Genghis Khan -- Part One
Fandom: Marvel Avengers AU/MCU AU
Pairing: Bucky Barnes X fem!Reader
Characters: Bucky Barnes, OMC Neil
Author: @amandaoftherosemire
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 4,703
Format: Two-Part One-Shot
Warnings: Smut (next part), 18+ only, angst, jealousy, violent impulses, mutual pining
Summary: You and Bucky are neighbors and friends-with-benefits. Neither of you like the arrangement, but neither of you are willing to risk ruining it to ask for more. One night, you both get pushed to your limits.
A/N: This fic was inspired by the song “Genghis Khan” by Miike Snow. Once it was in my head, it wouldn’t stop clamoring until I let it out. I was busy; I’m trying to finish other fics that have sat for far too long, but here I am, still thirsting for Bucky like a slut. I don’t know what I’m doing any more. What a lie. Like I ever knew what I was doing. I split it into two parts when it got over 10,000 words, but it just needs a final pass before I’ll be ready to put the next part up, too, so I’ll have the second part up very shortly. I hope y’all enjoy! 😊
Genghis Khan Part One
Bucky was pacing again.
With a growl of frustration, he escaped the closing walls of his apartment by taking to the streets, walking the sidewalks of his youth. When he'd moved back to New York, he'd expected to be overwhelmed by too many people, too much movement, but he'd found the familiar press and rush of the city a comfort. Back home in Brooklyn, he’d found a part of himself that could find solace within the traces of the streets he'd run as a boy and another part that found relief that those reminders were few and far between after nearly a century's worth of change.
Whenever he was no longer content to keep to himself, when his apartment started to feel stifling, like he was trapped, he'd walk for blocks and blocks, breathing the air, basking in freedom. Just because he wasn't quite sure what to do with his freedom half the time was neither here nor there. He had choices now. There was nothing more precious.
Still, he'd forgotten the double-edged nature of choosing for oneself. That he had been the one to make his own choices was cold comfort when he still felt the need to escape them. He didn’t want to be home, his need to flee moving him to walk the streets in a frustrated attempt to wear himself out. He knew he couldn't be there when you got back, and he needed to be exhausted before he walked past your door.
His neighbor, his friend, his greatest desire, he'd watched you leave tonight with the same man as last time, and the time before. This was the first time you'd left with the same person more than once. Bucky couldn’t explain why, but it felt momentous that you’d gone on a third date.
Bucky couldn’t decide if he was happy for you that you'd found someone else after he'd fucked it up or if he was infuriated that he’d been so easily replaced. Torn between relief and fury, he fumed as he walked, the battle blinding him to the streets that passed. The relief was cold and empty, the only comfort that the choice would be taken from him and with it the temptation, but the fury was hot and dangerous, ready to bubble over at merely the thought that someone else would share your bed, would touch what his heart insisted was his.
Bucky had no right to be jealous, and he damn well knew it, but that didn't stop the green bile from rising into his throat at the thought of anyone else discovering the taste of your skin, dewed with the sweat of desire, or how it felt to sink into your silken wet clasp. His own choices, his own careful silence had come between you, and he had no right to want to make the other man disappear before he was given the opportunity to find the exact frequency at which you moaned in pleasure.
Bucky didn’t have a problem with this particular person, really. He didn’t know anything about him, had carefully not asked for even a scrap of information. His low-grade urge to find him and smother him with a pillow was nothing personal; there was no way it could be. He simply couldn't help but have a problem with the very concept of anyone but himself sharing your bed.
He'd started to fall for you about a week after he'd moved in. He'd leaned out to grab his paper, the printed word an anachronism he still preferred, at the same time you'd opened your own door. Bleary-eyed and only half-conscious, you'd scooped up your own newspaper as you'd grunted, "Morning," in his general direction, waved the paper, and turned away, cursing absently when you scraped your shoulder against your door frame. Something about the mix of irritable, polite, and confused of a morning made his heart soft, despite his determination to not get close to anyone.
Over the next several months, however, you'd somehow become his friend. Neither of you seemed to seek it out, but you were always friendly without being pushy whenever you ran into one another, and the two of you often fell into casual conversation. One evening, you'd knocked on his door with a wry smile and a plate full of food when you'd made enough for a guest that had cancelled at the last minute.
