaid.
You pause, stomach twisting into something complicated. "No."
"Course not." He leans against the ropes, and for a moment looks older than whatever age he's supposed to be. "From what I remember—and my memory's not exactly..." He taps his temple with his metal finger, the soft whir of recalibrating plates filling the silence. "But from what I remember, and what I've been able to piece together since, he loved her. Real love, not just wartime desperation. Had her picture in his compass, carried it everywhere. Used to moon over her like she hung the goddamn stars."
Your chest tightens, ribs suddenly too small for your lungs. You focus on wrapping your hands, but the fabric keeps slipping because your palms have gone sweaty.
"But he knew they weren’t soulmates."
"Yeah. And it didn't matter to him. He chose her anyway." Barnes's jaw ticks, and you can see him working through memories that might be his or might be stories he's been told—the confusion of it flickers across his face. "I was already gone when he went into the ice. But from what I've learned, when he woke up, she'd lived a whole life without him. Found her actual soulmate. Got married. Had kids. The whole American dream he thought he was fighting for."
The words land like stones in your chest, each one heavier than the last.
Steve chose Peggy. Chose her without destiny, without the universe's intervention, without biological imperatives. Just looked at her and decided she was worth defying fate for.
And you?
You're just what the universe assigned him. The consolation prize. The participation trophy for surviving into a century he never wanted to see.
Your hands still on the wraps. "That's not—she couldn't have known he'd survive—"
"Doesn't matter. Logic doesn't factor into it." His metal hand flexes, a nervous tic you've noticed before. "I think—and look, this is just my theory, thrown together from bits and pieces—but I think Steve maybe saw it as proof. That the universe was right all along. That choosing her was just him being stubborn, going against what was meant to be."
The words settle heavy in your stomach like you've swallowed cement. "So when he found out I was his soulmate..."
"Proof he's supposed to be here. In this century he's never felt like he belongs in." Barnes's voice goes quiet, almost careful. You can see him choosing his words, this man who's spent two months relearning how to have opinions. "Look, I've only been... back... for a couple months. I'm still figuring out who Steve is now versus who he was then. Half my memories of him are probably more fantasy than fact at this point. But from what I can see, if he accepts you, then he has to accept that this is where he's meant to be. That this is home."
"And he doesn't want that."
"He wants it so much it terrifies him."
Barnes moves to the speed bag, starts a rhythm that's almost meditative. His metal arm moves differently than the flesh one—more precise, less natural, like he's still learning to inhabit it.
"When they brought me in, when I was still more Winter Soldier than anything else, my soulmate—she didn't give me a choice." The rhythm falters for a moment. "Just kept showing up. Kept touching me even when I tried to—" He stops. Restarts. The sound fills the gym like a heartbeat. "Even when I was dangerous. Even when I couldn't remember her name five minutes after she said it."
You know this story, or pieces of it. Everyone at SHIELD does. But the way he tells it—halting, like he's still surprised by it—makes it feel different. Raw. Like he still can't quite believe someone chose to love him through the worst of it.
"I could have killed her. Almost did, more than once those first few weeks. But she kept coming back." The speed bag stills. His hands drop to his sides, and for a moment he looks lost, like he's forgotten what to do with them when they're not fighting. "I didn't get to push her away. Didn't get to decide I was too broken or too dangerous. She made that choice for both of us."
"And it worked out."
"Yeah." His voice does something strange here—goes soft in a way you didn't think it could. Like even after decades of violence, there's still something in him capable of gentleness. "Yeah, it did. But Steve—Steve's got this idea that he's protecting you. From disappointment. From loss. From him."
"That's not his choice to make."
"No. It's not." Barnes looks at you directly, and there's something almost sympathetic in his expression. "But he's gonna make it anyway unless someone stops him. And I'm too fucked up myself to be giving relationship advice, but—"
The gym door opens, cutting him off, and Barnes's entire demeanor changes instantly. It's like watching winter thaw in fast-forward—his shoulders drop, his face loses that careful blankness, even his breathing seems to ease. You turn to see a young woman entering, all bright eyes and gentle energy that seems to fill the space with warmth.
"Hey," she says, and Barnes is already moving toward her like she's got her own gravitational pull, like his body just naturally orbits hers. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah, doll. Just—" He gestures vaguely at you, and she turns that warm attention your way.
"Oh! You must be the one Nat mentioned." She extends her hand, and her smile is so genuine it makes your chest hurt. There's something knowing in her eyes, something that says she understands what it's like to love someone who thinks they're unlovable. "I've heard about you."
"Hopefully not all bad."
"Never." She squeezes your hand gently before releasing it. "How are you holding up?"
The question is so earnest, so carefully kind, that you almost start crying right there in the gym. Your throat goes tight, eyes burning with tears you refuse to shed.
"I'm—" You stop, unable to lie to this person who radiates the kind of empathy that makes dishonesty impossible. "Managing."
She nods like she understands, and somehow you think she does. Then she turns back to Barnes, and it's like watching a completely different person emerge. He leans into her space without seeming to realize it, his hand finding the small of her back with the kind of casual intimacy that speaks of constant touch, constant contact. The metal hand, you notice. The one that's caused so much damage. She doesn't flinch from it.