After licking the plate clean, starved for the taste of homemade, he had washed it properly, returning it with a note offering both his phone number and his stomach for any extra food you wanted to get rid of. Before either of you were expecting it, the two of you were sharing dinner at least once a week. He began spending many of his nights on your couch watching tv and movies, trying to catch up with the world he’d missed while first frozen inside the Soldat, and then again during the Blip. Once you knew his full identity, something you figured out early and ignored almost entirely, you did your best to answer any questions he had about what he'd missed.
Your blasé attitude towards his past confused and delighted him, and he never quite knew what to make of it. Did you truly not care about his past? Did you have an opinion at all? If you did, how did he still never feel judged when he was with you? Something about you let him set down the person he'd been in those lost years, not to forget, but to rest for a moment. When you looked at him, he didn’t feel damned by his multitude of sins. He didn't know what it meant, but he couldn't stay away either.
Bucky had spent countless evenings on your couch before the night you'd ended up in his lap. He couldn’t remember if he'd pulled you on to him or if you’d climbed aboard, but once you were there, he couldn't resist filling himself with everything that tempted him, had been tempting him for months. You were like flame in his arms, warming him to his bones, and the sensation of your skin against his was too much to deny.
He'd left in the gray light of the pre-dawn, forcing himself from the softness of your bed, your arms, but he'd been afraid of how right it had felt to lose himself in you. It would have been terrifyingly easy to stay, to let himself pretend he had no past haunting his present, shaping his future.
Only a few hours later, he'd opened his door to your knock with dread a rock in his stomach, convinced he'd lost his friend because he couldn't keep his hands to himself. You'd stood there, a sardonic smile on your face and the boots you'd brought back to him at your feet. A brusque, "Don't make it weird," was all you’d said as you walked away.
That had led to Bucky asking Sam for help in deciphering what had happened, a thing he hated to do, but he didn't know where else to turn. Sam had made him pay for the requested information in his usual good-natured mockery, but at the end of the conversation Bucky understood that he'd set the boundaries by leaving the way he did. To his surprise, you'd accepted his unspoken limits without comment.
Part of him blessed you for it, grateful that you wouldn't force him to explain how little the likes of him deserved what astonishing kindness you'd already shown him. Another part of him cursed the fact that you'd never confronted him, never told him what you wanted, never forced him to confront himself.
Because he hadn't stopped spending time with you, had he? He hadn't stopped touching you in any way you'd allow, hadn't stopped warming himself at your fire. He kept sharing your meals, occupying your time, monopolizing your attention. The guilt he felt for not offering you what you deserved in return couldn't overwhelm his need to see you, be near you, feel the electric charge of your presence crackling over his skin.
You, however, treated him with the warmth of a friend you occasionally nailed, leaving Bucky at a loss. Bucky couldn't tell if you even wanted more from him; you seemed so at ease with the situation. Sam didn't think the arrangement unusual, even insisting it had its own initialism, FWB, but Bucky often didn't understand what Sam took for granted.
The first time he'd heard you at your door with a date, he'd had to exert all his self-control to not physically assault the man kissing you goodnight. Only the night before, your regular Friday night movie night had ended, as it most often did, with him easing quietly from your bed. This time he'd heard you sigh, sad and forlorn, and he'd paused, but he had not turned back. He would not speak of his feelings for you, his own self-loathing holding his tongue.
He was lucky you'd allowed him to touch you at all; he would not taint you any more than he already had, nor would he risk your rejection. That didn't mean he had any control over the jealous rage that filled his head at the thought that he might lose you, that another might take his place in your bed, in your life. Knowing you'd been out with someone else had driven him mad, and only superhuman control had allowed him to walk away before he found out if you'd invited your date inside.
Such things were none of his business. He'd made sure of that.
That had been a couple months ago. You'd continued to date others, but still you kept coming back to him, still allowed him into your bed. You'd remained his friend throughout, never speaking of the dual nature of your relationship. The friend never acknowledged the lover, the sexual heat between you something separate, held away from everything else. He didn't know what you thought of it, because you never spoke of it. But he never spoke, either, because he lived in terror that to do so would be to invite catastrophe, that he'd lose everything he so highly prized.
Tonight, he had once again escaped his apartment to escape what he'd continued to tell himself he couldn't have. He was walking the streets, no particular destination in mind, his thoughts on the way laughter looked in your deep, warm eyes and on your soft luscious mouth, when he rounded a corner and was smacked in the face with the sight of you.
You and your date were dining al fresco, the warmth of the summer evening making you glow, pretty and passionate in the fading light of the setting sun. You were dressed in more warmth, a deep, rose red that made you look like heat personified. The dress hugged your curves while remaining modest enough to tease the imagination with what couldn’t be seen. Like a moth to your flame, Bucky had yet to figure out how to resist your pull. He had yet to figure out why he wanted to.
Stopping in his tracks, he barely noticed the few blows of people bumping into him before the flow of foot traffic around him adjusted to his sudden halt. His heart kicked into an immediate gallop at the sight of your face, animated with the story on your lips as you gestured with your fork. He hadn't touched you in weeks, since before your first date with the man who sat, enchanted, across from you. The lack hit him suddenly, like a punch to the gut, along with the thought that he may never get to touch you again, all because of his own cowardice.
Unable to watch you bewitch another the same way you'd enthralled him, Bucky turned away, pushing through people in his desperation to get away, his heart heavy and his vision red with fury. If he let himself give in to his baser instincts, he'd be striding through the crowd to pick you up and carry you off like the caveman he felt. Instead, he walked aimlessly for hours, trying to do everything he could to make sure he'd have neither the energy nor the inclination to knock on your door on his way home.
He had no right to interrupt your evening just because jealousy was like an acid burning in his brain. If you were alone, he wanted to change that, impress into your skin that you needed no touch but his. If you weren't alone, he wanted to change that, throw the other man from your bed with every shred of brutality that still burned at his core. That he had no right changed nothing. His muscles were still tensed for a fight, the catharsis of violence calling to him despite his determination to be better than his past, to behave like a civilized human being.
That determination was sorely tested when he heard your voice as he came up the stairs to his apartment floor. He never took the elevator, didn't trust closed places with minimal escape. On top of that, he'd rather make the climb than give any possible ambush advance warning of his arrival. Old habits died hard, and he couldn't, wouldn’t stop watching his back simply because he wasn't on the run anymore.
Those warm and sultry tones that had so easily seduced him dozens of times over echoed into his ultra-sensitive ears, sending shudders over his skin and making his vibranium hand clench at his side. He stopped on the stairs, seven or so feet from the stairwell door, open just a crack, but enough to let your voice through. He was determined to give you as much privacy as he could, no matter that he wanted to ease close enough to make out the words being said.
Before he could blink, his body overrode his integrity and he was already in motion, easing silently up the stairs to close the distance, to eavesdrop on you and your date. He wasn't proud of himself, but he couldn't help himself, either, not when he felt like his entire future hung in the balance.
His heart slowed as his breathing fell into a silent, even rhythm. He moved forward until he was just outside the line of sight for the floor he shared with you. Your door was more than a few steps away from the cracked stairwell door, so Bucky moved until he was behind the door and stuck his ear to the gap to listen to you and your date. He didn't know what, if anything, he would do with the information he was trying to get, but he needed it, nonetheless.
"Hmm," your voice was warm with the soft edge of sensuality, quiet enough that only Bucky's enhanced hearing allowed it to crawl into his ears like spiders, all legs and fangs. "Very nice."
"Nice enough to get me inside?" The man's voice was muffled, and Bucky could hear a shuffling of fabric that told him the likely picture that awaited him on the other side of the door. His muscles locked down in response to the rage that washed through him. He would not give in to the violence that had shaped him, no matter the provocation.
He had no right. He had no right. He had no right.
The mantra kept him calm until he heard a little more shuffling, then a surprising quiet. "I don't think so." Your voice broke the silence with a wry regret that was both firm and yet gentle. You were turning your date down, but you were being careful with him. The hand around Bucky's throat eased as his most immediate fears were relieved.
"Tonight?" Your date asked the question kindly. "Or at all?"
A long pause had Bucky confused, wondering what kind of nonverbal communication he was missing. When you finally answered, you sounded like you were covering your face with your hands.
"Oh god," you answered, your voice strangled. "I'm so sorry. It's really obvious, isn't it?”
"You very carefully talk around someone," Bucky's rival sounded disappointed, but resigned. He couldn't know that he was putting possibilities in Bucky's brain, making him wonder if he could make things right with you.
Would he, if he could? Would he speak of his feelings if given another chance? Could he find the courage to do so?