"You eat today?" she asks him quietly, reaching up to brush his hair back from his face. The gesture is so tender it makes your chest ache.
"Yeah, sweetheart." His voice is impossibly soft, private.
"What did you eat?"
A pause. His mouth quirks slightly—a ghost of whoever James Barnes was before the war, before the fall, before everything. "You."
She smacks his chest. "That doesn't count as food, James."
"Seemed pretty filling to me."
"Oh my god." She turns to you, cheeks pink but biting back a smile. "Six decades as an international assassin and he thinks he's a comedian now."
"I'm hilarious," Barnes says, completely deadpan, but his hand is rubbing small circles on her back, and the look she gives him—fond and exasperated and completely besotted—makes something crack in your chest.
Because this is what choosing looks like. This is what wanting looks like when it's not forced by biology or destiny or the universe's sick sense of humor.
Steve chose Peggy like this. Without destiny. Without force. Just looked at her and knew she was worth everything.
And you? You're just the assignment. The universe's way of telling him he can't go home. The anchor keeping him in a century he never asked for.
Your hands curl into fists inside the wraps, nails digging into your palms hard enough to hurt.
"We're gonna grab dinner," Barnes's soulmate says to you, still tucked against his side like she belongs there. "Real food," she adds with a pointed look at him. "You should come."
"I—no, thank you. I should—" You gesture vaguely at nothing, at the door, at escape.
"Think about what I said," Barnes interjects, not unkindly. His eyes are serious, understanding in a way that makes you want to run. "And..." He pauses, seems to wrestle with something. "Steve's an idiot. But he's an idiot who's been looking at you like you hung the moon since before Brussels. That's not the bond. That's just him."
They leave together, her hand in his, talking quietly about dinner plans and everyday things. You watch them go, Barnes letting her guide him toward something as simple as a meal, and the comparison burns in your throat like acid.
He never pushed her away. Even when he was dangerous, even when he was broken, even when he couldn't remember her name. He let her choose him.
But Steve? Steve took one look at the bond between you and ran.
Because with Peggy, he had a choice. He chose to love her.
With you, he doesn't. You're just what he's stuck with.
Your phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number.
He has a mission briefing tomorrow at 0900. Conference room C. Just saying.
You delete the text, but the information burns in your brain.
Maybe it's time to stop letting Steve Rogers make all the choices.
Even if you're just the consolation prize.
Even if you'll never be Peggy Carter.
Maybe especially then.
Conference Room C is empty.
You stand in the doorway like an idiot, staring at the polished table and empty chairs, at the blank whiteboard that mocks you with its pristine surface. The digital clock on the wall reads 09:07. You've been lurking in the hallway since 08:45, watching people filter in and out of different rooms, none of them Steve.
Of course.
Of course Natasha's intel was wrong, or maybe it was right and he changed locations when he realized you might—
Fuck this.
Fuck all of this.
The anger that's been simmering for weeks boils over, hot and sudden.
You're done.
Done waiting, done hoping, done letting Steve Rogers dictate the terms of your existence with his absence. Your hands shake as you turn to leave, the bond aching with fresh disappointment, and you're so focused on not crying that you don't hear the footsteps until—
A hand wraps around your elbow.
Even through the fabric of your shirt, you know it's him. Your body recognizes his touch like a key in a lock, every nerve ending suddenly alive, suddenly screaming. You're yanked sideways—not roughly, but with desperate efficiency—into a supply closet that smells like printer toner and industrial cleaner.
The door clicks shut, and you're plunged into darkness cut only by the thin strip of light under the door.
Your eyes adjust slowly, and when they do—
Jesus Christ.
Steve looks destroyed.
No, destroyed doesn't cover it.
He looks like someone reached inside him and hollowed him out with a rusted spoon. His uniform is torn—actually torn, with what looks suspiciously like blood staining the blue fabric black. There's a cut on his cheekbone that's already healing, but slowly, like even his enhanced body is too exhausted to properly function. His hair is matted with ash and something darker. His eyes are wild, pupils blown wide in the darkness, and he's breathing like he can't get enough air, like his lungs have forgotten how to work properly.
"Steve?" Your voice comes out tentative, barely a whisper.
He makes a sound—broken, animal, completely unintelligible. His hand is still on your elbow, grip tight enough that it should hurt but doesn't, and you can feel him trembling. Not just his hand. All of him. Vibrating with something that looks like shock but feels like barely contained devastation.
For a moment, you just stare at each other in the dim light. His chest heaves with each breath, and you can smell the mission on him—gunpowder and smoke and something else, something that makes your stomach turn. Death. He smells like death.
"Steve, what—"
He breaks.
With a deep, shuddering breath that sounds like it's being torn from the very center of him, Steve pulls you against him. It's not gentle. It's desperate, consuming, like a drowning man finding solid ground. One hand tangles in your hair, fingers twisting in the strands hard enough to make your scalp sing with that perfect edge of pain-pleasure. The other arm bands around your waist, and then—
His hand slides up under your shirt, fingers splaying wide against the bare skin of your back, and you both gasp.
The bond roars to life.