In the next moment, you sounded so lost and hurt that Bucky was once again having to exert the same intense amount of self-control to remain still. But this time, it was to stop himself from leaping through the door to take you in his arms and protect you from whatever had made you sad. "I'm hung up." Your voice was thick, and the thought that you might have tears in your eyes made him feel physically ill. "I don't know when I won't be."
"Hey, don't worry about it. Sometimes the timing's off." The man's voice was kind and almost made Bucky feel bad for him. The triumphant crow sounding inside his mind at the thought that you would not sleep with the other man tonight was much louder, however. "Call me when you get off the hook?"
Your soft laugh and warm retort, "You'll be the first," cut off that crow of triumph, giving room for the possessive voice in the back of Bucky's mind to snarl viciously with the same jealousy that had been driving his steps since he'd watched you leave with the other man the second time.
Bucky had realized then that he could bear anything but losing you. Your presence in his life had become necessary to him; he could not stand by and let you walk out of it. He stepped back from the crack in the door when he heard you exchanging your goodbyes with your date. The two of you couldn’t help but be a little awkward, as it was clear that there wouldn't be another date any time soon. Leaning against the concrete wall behind the door, he waited for you to go into your apartment and for the man to leave the building.
Bucky listened to your apartment door open and close as footsteps made their way toward the elevator, but with only half an ear as his mind was mostly on the conversation he'd overheard. He knew he'd spend the next several hours lying on his floor, trying to test the exact weight of the words 'hung up' and wondering whether they were in reference to him. If they were, what, precisely, did they mean?
He heard the elevator doors open and close and pushed away from the wall, determined to get into his apartment as quickly as possible so that he could start parsing the meaning of both your and your date's words in private. Despite himself, he slowed as he neared your door.
To his own shock, he soon found himself facing your door, raising his hand to knock.
On the other side of the door, you slumped in defeat against the wall for a moment before kicking off your heels. You hated that you'd had to do that, but it had only been fair. You'd humiliated yourself because of Bucky Barnes yet again, and you thought you might be at your limit.
To be honest, you'd thought that a number of times at this point, but you couldn't save yourself from the allure he held for you. A hidden sun obscured by shadows, your body craved the dark while your heart craved the light. A beautiful juxtaposition embodied in one insanely sexy man, every part of you was attracted to every part of him, both good and bad, light and dark, peace and violence.
Sometimes he would sit laughing on your couch, his face shining and beautiful in unguarded enjoyment, and the sight would stop your throat with emotion. His happiness was too glorious to risk never seeing again, too precious to risk never inspiring again. A wonderful, charming companion, his warm smiles and dry humor had made him the best friend you'd ever had. Keeping your friend quickly became your highest priority. You'd fallen so deeply in love with Bucky, you'd done whatever you had to do to stay close.
And when his jaw clenched, the muscle moving in his cheek, the final sign that he'd given in to desire, your body wouldn't say no. Despite every tear you'd shed each time he'd left your bed before he had to look at you in the cold light of day, you couldn't stop, wouldn't stop. The fire in his eyes called to you, no matter how you tried to resist, no matter the damage to your heart. His touch made you weak in ways you'd never known, ways you both loved and hated, but you couldn't walk away of your own volition.
Which was why you'd gone out with Neil three times when you'd known after the first date that it was hopeless, that you couldn't be with anyone as long as you were still in love with Bucky. You'd fooled yourself for a while that you just needed time and space, that a couple of dates with someone good and sweet would be enough to help you get over this obsessive need.
Tonight, you'd admitted to yourself that you'd been wrong, that you were stringing Neil along for your own needs. You'd been using him to shield yourself from the temptation just down the hall. You'd had to be honest with both yourself and him that you weren't really available, not as long as this thing with Bucky remained unspoken and unresolved.
When the knock came at your door, you pasted a smile on your face as you turned back around, hoping Neil wasn't going to make it weird.
When you pulled the door open, his head lifted and, even in the dim light of the hallway, Bucky's eyes seemed to burn into yours. He was wearing his usual uniform of black t-shirt and jeans over boots, only the missing leather jacket a concession to the heat of the day. You would swear that his hair was mussed from his own hands dragging through it in frustration; he looked frazzled, something you’d never seen.
"What does 'hung up' mean?" Bucky asked the question in low tones, the rumble of his voice both gentle and dangerous. Goosebumps erupted over your skin as his eyes raked over you with banked heat and you realized he'd overheard your conversation with Neil as you'd sent him away. A cold chill of hot rage swept through you and the words were tumbling from your lips before you had a chance to think them through.