It's not the gentle warmth you'd imagined soulbonds to feel like. It's a flood, a tidal wave, every point of contact sending liquid heat through your veins like you're mainlining pure sensation. Your knees buckle, but he's got you, holding you up with desperate strength as he buries his face in the crook of your shoulder.
The noise he makes then—God, you'll hear it forever. Half sob, half relief, muffled against your neck as he breathes you in like you're the only thing keeping him tethered to earth. His body curves around yours, too tall, too broad, trying to eliminate every millimeter of space between you.
"Had to—" His voice is wrecked, barely recognizable, words pressed hot against your throat. "Had to find you. Couldn't—fuck, I couldn't breathe—"
His hand on your back moves restlessly, seeking more skin, and when his fingertips brush the edge of your bra, you shiver so hard he groans. The sound vibrates through your chest where you're pressed together, and you can feel his control fracturing, feel the way his hands shake with the effort of not taking more.
But he does take more.
His hand in your hair tightens, tilts your head back to expose your throat, and his mouth presses to your pulse point—not kissing, just resting there, feeling your heartbeat against his lips. The hand under your shirt spreads wider, slides higher, until his thumb brushes your ribs and you make a sound you've never made before.
"The mission," he says against your skin, and you feel more than hear it. "There was—Christ, there was this couple. Shopping for groceries when the building came down."
His whole body shudders, and he presses closer, pins you against the door with his weight like he needs the contact to stay upright. You can feel every line of him through the torn uniform—the hard planes of his chest, the way his stomach muscles clench with each ragged breath, the thick press of his thighs against yours.
"She died instantly." The words come out broken, wet. "But he—he lived long enough to feel the bond break. Have you ever—" His voice cracks. "I've never heard anyone scream like that. Like his soul was being ripped out through his chest."
"Steve—"
"All I could think about was you." His confession comes with another full-body shudder, and suddenly his mouth is moving against your throat, not kissing but talking, like he needs the contact to get the words out. "What it would feel like if—if I lost you before I ever—"
He pulls back just enough to look at you, and his eyes are wet, devastated, completely without walls. "I can't lose you. I can't. I'll die. I'll actually fucking die."
"You won't lose me," you breathe, but he's already shaking his head, already pulling you impossibly closer.
"You don't understand." His hand slides from your hair to cup your jaw, thumb brushing across your cheekbone with reverent desperation. "The bond—it's not—for normal people it's intense, but for me—" He makes a sound like he's in physical pain. "The serum amplifies everything. Every sensation, every emotion, every—"
He cuts himself off by pressing his forehead to yours, and you can feel him trembling with the effort of holding back.
"Steve."
"I need—" His hand at your back shifts, slides around to span your ribs, thumb brushing the underside of your breast through your bra, and you both freeze. The touch is electric, sends sparks racing down your spine, pooling low in your belly. "Fuck, I need to touch you. Need to—please. Please, just let me—"
"Yeah." The word comes out embarrassingly breathy, but you don't care because his hands are already moving, already taking.
He spins you suddenly, presses your back against the door, and then his hands are everywhere. One slides up to cradle your throat—not squeezing, just holding, feeling your pulse flutter against his palm. The other pushes your shirt up, fingertips tracing your ribs like he's memorizing you through touch alone.
"So soft," he murmurs, and it sounds like prayer. "How are you so fucking soft?"
His thumb finds the hollow of your throat, presses gently, and your head falls back against the door. He makes a sound like you've killed him, and then his mouth is on your neck, open and hot and desperate. Still not kissing exactly—more like tasting, like he needs to experience you with every sense.
Your hands come up to clutch at his shoulders, and he crowds closer, presses you harder against the door. His thigh slides between yours, and the pressure makes you gasp, makes your hips cant forward involuntarily.
"That's it," he breathes against your throat. "Let me feel you. Let me—"
His hand at your throat slides down, palms the curve of your breast through your bra, and the sound you make is embarrassing and needy and you don't care because he echoes it, his hips pressing forward to pin you completely.
"Been dying," he confesses against your collarbone, words muffled by skin and want. "Every day, dying by inches. Watching you walk past, smelling your shampoo in the hallways, hearing your laugh and knowing I couldn't—"
"You could have." Your hands find his hair, tangle in the sweat-damp strands, and he groans. "This whole time, you could have—"
"No." He pulls back to look at you, and his pupils are blown so wide there's barely any blue left. "Would've destroyed you. Consumed you. The bond, the way I need you—it's not normal. It's not healthy."
"I don't care."
"You should." But even as he says it, his hand is sliding up your ribs again, fingertips tracing patterns that make you shiver. "You should be terrified of how much I want you. How much I need to—"
He cuts himself off, jaw clenching, but his body betrays him. His hips press forward, and you can feel him hard against your hip, can feel the way he's shaking with want.
"Show me," you breathe, and he makes a sound like you've shot him.
"You don't know what you're asking."
"Then show me."
His control snaps like a rubber band stretched past its limit.
His mouth finds yours with the kind of desperation that makes your knees buckle, and it's nothing like you imagined during those long, empty nights. Nothing soft or careful or sweet. This is drowning. This is Steve Rogers trying to climb inside your skin through your mouth, one hand fisted in your hair to angle your head exactly how he needs it, the other pressed flat between your shoulder blades like he's trying to fuse your chest to his.
His tongue slides against yours, hot and demanding, and you taste copper—blood from where he's bitten his lip raw—mixed with something that's just fundamentally him. Something that makes your brain short-circuit, makes you grab at his shoulders just to stay upright. The bond roars to life under your skin, weeks of rejection suddenly reversed, and the whimper that escapes you would be embarrassing if you could think past the electricity racing through your veins.
"Fuck," he breathes against your mouth, not really pulling back, just speaking the word into you like he needs you to swallow it. His teeth catch your bottom lip, tug just hard enough to make you gasp, and he uses the opportunity to lick deeper into your mouth, thorough and filthy and completely at odds with Captain America's public persona.
Your back hits the door harder as he presses closer, and you can feel how affected he is—the way his chest heaves against yours, the tremor in his hands, the hard length of him pressed against your hip. It's overwhelming and not enough, too much and not nearly—
"Perfect," he growls, breaking away just long enough to trail his mouth down your jaw, teeth scraping in a way that's definitely going to leave marks. "You're so fucking perfect. Do you have any idea—" His hand slides under your shirt, fingertips tracing your ribs like he's mapping you for memory, "—what you do to me? How many meetings I've had to leave because you walked by and I could smell you?"
"Steve." Your voice comes out wrecked, barely recognizable. Your hands are in his hair now, tugging probably too hard, but he groans like you've given him a gift.
"I know, sweetheart. I know." His mouth finds your pulse point and sucks, and your vision whites out for a second. "I've got you. Let me—just let me—"
His hands shift with purpose now, one sliding down to grip your hip hard enough to bruise, the other pushing your shirt up, up, until cool air hits your stomach. And then—Jesus Christ—he's dropping to his knees with a fluidity that shouldn't be possible for someone his size, pressing his mouth to the skin above your waistband like communion.
You look down and nearly combust. Captain America—Steve—on his knees in a supply closet, eyes closed like he's praying, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your stomach that are somehow both worshipful and obscene. His tongue traces the line where your pants sit low on your hips, and your hands fly to his shoulders because your legs have forgotten how to work.
"Should've been doing this for months," he murmurs against your hipbone, and you feel the words more than hear them, vibrating through skin and muscle and straight to your core. "Should've been worshipping you. Should've—" His voice cracks, and suddenly his arms are banded around your waist, his forehead pressed to your stomach like he's hiding. "That man today, when his bond broke—the sound he made—"
"Steve." You card your fingers through his hair, gentle this time, trying to soothe whatever demon is riding him. He shudders against you, full-body, and presses closer.
"I can't lose you." The words come out muffled by your skin, but the desperation in them is crystal clear. "I can't. I won't survive it."
"You won't lose me."
It's probably a lie. You're both in a dangerous line of work. People die. Bonds break. But right now, with him on his knees looking like you're the answer to every prayer he's never let himself voice, you'd promise him anything.
"Promise." His hands tighten on your waist, and when he looks up at you, his eyes are wild, desperate, nothing like the composed soldier the world knows. "Promise me."
"I promise."
He surges up and kisses you again, different this time. Still desperate but searching, like he's trying to memorize you—the shape of your mouth, the sound you make when his tongue slides against yours, the way you shake when his thumb brushes the underside of your breast through your bra. It's overwhelming in a different way, intensity without hurry, and you're dizzy with it, drunk on the sensation of being wanted this badly by someone who's spent months pretending you don't exist.
When he finally pulls back, you're both wrecked. His lips are swollen, slick, and his pupils are blown so wide there's barely any blue left. You probably look worse—you can feel your hair sticking to your face with sweat, your mouth tender and used.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, thumbs stroking your cheekbones with a gentleness that makes your chest ache. "For Brussels. For after. For being such a fucking coward."
"I know." You do. It doesn't fix anything, not yet, but you know.
"I'll make it up to you." His thumb traces your lower lip, and you can't help the way your tongue darts out to taste it, salt and skin and Steve. His breath hitches. "However long it takes."
"You can start now." It comes out more breathless than the sultry suggestion you were aiming for, but something about your desperation makes his eyes go dark again.
He laughs, rough and ruined, and presses one more kiss to your mouth—this one soft, almost chaste, if not for the way his hand tightens possessively in your hair.
"Tonight," he says, and it sounds like a prayer. "Let me—let me shower, change, become human again. And then dinner. Real dinner. Where I pick you up and we go somewhere and I don't run when the bond makes me feel everything."
"And if you run?" You're trying for threatening but it comes out vulnerable, scared. Because he's run before. He's so good at running.
His hand slides to your throat, not squeezing, just holding, thumb pressed to where your pulse hammers against your skin. "You have my full permission to hunt me down and make my life hell."
"I will." And you mean it. You're done being the one left behind, the one reaching for someone who's already gone.
"I'm counting on it."
He steps back, and the loss of contact hits like cold water. Your skin feels too tight, too sensitive, nerve endings firing confused signals—where is he, why isn't he touching us, bring him back. You can see him feeling it too, the way his hands clench and unclench at his sides, the way his body sways toward you like you've got your own gravitational pull.
"Tonight. Eight o'clock."