"It means I sent a good guy away because I can't stop thinking about you."
Bucky's left hand clenched into a fist at his side as his entire body clenched in desire. Your eyes flashed to his even as one eyebrow quirked slightly. He deliberately opened his hand, stretching his fingers. "May I come in?" His voice was a rumble even deeper than his first question.
Your core had clenched when his hand had, something about that show of held back passion always made you crazy. You knew that if he came in, you were going to end up in bed, sooner more likely than later.
"Yes," left you in a breath, consequences be damned. You craved him, your body screaming out for the feel of his. To your body's purring delight, assent was barely past your lips before Bucky was pushing upright in a ripple of strength and he was striding forward to take you in his arms. Your body flashed hot as firm muscle and cool vibranium banded around you, lifting you up and carrying you into your apartment as he kicked the door shut behind him.
His lips found yours and you were sinking in with a sigh of relief. You hadn't touched him in weeks, hadn't been wrapped in the feel, the scent of him. The return to his arms felt like coming home, and you knew why you’d tried to escape, understood why you couldn’t.
“So it’s not just me,” he murmured against your mouth, his hands skimming over your sides down to your legs. With seemingly no effort, Bucky’s hands gripped your thighs and lifted. You bounced a little on your calves to help and before you could blink, your legs were wrapped around his waist, his hands were on your ass, and the rest of him was pressing you into the wall at your back as his mouth took yours again.
You kissed him back with all the pent-up emotion inside you. You wanted him until it hurt, but feeding the need also brought pain. You ran your hands frantically over the muscles of his back and arms, your fingertips grazing the back of his neck and making him shiver in your arms, a sensation that always made you feel outrageously powerful. Your hands dived into his hair to drag his head back so that you could fix your mouth on his throat.
So engrossed with the salt of his skin as you scraped your teeth over that perfect jaw, you didn’t understand at first the words tumbling from his mouth in a growling rush of passion. “I don’t want you going out with other people. I don’t want anyone’s hands on you but mine.” The words sent a shudder through you and your hands tightened in his hair as his hands began to skim over your thighs, kneading the muscles and rocking you gently against one another. “I want to hunt down and destroy everyone who knows how soft your lips are,” you knew it was wrong, but the sound of his jealousy made your heart skip and clutch, “because I’m fucked up and violent and you should stay away from me.” Except you were fucked up too because you knew exactly how he felt. “I know I shouldn’t drag you into my fucked up life, but I can’t stop.”
You scoffed and lifted your head to look into his face. Your eyes blazed with the mix of feeling he inspired in you, exasperation, adoration, fury, despair. "I know, Bucky." Your voice was desolate with the pain he'd caused every time he'd walked away and for a moment, you dropped the casual façade and let him see how much you felt for him.
Bucky looked startled for a moment, like he hadn't anticipated the depth of feeling he had uncovered. He'd shown up when you were weak, when you had no defenses, and then had the temerity to look surprised when you were so easily conquered. You wanted to bite him, it made you so mad.
You opened your mouth, whether to bite him literally or just with your words you didn't know, but the surprise on his face melted into one of burning emotion that found its match in you. However infuriating and confusing you found him, he had apparently been feeling the same. His mouth slanted across yours once again and you could taste the complex mix of emotion in his kiss.
You kissed him back, your hands still in his hair holding his mouth to yours with a fervor born of desperation. You wanted to hold back all of this feeling, afraid to show him your heart when you had so little understanding of his, but you were caught on the wave. He seemed equally unable to hold back, and you finally felt like he'd let you see beneath his scowling veneer. He was holding you like you mattered, and you couldn’t pretend he didn't.
Abruptly, Bucky tore his mouth from yours as he pulled away from the wall to carry you the couple of steps down the brief hallway to your bedroom. “I’m taking you to bed," he growled, as though daring you to stop him, though you would swear you saw fear glimmering in his eyes that you would do exactly that.
“Damn right you are.”
Part Two here>>
Taglist:
@hellzzzbelle @cheekygeek05 @lbouvet @diinofayce @bibliophile1773 @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @miraclesoflove @nerdy-bookworm-1998 @irritated-bisexual @peaceinourtime82 @badassbaker @walkingtravesty97 @fashionworld12 @readermia