"Steve?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time you have a bad mission, come find me. Don't wait. Don't hide. Just—come find me."
Something in his expression cracks open, vulnerable and raw and so un-Captain America it makes your heart skip. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He kisses you one more time—quick, fierce, a brand, a promise—and then he's gone, leaving you slumped against the door on legs that feel like jello. Your mouth is swollen, your skin still burning everywhere he touched, and you're pretty sure you've soaked through your underwear, but the bond...
For the first time in months, the bond doesn't ache.
It purrs.
It fucking purrs.
Tonight. Eight o'clock.
You're going to need a very long shower. And possibly a new pair of pants.
And maybe—just maybe—you're going to get what the universe has been trying to give you all along.
Even if you're not Peggy Carter. Even if you're just the consolation prize.
Right now, with the taste of him still on your tongue and bruises already forming on your hips in the shape of his fingers, you can't bring yourself to care.
"Tell me about Peggy," you say, and it comes out embarrassingly breathy because Steve's just shifted his hips in a way that makes stars explode behind your eyelids.
"Fuck." His hands tighten on your hips, fingers digging into soft flesh with bruising intensity. The pressure sends heat pooling low in your belly, makes your inner muscles flutter around him. "Can we... not?"
It's not the most unreasonable request in the world. He's inside you, after all, thick and perfect and stretching you in ways that make coherent thought impossible. You're straddling him on the couch, and he's maneuvering you exactly how he wants—one hand gripping your hip hard enough to leave fingerprints, the other splayed possessively across your lower back, controlling your rhythm with casual strength that makes you dizzy. Like you weigh nothing. Like you're his to position and please and wreck completely.
"Bucky says—"
A growl rumbles through his chest at the name, vibrating through your body where you're joined. His hand slides from your back to your throat in one fluid motion. Just resting there, feeling your pulse race beneath his palm. A reminder. A warning.
"Another man's name?" His voice is dark, edged with something primal that makes your stomach flip. "While I'm inside you?"
You gasp as he lifts you slightly, changes the angle, and your thighs shake with the effort of holding yourself up. "S-says she's the reason you stopped believing in soulmates."
Steve goes still. Not completely—he's still buried deep, still hard, still breathing like he's barely holding onto control—but his hands stop their restless movement, and his eyes snap to yours with something like exasperation mixed with disbelief.
"Are we really doing this?" His thumb presses against your pulse point, and you feel your heartbeat stutter. "You want to talk about someone else while I'm trying to fuck you through this couch?"
"I just—oh god—" Your train of thought derails as he rolls his hips up, deliberate and punishing, hitting that spot that makes your vision white out.
"What you need," he says, voice dropping to that Captain-giving-orders tone that should not work in this context but absolutely does, "is to stop overthinking and let me take care of you."
One hand slides up your spine to tangle in your hair, tugging just hard enough to make your neck arch, exposing your throat to his mouth. The other grips your hip, holding you still as he rolls his hips again, controlled and devastating.
"She wasn't my soulmate." The words are pressed hot against your throat between open-mouthed kisses that feel more like claims. "Loved her, yes. A long time ago. Thought I'd marry her if I survived the war. But she wasn't mine."
His teeth graze your collarbone, and your whole body shudders, nerve endings singing. The bond between you pulses with each heartbeat, amplifying every sensation until you can't tell if the pleasure is yours or his or some perfect fusion of both.
"Not the way you are." His hand in your hair tightens, forces you to meet his eyes. They're blown dark, barely any blue remaining. "Not even close to the way you are."
"But—"
"Sweetheart." He stops moving entirely, and you make a sound of protest that would mortify you if you could think past the need coiling tight in your belly. "Listen very carefully, because I'm only saying this once."
His hand leaves your throat to frame your face, thumb stroking across your cheekbone with gentleness that contrasts sharply with the possessive grip in your hair.
"She chose someone else. Her actual soulmate. And yeah, it messed me up. Made me think the universe was laughing at me." His hips flex slightly, involuntarily, and you both gasp. "But you know what I realized?"
"What?" The word comes out wrecked, barely audible.
"The universe wasn't wrong. I was." He releases your hair only to grip the back of your neck, holding you steady as he starts to move again, slow and deep and deliberate and exquisite. "I wasn't meant for that time. If she'd been my soulmate, I'd have stayed in the forties. Lived a quiet life. Had the house and the kids and the picket fence."
"That sounds—"
"Like everything I thought I wanted," he agrees, punctuating the words with a particularly deep thrust that has you seeing stars. "Until I woke up here. Until you walked into that briefing room two years ago, looking so goddamn competent and untouchable, and my body knew you were mine before my brain could catch up."
Your nails dig into his shoulders as he picks up the pace, and you feel his pleasure spike through the bond, mixing with yours until you can't separate them.
"I fought belonging here for so long," he continues, voice getting rougher, more breathless. "But you—Christ, you make me want to stay. Make me grateful the ice gave me you instead of her."
"Steve—"
"That’s it, sweetheart. No more names but mine," he commands, and then he's kissing you, deep and claiming and filthy. His tongue slides against yours, and you taste desperation and possession and something that feels dangerously close to devotion. When he pulls back, you're both panting. "And I want to keep hearing it. Preferably screamed."
You nod, words beyond you, and something dark and satisfied flashes across his face.
"Good girl."
The praise shoots straight through you, makes your cunt clench around him. He groans, forehead dropping to your shoulder, and his control finally, blessedly shatters.
He fucks up into you with purpose now, each thrust deliberate and devastating. His hands are everywhere—gripping your hips, sliding up your ribs, palming your breasts with possessive familiarity. Every touch feels magnified, the soul bond amplifying sensation until you're drowning in it. You can feel his pleasure mixing with yours, feeding back on itself in an endless loop that has you both gasping, clutching at each other like you might dissolve without the anchor of skin on skin.
"This is what I think about," he confesses against your throat, words punctuated by the snap of his hips. "Not the past. Not her. You. Always you. How you feel around me, how you taste, the sounds you make when you're close."
Your nails rake down his back hard enough to leave marks, and he hisses, the pain-pleasure bleeding through the bond making you both groan.
"The serum," he pants, rhythm getting erratic. "Fuck, the goddamn serum makes everything more intense. Every touch, every—I can feel you everywhere. In my blood, in my bones. Under my skin where I couldn't get you out even if I wanted to."
"Don't want you to," you manage, chasing your release, that coil in your belly wound so tight you might shatter.
"Never." It's a vow pressed into your skin with teeth and tongue. "Never letting you go. Mine. My soulmate, my—fuck, I'm close—"
His hand slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit with unerring accuracy, and you're gone. The orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave, pleasure so intense it borders on transcendent. You do scream his name, just like he wanted, and he follows you over, your name on his lips like a prayer, his hands holding you against him like you might evaporate if he loosens his grip.
You collapse against his chest, both of you panting, sweat-slick and trembling. The bond hums between you, satisfied and warm, and for the first time in months, you feel whole.
"So," you say once you can form words again, unable to help yourself, "just to be clear—"
He flips you suddenly, pressing your back into the couch cushions, and the predatory look in his eyes makes your breath catch. He's still hard, still inside you, and when he rolls his hips experimentally, you both groan.
"You want clarity?" His voice is dark, promising. He hitches your leg higher around his waist, slides deeper, and your head falls back. "Let me be very, very clear."
He pulls almost all the way out, then slides back in with devastating slowness, making you feel every inch.
"You are the only person I think about," he says, setting a rhythm that's slow and deep and intentional. "The only person I want. The only person who's ever made me grateful to be exactly where I am, when I am."
His hand slides up your thigh, grips behind your knee to open you wider, and the new angle has you gasping, clutching at his shoulders.
"The past is the past," he continues, voice steady despite the way his control is visibly fraying, tendons standing out in his neck. "And I plan to spend my future making up for lost time. Starting now."
"Steve—"
"That's it," he praises when you say his name, and rewards you with a particularly deep thrust that has your back arching off the couch. "Just like that. Let me show you exactly how not hung up on the past I am."
And he does.
Thoroughly.
By the time he's finally satisfied you understand, you've forgotten not just her name, but your own. The only thing that exists is him, the bond between you singing with contentment, and the absolute certainty that the universe knew exactly what it was doing.
Even if it took Steve Rogers seven decades to appreciate the gift.
⋆ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 ; This whole fic was inspired by this post by @masterfishbaiter71 ! Anyways, this entire fic is just about edging Dex til he has a meltdown and goes fucking crazy on you ;)
⋆ tags/warnings. benjamin poindexter x female reader. SMUT!!!! PURE PORN. Guys please don't edge Dex, for your own safety, warnings for sadism, mentions of dacryphilia for both dex and reader, dex taking his anger out on reader, kind of switchy vibes (starts off with somewhat subby Dex and ends with reader getting destroyed lmao), m!receiving oral smex, BLOWJOB BLOWJOB BLOWJOB, facefucking, sadomasochism, you're his north star, per usual that white boy loses his self control, emotional Dex, swearing. I saw this post and flatlined pretty much. I love my little dexy-poo. Again, tysm to everyones support on my fics! Im so excited for tommorrows episode!
♫ “Baby, I could slow down, if that's what you need me to do. / We can go another round, maybe to a new altitude. / I'll make you need it, and you want it.” Altitude by Montell Fish
"I'm...I'm trying-" He growls out a plea.
The words fall from his lips in short spasms and bursts. He's struggling to get them out, his jaw clenched like it might break. You see him white-knuckling the sheets, twitching like he wants to reach out and grab onto you. Onto any part of you he can get his hands on.
Your tongue flicks over his tip once, twice. Precum pools in a small bead at the top which you kitten lick off intently. You hear Dex moan- and it's a strangled, ragged sound.
"Trying to...what, Dex?" You tease. Laughing against his throbbing cock. He can't respond when you begin to just kiss the length of him, wet and hot. You feel his whole body jerk and a low groan tear out from him.
The only sound in the room is the slow, wet obscene noises coming from how you're working him. And the sound of Dex's heavy choked breathing.
He's close. So close. It's times like these you get to see his brain completely shut off, all the noise that plagues him turn into a pliant, quiet mush at the feeling of your mouth on him.
"I-I'm going to-"
Cum. He's going to cum. You know that, smirking around the head of his flushed red cock. Poor guy can't even finish his sentence. You almost feel sorry for him the moment you pull back.
The loss of your tongue is jarring. It's the third time tonight. You've been teasing him, watching his control falter with every lick and kiss. You've also been careful not to take him fully down your throat, cataloging every reaction he gives you. The sight of his pretty face contorted with a desperate, needy pleasure.
You chuckle when his abdominal muscles flex, his whole body tense. The absence of your mouth feeling like a bucket of ice water has been dumped on him. A sharp gasp is ripped from his throat, hips bucking in shallow thrusts to chase the loss.
His whole body taught with the effort not to snap.
You finally look up from your place between his thighs, if only to catch a glimpse of his face. You note his hollow cheek-bones twisted into a grimace at the loss. The beads of sweat trickling down his forehead and abs. The way his veins prominently stick out and throb from under his skin and forearms. The way his chest heaves at the lack of contact.
And yet, what finally gives you pause is when you meet his eyes.
His eyes. Those gorgeous, dark eyes of his- heavy lidded and red rimmed. Overstimulated and wrecked, like he's been crying, or at least is on the verge. Glossy and wet as he desperately attempts to blink them away.
For a moment, you think he really just is that needy. Crying for his North Star's mouth on him, eyes dimmed with nothing but complete worship. But when his eyes meet your own, biting the inside of his cheeks, it's when you finally notice the truth.
The way his brows are lowered. The way his body trembles. The way his cheeks are flushed. The way his cock pulses impatiently under your hand. His locked jaw.
That look of pathetic desperation in his eyes is nothing short of a hot, wild, frenzied anger.
He's not just needy. He's fucking furious.
Your train of thought is cut off entirely when you feel a hand come up, tangling in your hair, and pushing you down in one hard, smooth motion. You feel the head of his cock immediately hit your esophagus.
As if on instinct, you gag around him, throat tightening as he groans loudly. He pants as he pushes you all the way down, manhandling your mouth onto his cock like a fleshlight. He holds you there for what feels like forever, those glossy eyes of his drinking in the sight of you gagging on him.
"Breathe...Breathe through your fucking nose." Is all he orders, trying to catch his own breath while you sputter around him. The words come out harsh. The change of pace is jolting. His eyes are still wet with need, the hard lines of his body still rigid underneath. You feel his hands tighten in your hair to a pressure than borders on painful.
He's seething. That anger boiling over and melting into a mean look on his face he was trying so, so hard to repress for you. But you just couldn't let him, huh? Had to make him the bad guy.
He observes as your mascara quickly begins to run, your own eyes welling. Something about it makes him shudder. Only when he sees tears of your own does he begin to move. You two can cry together.
"Good. That's...That's good. That's it." He loosens his grip on you ever so slightly to pet your hair, take you in like the goddess you must be, his saving grace. His body begins to relax, coming down from his anger as his breathing calms down...right before he rams his cock sharply down your throat.
You let out a loud gag and whimper around his cock, and he inhales sharply in unison.
"All quiet now, huh." He grits out, shoving you down further as you choke. The force of his words are coupled with the sharp thrusts of his hips fucking up into your throat. When you whine, he decides to push you harder. "Look at me. Look at me."
His words sound like both a livid command and a desperate plea.
You struggle to open your eyes, but when you do, you're still met with bloodshot and glistening gaze that now completely matches your own.
He holds you there, both of you shakily breathing, tears pooling while you cry around his dick.
He briefly wonders if you knew. If you knew you were killing him like this. If you knew how hard he was trying not to grab your head and fuck your throat raw. Be...gentle.
Guess it doesn't matter now.
Dex’s grip tightens in your hair, fingers flexing like he’s still fighting himself even as he starts fucking your throat in short, brutal strokes. His voice is low, rough, and broken.
“Couldn’t…just...wait anymore.” The words come out both furious and strangled. Like he's desperatley trying to apologize, to tell you why, but they lack any and all remorse the more he bullies your throat.
Each thrust is measured but punishing, his cock sliding deep, stretching your throat until fresh tears spill down your cheeks. His eyes stay locked on yours the whole time- glossy, furious, and starving.
His thumb gently wipes a tear from your cheek even as he keeps ruthlessly using your mouth, the contrast between the soft touch and the vicious snap of his hips making your head spin.
He's close. Again. For the fourth time tonight. And something tells you this one won't end in broken pleas or shallow thrusts up into nothing.
He’s panting hard, hips snapping up faster, losing the last threads of control.
“Swallow it. All of it. Right now.”
His voice cracks on the last word. And with a final groan, he shoves himself as deep as he can go and holds you there, pulsing hard as he spills straight down your throat in thick, endless spurts. He stays buried, breathing ragged, thumb stroking your tear-streaked cheek almost tenderly while his cock twitches against your tongue.
He leans down to rest his forehead against yours, pulling you back up with a gentleness that contrasts his earlier actions. His touch is hot, the sweat of his body sticking to your own. Your throat will be sore tomorrow.
The two of you stay like that for quite some time, losing count of the hours. You might just end up kissing each others tears away.
Synopsis: He believed the entire world had forgotten Peter Parker, until the girl he never spoke to in class said his name. [Gif Creds: manny-jacinto].
First Peter Parker fic in celebration of the trailer drop ✨💃
(Edited 3/31: I officially made this into a small little series, so I DEEPLY apologize for the previous mess of formatting 😭🙏)
『••✎••』
His face changed in an instant.
The easy, half-apologetic smile Peter had been wearing—sorry, my bad, let me help—froze, then cracked. His brown eyes widened, pupils blowing out like he’d been hit with a flashbang. The color drained from his already pale cheeks, leaving the faint acne scars and the sheen of nervous sweat stark against his skin. His mouth parted, lips forming a silent what? before any sound could escape.
You blinked up at him, crouched on the grimy New York sidewalk, one hand steadying your precariously tall stack of books, the other hovering over the scattered ones at your feet. The world kept moving—the rumble of the subway beneath the pavement, the wail of a distant siren, the shuffle of pedestrians flowing around the two of you like water around stones. But in the sudden, suffocating vacuum between you and him, all of that noise simply dissolved.
"Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry," he’d been saying just a second ago, a familiar, breathless rush. He’d bumped into you—a classic traffic jam on the sidewalk—and your world had tipped sideways. Physics took over. Textbooks on organic chemistry and literary theory splayed out across the concrete like a fan.
He remembered you. He was sure of it. You sat two rows ahead and one to the left in Mr. Harrison’s history class. You never spoke, but he knew you were one of the smartest kids in the room, your hand perpetually in the air while he was usually trying to calculate if he had enough web fluid for patrol later that night. He’d seen you in the halls—a quiet, focused presence that never seemed to intersect with the chaotic orbit of himself, MJ, and Ned.
You smiled, a small, polite curve of your lips as you both reached for the same copy of The Great Gatsby. Your fingers had brushed.
"It’s okay, happens all the time." You had said, gathering the last book and tucking it into your stack. Then you looked him in the eye, a brief, friendly glance of acknowledgment, and said the words that had just short-circuited his entire nervous system.
"See you around, Peter."
And just like that, the universe tilted on its axis.
You’d pushed yourself to your feet, adjusting your bag, giving him another polite smile before turning to merge back into the river of people on the sidewalk. The moment was over—a simple, forgettable bump with a vague acquaintance from high school.
Except it wasn’t.
Wait.
His lungs seized. The name echoed in the hollow of his chest, a ghost of a sound, but it was the most real thing he’d heard in an eternity. Peter. Not "hey, kid" or "that guy" or the frustrated sigh of a landlord who never knew his renter’s name. Peter. Said with the casual familiarity of someone who had always known it.
A frantic, desperate energy seized him. He couldn’t let you go. He couldn’t let you walk away and vanish back into the faceless crowd, leaving him to wonder if he’d finally, truly lost it.
"Wait!"
He shot forward, a burst of speed that felt more like a spider’s leap than a human’s jog. He caught your arm just above the elbow. It was a gentle touch, barely any pressure, but you stopped instantly, turning back to him with a look of surprise, your brow furrowed. Your books wobbled in your arms.
His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat in a silent room. He leaned in, not caring that he was blocking the flow of foot traffic, that a businessman had to sidestep him with an annoyed grunt. All that mattered was your face, your confused eyes, and the five letters he needed to hear again.
"Wait," he repeated, his voice raspy, thin. "What… what did you say?"
Your confusion deepened, a small line creasing between your brows. You glanced from his wild-eyed face down to where he was still touching your sleeve, then back up again.
"Uh…" you hesitated, clearly thrown by the intensity of his reaction. "I just said, ‘see you around’?"
"No, before that. The… the last part." He could barely breathe the words out. Please. Please say it again. Let him know he wasn’t hallucinating, that the loneliness hadn’t finally cracked him open.
You blinked, slow and deliberate, as if trying to decipher a foreign language. A flicker of something like concern crossed your features.
"Peter?" you said, his name a soft, questioning thing in the city noise. "Are you okay?"
The world shattered around him.
It wasn’t a question of how. He didn’t care how. Not yet. The sheer, overwhelming fact of it crashed over him like a tidal wave. The weight of a year’s worth of invisibility, of nonexistence, suddenly lifted. Air rushed into lungs that had been starved for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to breathe. A tremor ran through his entire body—a violent, shuddering release of tension he hadn’t even realized he was holding.
He didn’t answer your question. He couldn’t. All he could do was stare, his grip on your sleeve slackening until his fingers just brushed the fabric of your jacket. He was looking at you, but he wasn’t seeing a college student with a stack of books anymore. He was seeing an anchor. A lighthouse in a fog that had swallowed him whole.
A shaky, disbelieving laugh escaped his lips—a broken sound that held the ghost of a sob. He stared at you as if you’d just handed him the entire universe, piece by precious piece.
You, completely unaware of the magnitude of the moment—of the dam you’d just broken—just stood there. You took in the dazed look, the trembling hands, the way he was looking at you like you were a miracle.
And you just looked… concerned. Worried for the weird guy from your old high school who was currently having some kind of meltdown on a public sidewalk.
"Peter," you said again, a little firmer this time, reaching out a hesitant hand. "Seriously. Are you alright?"
And he was. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was more than alright.
